
Be careful when you buy from Amazon - jseliger
http://seliger.com/2017/01/09/tools-continued-careful-buy-amazon/
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sfilargi
IMHO Amazon is diluting its brand by allowing third parties to sell items in
its website.

It is not rare that non-techie people buy stuff from third party sellers
believing they buy from Amazon.

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amorphid
I'm find it less of a value, too. I increasingly find better prices elsewhere,
partially because I really don't want to join Prime. After browsing Amazon
first, I bought a postal scale on eBay, and a refurbished laptop on Newegg.

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sfilargi
Yeap! If you can't trust the seller, why not go directly to eBay?

The other day we received a parcel from Ukraine. When I openned it my wife
said "I don't understand, why is it from Ukraine? I ordered it from Amazon!"

Since then, I cancelled all my family's Amazon accounts and ask everybody to
send me links to the stuff they want and I order them for them.

Having third party sellers is the equivalent to Macy's allowing shady street
sellers selling counterfeit perfumes in their store. Completely stupid idea if
you ask me.

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imagist
As someone who just bought a bunch of life-or-death climbing gear from Amazon,
the idea of counterfeit goods is terrifying.

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kem
We order a lot from Amazon, have Prime, etc., but my impression is that
there's been a noticeable decline in the quality of their services over the
last couple of years. It's impossible to find what I want anymore unless I
know exactly what I'm looking for, and I hear more and more cautionary tales
like this. The speed of delivery has increased impressively, sure, and I've
been happy with some of the returns I've dealt with, but more and more often
they seem like a delivery service than a shopping outlet. It seems like I'm
buying directly from manufacturers more often, as I feel more confident in
what I'm getting, and the shipping usually isn't too different.

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pasbesoin
Several times this past year, the Prime delivery date, stated to me while
checking out, was missed. One time, for a birthday present, I paid extra for
next-day delivery; they missed that date.

More frequently, I receive very poorly packed boxes. Items bouncing around the
box with no or "token" packing material. One package came with all but one of
the air pockets, used to provide cushioning, deflated. A substantial,
hardcover book was packed together with some loose, higher quality mechanical
pencils having unretracted/unretractable lead sleeves, with no padding or
protection whatsoever. They were all just swimming around a relatively
oversized box. (The product pages for the pencils gave no clue that I noticed
that they would come in loose form, unpackaged save for being in small
polyethylene bags.)

I don't order that much from Amazon/Prime, so this represented a significant
fraction of my total activity with them.

For me, negative change has gone further than the un-differentiation of their
catalogue.

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SamUK96
Basically, China.

In circa 2012, Amazon, likely bowing to monsterous bribes and other pressures,
allowed China to list items as 3rd party. In the 4 years since, counterfiets
have increased by around 70%.

It will be the death of them. But hey, Bezos has his rocket ships, right?

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Nomentatus
Just threw out an amp I bought on Amazon, that was really from a third party.
It done died young. Not the only loss I've had, so I rarely buy third items
(that they don't send out) from them now.

