
Family sues Amazon after hoverboard fire destroys $1M house - eth0up
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2016/10/27/family-sues-amazon-after-hoverboard-fire-destroys-1m-house/92866460/
======
solvedit
I sincerely hope they win.

Amazon is known to be a disgusting swampy wasteland of intentionally deceptive
knockoff garbage. Their warehouse policy of arbitrarily mixing stock is
actively customer hostile in practice, and they know it, and they do nothing
about it.

But that's not the interesting part. Consumer public need assurance that what
they're being sold, NOT what they're buying, is safe. The difference is
perspective. Regardless of provenance, it should never be the buyer's
responsibility to gamble correctly on product safety.

~~~
chx
You can buy a power strip with a two prong "figure 8" connector providing
three _grounded_ outlets. Try to sell that in a brick and mortar store, it
would be closed, razed and the ground salted so they won't even try it next
time.

~~~
brandonwamboldt
Genuinely curious, can you expand on why that power strip is bad, and who
exactly would shut down the brick and mortar store?

~~~
sveiss
A power strip like that isn't connected to the electrical ground in your house
-- that would need a three-pin connection, and it only has a two-pin
connection. Despite this, it has three-pin grounded sockets for you to connect
appliances to it.

Three-pin appliances require a ground to be safe. By using a power strip like
this, you're creating an unsafe configuration with a high risk of electric
shock if there's a fault with an appliance.

Also, the little figure-8 connectors can't pass a high amount of current
safely, and lots of 3-pin appliances are relatively high draw. That's a fire
risk.

I'm not sure who's responsible for the enforcement in the US.

~~~
aianus
> Three-pin appliances require a ground to be safe

Can you elaborate on this?

My MacBook charger has both a two-prong and a three-prong cable. Why would it
be any more dangerous to plug my MacBook into this power strip using the
three-prong cable than to connect it directly to the wall with the two-prong
cable?

~~~
chx
Your MacBook then is prepared for ungrounded operations. Now take a laser
printer, it uses very high voltage on the inside and if something gets
dislodged and touches an outer facing metal part and you touch that in turn,
you are dead. That's why the outer parts are connected to a safety ground. Do
note Xerox warns you not to use a "cheater plug"
[http://download.support.xerox.com/pub/docs/4400/userdocs/any...](http://download.support.xerox.com/pub/docs/4400/userdocs/any-
os/en/UserSafety.pdf) . Laser printers are also a great example of when that
C7/C8 connection is a fire hazard because laser printers need a lot of power
when heating up their fusers. This is also why you must not connect a laser
printer to a UPS.

~~~
spoiler
It's also possible that op has a socket like this, so the grounding is on the
side: [http://i.imgur.com/lLM3gQO.png](http://i.imgur.com/lLM3gQO.png)

However, there is also this:
[http://i.imgur.com/ftPT7sC.png](http://i.imgur.com/ftPT7sC.png), which
grounds from either sides or in the middle for sockets like these
[http://i.imgur.com/FnXMndC.png](http://i.imgur.com/FnXMndC.png)

~~~
aianus
No, I have American sockets.

The charger looks like this:
[https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare...](https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare/images/en_US/macbookpro/45w_l_ac_adapter.png)

And also comes with a longer, three-prong cable that replaces the little two-
prong piece:
[http://www.ebay.ca/itm/like/172352962036?lpid=116&chn=ps](http://www.ebay.ca/itm/like/172352962036?lpid=116&chn=ps)

~~~
sveiss
The MacBook chargers are designed to be safe without grounding.

The grounding pin does have a use, though: some cheap powered USB devices will
put out a voltage relative to ground on their '0v' lines. If you touch a
MacBook that's plugged into one of these devices, you can get a small shock.
If you're using a 3-pin adapter, this doesn't seem to happen.

------
CPLX
Amazon has completely lost control of their own marketplace for electronics
and accessories, as I suspect nearly every HN reader has noticed.

Perhaps being held accountable for it will cause a change in policy. It's
about time.

~~~
spacehacker
I've also been annoyed by Amazon lately. I am not sure it has gotten worse
over the time, but I _am_ sure that there is a lot of potential for
improvement. The product sites are horribly cluttered and often even load
_slowly_ (on a 5 year old laptop). The home page is 6 MB in size! The product
descriptions are also typically bad and it is often surprisingly difficult to
find what you want (e.g. a laptop with specific specs). I always have the
feeling there is some dark matter/inventory of things that no one considers,
and hence no one writes reviews for, simply because the inventory is so poorly
structured and the items have poor descriptions.

~~~
swozey
You missed the part where sellers misrepresent sizes on their products, so you
expect to order a human sized rack shelf (usually due to misrepresentative
pictures) but it's the size of your foot.

~~~
chx
I have found 1000+ pound LCD monitors, messenger bags that would fit the Big
Friendly Giant and who knows what else.

------
ars
They bought the board on Nov 3, 2015.

Amazon banned Hoverboards from their site on Dec 12, 2015.

The family kept using the board despite this.

The house fire was on Jan 9, 2016.

Amazon announced full refunds on Jan 21, 2016.

The CPSC put out a warning on Jul 6, 2016.

The legal claim makes absolutely no mention whatsoever of Dec 12, 2015, and
why the family kept using the board.

Amazon did not notify customers on Dec 12, 2015, only Jan 21, 2016. But this
was all over the media - it was the lead story on the nightly news.

I get that this is pretty horrible for them, but I'm not convinced Amazon
acted negligently here.

Amazon acted pretty quickly. How could they know ahead of time the boards
would be dangerous? In between Dec 12 and Jan 21 it seemed they were trying to
find good boards and get information - it doesn't seem like an excessive
amount of time to do that.

~~~
DrScump
"Amazon did not notify customers on Dec 12, 2015, only Jan 21, 2016. But this
was all over the media"

But would it have been _that_ difficult to generate a warning email (if not
also surface mail to the ship-to address) to every buyer of an affected
product after the 12/12 ban, given that they had all needed data immediately
handy?

~~~
ars
I don't disagree, but I'm not convinced it's worth $30 mil when at that time
they were not sure it was necessary to warn people.

At that time it seemed like they felt they could find the good hoverboards
among the bad (hence their program of asking for certification). Only later
did they realize all of them were bad.

~~~
DrScump
Those that faked UL approval tags should have been removed immediately.

~~~
ars
They were. All of them were removed, and Amazon demanded documentation in
order to reinstate them.

------
x0x0
You know whats really amazing? I bought an aukey charger from amazon that
ships with an ETL mark -- similar to UL, a claim that the product is safe and
follows generally accepted practices -- that ETL didn't grant. ETL says on
their website that it isn't a valid mark! I even told amazon and, while they
did refund my money, they continue to sell it.

amazon link:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013US9FFY/ref=oh_aui_sear...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013US9FFY/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

etl warning mark is fake:
[http://www.intertek.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=34359...](http://www.intertek.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=34359756154)

Unbelievable.

Don't buy anything that converts ac/dc, anything you eat, or any cosmetics
from amazon.

~~~
totalZero
There should be some kind of legality issue with selling something that you
have reason to believe is falsely marked with safety approvals, no?

~~~
x0x0
I would certainly think so/wish so/assume so.

------
swozey
> "We've spent months investigating it and to this day I don't know who
> manufactured this product, and it doesn't appear that Amazon does," Anderson
> said. He said Amazon charged and shipped the hoverboard.

The amount of fake product complaints I see in reviews on Amazon now is pretty
incredible. They really need to figure something out with regard to
controlling their inventory.

Uh, also, why is this article playing a 53 second jazzy soundtrack? Is this a
new method of fighting off adblockers? You're gonna throw me nice jams instead
of your video? I'm down.

www.gannett-cdn.com/360player/comscore/streamsense.5.1.1.160316.min.js:8
getClip() is deprecated. Use getPlaylist().getClip() instead.

~~~
samstave
I watched a vid some time ago about "who exactly invented the hoverboard" \-
it was really interesting... I can't find it right now, but if I find it - ill
post it.

~~~
hansjorg
Planet Money on NPR did an episode on that:

[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/episode-666-the-
hoverboard-life)

~~~
samstave
Thats the one -- thanks - for some reason I thought it was a video.

------
lifeisstillgood
I am finding it increasingly difficult to know how much to trust items to buy
on Amazon.

It used to be fairly obvious which was a "third party seller" and which was
Amazon (as in one company that sourced manufacturer products, bought them and
shipped them). These days I basically click through to purchase and try to
guess from the amount of P&P if they are Amazon, fulfilled by Amazon or some
guy in his garage.

And why can't fulfilled by Amazon actually be on the product description !

This is another example of Internet enabling business models that law and
society have not quite kept up with. Amazon probably don't have a strategy of
confuse the shit out of the customer, but they can twist their business model
so many times that's what has happened.

~~~
pja
_And why can 't fulfilled by Amazon actually be on the product description !_

That’s weird. In the UK it absolutely is: you can tell on the product page
whether you’re buying something sold by Amazon themselves or "fulfilled by
Amazon". Items sold by Amazon have the text "Dispatched from and sold by
Amazon" in the product description whereas an item from another seller will
contain the text "Sold by <seller name> and Fulfilled by Amazon" or
"Dispatched from and sold by <seller name>".

EU consumer regulation is notoriously stricter than in the US, so maybe it’s a
legal requirement?

~~~
totalZero
It's the same here in the US. People just don't always know to look for "Ships
from and sold by Amazon" under the item's initial description.

~~~
CPLX
I know to do that and I have still had bad experiences. I am pretty sure
Amazon does not have a simple/transparent way to do this. They certainly don't
have a search tool for this, which would be necessary for it to matter
anyways.

~~~
pja
The following works in the UK, but weirdly only for some seraches: Search for
"item of choice" in top search bar. When the results come up, scroll down
until you can see the "Seller" section on the LHS. Tick the box at the top
marked amazon.co.uk

Why some searche results have the Seller list on the LHS and some don’t I’ve
no idea.

------
dev_throw
Interesting news. The result of this verdict may set a precedent to further
curtail online sales of electronic goods from questionable manufacturers (read
relatively cheap).

The only question is whether this will lead to a more booming underground
economy for folks who are more risk friendly.

~~~
Scoundreller
It doesn't even need to go underground. Just purchase off Ebay with direct
shipping from China.

~~~
markdown
[https://www.aliexpress.com/](https://www.aliexpress.com/) and
[https://www.dx.com/](https://www.dx.com/) fit the bill better.

------
sofaofthedamned
I've always thought Amazon were very exposed with their handling of the
'fulfilled by Amazon' stock.

AFAICT - with these items, a seller can send them in bulk to an Amazon
warehouse and they'll all be put into the same box. So, a (for example) set of
Sennheiser headphones sold by Amazon themselves can be in the same box as a
fake set sold by a third-party seller, as long as the EAN is the same.

I've had this previously with Sennheiser headphones - sold by Amazon, on their
site, and I got the fakes. I just didn't think about the idea of it including
items where the fakes were unsafe.

~~~
totalZero
Wait, what? Do you have a source for this? I am bewildered by the thought that
Amazon dumps third-party stock into their own inventory.

~~~
swozey
You can easily send products to Amazon to have them fulfill the sales with
their shipping/warehouse network.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=201171200)

~~~
totalZero
Right, but that doesn't mean they combine your items with their own items, I
hope.

~~~
swozey
It tells you it's fulfilled by Amazon. They're referring to the shipment. A
lot of Prime members don't buy non-Prime/Amazon shipped items because of the
shipping delays. I myself am one of them.

------
thehigherlife
This doesn't surprise me at all, I've completely stopped shopping at Amazon
since it is impossible to determine the quality of a lot of the goods on their
site. It seems to take longer to research what is worth buying versus going to
the store and finding something that looks like it is good quality.

------
M_Grey
Sue the pants off of them... maybe it will get Amazon to crack down on what
they're willing to sell (or host the sale of) before it's a completely lost
cause.

I used to really appreciate Amazon, but in the last couple of years it's
become a bad joke.

------
hakcermani
While is tragic they had to rescue their kids from a burning house .. this is
funny .. " It alleges the family was sold a counterfeit product from China
instead of a brand with a Samsung lithium ion battery they believed they were
buying from Amazon"

~~~
user5994461
Well, the fire is proof that it was a genuine latest generation Samsung
battery. /s

------
cygned
Suddenly music starts playing on that site. The internet is so broken.

------
curiousgal
Did they not have insurance? The law attempts to compensate someone for a
loss, it doesn't allow someone to profit from losses.

------
tajen
> instead of a brand with a Samsung lithium ion battery they believed they
> were buying from Amazon

Plot twist: It was the genuine Samsung product...

------
darklajid
I'd be glad to see Amazon (or anyone selling faulty products) pay for the
damages.

I don't understand how 'destroyed a 1mil house' turns into 30mil. This "pay
for the immaterial damage you've done" (assuming that the 1mil contains most
of the furniture etc. and that the rest of their belongings don't come close
to 29mil dollars) attitude is strange, hard to grasp here.

~~~
mancerayder
If you don't fully grasp the American legal system it does seem silly.
Basically, the idea is that this falls in the civil court system. I.e. you're
wronged, so you sue for damages. However, one of the main reasons why you can
sue for 30M and not for the price of the loss is the concept of punitive
damages. If Amazon loses 30 and not 1M,they're less likely to allow the wrong
to happen so easily again.

In places like France, you can't sue for 30M, but you can maybe sue for what
you lost. At the same time, the criminal laws are more likely to affect
corporations via regulations and even legal action. Thus, the philosophy in
the US is, less government regulation, more emphasis on non governmental
interference in private entities working out their differences with the
government only as impartial judge.

Hence it's very important for individual consumers that we be able to sue for
these ridiculous sums. It's the only disincentive for the Amazons and other
powerhouse corporations from getting away with such things as a fire caused by
negligence, and their writing it off as a business expense. The expense needs
to be high.

~~~
darklajid
Thanks a lot for the explanation. I think what I mostly don't get is

a) isn't "replace 1mil+ for a product that costs 100" (pulled that number from
thin air, no clue what these things cost) already punitive? The replacement
cost eats the profit for a HUGE number of sales already, no?

b) the arguments for the _specific_ number seem completely arbitrary and
scaling in ways I cannot understand. It's not "our home was destroyed, pay to
replace it and pay for another house on top, because we have to replace all
the stuff inside and the experience was crazy". It's "our home was destroyed,
pay us enough to buy 2 dozen of these homes with a lot of room to make every
single one of these 24 homes look nice as well".

That scales in ways that are utterly alien to me. If you can somehow defend
your request for 30mil, why not 50? 100? As soon as you enter 'emotional
damage' (hard to quantify) or punitive damages (the more the better, right?) I
fail to see how you come up with these numbers.

Then again, I'm not saying it's silly. It's just completely confusing for me
and I DO feel better about the local system. It is an entirely different
culture and I'm trying to point this out in a thread that so far is full of
"Yeah, makes sense" posts. Internationally it might not be that one sided.

~~~
user5994461
a) The manufacturer must at least reimburse the damages he's done with his
product.

Otherwise anyone can manufacture explosive broken fire-trigerring devices.
There's no point of making a device 'safe' if a $1 device can't pay back more
than $1. The only incentive is to make stuff cheap, ignore safety, risks and
regulation.

If the manufacturer must close, so be it. Better that than dead people.

b) The scale is American. They sue for very high amount (higher than just the
reimbursement), as the previous poster was explaining.

~~~
darklajid
Your first point misses what I was saying (or I was bad at saying it). Of
course you pay for the damages caused, not the product's price. In the case
here I expect someone (Amazon? Whoever) pay for the 1 million plus to replace
the house.

I brought up the product price just because I feel that paying more than a
million in damages for a product that costs (say..) 100 dollar is already
punitive in terms of business. Whoever has to pay even 1 million probably will
be quite unhappy about carrying that product, without any further inflation:
The price for this accident eats the profit for a BIG number of sales -
ignoring the PR issues.

So: Sure, if you sell a $1 device that causes $1,000,000 in damages, pay a
million (or more). But paying a million (or more) caused by a $1 device seems
already like a decent way to make the business .. reconsider some practices?

~~~
sundaeofshock
If you are making $100 milling in profit off of a faulty device, then $1
million is just the cost of doing business. A penalty has to be painful enough
to the company that they don't want to do this again. Given how large Amazon
is, and how their marketplace is a nightmare of consumer fraud, I think $30
million is not enough of a penalty to make them clean up their act.

For more on this, I suggest reading "Unsafe at Any Speed" by Ralph Nader.

~~~
darklajid
Are you arguing about the case in this article or about general issues you
have with the Amazon marketplace? Text is a crappy medium, this is not my
native language, but you seem to have a problem with Amazon regardless of the
issue in the article?

If 30 million isn't enough, what would be enough? "All the profit of this
product"? "All the revenue based on this product"? And .. would you award that
to some random party? Because that's what this is about as well, no? Someone
was hurt (financially, emotionally) and now there's supposed to be a pay out.
Would you suggest giving the "victims" 100 houses for the one house they lost?
One party/family should be able to own a small village of luxury houses to
hurt Amazon?

I'm going to retire from this thread - it's past midnight and I was confused a
long time ago. Further arguments make this process only _more_ alien and I
certainly don't want to convince the US population that they Should Not Do
This.

But there's no way in hell to integrate this process with my upbringing - it
feels entirely wrong and far too much like a cash grab. Chalk it up to
cultural differences?

~~~
mancerayder
Cultural differences? Maybe, but not in the way you think. It's cultural in
the political philosophy more than anything else.

Let's summarize it thusly: the U.S. regulatory system, while not totally a
free market, is a lot less stringent and red-tape-heavy than places like the
EU. HOWEVER, you need a disincentive for 'bad actors' to cause harm, and in
the U.S. we rely more on tort law ("wrongs") than in the EU, where things are
more tightly regulated (in theory). It's a matter of degree. Rather than risk
fines or even, in some cases, jail time, in the U.S. companies are afraid of
getting sued, and thus you see all those 'don't put your finger in the socket'
'this knife is sharp, be careful' type notices on consumer products. The
cultural aspect is around the idea that government shouldn't interfere overly
in the market. The country was founded on the ideas of philosophers like Adam
Smith.

 _If 30 million isn 't enough, what would be enough? "All the profit of this
product"? "All the revenue based on this product"? And .. would you award that
to some random party? Because that's what this is about as well, no? Someone
was hurt (financially, emotionally) and now there's supposed to be a pay out.
Would you suggest giving the "victims" 100 houses for the one house they lost?
One party/family should be able to own a small village of luxury houses to
hurt Amazon?_

Good question, and sometimes class action lawsuits (involving hundreds, or
even thousands of people) happen. Note, the point of 'punitive' is
punishiment. Disincentive. Don't do it again. It's up to lawyers / juries to
'decide' what the renumeration is. As to whom goes a bulk, well, you can rest
assured law can be a lucrative profession for a reason.

------
randyrand
is it possible to be a blind marketplace for products without liability? like
ebay? but without the auction part?

if it is, I wonder how amazon can transition into having ebay levels of
liability, and what that would entail.

