
An Amazon Scam: The Mofut Key Lock Box [video] - dak1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz6NxH3wy94
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hkmurakami
An aside: The Lockpocking Lawyer is a thoughtfully humorous and (somewhat)
informative channel. Really recommend watching some other videos of his.

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anonsivalley652
"Humorous" and "somewhat" informative? Dude is barely funny at all and you can
tell the security of a lock by the length of the video. He has mad, mad lock-
picking skills.

Recently, the YT algos decided to show me a video where he cuts open a
consumer safe using a nothing-special circular saw in 2 minutes. It was
basically thin sheet metal, foam, and plastic.

To give credit where credit is due: I'd consider LPL and BosnianBill
_extremely_ informative.

~~~
d0100
You obviously haven't played around with his wife's beaver

~~~
breakingcups
Before you downvote, this is from one of his actual videos:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRozAbaKs9M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRozAbaKs9M)

~~~
samtimalsina
Oh my! I literally snorted out my coffee over this. This is hilarious. I have
followed LPL for a while, but never seen this before. Thank you!

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techaddict009
Seems like Amazon has directly removed the product after this video went
viral.

~~~
dvhh
A simple google search would reveal otherwise

[https://www.amazon.com/MOFUT-4-Digit-Combination-
Weatherproo...](https://www.amazon.com/MOFUT-4-Digit-Combination-Weatherproof-
Resettable/dp/B07V6DTQG5)

[https://www.amazon.com/Combination-Weatherproof-
Resettable-B...](https://www.amazon.com/Combination-Weatherproof-Resettable-
Businesses-Waterproof/dp/B07S7NJFQS)

Or was it a specific merchant/product ?

~~~
masonic
I love how two other items use the identical photo... One at $20 and the other
at $100.

~~~
anonsivalley652
Merchants will create new items on the site and assign them randomly-increased
prices to test pricing strategies. The reason is there are plenty of suckers
who will buy things at any price who don't know what things cost. Often, I'll
find items on Amazon at 100%-300% of prices elsewhere. Heck, I just found an
old, out-of-print book for an obsolete technology going for $800.

~~~
qubex
It’s called “price discovery”. Consider it a form of pricing A/B testing.

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moltar
This is a common tactic on Amazon. But if Amazon finds out it’s over. They are
pretty strict with any seller to customer communication even without the scam
part. Just asking customer to visit your website is a violation.

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jaclaz
As a side note, there are all the "as seen on TV" things.

Typically they are US $3-8 worth (price) i.e. US$ 1.5-4 worth (value/cost),
advertised on TV as the "ultimate whatever" with a "shop price" of 50 $ but -
only for tonight - 29.99 and sometimes (big offer) we will send you two of
them for only 39.99.

Then a few months later you can find them on e-bay (or similar) for anything
between 3 and 8 $.

For some strange reasons I am fascinated by some of this crap and tend to buy
it (when I can find it at the lowered 3-8 $ price), and - surprisingly - it is
actually IMHO good for the 3 or 8 $ you pay.

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ryanmarsh
I just got $300 something in refunds from Amazon because the three automatic
dropout handgun safes (with fingerprint sensor) I bought had a bullshit
cylinder lock even a child could defeat.

~~~
mrlambchop
@ryanmarsh - any chance of a link for this? in the market and I can't tell the
wheat from the chaff on Amazon.

~~~
fmajid
If it’s on Amazon, it’s chaff.

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kumarvvr
This practice is not new. I had a online furniture site call me and say they
will send a free gift, if I give a good review to a recent I bought on their
site.

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JackPoach
Yes, this is a violation and they'll get canned.

~~~
jcrawfordor
I wouldn't be so confident on getting canned... I've found this to be an
extremely common practice with new consumer electronics from no-name brands on
Amazon. I would say more than 50% of such items I buy on Amazon come with an
offer for a partial refund if you leave a 5 star review. This is actually the
_lame_ deal, typically if you establish a relationship with one of these
companies (e.g. by leaving a 5* review for one of those offers) they'll start
emailing you offering a 100% refund on certain items they're trying to get the
score up on. I know someone who does this kind of thing on a pretty large-
scale basis for multiple items per day and then resells them... she seems to
make okay returns on it considering the low effort. I imagine you could even
resell them right back on Amazon although I don't think she's tried that.

It's definitely against Amazon's policies, but clearly enforcement is not
exactly bulletproof.

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twiceaday
I misread this "An Amazing Scam." A youtube channel talking about old timey
and modern scams. The ol' "Mofut Key Lock Box."

