Author Topic: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse  (Read 6666 times)

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Offline bd139

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #50 on: August 19, 2022, 09:58:50 am »
I’ve got three kids, work from home, run my own company so plenty of last minute purchases. I do buy in bulk where possible.  $113 equivalent a year here is the pricing and it isn’t a big deal for me. Also Prime video is ok. I got The Expanse and The Boys  :-//
You’re clearly just the hapless victim of psychological sorcery. :P

No I'm just very lazy and have better things to do than chase the lowest price  :-DD

Edit: actually that's not true. I'm moving house so I have a big spreadsheet going. Amazon got a lot of business because they were the cheapest and most convenient supplier:



You can see some of the other suppliers in there...
« Last Edit: August 19, 2022, 10:00:33 am by bd139 »
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #51 on: August 19, 2022, 05:11:37 pm »
Well that’s the thing… I no longer consider Amazon to be convenient. Low prices be damned, if it takes me hours of clicking around to actually select and purchase the item I want, I’m going to go elsewhere. I’m too lazy, err, “my time is too valuable” to waste on their stupid website. :/
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #52 on: August 19, 2022, 05:25:03 pm »
I’ve got three kids, work from home, run my own company so plenty of last minute purchases. I do buy in bulk where possible.  $113 equivalent a year here is the pricing and it isn’t a big deal for me. Also Prime video is ok. I got The Expanse and The Boys  :-//
You’re clearly just the hapless victim of psychological sorcery. :P

Some of you are taking this WAY too personally. I've said several times there are exceptions, you may be one of those exceptions. I still think for most people that have Prime it is not really a good value, they fall for the marketing trickery. That doesn't mean YOU don't get good value from it. Does anyone really think the average consumer is all that savvy? They still fall for tricks like shrinking the package to hide price increases. Just a few weeks ago I taught an otherwise intelligent person about the price per unit that is legally required on supermarket price signs but printed in tiny font, she was 41 and was not even aware it was there. Most people fall for this stuff, I don't, I suspect a much larger percentage of the engineering community doesn't vs the general population. Deception and psychological trickery are some of the core principals in marketing, making people think they're getting a better deal than they are, and it works.
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #53 on: August 19, 2022, 06:05:00 pm »
Well that’s the thing… I no longer consider Amazon to be convenient. Low prices be damned, if it takes me hours of clicking around to actually select and purchase the item I want, I’m going to go elsewhere. I’m too lazy, err, “my time is too valuable” to waste on their stupid website. :/

As with all shops they’re fine if you know what you want and how much it costs.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #54 on: August 19, 2022, 07:18:56 pm »
Well that’s the thing… I no longer consider Amazon to be convenient. Low prices be damned, if it takes me hours of clicking around to actually select and purchase the item I want, I’m going to go elsewhere. I’m too lazy, err, “my time is too valuable” to waste on their stupid website. :/

As with all shops they’re fine if you know what you want and how much it costs.
I could not disagree more. I can know exactly what I want, what it’s called, who makes it, and even the part/model number and Amazon will still fail to find it even if they carry it.

For example, try “Clairefontaine 60g A4”. It’s currently sold out on Amazon UK (as I can verify by copying its ASIN to a URL), but even expressly selecting “include out of stock” won’t find it. Adding the product number (1929C) doesn’t help.

And as I’ve explained above, since their search makes it essentially impossible to successfully filter only to the items that can actually be shipped to Switzerland, even “successful” searches frequently aren’t, in that they are incapable of resulting in a sale.

While I recognize that the different Amazon country sites have differing success rates — the English language ones seem to do  better — it’s still appalling how bad their search has become.

Another example: a Rotring 600 0.5mm mechanical pencil. On Amazon UK, entering “Rotring 600 0.5mm” gets two results, right at the top. On Amazon Germany (the preferred Amazon for Switzerland), and the country where the damned thing is made, the same search finds all manner of Rotring 600 products, but with useless item titles that don’t include the lead thickness, so I have to click every damned one and scroll into the weeds to find what thickness it is. The search is doubly sucky because when set to German, it struggles with German compound nouns, so fails to find things and instead proposes all manner of crap. And when set to English, it doesn’t use the native English product databases from the US and UK, but instead machine translates the English into German, and then feeds that into the lousy German search. It’s a joke.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2022, 07:25:20 pm by tooki »
 

Online nctnico

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #55 on: August 19, 2022, 07:23:46 pm »
Well that’s the thing… I no longer consider Amazon to be convenient. Low prices be damned, if it takes me hours of clicking around to actually select and purchase the item I want, I’m going to go elsewhere. I’m too lazy, err, “my time is too valuable” to waste on their stupid website. :/

As with all shops they’re fine if you know what you want and how much it costs.
I could not disagree more. I can know exactly what I want, what it’s called, who makes it, and even the part/model number and Amazon will still fail to find it even if they carry it.

While I recognize that the different Amazon country sites have differing success rates — the English language ones seem to do  better — it’s still appalling how bad their search has become.
Same here. It has always amazed me how Amazon became so popular with such a poor search feature (if you can even call it that). I don't even bother; I use Google to find product and if that happens to be Amazon, so be it but in most cases a different webshop pops up earlier in the search results. For me Amazon is the last resort after Aliexpress (which has a much better search function).
« Last Edit: August 19, 2022, 07:25:19 pm by nctnico »
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Offline tooki

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #56 on: August 19, 2022, 07:26:54 pm »
Same here. It has always amazed me how Amazon became so popular with such a poor search feature (if you can even call it that). I don't even bother; I use Google to find product and if that happens to be Amazon, so be it but in most cases a different webshop pops up earlier in the search results. For me Amazon is the last resort after Aliexpress (which has a much better search function).
And that’s saying a lot, given how awful AliExpress’ search is!

P.S. I edited my post to include another section about non-English search.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #57 on: August 19, 2022, 07:31:48 pm »
Well that’s the thing… I no longer consider Amazon to be convenient. Low prices be damned, if it takes me hours of clicking around to actually select and purchase the item I want, I’m going to go elsewhere. I’m too lazy, err, “my time is too valuable” to waste on their stupid website. :/

As with all shops they’re fine if you know what you want and how much it costs.

I wish that were the case, but as others have pointed out, the search is heavily biased to show you what Amazon wants you to buy instead of what you're looking for. I too have often tried searching for an exact item and it will show me all sorts of irrelevant stuff and there is no effective parametric search. Just last night I was looking for some .22 airgun pellets and it showed me pages and pages of the more common .177 caliber. I gave up and bought some from a different vendor that allowed me select the size I wanted. I run into this sort of thing constantly. On the other hand sometimes I search for something and I find products that are totally suitable, but it's usually when I want something less specific, say a new belt or a pair of slippers, I'm not looking for a specific item, so I browse until I encounter one that looks suitable.
 
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Online thm_w

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #58 on: August 19, 2022, 08:13:15 pm »
I wish that were the case, but as others have pointed out, the search is heavily biased to show you what Amazon wants you to buy instead of what you're looking for. I too have often tried searching for an exact item and it will show me all sorts of irrelevant stuff and there is no effective parametric search. Just last night I was looking for some .22 airgun pellets and it showed me pages and pages of the more common .177 caliber. I gave up and bought some from a different vendor that allowed me select the size I wanted. I run into this sort of thing constantly. On the other hand sometimes I search for something and I find products that are totally suitable, but it's usually when I want something less specific, say a new belt or a pair of slippers, I'm not looking for a specific item, so I browse until I encounter one that looks suitable.

Not saying their search isn't garbage, but I could not reproduce that. I don't see a single .177 listing.
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Offline james_s

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #59 on: August 19, 2022, 10:02:29 pm »
Oddly that search is working for me now too, but it certainly wasn't the other day.
 
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #60 on: August 20, 2022, 12:15:22 am »
Quote
For example, try “Clairefontaine 60g A4”. It’s currently sold out on Amazon UK (as I can verify by copying its ASIN to a URL), but even expressly selecting “include out of stock” won’t find it. Adding the product number (1929C) doesn’t help.

Didn't have a problem here.

Edit: maybe those having a problem don't have Prime :)
« Last Edit: August 20, 2022, 12:18:11 am by dunkemhigh »
 

Offline MrMobodies

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #61 on: August 20, 2022, 12:19:26 am »
I see someone posted a picture of theirs falling apart:
https://www.amazon.ca/product-reviews/B083QNJQK2/ref=acr_dp_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar
Quote

Records 24/7 1.0 out of 5 stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2022
It records all the time, even when set on motion. Filled up the 128gb card in a few days. Fell apart when I unplugged it. Worthless.

I wonder what the clearance is.

Shouldn't there be heat shrink on those terminals or a plastic separator in between the rest of the casing to insulate it better?
« Last Edit: August 20, 2022, 12:20:57 am by MrMobodies »
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #62 on: August 20, 2022, 09:27:28 am »
Quote
For example, try “Clairefontaine 60g A4”. It’s currently sold out on Amazon UK (as I can verify by copying its ASIN to a URL), but even expressly selecting “include out of stock” won’t find it. Adding the product number (1929C) doesn’t help.

Didn't have a problem here.

Edit: maybe those having a problem don't have Prime :)
I can only surmise that delivery location also comes into play? (Bear in mind that Amazon.de can ship this item to Switzerland right now, so it’s not as though Amazon can’t do it.)
« Last Edit: August 20, 2022, 09:29:03 am by tooki »
 

Offline Monkeh

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #63 on: August 20, 2022, 11:54:50 am »
Well that’s the thing… I no longer consider Amazon to be convenient. Low prices be damned, if it takes me hours of clicking around to actually select and purchase the item I want, I’m going to go elsewhere. I’m too lazy, err, “my time is too valuable” to waste on their stupid website. :/

As with all shops they’re fine if you know what you want and how much it costs.
I could not disagree more. I can know exactly what I want, what it’s called, who makes it, and even the part/model number and Amazon will still fail to find it even if they carry it.

For example, try “Clairefontaine 60g A4”. It’s currently sold out on Amazon UK (as I can verify by copying its ASIN to a URL), but even expressly selecting “include out of stock” won’t find it. Adding the product number (1929C) doesn’t help.

Why so picky? You'll buy whatever they have from whichever marketplace seller has extruded it into their common stocks and you'll like it. If you don't, you can return it for free and they'll just put it straight into the bin.

At least, that's how they think it should work..
 
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Offline HobGoblyn

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #64 on: August 20, 2022, 10:45:31 pm »
Amazon and eBay have converged to the point where I just use eBay.

     Yes, I frequently do the same!  The prices on a lot of items on Amazon have gotten ridiculous.  Usually thanks to a 3rd party seller. At least I KNOW that I can get my money back with Ebay/payPal.   I can't say the same of 3rd party amazon sellers.

In the UK Amazon give a 3rd party seller guarantee but reading through it, doesn’t cover you for market place sellers

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GQ37ZCNECJKTFYQV
« Last Edit: August 20, 2022, 10:48:11 pm by HobGoblyn »
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Be aware defective products from Amazon NO recourse
« Reply #65 on: August 21, 2022, 09:38:29 am »
Hmm. It says at the end:

Quote
The A-to-z Guarantee only applies when you buy items sold and fulfilled by a third-party seller. For items sold by Amazon Global Store or Marketplace items delivered using Prime, contact us. For items bought on third-party sites using Amazon Pay, go to Amazon Pay help.

Doesn't seem to exclude marketplace items (other than to deal direct with Amazon if it was a Prime delivery).
 


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