Amazon forced to recall 400K products that could kill, electrocute people
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- Start date
Amazon is perfectly happy to sell counterfeit books from third party sources. I tried to contact Amazon about a counterfeit reference book I bought, but they instead told me to talk to the seller. The seller was willing to give it to me for free to stop my complaint from going back to Amazon.
It was a very obvious case as the paper was so thin you could see through it, and there was no copyright notice at the front of the book.
They really don't give two fucks about copyright infringement.
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...or invalidate. Some of them are even clever enough to add a certificate number...for someone else's product.
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How have I never heard of this? Thanks! I know what I'll be learning about tonight.
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I would say the REAL problem with Amazon is they're delivery is AWESOME. I typically can order and have the product here the next day WITHOUT having to pay for shipping.
So the fight in my brain is "it will be here tomorrow" vs. "But, you're doing business with the devil"
Selling dangerous products is just one of many reasons NOT to do business with Amazon.
But, I think for a lot of Urban people the delivery is what makes people want to do business with Amazon.
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I can sort of understand Amazon not being able to include photos because the third-party sellers have doubtless reused the listing ID for something completely different (several times over by now).
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Calibre is fantastic software. You can create and backup libraries, edit the books themselves, change file format, do fancy regex stuff... pretty much anything. I can't rate it too highly. I've got over a thousand books in there and it's been a life saver for me.
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Third party sellers were huge on there even a decade ago. What really changed is bezos had the brilliant idea to cut all the American middle men out and go straight to Congress factories and push for them to come in the platform. And they have destroyed it. Sure the American middle men increased prices compared to direct, but they also made it so someone a consumer could sue, or the government could come after was ultimately responsible. Good luck holding any of those manufacturers in foreign countries responsible for their actions.
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It's not an easy problem to regulate in a reasonable manner though.
Imagine you're making a B (american grounded) to E/F (french/german grounded) adapter.
Some of the countries using E/F will also have older ungrounded C sockets and the E/F plugs are not keyed to prevent plugging to a ungrounded C socket.
Your perfectly grounded adapter will be plugged into ungrounded sockets.
The strictly "safe" way would be to ban B to E/F adapters.
But in reality most products with a B grounded plug are safe to use in a ungrounded C socket.
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We hold both retailers and manufacturers responsible, as that way both parties involved in the transaction have skin in the game. Both are responsible parties here.
GFCI outlets do fail and people do not test as often as they should. There are also people who don't realize their house isn't wired correctly because 10 years ago Bob decided he was an electrician. On top of that, people still have bathrooms that are not up to modern code for one reason or another.
Also, multiple safeties are reasonable for things that can kill you.
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How do designers deal with this in Europe with native plugs, then? Is that assumption different from US plugs?
I honestly don't know because I do not know what the correct handling of that is.
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Poor Jeff Bezos is so deeply concerned about using his new gargantuan sailboat that he does not have any time to worry about harming his customers with unsafe, dangerous, and just plain shoddy crap that he sells.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/style/bezos-yacht-koru.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/style/bezos-yacht-koru.html
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It is trivially easy to "stand by your products" when you don't ever need to do anything about any problems.
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Plenty of reasons not to, but some others to go through them.
Shipping -- no, I don't want to pay $120 for shipping $18 of product to me in the US. Payment processing -- no, I don't want to give yet another website my credit card. Account minimization -- no, I don't want to create yet another customer account with a company I probably won't buy anything else from for a decade.
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But if the deceased did write white a review, it would obviously be BIASED by their death! Unfair! /S
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Yes, but that description could mean many things:
A [genuine charger] for [Apple iPhones], or
a [charger] for [genuine Apple iPhones], or but not likely
a [genuine Apple] [charger for iPhones].
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They say they're just a "logistics provider"? What about "Amazon Basics" labeled products? I suppose they'll sidestep that one too. "Not our product, we just sell our name to 3rd party manufacturers".
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Mostly designers do the same everywhere.
For some things (e.g. a microwave oven) using a ungrouned socket does carry more risk and all the designers do is include a stern warning in the user manual (that nobody reads).
Countries where unkeyed ungrounded sockets are thing just live increased the risk from those old sockets.
The caveat here is that sometimes appliances are designed with a grounded plug but don't really need it for safety.
E.g. you may have noticed that some laptop power bricks have a ground pin while others don't but broadly they're all safe to use without ground.
The ground helps reducing EMI and residual currents (that the user may feel but are perfectly safe).
But they include the stern warning nonetheless so you have no idea which ones are actually unsafe to use with a ungrounded socket.
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It might be marked "CE", but it clearly cannot pass the certification standards. You see a lot of these fake markings on cheap Chinese electrical things.
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General rule of thumb - if the name of the seller looks like it was generated by someone pressing random keys on a keyboard, don’t buy anything from them.
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Whether it comes through Amazon or is ordered elsewhere on the internet, it's more than a little likely that what you get will be sourced from China or other foreign nation. Very few consumer goods are produced in the USA anymore.
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And who is actually going to be charged when the fraudulent device was manufactured and packaged in China? US law doesn't apply there, and the principals behind the companies likely aren't identifiable. That last point seems to be especially true for 3rd party sales on Amazon, as has been highlighted in multiple horror stories over the last few years.
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My neighbor purchased a headboard for his guest bed and asked me to help him assemble it. It came with LED lights, and USB and AC outlets. When we were finished, I wanted to test all the outlets. The USB outlets tested okay, but my AC tester found the AC outlets had a reversed neutral in both outlets. His wall outlets tested okay, and opening it up confirmed it was wired incorrectly.
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While I agree that Amazon returns have been seamless in the past, that isn't really true any more. We bought a small treadmill which arrived DOA, and returned it in a few days. Amazon charged us a 50% overstocking fee. And when we called their support to dispute it, they said they couldn't refund it because it was "shipped from China" or some such bullshit.
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That has been the case for me with Amazon - until the last few years. Now it is hit or miss with them too, even with prime. I often wait a week for things to arrive. That is still better than other shippers, but not by much.
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You don't need a mass spectrometer to detect the presence of water, but leaving aside your smooth-brained libertarian bloviation, yes. If Amazon wants to sell things in the American market, then they should either source products from manufacturers who can assure them that they're compliant with American standards or they should test for compliance themselves. Same as every other retailer. Easy.
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You should look up the difference between the official CE mark, and the China Export CE mark. Yes, it's a thing. Yes, it's deceptive.
Edit: Ninja'd. Should have known, what with all the smart humans around here.
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Even when it is the same as the combination on your luggage?
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6iW-8xPw3k
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Counterpoint: if you look on the Amazon Australia website, you'll see that the range of products they have on offer is significantly smaller than in the USA. The reason is because, under Australian retail law, Amazon is the seller, and hence Amazon has the liability for managing returns and refunds under Australian law.
Drop ship from the manufacturer? Don't care. The customer goes to Amazon, pays Amazon, gives Amazon all of their details. Amazon is the retailer under Australian law.
A seller uses Amazon to sell an illegal product? Amazon is on the hook, at least as far as the end purchaser is concerned. Now, Amazon absolutely has legal rights to go after that seller and claim their costs. But for the end purchaser, Amazon is on the hook; what happens behind the scenes between Amazon and the "real" seller is of no concern to the purchaser. Which is as it should be.
The consequence is that Amazon Australia is a lot more careful about what it allows to be sold. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has very real, and very sharp teeth - and is not afraid to use them.
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Yep it's kind of... Exactly what the job of a retail buyer is.
Wholesaler who wants to get your product on the shelves of Costco? Be prepared to run a squid-game-level gauntlet to prove it's worthy
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red_shift_limited
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
It looks like Amazon is just using the US government recall data for their list. It's available from these sites:
Consumer Product Safety Commission here -> https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration -> https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls
Food and Drug Administration -> https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts
I'm not posting to be pedantic but to show that Amazon isn't the source and that there are people doing the work on these recalls that deserve some credit. Same for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and all the weather data that gets sold to us by third party companies.
Consumer Product Safety Commission here -> https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration -> https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls
Food and Drug Administration -> https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts
I'm not posting to be pedantic but to show that Amazon isn't the source and that there are people doing the work on these recalls that deserve some credit. Same for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and all the weather data that gets sold to us by third party companies.
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I will never understand why folks trust Fascist Nazi's
Bezo's is a Nazi, that's is why He does everything he can to STEAL from the Consumer, Nazi Belief is that the Underlings are there to be abused for the Pleasure of the Rich
But you all keep pretending Rich Scum cares about you and your Family
Bezo's is a Nazi, that's is why He does everything he can to STEAL from the Consumer, Nazi Belief is that the Underlings are there to be abused for the Pleasure of the Rich
But you all keep pretending Rich Scum cares about you and your Family
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I must have missed the millions of dollars in fines from this behavior as well as the jail sentences for those who made these decisions.
Since companies are people, I want a lot more regulation (with actual penalties) for them.
Since companies are people, I want a lot more regulation (with actual penalties) for them.
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