Amazon Slammed for Destroying As-New and Returned Goods (fortune.com) 209
Amazon is destroying "massive amounts" of as-new and returned items, raising the ire of the German government and environmental campaigners, local media reported. Fortune: The types of items being destroyed here go way beyond the "health and personal care" products that Amazon has long been destroying when people return them, for sanitary reasons. We're talking things like washing machines, smartphones and furniture. The revelation drew an angry response from the German government and environmental campaigners. "This is a huge scandal," Jochen Flasbarth from the German environment ministry told WirtschaftsWoche. "We are consuming these resources despite all the problems in the world. This approach is not in step with our times." Greenpeace's Kirsten Brodde said there was a need for a new "law on banning the waste and destruction of first-hand and usable goods."
It's about cost... (Score:5, Insightful)
I sell some products on Amazon. In many cases (especially electronics) Amazon will not/can not determine if the product is actually good or bad (ex: a consumer firewall that customer claims is not stable or reboots). It's most likely cheaper to have Amazon destroy it than to pay to ship it back, pay an employee to test it and repackage it, list it on feeBay as used/open box to resell it, and pay to ship it yet again (if its even good).
Mike
Re: (Score:2)
More than this, as a business do you want to take the chance sending someone a piece of furniture that's been infested with bedbugs by a customer who's returned it? Or deal with having to check for malware on every smartphone that's returned? etc.
Re:It's about cost... (Score:4, Insightful)
Does it have to be destroyed on the off-chance?
There's plenty of people out there who'd take that risk if they could pay less than full price.
Re:It's about cost... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's plenty of people out there who'd say they'd take the risk for a lower price, but would then turn around and sue you if it turned out bad. They'd probably win, too, no matter what they signed; there are consumer rights you can't sign away. So Amazon can't resell this junk.
Re: (Score:3)
Pretty sure you can buy almost anything at your local secondhand store on an "AS-IS, No Refunds" basis.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes but buyer beware works in that case because you physically inspect the merchandise before purchase. Some larger GoodWill stores even have a bench in the back where you can plug electronics in and stuff to see if they work yourself!
That is hard to do online! So there would always be a question of did Amazon accurate represent the condition of the product, or did they not mention it rattles when you pick it up etc?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty sure you can buy almost anything at your local secondhand store on an "AS-IS, No Refunds" basis.
Yet many people are taken to court over as-is sales. Most plaintiffs lose. The only ones who don't can prove fraud. So guess what the plaintiffs claim. But you're still dragged through the mud.
I still like my idea of shipping everything returned to Germany at full price plus shipping, all to be covered by Germany. Who could oppose that - especially when the good people of Germany are demanding to control what Amazon does? Step up and do your duty.
Re: (Score:2)
So in countries with worse consumer laws what happens to returned items? How is it better than the EU?
Re: (Score:2)
They sell the stuff back as refurbished at a reduced price.
Then they end up getting Slashdot articles about how second hand stuff is being sold without being "properly" checked.
Re: (Score:2)
I live in the EU. Here, most returned items are being resold at lower prices. I've had some amazing deals on practically brand-new stuff, hardware indistinguishable from the full price one, with the exception of damaged box, for example, which who in their right mind would care about?
Re: (Score:2)
I know the rules can vary depending on how you're buying it--returned-as-defective stuff tends to get sold locally where I am, because a physical inspection matters, though in theory you probably could sell known-defective items to people who won't have a chance to inspect it before the purchase is final as long as you're clear and accurate in informing the buyer about what they are purchasing. (I've seen a car listed online as going for, basically, just enough money to make it legally a sale--so the title
Re: (Score:2)
So in countries with worse consumer laws what happens to returned items? How is it better than the EU?
Some of them it's not an issue of 'worse' consumer laws--if the consumer laws say that, as long as I am informed of the risks ("This was returned for being buggy, may be firmware, may be software, may be hardware, may be luser error") then I cannot complain if, surprise surprise, I just got a buggy piece of hardware.
I know that where I live in the US, this applies for anything I can physically inspect before buying--if I knowingly choose to buy, say, a dead microwave? I'm probably going to look very silly
Re: (Score:2)
I still like my idea of shipping everything ... to Germany at full price plus shipping, all to be covered by Germany.
Hey if it works for for Syrians, Somalis, and Iraqis... (also: how to get a -5 flamebait almost instantaneously)
Re: (Score:3)
I still like my idea of shipping everything returned to Germany at full price plus shipping, all to be covered by Germany. Who could oppose that - especially when the good people of Germany are demanding to control what Amazon does? Step up and do your duty.
I'm confused - do you think Amazon Germany should NOT be subject to German laws?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I still like my idea of shipping everything returned to Germany at full price plus shipping, all to be covered by Germany. Who could oppose that - especially when the good people of Germany are demanding to control what Amazon does? Step up and do your duty.
I'm confused - do you think Amazon Germany should NOT be subject to German laws?
Germany is only one country, As the European Union has shown, they want world domination. All of it - every single return sent back to Amazon must go to Germany.
Re: (Score:2)
For something like that you don't need an army of lawyers - just small claims court an a subpoena for Jeff Bezos to appear. He is legally responsible for all actions taken by his company after all. That alone would generate a settlement in most cases which turns a few hundred dollar return into a multi-thousand dollar settlement.
Re: (Score:2)
In fact, you could be certain that some people would make a living out of doing this: accepting reduced-price or donated goods from Amazon, and then suing repeatedly.
Do a search on "Gersh Zavodnik" as an exemplar.
Re: (Score:2)
There's plenty of people out there who'd say they'd take the risk for a lower price, but would then turn around and sue you if it turned out bad. They'd probably win, too, no matter what they signed; there are consumer rights you can't sign away. So Amazon can't resell this junk.
And for good reason too, if you could sell goods "as-is" with no warranty they'd make it part of the standard boilerplate, which is what consumer laws are supposed to protect against. Not to mention all the shady companies that would send out faulty batches and pretend you got the lemon, too bad that's the risk you signed up for. And consumers who'd blame any problem they have on being a faulty return claiming you scammed them, even when it's unrelated. And there will be mental cases you've pissed off becau
Re: (Score:2)
Thiis is exactly right, it's all about legal liability. Next time you see some asinine rule or practice put in place by any organization, I can virtually guarantee it's there to limit liability.
Re: (Score:2)
So Amazon can't resell this junk.
A returned washing machine or smart phone hardly is junk.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That literally has nothing to do with TFA.
Re: (Score:2)
Quite strange really that Amazon seems to have shifted to this position.
For several years Amazon has been infuriating 3rd party sellers by taking returns and then selling them again as new instead of returning the items back to the seller.
So customer one buys an item thats doa and gets returned. Amazon then put it back in stock and the next customer who orders the product gets the obviously not new dead product. Third party seller gets his reputation damaged at the least...
So now they are just destroying r
Re:It's about cost... (Score:4, Insightful)
There's plenty of people out there who'd take that risk if they could pay less than full price.
I think this is precisely the point. After accounting for risks, the business can't sell it for less than full price.
Even if the business sells it AS-IS there is still the issue of having your name/brand on it.
When some idiot buys AS-IS because it's cheaper, he'll still go on social media to complain about it.
When the business says, sorry, but you bought it AS-IS, social media will still skewer the brand of the "heartless business" to shit.
And for what purpose? Barely breaking even on shit merchandise?
I don't think any business would sign up for that.
Basically, if there is a law, Amazon is going to ship all the stuff to a huge flea market.
There it will sit until the folks there figure out what the businesses already did:
This stuff isn't worth crap, time to pitch it.
Next, a law on disposal of flea market goods.
Re:It's about cost... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
the "Scandal" is mostly invented
I saw the "Greenpeace" in the summary and could already guess that.
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on the store. At the very least, it must be destroyed - rendered non-working. And stores take great care in this - stuff marked as destroyed cannot be sold or given to anyone but a recycler. (This is especially important if insurance claims are involved - a fire in a part of the warehouse may "destroy" everything, but insurance will require that every last ite
Re:It's about cost... (Score:4, Informative)
They would actually have to pay equal or more than full price. The logistics and stocking of these types of items is high because of the rarity and high defect rate. This is why non-profits and volunteers usually soak up the middle costs in getting used items to that low cost sector. However, unlike regular retail, there is no steady supply of the items, its a hit or miss. So the supply chains to move this stuff needs to be recreated over and over again which adds to the high cost.
I have seen two local businesses that did just this, go out of business due to the overhead involved. They rented cheap space and basically got used/opened/defective merchandise from local big stores. Think perfect sofas with a broken foot or unopened laundry detergent with a ripped label. They got the stuff for like 90% off. They did their own transport. And for some stuff, they couldn't keep them on the shelves. But there was much they had to pay for disposal because it wouldn't sell and just took up space (again, no volume in disposal). So they had to be careful of what they took on and customers wouldn't find the same bargain every visit. The overhead involved in each specific item, just wasn't worth it.
Re: (Score:3)
Does it have to be destroyed on the off-chance?
There's plenty of people out there who'd take that risk if they could pay less than full price.
And that's exactly what Amazon says they are doing. They sell it at a reduced price and/or sell it to a liquidator. In some cases though, for a variety of reasons, things have to be destroyed. My dad actually is a liquidator. He buys random stuff from a variety of places. The FDA makes him destroy some stuff. He destroys other stuff because there is too much liability, it's been recalled, it costs too much to ship, it can't be tested, or he can't legally sell it for whatever reason. He once got a Har
Re: (Score:2)
He once got a Harley and tried to apply for a title for it. Harley called and said that it had to be destroyed to protect their name. I believe they even compensated him for it. It was a perfectly good bike but wasn't up to their standards.
What kind of Corporate Dystopian crap is that? He or his liquidation company owned the bike. They can offer him money to trash it, but they have no say-so on whether it *has* to be destroyed. Not even the local, state, or the feds can do that unless your motorcycle is made out of radioactive materials instead of "glass... and tubes." The government can prevent you from riding it on the streets, but your property rights trump Harley's PR department.
If it had been issued a scrap title, it's almost impossible to get it re-titled. However he should have been able to part it out. Guessing Harley paid him more than it was worth for him to do that.
Re: (Score:2)
What kind of Corporate Dystopian crap is that? He or his liquidation company owned the bike. They can offer him money to trash it, but they have no say-so on whether it *has* to be destroyed. Not even the local, state, or the feds can do that unless your motorcycle is made out of radioactive materials instead of "glass... and tubes." The government can prevent you from riding it on the streets, but your property rights trump Harley's PR department.
It was already marked as "destroyed". It wasn't supposed to still exist. Someone messed up. It was basically stolen property at that point.
As far as governments requiring you to destroy stuff, they do it all the time. My brother owns a wrecker service and the FDA is the worst. One inspector will let him take home a freezer full of steak and the next inspector will sit out there and watch until every last frozen steak is buried in the ground. Vegetable oil, steaks, frozen foods, you name it, they want
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I think there is a solution to be found here.
We most sell clothing in b&m retail stores. Customers get to see and touch the product, try it on, and have a higher confidence that it'll meet their needs. Our returns rate is usually 1% and we usually opt to have the retailer destroy anything they deem unsaleable. It's of course going back to a retailer that understands that product category and can usually make a pretty good call. We've sampled those returns from time to time, but the majority are truly un
Re: (Score:2)
Our washing machine was an open box that we got from a regular retailer. I'm pretty sure it had been used before, but was effectively new, warrantied and a bit cheaper than it would have been.
Was it tested? I have no idea. But i'll bet a manufacturer service center could run a self diagnostic on it and have a pretty good idea if it's working or not. Same for smartphones - they are small and light, they could go back to samsung, be inspected, factory reset and tested before going out to consumers who are hap
Re: (Score:2)
they could go back to samsung, be inspected, factory reset and tested before going out to consumers who are happy to take the savings.
What "savings"?
That phone has already been through the manufacturing/distribution/retail system. It was tested before it left the factory. It was shipped to a distributor who sold and shipped it to a retailer. The retailer sold the product. At each step, the costs were added into the price of the product.
So, the product is returned for some reason. The retailer returns the money to the customer. That means they've already lost all the costs involved in the first sale.
In addition to all the costs involve
Re: (Score:2)
> And YOU expect the retailer (or someone) to sell the product for less than the first time. After adding on a bunch of costs. What "savings" do you imagine exist that would justify a lower selling price?
The sales price of any item is determined by what the market will bear and not the cost to make it. In reality it costs our factory more to produce a factory second (because of the extra QC, repackaging and maintaining a separate sales channel, yet we sell them for less than our first quality items becau
Re: (Score:2)
how about checking for malware on every IoT washer or fridge.
Re: (Score:2)
how about checking for malware on every IoT washer or fridge.
Wasn't there an article on here not so long about about how some IoT things were shipping with malware infestations?
Re: (Score:2)
Ummm... no.
It's about the planet.
At some point people have to wake up and realize it's NOT all about the money.
Re: (Score:2)
But that would be worse for the planet. There are many scenarios where the resources expended to "fix" something has a higher environmental cost than to just dispose of it. Heck the QA needed to determine when this is so adds to that environmental cost.
If you had a steady stream of the same defective phone; like at the factory, sure it makes sense to review and fix them (more like fix the manufacturing process). But in this situation, the defect line is giving you a flat screen, followed by furniture, ce
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No, I want Amazon to accept the consequences of their business model.
If it costs them extra to de-louse everything and do a factory reset on every returned smartphone then that's too bad.
All it means is that the prices charged by Amazon will resemble more closely the true costs of doing business in that way.
Re: (Score:2)
^^^^This!
Can't upvote you, unfortunately.
It's the same with gas-prices: Why is gas so cheap? Because the costs at the fuel-pump do not represent the true costs of actually recreating the crude (and most of the costs associated with the environmental impact).
It's business-model not unlike somebody selling pirated version of some software. He can sell it at a very low price and still make a profit - because the true costs are accumulating elsewhere.
Sustainable business-models - they both ain't.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No you want to dictate to them how they dispose of their property. You're a totalitarian a-hole just admit it.
Amazon IS accepting the consequences of their model. They accept most returns from their customers no questions asked. They eat the cost of the returned merchandise. Once they accept the return its their property again! They can do whatever they want with it! That is the way it should be!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No I am describing a situation my primary concern is personal property rights. Its no business of yours or anyone else's what I do with my property or what Amazon does with theirs. If I want *want* purchase 1000 iPhone X's to use in place of clay pigeons over my field - that's all me.
You have all ready legislated all sorts of consumer rights where Amazon has to take returns in the first place and now you want to seek to tell them what they can with the returned goods - who they can sell it to when under w
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon is not a person. Amazon is a huge corporation.
German law recognises that large corporations have an enormous amount of power, and are prone to acting like sociopaths if unchecked. It also expects them to contribute to the betterment of society, in exchange for all the benefits it recieves.
Not destroying perfectly good stuff at a cost to the environment, mostly externalised away from Amazon, is no infringement of personal liberties because Amazon is not a person.
Re: (Score:2)
People then shouldn't be allowed to return perfectly good stuff.
Should Amazon be allowed to destroy everything without inspection (other than to verify it's the correct product) that the customer returned as defective? If not, then what should be the penalty to the consumer if they lie about it so they can get the free return and refund.
Re: (Score:3)
If I want *want* purchase 1000 iPhone X's to use in place of clay pigeons over my field - that's all me.
No it is not. At least not when you get caught. Electronic waste, even if the phone is brand new, has to be disposed lawfully and that means environment friendly. A 1000 violations would likely not cost you dearly in fines but impose jail time, good luck, idiot.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Interestingly I don't give a flying fuck about your personal health - I value my freedom and I want to protect the freedom of my children etc.
I am not trying to destroy the planet. I am not suggesting Amazon should just be able to dump about PCBs and lead batteries in the local wilderness area or something. I am saying they have basic rights to what they want with stuff that belongs to them. If you care so much go live in mud hut and eat only raw vegetation foraged etc and leave the rest of us alone.
Re: (Score:3)
Hey, I would even buy a couple of square meters it'd take to place the batteries.
Re: (Score:2)
I value my freedom and I want to protect the freedom of my children etc.
Your freedom ends where it touches and restricts my freedom, and my health is probably my highest good of freedom. You must have pretty weird definitions for terms like freedom etc.
I am saying they have basic rights to what they want with stuff that belongs to them. ... we are beyond that stage of 'civilization' since a few hundred years, at least in part of the planet.
No they have not
You're freedom doesn't matter much (Score:2)
Your freedom ends when it starts to hurt someone else. At that point regulation begins; with all it's complex trade offs. The GP was being provocative, but everything he said is reasonable. The goods Amazon is destroying were likely made by factories in China that pollute heavily and the destroyed goods will likely wind up in a landfill somewhere in Asia (probably Vietnam or India, China's cut the US off). People are going to die from that pollution. That's not idle specu
Re: (Score:2)
Can I dump lead batteries _near_ your property?
Did you miss the part where he said he's not saying they should be able to just dump that kind of stuff?
Re: (Score:2)
Absofucking-lutely.
Re: (Score:2)
please don't feed the fundies (Score:2)
It's not good for the planet to artificially inflate the cost of doing business. It might sound good on the surface, but doesn't survive careful analysis. Price is almost always the best proxy available (in a woefully complex world) for planetary resources consumed, when one includes resources consumed directly, as well as those consumed via opportunity-cost displacement.
Nor is it good to of
Re: (Score:2)
No, I want Amazon to accept the consequences of their business model
Why do you think there should be a consequence for their business model?
How much of the internet do you want to go away? Just the store part?
Re: (Score:2)
It would not be cheaper if they had to pay the fair price for pollution waste management.
Unregulated markets are unfair markets, as much of the burden and real cost to mankind is shifted into the future or into other regions of the world.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It's about cost... (Score:4, Interesting)
I once volunteered for a group which tidied up and fixed used furniture and housewares and provided them to poor families.
The economics of that was interesting. I once fixed an old Singer sewing machine that had frozen up because the old oil had congealed. Now if you paid me what my time was worth as an engineer that'd make no sense: you could buy a new one for that. But in fact I wasn't paid in money. The next week a family came in and the mom knew how to sew. When I loaded the sewing machine on the van I had the satisfaction of seeing something I'd fixed with my own hands go where it would mean clothes for the kids.
Sometimes we got antiques or other pieces that were valuable. These went to auctions and the proceeds bought re-manufactured mattresses. Other times we got stuff that was just trash; this went into the dumpster, or if it were metal to a scrap dealer with the pennies earned going into the mattress kitty.
I suspect the same kind of charitable sweat-equity economics could be applied to a lot of the things being destroyed by Amazon. They could go to community volunteer groups and diverted to local causes where they would do good without affecting the primary market for those goods.
Re: (Score:3)
https://www.wortfilter.de/wp/hintergruende-zum-amazon-skandal-amazon-mitarbeiter-enthuellen-sie-vernichten-im-auftrag-des-onlineriesen-taeglich-zehntausende-neue-produkte/
Re: (Score:2)
Quit trying to bring knowledgeable sense to our outrage gunfight.
Re: (Score:2)
If you read the German-language discussion, they do dispose of returned merchandise in secondary markets whenever they can. It is only stuff that they can't dispose of through secondary markets that is destroyed.
https://www.wortfilter.de/wp/hintergruende-zum-amazon-skandal-amazon-mitarbeiter-enthuellen-sie-vernichten-im-auftrag-des-onlineriesen-taeglich-zehntausende-neue-produkte/
And the complaint appears to be about the amount of things that they cannot dispose of in secondary markets, which suggests that Germany is trying to basically put on a show to improve their standing among the anti-capitalist Greens or distract people from problems they have caused.
Not new.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not new.. (Score:5, Informative)
This.
I spent a summer working in Office Depot's Returns Consolidation Center in Auburn, WA. We accepted returns from pretty much every Office Depot west of the Mississippi River. And Chicago. At times, I'd receive bubble wrap, or pallet wrap, or boxes...I could use all of these, especially the boxes for repack...but no. They have to get destroyed. They were brand new, unopened (or still folded, for the boxes) and immediately useful to us. But bureaucratic paperwork says it needs to be destroyed, so out the went.
The amount of HP ink cartridges I received still baffles me. And whoever packed those water coolers for return that still had water in them, may your ancestors forever be cursed to torment in hell!
Re: (Score:3)
Common practice in retail for decades. Selling or giving away units is a tax liability and creates your own competition.
There's absolutely no positives for the company in this, only risks.
Sadly, because I'd liked to bring home and fix or tinker for pers
Re: (Score:2)
Except I was asking to use them FOR WORK. For repacking things that arrived in broken boxes, or for wrapping pallets RIGHT THERE.
I absolutely understand they don't want employees to take them, then employees would just ruin things, or ask customers to run things, and then take them home.
Instead, I'd have to patch boxes with excessive tape, and then use ridiculous amounts of pallet wrap to help keep it together on the pallet...
Re: (Score:2)
The amount of HP ink cartridges I received still baffles me. And whoever packed those water coolers for return that still had water in them, may your ancestors forever be cursed to torment in hell!
You buy a printer for $50, then notice that it's $65 for one set of cartridges or $80 for 2, so you buy the two pack. Except that the printer breaks 6 months later before you've been able to use all of the ink. You go to buy another one, but your model isn't available anymore, and none of the new ones support your current stock of ink cartridges. Since your unused cartridges are now basically really expensive paperweights, you return them.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, changing their behavior causes huge changes. Changing a small company's behavior causes small changes.
Only one _real_ solution to this: (Score:2)
Mandatory recycling for everything. I'm not talking, you recycle 80% of stuff and the rest gets shoved in a hole in the ground, I'm talking 100% is transformed into material for a product or becomes fertilizer.
This isn't some absurd idea either because it's either this or we destroy the ecosystem and hope we engineer a way to survive.
Something similar happened to me (Score:5, Insightful)
I ordered an external battery pack for a UPS from Amazon several months back. When it arrived and I unpacked it, the case was visibly bulging on the top. Not wanting to risk plugging it in, I contacted Amazon for a return. Instead, they refunded my money on the spot and told me to take it to the nearest recycling center.
I could understand Amazon's reasoning. Why risk shipping a possibly defective battery that might pose a fire hazard? And for what I paid for it, it was hardly worth trying to repair or refurbish.
From Amazon's point of view, if it's cheaper to dispose of the goods rather than repair or refurbish them, then that's the smart move. They can't even donate them, because what happens if a lawyer sues because someone was injured by a donated item that Amazon knew was defective? The much safer route, economically and legally, is simply to destroy the returned items. It's part of the cost of doing business at their scale.
Amazon gave me a $175 thing once... (Score:3)
What they sent me was this:
https://www.amazon.com/YELLOW-... [amazon.com]
An air-conditioning test and charging manifold, that was priced $175 at the time.
I got on the website and requested a return and explained what happened, and then for the next few days started getting two different sets of messages.
One set was the usual automated set that said I had to return the item by a certain number of days
Re:Amazon gave me a $175 thing once... (Score:5, Funny)
A few years back I ordered something small that cost $12 or so. I think it was some kind of Park bicycle wrench. What they sent me was this: https://www.amazon.com/YELLOW-... [amazon.com] An air-conditioning test and charging manifold, that was priced $175 at the time. I got on the website and requested a return and explained what happened, and then for the next few days started getting two different sets of messages. One set was the usual automated set that said I had to return the item by a certain number of days or I would get charged for it. The other set was real people responding, telling me that I wouldn't get charged for it and that I didn't need to return the item and that I could dispose of it as I pleased. When I asked why they didn't want it returned, the real person said that some items are hazardous enough that if they make a mistake and send one out, they will not accept if back for any reason. I said that I had only opened the shipping box and not the sealed item box itself, and he said that didn't matter. I could keep it since they would just destroy it if it was returned, and the company didn't want to pay the return shipping cost just to destroy it. I never got charged for it either. I gave it to my AC repair guy, since AC maintenance is not a hobby of mine and it's not good for much else. Ever since then I have wondered however,,,, what is the most-expensive thing that Amazon has given away just because they shipped the totally-wrong item? I don't know how happy they'd be to talk about that, but it would be an interesting read...
I bought a $400 android tablet from Amazon (a few years ago). They shipped it LaserShip and the courier tried to steal the package. I called LaserShip after they claimed it was delivered and video surveillance showed it was not. Guy tried to weasel out and make excuses. Eventually admitted that the courier had opened the package and the tablet box. I told them to return it to Amazon. I complained to Amazon and they gave me an instant refund. LaserShip then threw the box on my front porch and tried to claim it hadn’t been stolen - open boxes and everything. Video surveillance showed he literally threw it there from the street trying to stay of-frame in the camera. I actually found it on my porch and told Amazon about it. They told me they would not be able to keep it after it had been stolen by LaserShip. They told me I could do whatever I wanted with it and I still got my money. Still have that tablet to this day.
Re: (Score:2)
Technically, it wouldn't cost Amazon any more to repair/refurbish them. They'd end up just passing the cost on to other customers via higher prices anyway, just like you're already paying for the items they dispose of.
The problem happens when one company decides to "do the right thing" and repair/refurbish these items, while a second company decides to just dispose of th
Re: (Score:3)
So you would pay more for refurbished products than new ones?
Not liability (Score:2)
It's not the liability, or at least not just the liability, for most items.
It's customer focus. The primary focus of Amazon is customer obsession. The whole business orients towards that. A product returned by one customer is more likely to be a problem for another--it's more likely to be in, say, the bottom 10% of product quality for that item. Asking a customer to return a product is also a hassle for the customer.
the other side of the story (Score:2)
Look... (Score:2)
...that guy is the richest man on the planet for a reason, if there was a way to sell that junk _for a profit_, without getting sued to hell and/or get bad press, he would do it.
Trust me.
Re: (Score:2)
The implication is he can make better profit on new than used.
I guess we need some kind of infrastructure to handle this. New business venture?
It might be better for the environment... (Score:2)
Re:Losing the right of abuse (Score:4, Insightful)
It will be limited to those "engaged in economic activity" — like GDPR and the entire "right to be forgotten" concept. There will be people welcome this intervention and lamenting, once again, "why the US can't be more like Europe".
Insert the cautionary tale beginning with the "when they came for corporations I did not object, because I do not have a corporation" here...
Re: (Score:3)
What Amazon needs is a checkbox on their page that allows people to choose:
a) I only want guaranteed new goods, charge me premium price and a "restocking" fee for anything I return.
b) Returned goods are acceptable to me, charge me regular price.
Re: (Score:2)
Won't work. People can't sign away their consumer rights. If they get a bad product and sue, they'll win no matter what boxes they checked.
Re: (Score:2)
Alright, but keep the restocking fee.
Most of Amazon's 'problems' aren't caused by defective goods, they're cause by people who buy three of everything so they can try them out at home.
(and make the youtube 'unboxing' videos and/or go to parties in the new clothes before returning them to Amazon)
Re: (Score:2)
Alright, but keep the restocking fee.
You charge me a restocking fee for a defective product, either one that you said was new and was a factory-defective product, or one of your "returns" where you tried to weasel out of a warranty of assumed fitness, and you will wind up in court. And I'll win.
Re: (Score:2)
Won't work. People can't sign away their consumer rights. If they get a bad product and sue, they'll win no matter what boxes they checked.
Which is commendable, for goods that are returned for cause.
Many web retailers, however, have a policy of returns for any reason, including "I changed my mind". (Or even, in the case of my wife, "I bought three in different colors because I wasn't sure which color I would like best so I wanted to try them all, and am now returning the two I didn't like.")
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, it's great when you're not the one paying for it. The guys who do have to pay for it, though, may decide that it's better just to avoid the whole hassle and just throw it away.
Re: (Score:2)
In EU, all remote shopping has legal mandate for a "changed my mind" clause for some time (here it's two weeks). This isn't about vendor. This is about law. Vendor has no ability to compel you to cede this right.
Requirement however is that whatever you return is in original packaging, and vendor can restock is at new. I.e. you could at most take it out of packaging and look at it, or try clothing on as you would in a store. Plugging it in for example is a pattern of usage, at which point this particular cla
Re: You can't have it both ways (Score:2)
Amazon does not maintain inventory for these products. They don't have the infrastructure in place to take in a returned couch that was never manufactured, stored, or shipped by them in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Hell NO!!!
Repackage that stuff....slap a picture of a porn star on the front, and it will sell like hot cakes!!!
Re: (Score:2)
That in the US.
In the EU there is to much risk involved for amazon due to all the consumer protection laws in place.
It's cheaper to destroy the item then risk selling it.
Liar (Score:5, Insightful)
You're a liar. "The Germans" certainly did "get so incensed". They sent people to prison over it.
Re: (Score:2)
Post proof or go away.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That is cool. I'm going to look into that.
The downside about the consumer protections laws in the EU is the seller is probably liable for the 2nd/3rd hand stuff they sell even if they claim it possibly defective.
Re: (Score:2)
Have a site or two you could point me to?
Re: (Score:2)
Time to bale up your strawmen (Score:2)
And even if he was anti-semitic, racist, xenophobic and homophobic those are not an impeachable offenses.
That might even get him on the $20 bill to replace Andrew Jackson.