I've made it a habit to make single-take videos of any transaction/interaction worth more than I'm willing to eat the cost of. Along with buying a roll of tamper evident tape. Mailing in a warranty claim? Document it's condition and problems on video and seal it up in my car then hand it over to FedEx in a single take. Amazon orders? Start the video with the box still sealed and showing the shipping label, then open and document condition and serials.
It's super low effort these days, and the single take is (IMHO) more important than perfect framing or audio as long as identifying details are legible at some point.
"While recording an unboxing can help document the condition of a product, such evidence is not guaranteed to resolve disputes with retailers or payment providers."
Which is why I mentioned the framing doesn't have to be perfect. It'd help- But, perfection isn't required. Given how little effort it takes, and how much trouble it'll cause the other parties...
Maybe it's time for some laws that require customer-returned goods to be sold as used merchandise unless the merchant waives the right to dispute the 2nd customer's return for full refund.
I'm more impressed by the fact that there's still DDR2 going around. I know DDR3 is still alive and well, even manufactured(I myself noticed the appearance of new DDR3 kits, which is weird); but didn't knew DDR2 was still in stock. I'm assuming industrial/embedded applications still use it for obvious reasons, but I have to wonder to what degree DDR2 kits are being produced.
Surprisingly by boatloads by Chinese manufacturers. Nothing really shady about it (standard concerns about raw materials excepted), but it is still used mainly for random embedded stuff where there is a need for a memory module but the design is from a time where DDR3 chips are not available. An ubiquitous example are those DVD players from random Chinese brands that are based on Mediatek's designs from 2004(-ish).
This kind of crap is why I stopped buying from NewEgg years ago and don't buy anything expensive on Amazon anymore.
They got bought by that company that decided on quantity over quality and enshittified it by adding "market" sellers.
Order a Power supply. Realize it was from a market seller 2 minutes later. Attempt to cancel the purchase and get denied because "It has already shipped". Contact support to demand cancelling again, and they won't do it. Support the scammer instead. 6 Weeks later. Oh, the tracking number for the package got rerouted to some weird address in a city 500 miles away. Contact NewEgg and seller, because that is the NewEgg rule. Seller says "oopsie" and will fix. Wait 6 more weeks. Get a dropshipped charm bracelet in the mail. Tell NewEgg about it several times over that 3 months and even point to a post on reddit of over a dozen other customers caught up in this scam. Something NE They make me mail them the charm. 2 weeks later, finally get the refund.
Scammy companies helping scammy companies.
I don't buy anything that expensive on Amazon because of their support of things like this. I drive the hour and a half to Microcenter and even there, I pop open the boxes right in front of them at the service counter.
It's simple: You should never buy anything from Amazon unless the buyer is recognized or trusted. The definition of "recognized or trusted" is up to you, of course, Amazon will not really help mush with this. I try to filter for major brands or brands that I have purchased from in the past. Sold and shipped-by Amazon also applies.
If you pick "I longer need this item" as the return reason, you are pretty much 100% guaranteed to get a full refund from amazon scammers in my experience. If you pick any reason suggesting the product is deficient, they'll fight you and waste your time, even if it's demonstrably true. Given that, I take the risk, it saves me money when the thing turns out to work.
As a consumer - I've had literally thousands of orders from Amazon over the years,with my total spend being north of £30k at this point. I've never had a single fake or even broken item - I think I had a prime delivery be late by one day, and when I contacted Amazon they just extended my prime by a month each time. With returns they usually just tell me to keep the item and refund me anyway.
Honestly, the whole "just buy from someone else" argument maybe would hold water if everyone else wasn't so incredibly shit at least here in the UK. Currys? It's a "buy an item, we will dispatch it at some point sometime, if you need to return it go through our chat where the agent will lie to you about your return options and then it will take a month to actually refund you".
Amazon is painless both in ordering and in customer service(in my experience, YMMV)
Unfortunately, your trusted buyer can also get scammed. And you might not even get your trusted buyer's stock; you might select a buyer, and get someone else's stock from a fulfillment center closer to you.
Yes, of course. This depends on the kind of product. If the inventory is comingled you don't really know what you are getting and from whom.
Context: My wife was selling products through Amazon about ten year ago, so we know quite a bit about the reality of being an Amazon seller. It should come as no surprise that she got out of there as soon as possible. Between the mafia-like competition you can encounter and Amazon's almost complete lack of interest in driving quality and honesty of their sellers, it just was not worth the pain and aggravation.
I've made it a habit to make single-take videos of any transaction/interaction worth more than I'm willing to eat the cost of. Along with buying a roll of tamper evident tape. Mailing in a warranty claim? Document it's condition and problems on video and seal it up in my car then hand it over to FedEx in a single take. Amazon orders? Start the video with the box still sealed and showing the shipping label, then open and document condition and serials.
It's super low effort these days, and the single take is (IMHO) more important than perfect framing or audio as long as identifying details are legible at some point.
TFA final paragraph:
"While recording an unboxing can help document the condition of a product, such evidence is not guaranteed to resolve disputes with retailers or payment providers."
The problem is holding the camera while opening the box with both hands.
Which is why I mentioned the framing doesn't have to be perfect. It'd help- But, perfection isn't required. Given how little effort it takes, and how much trouble it'll cause the other parties...
Maybe it's time for some laws that require customer-returned goods to be sold as used merchandise unless the merchant waives the right to dispute the 2nd customer's return for full refund.
I'm more impressed by the fact that there's still DDR2 going around. I know DDR3 is still alive and well, even manufactured(I myself noticed the appearance of new DDR3 kits, which is weird); but didn't knew DDR2 was still in stock. I'm assuming industrial/embedded applications still use it for obvious reasons, but I have to wonder to what degree DDR2 kits are being produced.
Surprisingly by boatloads by Chinese manufacturers. Nothing really shady about it (standard concerns about raw materials excepted), but it is still used mainly for random embedded stuff where there is a need for a memory module but the design is from a time where DDR3 chips are not available. An ubiquitous example are those DVD players from random Chinese brands that are based on Mediatek's designs from 2004(-ish).
> Alongside them was a thin metal ballast plate that appears to have been included to replicate the expected weight of a genuine kit.
Do newer RAM chips actually weigh more?
Gamer RAM has heat spreaders now but back in the DDR2 days it didn't.
This kind of crap is why I stopped buying from NewEgg years ago and don't buy anything expensive on Amazon anymore.
They got bought by that company that decided on quantity over quality and enshittified it by adding "market" sellers.
Order a Power supply. Realize it was from a market seller 2 minutes later. Attempt to cancel the purchase and get denied because "It has already shipped". Contact support to demand cancelling again, and they won't do it. Support the scammer instead. 6 Weeks later. Oh, the tracking number for the package got rerouted to some weird address in a city 500 miles away. Contact NewEgg and seller, because that is the NewEgg rule. Seller says "oopsie" and will fix. Wait 6 more weeks. Get a dropshipped charm bracelet in the mail. Tell NewEgg about it several times over that 3 months and even point to a post on reddit of over a dozen other customers caught up in this scam. Something NE They make me mail them the charm. 2 weeks later, finally get the refund.
Scammy companies helping scammy companies.
I don't buy anything that expensive on Amazon because of their support of things like this. I drive the hour and a half to Microcenter and even there, I pop open the boxes right in front of them at the service counter.
It's simple: You should never buy anything from Amazon unless the buyer is recognized or trusted. The definition of "recognized or trusted" is up to you, of course, Amazon will not really help mush with this. I try to filter for major brands or brands that I have purchased from in the past. Sold and shipped-by Amazon also applies.
If you pick "I longer need this item" as the return reason, you are pretty much 100% guaranteed to get a full refund from amazon scammers in my experience. If you pick any reason suggesting the product is deficient, they'll fight you and waste your time, even if it's demonstrably true. Given that, I take the risk, it saves me money when the thing turns out to work.
> If you pick any reason suggesting the product is deficient, they'll fight you and waste your time, even if it's demonstrably true.
Presumably because if those returns were processed, it would give Amazon cause to take action against them.
Exactly. If amazon wants buyers to actually report scammers, they need to make it easier. I gave up on it long ago, it's not worth my time.
Don't buy anything from amazon at all, and don't use their services either.
They have 0 quality control, and at a professional level are a complete pain in the ass to work with.
As a consumer - I've had literally thousands of orders from Amazon over the years,with my total spend being north of £30k at this point. I've never had a single fake or even broken item - I think I had a prime delivery be late by one day, and when I contacted Amazon they just extended my prime by a month each time. With returns they usually just tell me to keep the item and refund me anyway.
Honestly, the whole "just buy from someone else" argument maybe would hold water if everyone else wasn't so incredibly shit at least here in the UK. Currys? It's a "buy an item, we will dispatch it at some point sometime, if you need to return it go through our chat where the agent will lie to you about your return options and then it will take a month to actually refund you".
Amazon is painless both in ordering and in customer service(in my experience, YMMV)
The plural of anecdote is not data.
Amazon is the second largest retailer in the world, 250 billion dollars of revenue is a lot of anecdotes and IMHO does kinda add up to being data.
Obviously correct, but I assumed that OP was also talking from experience.
Unfortunately, your trusted buyer can also get scammed. And you might not even get your trusted buyer's stock; you might select a buyer, and get someone else's stock from a fulfillment center closer to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5ZmGDW43g0?t=15m30s
Yes, of course. This depends on the kind of product. If the inventory is comingled you don't really know what you are getting and from whom.
Context: My wife was selling products through Amazon about ten year ago, so we know quite a bit about the reality of being an Amazon seller. It should come as no surprise that she got out of there as soon as possible. Between the mafia-like competition you can encounter and Amazon's almost complete lack of interest in driving quality and honesty of their sellers, it just was not worth the pain and aggravation.