Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/ruined-my-life-after-going-all-in-on-amazon-a-merchant-says-he-lost-everything-20201028-p5697l.html

by shortweb3 • 6 years ago

505 348 6 years ago

smh.com.au

crb002• 6 years ago

File a complaint with the Iowa AG Consumer Protection https://www.iowaattorneygeneral.gov/about-us/divisions/consu... Possible lien on that new massive Bondurant warehouse will get their attention.

vorpalhex2• 6 years ago

So he had $1.5m in merchandise that was totally authentic, sent it all to Amazon and yet couldn't reclaim it? And he has no insurance on literally a million and a half of clothing?

How did he go from holding $1.5M of merch for over a year to being homeless and having to couch surf?

So, I had this $2M bridge up in Wisconsin, but Elon Musk took it out with a cybertruck one night after a few too many mimosas and...

Johnny5554• 6 years ago

Is there any insurance that would pay for merchandise that Amazon destroyed because they determined that it's fake? Why would the insurance company take his side when they could just side with Amazon and save $1.5M?

He can produce invoices that show he bought $1.5M of legit merchandise, but how can he prove that what he sent to Amazon was not fake?

vorpalhex2• 6 years ago

He can show invoices that are over a year old. Which means that for at least a year, he held _at least_ two cargo containers of high end clothing somewhere before selling them in bulk on Amazon. He has no warehouses, no physical storefront, nothing - that doesn't strike you as strange for someone with 1.5M of merchandise?

That is a _ton_ of merchandise both in terms of physical bulk and space, and in cost to have sitting around. Unless he's doing tens of millions of sales a year, that is way too much inventory to have at rest.

Insurance could tell you nothing was ever covered and never spend a dime - but insurance is a heavily audited industry and at the very least they would do an investigation. Keep in mind, it's not like Amazon got in a few cargo containers of high end clothing and fed them into a shredder - they kept in a warehouse and sold it and got enough complaints about them not being genuine articles that they de-shelved them from inventory, gave him 30 days to retrieve them and only then after his refusal had them destroyed.

For what it's worth, removing THAT much merchandising from shelving is a serious labor and time sink. You don't do that because you got one or two complaints about crushed boxes or off sizes.

Which think of this in reverse - if Amazon told you that you needed to retrieve your $1.5M of merchandise in 30 days or it would be destroyed, would you just roll the dice on that? Even if you can't afford freight, you'd still go haul as much as you can in whatever you drive and hock it on the corner.

The only reason you would let Amazon bulk destroy merchandise (with significant notice and several reminders from them, after signing a contract that pre-dictates out the terms of rejected merchandise), the only reason you would let merchandise sit like that, is if it has no significant value. When the cost of freight exceeds the cost of goods - then yeah, don't freight it and absorb the loss because it's less damage.

bawolff4• 6 years ago

Why would insurance ever side with a person making a claim? It would be more cost effective to always deny claims regardless of legitimacy

Answer: Because contracts and if the insurer breaches them courts get involved and penalties get handed out.

numpad0• 6 years ago

Another Marketplace seller blamed for commingled fakes case?

Johnny5554• 6 years ago

If his story is true, it doesn't even sound like Amazon had any evidence that his merchandise was fake. One person didn't like the fit and suggested that it could be fake, another complained about a damaged box and again thought that meant it was fake, and the other two didn't like the way it was packed.

For all we know, the complaints were from a competitor that knew exactly what would happen.

dsabanin• 6 years ago

Amazon could've just bought some and checked it?

shajznnckfke5• 6 years ago

I don’t see any accusation that comingling is the cause of the problem. The seller didn’t deny that he sent the items with the quality complaints. The problem, according to Amazon, is the seller has dodgy receipts. Or according to the seller, the problem is Amazon is too hard on alleged counterfeiters.

justusw2• 6 years ago

I have had the issue myself, receiving the wrong article when buying through FBA. And the only option Amazon gives you is to return the article, instead of allowing you to receive the “correct” version of the article instead.

hevelvarik• 6 years ago

This is a case for the courts. The article is completely one sided, and there’s no way to know whether or not some or much or most of the merchandise was counterfeit.

He does admit to ignoring up to 11 notices that his inventory would be destroyed if left unclaimed. He mentions conflicting dates for the notices but we’ve no way of knowing to make of that.

I don’t know what to say other that I read the piece with some interest and for all know it’s a work of fiction, but heh I clicked.

justusw2• 6 years ago

Don’t forget that sellers agree to an arbitration clause, so a legal recourse in court is impossible.

alliao• 6 years ago

have always wanted to know, how watertight are those clauses? surely legal recourse is some sort of right that'd trump a lot of these type of boiler plate contracts?

yeneek2• 6 years ago

I worked for company that helps sellers with selling on Amazon. I don't know, if the story is true, but it's totally consistent with my experience how Amazon treats sellers.

ikeboy8• 6 years ago

He tried to remove the inventory and wasn't allowed to.

When he tried to submit an inventory removal order through Amazon's web portal, it wouldn't let him.

a254613e• 6 years ago

That sentence is so important, yet lacking so many details.

Did he try to submit the removal order, like one day before, or way earlier? Did he try it only once? Did he communicate this to amazon? He was obviously in contact with them for a longer period, did he mention that he can't get the removal order submitted?

CobrastanJorji• 6 years ago

For such a one-sided article, I came down rather on the other side. A dozen warnings that he needed to claim his stuff before it was destroyed. The evidence of authenticity was illegible. At least four customers complained that the merchandise was not authentic. If he had paid to have his stuff returned, he'd only be out the cost of shipping whatever hadn't been sold. And this is just what I learned from an article from HIS point of view.

xiphias2• 6 years ago

Also having inventory of brand new original fashion items that's older than 365 days sounds strange, as fashion changes every year, and the value of goods go down over time.

user5994461• 6 years ago

I don't know where you read these things you talk about.

1) He said he couldn't fill a request to have his stuff sent back because the form was broken. It's very believable if you ever used the amazon seller tool.

2) He submitted the evidence of authenticity and it was rejected for being older than 365 days. It shouldn't be a problem, clothes have a longer shelf life than one year.

3) Customers complain about products being unauthentic all the time, easy way to get a refund and to vent. It's the most generic 0 star review that can come up possibly from a competitor trying to damage your business. You can't sell a thousand items without getting a few bad reviews.

Lazare2• 6 years ago

At least four customers complained that the merchandise was not authentic.

According to the article, one customer said the item didn't fit, and wondered if it might be a knock-off, but they didn't outright claim it was. And the other three complained about packaging. Depending on how you score it that's ZERO customers complaining, or maybe one at most.

The evidence of authenticity was illegible. [...] And this is just what I learned from an article from HIS point of view.

That was Amazon's claim; he claimed he sent in the correct, authentic, legible invoices, and they were rejected out of hand because Amazon refused to accept invoices dated in the year the merchandise was purchased, and instead wanted invoices dated in a different incorrect year.

If he had paid to have his stuff returned

He claimed he tried at one point and the web portal rejected it.

Obviously, I don't know who's right here, and some of his claims are a bit confusing. And he does admit to ignoring some notices. Still, if you're evaluating his story as he presents it, taking his claims at face value, then: His evidence was not illegible, no (or at most one) customer alleged fake items, and he did make an effort to retrieve the merchandise.

NoOneNew• 6 years ago

I'm in the same boat. I'm one of the first to pitchfork against Amazon... but this feels like we're not getting enough info to have a fair opinion. But even the article makes it seem like the guy had lots of opportunities to fix this issue, but screwed it up. Now, did he bumble it because it's a bureaucratic nightmare maze? Is he lazy and doesn't do stuff on time or correctly? Was it all actually knock-offs and he's full of shit?

I can tell you this, no one from HN can solve this mystery from their chairs. So, as much as I don't like any FAANG, this isn't clear cut against Amazon.

robryan4• 6 years ago

Sounds like the inventory is fine. The issue with fake claims on Amazon is that they don’t seem to be percentage based, so whether you sell 1000 items or 100k items the 4 fake claims might still get you suspended.

They will also reject invoices based on them not being in the exact format they are expecting. So a completely legitimate invoice that is missing an address/ phone number/ has a different entity could be rejected.

The whole thing is basically dangling a carrot, there is a massive customer base on offer, but in the end unless you fit a very specific profile as an authorised seller with solid local deals you are probably wasting your time.

Closi• 6 years ago

Yep, I know a company that sold over $1m in sales, and their account got banned overnight because someone asked if they sold custom products on a message on Amazon, and a company support rep replied that they could but not on Amazon and directed them to their eBay site.

They got insta-banned and delisted because Amazon does automatic scans of messages, and the Amazon AI determined that directing users away from Amazon was a severe ToS breach.

1 message out of the thousands that they send mentioned eBay, and suddenly that's automatic delisting with no way to appeal.

ProAm2• 6 years ago

Since when does Amazon care if they sell counterfeit goods (if they even were)?

totalZero4• 6 years ago

Among other reasons, one motivator for Amazon to solve this problem is the fact that the present administration has brought Amazon's problem with counterfeiting front and center into the public debate about China. Like him or not, Peter Navarro has repeatedly talked about Amazon and counterfeit goods in media appearances over the course of the past few years.

yeneek2• 6 years ago

Selling on Amazon is really hard. Just one fake product claim from a customer can make your seller account blocked. And because customer is always right, seller has to prove product validity.

bawolff4• 6 years ago

Im ok with the onus being on the seller to prove they are selling real goods.

haasted• 6 years ago

Quite the attack vector for competitors, though.

ethanwillis6• 6 years ago

  The merchants must navigate a largely automated, 
  guilty-until-proven-innocent process in which Amazon 
  serves as judge and jury. Their emails and calls can go 
  unanswered, or Amazon's replies are incomprehensible, 
  making sellers suspect they're at the mercy of 
  algorithms with little human oversight.

This is something our modern society was and is not ready for. Bureaucracy and the bureaucrats that administered it is a nightmare that society has known about and dealt with for a long time. But this is fully automated bureaucracy. Except instead of having well known rules or human bureaucrats we can confront.. we're now effectively at the mercy of a dice roll in the worst case. And no one can even confirm if the dice are even fair dice. In the best case you get to deal with a robot that can't even understand what you're saying.

grishka• 6 years ago

Being an Android developer is a similar experience. If your app gets removed from Google Play, even if it's clearly by mistake, good luck having it reinstated. Unless you know a googler or two. Then it's a breeze. Going through official channels you'll be hitting a wall.

damian2000• 6 years ago

Which is a shame because the platform as a developer is awesome. I've developed for both iOS and Android and will always favour Android. But Apple seem to have more consistent and possibly better customer service compared to Google, especially when it comes to the ability to get a knowledgeable answer after failing an app review.

njharman• 6 years ago

The movie “Brazil” comes to mind.

teraflop• 6 years ago

For an even earlier cautionary tale about computerized bureaucracies, check out "Computers Don't Argue" (1965) by Gordon Dickson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_Don%27t_Argue

p1necone• 6 years ago

I've had a similar experience with Uber customer support. Their navigation thinks there's access to my house from a road that isn't actually connected, so delivery drivers consistently go the wrong way. But emailing customer support just got me seemingly automated responses saying "we're sorry the location pin was not in the right place" which isn't even the problem that I'm having.

asdff2• 6 years ago

That's just how customer support is these days it seems. Getting a hold of an actual human capable of doing the most mundane request other than linking to 'help' articles you've already read 10 times is impossible. What happened to emailing support and getting a reply prepared to move heaven and earth to satisfy you as a customer?

snthd• 6 years ago

Uber might be using OSM Data, so you could try fixing it there.

SturgeonsLaw• 6 years ago

Same situation here. I've submitted screenshots and details to Uber support, nothing has changed.

Now I send a text to each driver, watch the map like a hawk and call them if it looks like they're going the wrong way. Works most of the time.

When it doesn't, I get refunds, Uber can keep eating those costs until they fix their routing.

I've also started using their competitors more often, and bypassing these apps entirely and ordering directly from restaurants that employ their own drivers.

scruffyherder• 6 years ago

I got dropped off on the top of a mountain by mistake. The driver gave up on trying to follow the ap and he insisted that the mountain was the address. Naturally he gave me a 1* because I wasn’t happy about being kicked out on a mountain top. Uber never replied to my attempt at disputing any of it.

The only thing worse than the arbitrary thing is the double rating. I’m forced to give 5* to shit service.

It’s annoying

friendlybus• 6 years ago

It looks inevitable that the law will have to get involved for western users of the big platforms. I don't know if that will fly in the US. Tolerating life & death on the complete lack of structure in tech decision making has to come to an end eventually, at least on particular financial outcomes.

gulfie• 6 years ago

This is _exactly_ the situation that this society came up with a new agreement to avoid. E.g. Presumption of innocence, and Habeas corpus to mention two.

ethanwillis6• 6 years ago

I completely agree. I think the only difference is that we were under the assumption we would be dealing with 1. Governments 2. People

m4632• 6 years ago

A friend of mine worked for a company whose operators answered late night tv infomercials. They had humans answering the phone, but everything about it was scripted and highly optimized. Purchasing the thing was very very easy, but after that there was an upsell gauntlet to get through before hanging up. "This is rediculous, I don't want to hear about this" "But sir, people call back after they've missed these offers etc..." The ONLY method to escape it was to say "I will cancel my order". Additionally the call center employees would be fired if they deviated from the script.

Given that, it's quite easy to see why it's hard to find a customer service phone number or any other option except the one they want you to find.

Personally the one that annoyed me was amazon customer service to find "Package says delivered but not received". Searching for this finds lots of variants in the quick-search bar, and a "helpful" faq that says something like "ask a neighbor" or "look under the porch", but no way to contact customer service about it despite forms for hundreds of other meaningless interactions.

birdsbirdsbirds• 6 years ago

Does Jeff Bezos know, or is he shielded from bad customer experience like Mao, who saw a country full of rice fields along the rail tracks when he travelled the country? [1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/02/world/the-tyrant-mao-as-t...

jiveturkey2• 6 years ago

huh. i'm surprised at this because it's very very easy to contact amazon customer service either via chat or phone. i don't know the specifics of it because whenever i need to do so it takes me approx 2-3 clicks through a very obvious path.

Areading3143• 6 years ago

The problem is not the automation, the problem is that a single authority has a complete monopoly on certain aspects of the e-commerce market. Full credit to Bezos and Amazon for their incredible execution in achieving this. However, monopolies are an example of market failure, and in this case, also an example of an authority able to act as judge + jury where the affected parties have no realistic recourse, while being accountable to no-one. This is why we need government to intervene and ensure competition is restored on both the buyer + seller sides in e-commerce.

bgorman• 6 years ago

How is Amazon a monopoly when customers can easily purchase an item from eBay, Walmart, Target, Aliexpress, and many others.

Amazon is often the most expensive option for me.

aeternum• 6 years ago

Why does it matter that this happened with Amazon? It could have also happened with ebay, walmart, or a local uncle bob's discount closet shop.

We have a judicial system to deal with issues like this which generally handles things fairly regardless of the size of each party.

kortilla5• 6 years ago

However, monopolies are an example of market failure

No they are not. It’s only considered a failure when the position is abused to prevent competition.

You can have a monopoly situation where competition just doesn’t bother to enter because the monopoly holder hasn’t abused the situation to make entering the market attractive.

Additionally, the government frequently grants monopolies because they don’t really want to see market competition due to the disruptive nature of the industry (e.g. utilities).

Monopolies are just a specific market condition that implies certain pricing dynamics and potential competitor strategies. They are not a failure in themselves and can frequently be a huge driver of competition. Nothing attracts a competitor like a stodgy monopoly with a thick margin and no penchant for innovation.

einpoklum4• 6 years ago

However, monopolies are an example of market failure

No they aren't. Markets tend towards monopoly, or at least an oligopoly. Market 'equilibrium' where prices are 'right' is an ideological fantasy.

That said - this is an example of how the legitimacy for private commercial corporations being run dictatorially based on formal property ownership kind of blows up in people's faces when such corporations grow to the level of encompassing a significant part of some sector of the economy, or a significant part of social interaction altogether.

As for government intervention - the government is involved: Its basic role is to set this up and support it. Government checks corporate/capitalist power mostly in the face of very strong public pressure and the threat of uprisings / mass strikes / violent redistribution etc.

bsder• 6 years ago

This is simply Kafka's "The Trial" at scale.

This will continue until these companies start losing large monetary value cases in court.

bleepblorp5• 6 years ago

Large businesses in America, including Amazon, require their customers and suppliers to waive their right to sue. Amazon et el cannot be held accountable through the legal system.

These abuses will continue unless there is enough of a sea change in Washington that protecting free markets becomes more of a priority than protecting the freedom of large businesses to exploit people.

That will happen no sooner than the day Amazon receives an order for ice skates from the hotter half of the Christian afterlife.

nicbou• 6 years ago

This is unlikely. They save a lot of money this way, and they own a sufficiently large part of the market. Unless the problem gets outrageously bad, the cost won't be measurable.

rossjudson2• 6 years ago

Because the end of the path here for Amazon is destruction of the inventory in question, I guess we'll never really know what's real or not. There's nothing to be inspected...which seems rather problematic, right? In criminal cases people don't run around destroying evidence. That's viewed rather negatively by judges.

So here we have Amazon destroying the inventory in question. No way to have even a partial sample of that inventory still available for checking? No laws that regulate how and when Amazon can destroy inventory, particularly in the presence of mandatory arbitration? No checks and balances on that process at all?

xondono• 6 years ago

In any case it could be very hard to prove that the items are fake by inspection, it’s mostly a fight about distribution and the supply channel.

stjohnswarts3• 6 years ago

Amazon could fix this. This isn't an all or nothing "digital bad" "bureaucrats bad" situation. It's Amazon and one complaint. This guy should find a good lawyer and take them to court. He had proof that his stuff was not counterfit. Adding some arbitrary "you have to have a receipt no more than 365 days old" is ridiculous. Amazon just doesn't care. Even for a 1.5 million dollars worth of stock. What are the chances that they give a hoot about the average guy on the street? It seems to me like they could do something sensible like "we have 4 complaints out of 10000 orders, chances are these are just peeved customers, tell him make them whole". That seems like just basic logic to me.

ethanwillis6• 6 years ago

  Amazon just doesn't care.

This is exactly it. They don't have to care, and they've outsourced all of their caring to a robotic bureaucrat. Without a human in the loop, like yourself, to realize the absurdity in edge cases you get the worst possible version of bureaucracy. And I wouldn't say it's an all or nothing situation either that "digital bad" or "bureaucracy bad". Bureaucracy can be good, it helps streamline certain processes "at scale." Digital can also obviously be good.

The PROBLEM is when you marry these things together without proper controls in place by society. We haven't completely thought through the ramifications.

pjc502• 6 years ago

According to the article he _is_ suing them. It's just that takes years to resolve cases.

AussieWog9311• 6 years ago

Just to give another perspective, I run a couple of small businesses with my wife and we handle support ourselves.

This is an absolute pleasure for our USB oscilloscope business - intelligent, reasonable customers ask for help with a problem they have, we help them solve it and both parties move on with our lives.

Our other business - dealing in retro video games, is an absolute nightmare. Almost all support questions we field come from people who have no intention of solving a problem. Most are just anxious people who need a little bit of reassurance, but plenty expect us to do pointless busywork, want to vent emotionally at someone who can't fight back, or just generally want to smear shit all over the walls because they can. Either way, because they don't want to solve a problem, they just keep up eating up your support time and emotional energy in an extended loop for no gain - we're talking upwards of 80% of your support resources if you let these people have their way.

Having to deal regularly with the type of person that the average HN reader would never come across in their lifetime, I can understand why organisations like Amazon would set up these bureaucratic support "walls" and/or outsource all support to a Filipino call centre staffed by people that don't even know what Amazon is. The systems are designed to make getting support hard, because most people contacting consumer support literally don't even have a problem that good support staff could solve.

In this instance, they've clearly made an error in requiring the user to navigate an automated system when the dollar value is in the _millions_, and I understand why the average HN user would be pissed off by a system like this, but I don't think the solution to the problem is as simple as "provide good, human support to everyone" - it creates as many problems as it solves.

Narkov2• 6 years ago

Got a link for the USB oscilloscope?

edude03• 6 years ago

I'm really curious what sort of support the retro video game business needs. My (clearly naive) assumption is that it would be as simple as sending them the cartridge and telling them to have a great day, but if you're meeting so many seemingly unpleasant people it seems to be a lot more than that.

Could you share more about the sort of issues you face?

Benjamin_Dobell• 6 years ago

Whilst dealing with unsavoury people obviously isn't ideal, and I certainly don't envy your position. Is this not just the cost of doing business in that specific industry?

Typically you'd just raise your prices to factor in support costs. You'd have different margins for each industry.

Realistically, the reason you're unable to raise your prices is because you're stuck competing with companies that simply don't offer customer service themselves, and hence would undercut you.

If there was an appropriate amount of public outrage (and ideally legal repercussions) toward businesses not offering sufficient customer support, then your competitors would also have to increase their prices. You'd be no worse off, and general customer satisfaction would improve across the board.

wombatmobile• 6 years ago

I can understand why organisations like Amazon would set up these bureaucratic support "walls" and/or outsource all support to a Filipino call centre staffed by people that don't even know what Amazon is. The systems are designed to make getting support hard, because most people contacting consumer support literally don't even have a problem that good support staff could solve.

That doesn't make sense. You are in favour of systemic obfuscation and low quality support to discourage people who don't have problems from taking up the time of support staff? Even though the barriers make life hell for people with legitimate problems like the guy whose $1.5m inventory was destroyed?

Wouldn't it be better to handle both types of cases properly?

Instead of spending "hours with mentally ill people" (your terminology), why not perfect the art of triage and funnel people without problems appropriately?

If that's an unrealistic expectation, could you provide more detail about how it is unavoidable to spend "hours with mentally ill people"? You already provided details, but I can't see how you end up losing so many hours! There are techniques for handling these cases, my friend.

Your oscilloscope product looks fantastic, and the price and terms you sell it for tells me you are an interesting and valuable human being. I'm just pressing you about the other side of your story because I feel there might be a better way to handle the difficult cases that you somehow aren't aware of because you are too fundamentally helpful and an undiscriminatingly good guy. Or something.

Hokusai3• 6 years ago

Having to deal regularly with the type of person that the average HN reader would never come across in their lifetime, I can understand why organisations like Amazon would set up these bureaucratic support "walls" and/or outsource all support to a Filipino call centre staffed by people that don't even know what Amazon is. The systems are designed to make getting support hard, because most people contacting consumer support literally don't even have a problem that good support staff could solve.

Let's screw people with real concerns and real business so Amazon can save money on customer support seems a horrific justification. That is basically making all small businesses guilty of wasting Amazon time and burden the small businesses with the burden of proving that they are not.

How do you know so well the internal statistics for Amazon if you are just a seller? Cannot your kind interpretation also be based in wrong assumptions?

Who has more resources to deal with this situation Amazon or the little business? Amazon does this bullshit because it has power to abuse, not because it is a reasonable relationship with its providers.

varispeed3• 6 years ago

I think the main problem is the stigma of using the mental health services, lack of access to therapists and generally useful things like mindfulness, some basic CBT principles are not being taught in schools. Many people view companies customer support as their "safe space" where they can vent their frustrations and problems and these days a valuable customer service operator needs to have training in psychotherapy, to know how to defuse people and steer them to having a mindset where they could feel comfortable to seek help.

moksly• 6 years ago

This might surprise you, but companies don’t really care that their employees have to deal with shitty customers. It’s not necessarily that they don’t care about their employees, they might even have strategies and support staff to help with the stress, but they don’t care in a way that outsourcing it because of shitty customers ever plays in to the equation.

At enterprise size you automate your support to save money. Even outsourced a call Center is expensive, and Amazon’s shitty algorithmic support isn’t.

I know, because we do this in every enterprise sector, including the public sector. The “advantage” amazon have is that it doesn’t really cost them anything because they have a monopoly. In areas where they see actual competition, like in selling cloud to enterprise customers, they have excellent support. They didn’t always have this mind you, they used the same automated systems for years, until they realised just how many billions they were losing to Microsoft because Microsoft sells enterprise customers of a certain size a direct 24/7 phone line to Seattle if an issue is of high enough priority. Now, Amazon offers something similar.

mwexler• 6 years ago

Back in 2003, Seldon and Colvin wrote a pretty good book about Angel Customers and Demon Customers (http://geoffcolvin.com/books/angel-customers-demon-customers...) which examines many of these issues.

A bit of friction, if applied correctly, is not a terrible thing if an interaction's cost outweighs it's value. Getting the balance right is tricky but worth considering some alternatives to just "putting up with it".

After all, "sure, I'm selling at a loss but I'll make it up on volume!" is not sustainable for too long (unless you are a tech company... just kidding).

noir_lord2• 6 years ago

"provide good, human support to everyone" - it creates as many problems as it solves.

Agreed with all your points except they really should have some `if (claim > minForHumanAgent){ bypassAutomatedHandling(); }` logic for millions of dollars.

ashtonkem• 6 years ago

In many ways, YouTube content creators were the canary in the coal mine here with how the algorithm treated them, and Amazon sellers seem to be next. The worst case future of automation isn’t terminator, it’s just having the worst possible boss.

pydry• 6 years ago

Sounds like the movie Brazil.

brobdingnagians• 6 years ago

Kafka and Orwell were right. They might have understated their cases. I don't think people understood how tech could exaggerate and accentuate some of the worst in humanity and create massive centralisation which can create more and more stifling bureaucracy. At least before, you could be ignored by a bureaucrat, now it is a faceless, nameless, heartless system

derbOac2• 6 years ago

It's not bureaucracy, it's monopoly (or something so close to it to be functionally the same).

dakna• 6 years ago

But this is fully automated bureaucracy. Except instead of having well known rules or human bureaucrats we can confront

Reminds me of a novel that was written over 100 years ago:

The Trial (German: Der Process,[1] later Der Proceß, Der Prozeß and Der Prozess) is a novel written by Franz Kafka between 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously in 1925. One of his best-known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor to the reader.

InitialLastName• 6 years ago

There's a reason they call getting stuck in this sort of bureocracy "Kafkaesque"

jpcooper• 6 years ago

Orson Welles did a brilliant film adaptation of The Trial. Worth checking out.

mensetmanusman2• 6 years ago

Definitely watch the movie Brazil.

DenisM2• 6 years ago

Kind of like Brazil “dot com” then.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film)

disown• 6 years ago

Their emails and calls can go unanswered, or Amazon's replies are incomprehensible, making sellers suspect they're at the mercy of algorithms with little human oversight.

Only if you are the "little guy". You can be sure that amazon responds to big companies. If someone from Apple, Samsung, etc contacted amazon about something, do you really think they'll be tossed into the trashbin of the algorithm?

carlsborg• 6 years ago

How do sellers track down and get GTINs for this volume of apparel?

chaostheory• 6 years ago

“ The spokeswoman said Amazon repeatedly asked Govani to provide evidence that the products sold were authentic but that the invoices he sent were either illegible or didn't match the records of the brand owners.”

anakaine2• 6 years ago

But did they match the record of the wholesaler?

_-___________-_2• 6 years ago

A lot of higher-end brands receive records back from the wholesalers too, so they can a) have a paper trail to determine if products are counterfeit or not, and b) blur the distinction between "counterfeit" and "not sold through official channels" which helps prevent undercutting of the retail price.

robryan4• 6 years ago

May have been grey market goods, which is bound to be problematic on Amazon for branded high end fashion.

shajznnckfke5• 6 years ago

There are a lot of complaints about allegedly fake merchandise on Amazon and people asking for a crackdown. This is what the other side of that story looks like. The old solution of Amazon mostly ignoring the fakes and just compensating people who complain avoids this scenario.

lotsofpulp2• 6 years ago

The old solution of Amazon mostly ignoring the fakes and just compensating people who complain avoids this scenario.

Being a proper retailer and sourcing goods from reputable sources, performing quality control, and then reselling them to the public without the commingling nonsense also avoids this scenario.

shajznnckfke5• 6 years ago

What does comingling have to do with it? Apparently Amazon was able to destroy this seller’s merchandise specifically, so it doesn’t sound like there was a problem identifying it among commingled inventory. I’m getting the impression from the comments here that a lot of people just have an axe to grind about commingling even if there’s no clear connection to the issue at hand (people do seem to bring it up on all sorts of unrelated stories about Amazon).

didibus4• 6 years ago

Not really though, cause then as a small retailer, you still have no way to compete. Nobody is going to buy "real" Hugo Boss from some random fishy small website.

So Amazon is both a blessing and a curse to small retailers I feel.

stjohnswarts3• 6 years ago

They could bring in some common sense measures like "what is the ratio of complaints to total number of sales" and "did the seller get the chance to rectify the situation"

shajznnckfke5• 6 years ago

I’d expect that they are doing that. This story only quotes a few reviews, but we don’t know how many more customers complained through Amazon’s customer service system (customers are probably more likely to do a return than write a public review). Amazon likely has some threshold for when to initiate action against a seller based on this data.

yalogin• 6 years ago

Even if they are fake, destroying it is extreme. They should just levy fines or charges on the storage and hold on to it. Atleast not until the seller’s case is open with them. I don’t get how they could be so bad at this.

Google234• 6 years ago

Fakes should 100% be destroyed

FullyFunctional• 6 years ago

The issue is due process which is missing

josho• 6 years ago

If they are fakes then it’s fraud and the courts should get involved. But why would Amazon give the courts that power when they can just do whatever they want.

Judson• 6 years ago

Seems odd the reporter doesn’t verify the authenticity/quality of the submitted invoices.

Surely he could produce copies for the reporter?

_-___________-_2• 6 years ago

Not wanting to do so is probably the reason the article is not really about whether the products were genuine or not, but rather about Amazon's behaviour.

aschatten• 6 years ago

Regarding forced arbitration: isn‘t the party that forces arbitration by law required to pay for it and if they refuse, then it can be brought in court?

ikeboy8• 6 years ago

No, it depends on the rules of the particular arbitration group, which can be modified in the contract. For the AAA, the one bringing it pays an initial fee and the parties split the ongoing cost, but a final award can include costs going to one side if the arbitrator decides that.

ikeboy8• 6 years ago

Some quotes from the recent antitrust report from Congress. These were presumably verified and run by Amazon with opportunity to respond.

In another example, a third-party bookseller told Subcommittee staff that Amazon delisted 99% of his business’s inventory in September 2019.1674 The bookseller requested that Amazon return its products, which were stored in Amazon’s warehouses.1675 As of July 2020, Amazon had only returned a small fraction of the bookseller’s inventory and continued to charge him storage fees.1676 Amazon blocked the bookseller both from selling its products on its marketplace and retrieving its inventory, precluding the seller from trying to recover some of his losses by making sales through another, albeit lesser, channel.
During the Subcommittee’s sixth hearing, Mr. Bezos testified that Amazon “invest[s] hundreds of millions of dollars in systems” that police counterfeits.1823 However, Amazon’s approach appears to be ineffective, resulting in suspensions of many innocent, third-party sellers, with devastating effects on some sellers’ businesses.1824
One third-party seller told the Subcommittee that Amazon blocked some of her listings, citing a number of her products as “inauthentic.” 1827 The seller provided evidence to Amazon that, not only were her vendor’s products authentic, but Amazon actively sold the same products, sourced from the same vendor, through its first-party sales.1828 Despite elevating the issue to Amazon executives in July 2020, this issue has still not been resolved as of September 2020.

I've had very similar experiences, as I've discussed [0] here numerous times. I currently have an antitrust lawsuit against TP-Link [1] for making false counterfeit complaints against my Amazon account.

[0] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16562550/thimes-solutio...

einpoklum4• 6 years ago

Amazon invest[s] hundreds of millions of dollars in XYZ

On the scale of Amazon, and over multiple years that's like saying "we make a modest investment in XYZ but no more than that".

erik_seaberg• 6 years ago

I keep wondering why Amazon deals with guys like this instead of going to Calvin Klein’s wholesaler. He wouldn’t have better prices for legit merchandise, right?

ethanwillis6• 6 years ago

I think the idea is that it allows for Amazon to remove some strength from the official wholesaler side. If the wholesaler isn't the only source of goods they have less bargaining power. But at the end of the day the wholesaler has to sell to someone. Here are my thoughts on how this relationship could work to Amazon's advantage.

Think of this scenario:

  **Wholesaler**: Give us $10 per unit to list our 
  products on Amazon.

  **Amazon**: No, we'll pay $15 per unit from a 3rd 
  parties you sell to, but we won't tell you who.

  **Wholesaler**: Whatever, we'll still make sales at the 
  end of the day.

-- Some time passes --

  **Amazon**: Hey 3rd parties, if you store all of our stuff in the warehouse we'll be an awesome partner and increase your profits a bit!

  **3rd parties**: This is an awesome deal!

  *3rd Parties* who are unaware of the fight between the 
  wholesaler and Amazon sees their business going great 
  buys lots of stock from the wholesaler, sends it all to 
  Amazon, has a lot of their sales going through Amazon, 
  etc.

-- Some more time passes --

  **Amazon**: Hey Wholesaler, we have these 3rd parties 
  and 90% of their revenue is through our platform. You 
  are going to list your product on our platform at $5 
  per unit or we're going to either A: Delist the 
  products and kick the sellers off our platform and/or 
  B: We're going to use our business intelligence to 
  launch AmazonBasics™ versions of your product(s) and 
  throw your customers to the wolves while your demand 
  crumbles into to dust.

Today YOU are here. This is how they use their monopoly power to get an unfair benefit over the existing manufacturers/wholesalers. And they can use 3rd parties, small businesses, as a way to get leverage. These 3rd parties will go and get business loans, they'll build up their inventories, they provide an abstraction that's hard for the wholesalers to fully peer through to, etc. These 3rd parties are just a pawn in Amazon's games with wholesalers. For every dollar Amazon burns giving these 3rd parties more money than the wholesaler they're really just leveraging indirectly the credit of these 3rd parties and throwing them to the wolves if they don't get their way. Simply a pawn in a game for Amazon to consolidate more power.

gruez2• 6 years ago

or we're going to either A: Delist the products and kick the sellers off our platform

Is there evidence of this happening?

ikeboy8• 6 years ago

Selection and risk. In clothing especially, people can have hundreds of thousands of individuals skus and only a handful of units on most of them. Amazon doesn't want to stock the long tail.

In some areas people have unique deals and ways to get products cheaper than Amazon, or they pay more but accept a lower profit margin.

stjohnswarts3• 6 years ago

Amazon lets small businesses sell stuff on their web site and it's a big part of their business, why wouldn't they let middle men sell stuff on there? It also has served as portion of their business to point at and say "see we're fair and not a malicious monopoly, we let others use our platform to sell"

egonschiele• 6 years ago

In a much smaller example, I've been running Instagram ads for the last week. I've been trying to stop this ad for the last 5 days, but there's a bug in Instagram's UI that won't let me. I also can't get hold of an Instagram support person, or FB support. So I've kept spending money I don't want to spend.

FB and Instagram are core parts of society now as one of the major places to advertise. Lack of support of this kind seems like a really bad sign of a future where all you talk to are robots.

Also, average cost per conversion thru Instagram is $16 - $33. That is just a straight up toll that is paid to Facebook by every product that wants to advertise on their platform. I'm not saying it should be free, but surely they can afford better customer service.

discordance• 6 years ago

Amazon in Australia is not very good (yet). It's nothing like America or Japan, which have huge inventories and same or next day delivery.

This is a really really bad look for Amazon, which is in the process of expanding in Australia. Retailers are already nervous about their expansion plans here and this does further bad for their brand.

anakaine2• 6 years ago

I hope they fail here in Aus. Something something tall poppy syndrome.

Local retail first.

laurent92• 6 years ago

Retail prices are very high in Australia. I specifically remember only finding mountaineering carabineers, at $35 AUD at the time (23 EUR at the time) when they’re 8 euros in France. Same goes shoes, tshirts or kettles. Maybe the absence of large-chain competitors plays a role in cost of life being quite high.

Then again, as a country, Australia would be free in deciding that it should only be affordable to people who have the means to support their life, to maintain a high quality standard and retails.

athrun• 6 years ago

While the delivery times are not great yet because a lot of items come from abroad, their inventory is now pretty extensive.

In these COVID times, I've been buying quite a bit of bicycle gear & parts and in many cases I could find stuff on Amazon at lower prices than AU specialist online shops. It certainly was not the case just a couple months ago.

I reckon Prime Membership in AU is now very worth it as you get free international shipping for orders over $49, in addition to free expedited domestic shipping and Prime video access.

ObsoleteNerd• 6 years ago

I live in a rural city in Australia and get 95% of my Amazon deliveries within 2 days of buying it (whereas most other online stores take a week or so), and have also found their range to be pretty extensive. Sure it’s not as big as the US but we’re a fraction of the market so it’s to be expected. If anything I’m constantly dumbfounded by just how much random shit I find on Amazon here (and I exclusively shop with “From Australia Only” ticked).

I’ll always buy local if I can get it at a similar price, and I’ll even pay slightly more for local, but I’m not going to spend 25%+ more for an identical product and Amazon’s prices usually really are that much cheaper.

robryan4• 6 years ago

Amazon in Australia has had great delivery times during Covid as they run their own Uber like app for people delivering in their own cars.

lxe• 6 years ago

Hoping to have his account reinstated and continue selling on the site, Govani put off the decision. He received a total of 11 emails from Amazon each giving him different dates at which time his inventory would be destroyed if he hadn't removed it.
"After being unable to resolve the matter following several appeals as part of our dispute resolution process, we informed this seller six separate times that they needed to remove their inventory from our store by specific dates or it would be destroyed," she said. "The seller failed to request to remove their inventory by the dates provided."

I understand the core point here -- Amazon does have the upper hand when making deals with 3rd party sellers. But this is on the seller: he stored his inventory at Amazon, who decided they want to break their deal -- then he failed to move his inventory after what seems like a very lengthy communication, so they ended up doing what they said they would.

ikeboy8• 6 years ago

You left out the part where he tried to recall the inventory and it didn't work.

robryan4• 6 years ago

Sounds like he left it to the last minute though hoping that the account would be reinstated. Given the fees to remove he wouldn’t have wanted to until it seemed certain that he wasn’t getting the account back.

There are companies like shipbob now which are essentially as good as FBA from a 3PL perspective. Just miss out on Amazon pushing FBA stock over cheaper competing offers.

_y5hn• 6 years ago

The first mistake was dealing with amazon.

doodlebugging2• 6 years ago

I think the most interesting thing here is that Amazon can effectively claim a seller's property is fake based on reviews that everyone knows are regularly gamed. Then they can refuse access to the inventory and make the claim, without having to provide any evidence, that the questionable inventory has in fact been destroyed and not just passed on to another seller behind the scenes.

Accountability is entirely absent here. On the seller side and on Amazon's side.

The fact that Amazon had physical control of the questionable merchandise and had no obligation to retain a small sample that would be useful for the owner to defend himself on the challenge of it's authenticity or for Amazon to demonstrate that it was counterfeit is troubling.

I don't have a problem with counterfeit merchandise being identified as fake. I think it is extreme to destroy it all. The existence of eBay, Harbor Freight, Walmart, and Amazon are proof that people will pay for inferior products that look like the originals but are not as durable or beautiful. Once a counterfeit is identified it should be relabeled for sale at a discount since it is a fake. Just like art.

mjevans• 6 years ago

The cominging is also an issue. How does anyone know which supplier actually supplied X among Amazon's swath of caches? As a consumer, how do I know that when I buy from one FBA retailer on Amazon, the stock wasn't actually sourced by another that's also in that program?

The lack of transparency, the lack of the consumer (and presumably also retailers) being able to trace these products back to their source of manufacture is the issue. Keep the records that need to be kept, let tracking figure out if there are customers returning bad items, or fraudulent suppliers, or just a run of bad product that had a given lot code.

doodlebugging2• 6 years ago

Exactly. There has to be a way to put trust back into the system. Trust only works if each participant is accountable to the others. Asset tracking is supposed to be a solved problem but obviously it is a bad idea to hand your operations over to a third party whose agenda is likely different than your own.

analogdreams• 6 years ago

I fully believe this, and feel terrible for this seller, having had a similar experience.

For nearly a decade I ran a successful side hustle on Amazon from something that was just making beer money to making more than my day job (grew to $6.5 million/yr in sales at it's peak) and ran into the same thing earlier this summer.

Competitors attacking listings with false claims to try and shut your account, or listing down was a regular occurance(search for false 'used sold as new' -- the old version of this), and a headache that could be addressed although it often would take at least a weeks worth of effort and fights with the automated systems. This last series of attacks -- also counterfeit claims in my case -- no such luck -- the process has changed, the invoices from the same suppliers and letters of authorization from the manufacturer not accepted.

As it stands I am waiting on them to destroy roughly $120,000k in inventory that they refuse to release. Maybe more because their inventory tracking is garbage and it's not uncommon for items to be lost for months in their warehouse only to magically reappear... The tracking and inconsistent handling of returns is such a mess I can't exactly tell as anyone using FBA at volume just has to accept there will be variance between their known inventory and what Amazon says you have...

Fortunately, the market I targeted was heavily impacted by COVID so outside of a modest push associated with the back to school season I dodged a bullet as I essentially shut down on the 'buy side' when that all flared up and focused on getting back to cash.

I'm also lucky that I started scaling things back and looking to build out other channels about this time last year when they and WalMart started just automatically price matching one another, including prices from their respective 3rd party sellers, driving prices into the ground -- even below wholesale in some cases.

Amusingly, they have noticed I stopped sending new inventory in and some of their listings are now going unfilled and call at least once a week trying to get me back. (Amazon benefits tremendously from not tying up their cash on inventory and using 3rd party sellers to keep their stock.) When I tell them I'm willing to come back once they help me resolve this issues w/ a real person or even go and physically inspect the inventory they have impounded they go silent.

I thank them for helping to accelerate my long term financial goals, but to be honest, having been free of them for a few months now, the weight of not living in constant fear of jumping through their hoops has drastically improved my quality of life.

senojretep356• 6 years ago

No idea if they're any good but the junglescout marketplace has Seller Suspension services. Might be worth seeing if they can help with your inventory?

Another one I've heard of is Thompson & Holt - again not a recommendation but they may be able to help.

DoreenMichele12• 6 years ago

Yeah, you know, when people keep saying "You aren't as far from being homeless as you imagine you are" this is what they mean. Just because your life has not come unraveled overnight doesn't mean it can't for reasons beyond your control having nothing to do with personal virtues or lack thereof.

We really need to get universal health care in the US, among other things, to limit how far people can fall when something crazy happens. We are making it far too easy to fall and far too hard to come back from it and this is why we also see headlines about how society is coming unraveled and the like.

Please don't see this as some bizarre statistical outlier. Many homeless people were solidly middle class at one time and then things came apart and we are terrible about actively making it unnecessarily harder than it should be to get back on their feet.

bleepblorp5• 6 years ago

We're on the wrong side of the curve of history for something like that to happen in the US--or anywhere else where it isn't already in place. Social Darwinism has been the fashion for 40 years now, and it's not going anywhere.

DoreenMichele12• 6 years ago

Nothing takes the past away like the future. Nothing makes the darkness go like the light.

We can choose. We aren't actually compelled to just keep collectively being assholes because that's what we have currently.

rhn_mk14• 6 years ago

While fatal disasters can happen to anyone, this story isn't a case of getting in trouble regardless of personal virtues.

The man put all his eggs in one basket, creating a single point of failure. When that failure actually happened, he was hosed.

How would the story play out if he kept part of his inventory outside of the "Fulfilled by Amazon" system, or even outside of Amazon altogether? He wouldn't lose all of it, for one.

DoreenMichele12• 6 years ago

That amounts to Monday Morning Quarterbacking and blaming the victim.

The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket. -- Andrew Carnegie

When it works, it works. When it doesn't, it doesn't.

Paul Graham has said that a successful startup "does everything right and also wins the proverbial lottery" (or something along those lines). In other words, you can do everything right and something can happen out of the blue that no one predicted and you are screwed. If you actually get rich, you did everything right and luck was with you instead of against you.

bleepblorp5• 6 years ago

How many small retail businesses keep multiple bricks and mortar locations solely as a backup in case one location becomes unusable? How many retail businesses have two locations just in case the street outside their premises is permanently removed without notice by the owning municipality?

There is a limit to how much risk individuals and small businesses can realistically hedge against. Insurance can cover many risks, but it doesn't necessarily cover the impacts of legal, but arbitrary, abuses by business partners. Unpredictable, uninsurable, risks should not be offloaded onto people who are unable to withstand them.

tomp2• 6 years ago

I don't understand why people like you keep ranting about "universal healthcare" when obviously about 50% of your country so strongly opposes it that I think it's sooner that hell freezes than US getting social healthcare.

Instead, why don't you propose alternative solutions? E.g. in Switzerland, it's illegal for your healthcare to be paid by the company, and also it's obligatory to have healthcare insurance (probably the country pays for it if you're poor). That way, you establish a thriving and competitive health insurance market, forcefully eliminate all the benefits corporations get that are unavailable to individuals, and also align interests (because individuals will be in the middle of money flow, they'll have a vested interest in getting fairly- and transparently-priced health services). This would solve most of the problems US healthcare system has, while not triggering any anti-big-government sentiments.

DoreenMichele12• 6 years ago

I have, at times, suggested alternatives. Such as "We should start by expanding existing military benefits to cover all former military personnel."

I'm not ranting. Studies show that access to affordable health coverage helps prevent homelessness, for example. It's a known best practice that works in a number of developed countries.

I worked in insurance. I'm really not for an insurance-based universal coverage system.

wil4212• 6 years ago

You are looking at the healthcare coverage problem and you think it’s the only issue. Coverage is a big problem for some but not the biggest problem.

The biggest issue is arguably billing and pricing. You have no idea how much something will cost until it’s done. Medicade is paying over 80% more for prescription drugs than the EU.

In 2016 the U.S. spent 18% of its GDP on healthcare, whereas the next highest country (Switzerland) devoted 12% of its GDP to healthcare. The average amount spent on healthcare per person in comparable countries ($5,198) is half that of the U.S. ($10,348).
The average price per coronary bypass surgery in the U.S is 129% more than Switzerland’s next-highest average.
In 2014, the U.S. performed more MRI exams than most similarly wealthy countries at an average price of $1,119 per MRI. This was 42% more than the average price in the United Kingdom, 122% more than the average price in Switzerland, and 420% more than the average price in Australia.
While fewer appendectomies are performed on average in the United Kingdom compared to the U.S., the price per surgery in the U.S. is $15,930 – nearly double the price in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, in Australia and Switzerland, where far more appendectomies are performed on average than in comparable countries, the price of each surgery is even less, at only $3,814 in Australia and $6,040 in Switzerland.

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/how-do-...

graeme• 6 years ago

North america is rather insular. I live in canada. We basically only compare our health system to the us. And americans, if they compare to anyone at all, really only look at us or the uk. and we both have a version of medicare for all effectively.

I reckon the bulk of americans would be surprised to learn that europe does not have medicare for all as their solution or that the private sector has a substantial role.

A substantial amount of america’s dysfunction is due to entrenched tax code provisions (health insurance not being a taxable benefit, mortgage interest deduction, govt mortgage market insurance backstops, etc), and this is mostly invisible as the discourse focusses on government spending only.

thedufer• 6 years ago

I don't understand why people like you keep ranting about "universal healthcare" when obviously about 50% of your country so strongly opposes it that I think it's sooner that hell freezes than US getting social healthcare.

Maybe you mean something different than what I think of when I hear "universal healthcare" - could you share some data on that? The proposed Medicare For All policy, for example, is supported by around 70% of the US, including a (admittedly thin) majority of Republicans[1]. The problem isn't popular support, it's getting politicians to do what their constituents want.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-elec...

totalZero4• 6 years ago

The particular HN user to whom you refer as "people like you" has a unique experience with homelessness and that's why she has a unique perspective on some issues related to the topic. I used to butt heads with her on certain comment threads until I Googled her and understood that. I think it's kind of cool that someone in this forum can present those views in the way that she does.

Regarding healthcare, there is no shortage of alternative solutions proposed for the improvement of the American health insurance system. If one party's leaders close their eyes, put their fingers in their ears, and say "la la la la I can't hear you," that doesn't mean the rest of the country has failed to propose reasonable solutions.

theonemind• 6 years ago

Nothing will change with our healthcare system no matter what anyone proposes or thinks. Our healthcare problems are only a symptom of a bigger problem an this point. Our country is in the pocket of large moneyed interests and they essentially make our laws and at the least, can keep anything in their favor in place as the status quo. Our healthcare industry is huge and they won't let anything shift against their favor.

torgian• 6 years ago

Not just health care, but income as well.

Now, I live in a third world country, and have had cancer scares and other medical checkups that only cost me a few hundred US dollars vs. the tens of thousands that _would_ have cost me if I had lived in the US.

I'm probably never going back, partially because of this. I make a good living. Better than I would be back in the States.

DoreenMichele12• 6 years ago

If we had universal health care in the US and a sufficient supply of small, low cost housing in walkable neighborhoods, that would dramatically shrink how much one needs to simply subsist. If it were possible to make life work as a single adult with a part-time job, then people could pursue building their future as they see fit.

With healthcare, housing and transportation being the three biggest cost burdens in the US, taming those would go a long way towards letting "the 99 percent" enjoy life again and stop being prisoners of a broken system.

parliament32• 6 years ago

for reasons beyond your control

I mean... I sympathize with him, but "let's put 100% of our liquidity into inventory we then ship to some known-malicious third party and pray they don't fuck us like they have hundreds of others" is kinda a bad plan, don't you think?

baja_blast• 6 years ago

This is especially true for people who do not have a family to fallback on. Imagine what would happen if a brilliant engineer in his late 20s, single, but parents have passed away and had no family. Now imagine one day he gets in an accident and all a sudden he is no longer brilliant, loses his job and all a sudden he can't pay his medical expenses.

goi• 6 years ago

I generally use Walmart and Target for shopping online, but recently I decided to go with Amazon for something (pet supplies) that Walmart, Target, and Chewy didn't carry.

I created my account, and before I could put the order through, the account was locked for "suspicious activity," which resulted in a black hole of me repeatedly sending them the information they asked for (a recent credit card statement) and them responding with the same form letter email about being unable to verify ownership of the card. I even called, spoke to a human who said they would do something, but no, same form letter response.

Why do people use Amazon over walmart.com or target.com?

pengaru• 6 years ago

Because your experience is unusual. It's more inline with new accounts on twitter, not amazon, in my limited experience.

cameldrv• 6 years ago

I read the article with a more skeptical eye. It could be that he didn't request the items back in time because they were fake and not worth the price of the return shipping. Amazon's response was interesting:

"The spokeswoman said Amazon repeatedly asked Govani to provide evidence that the products sold were authentic but that the invoices he sent were either illegible or didn't match the records of the brand owners."

So he's got (by his own admission old), and by Amazon's telling, illegible, or the brand disclaims them. It made me think of that scene in Fargo where the car dealer is faxing forms with illegible VINs repeatedly to General Motors to keep his scam going.

derbOac2• 6 years ago

I don't put stock in claims of illegibility by Amazon.

I had a similar (but by comparison nearly inconsequential) experience with Amazon where they accused me of running a fraudulent account (for reasons that are still bewildering to me).

The whole experience was too kafkaesque to summarize here while on my phone, but at some point they demanded scans of something be faxed.

I sent it twice and both were rejected as illegible.

First, if amazon gave a damn about legibility they wouldn't be insisting on faxes.

Second, if I sent those faxes to a million people, I'm confident less than one percent of them would have said they were illegible.

"Illegible" is an excuse used by Amazon because it's in their control to decide, and is ambiguous enough and plausibily denialable enough in a legal sense that it protects them.

To me "illegibility" is just what Amazon gives as a reason when they don't want to give a reason. It's bureaucratic stonewalling.

rdiddly• 6 years ago

Is it just me or does it seem like he could've avoided it by answering their emails?

You gotta keep up with your emails.

stonogo• 6 years ago

Those emails are notifications from a no-reply address. The article outlines his other attempts to contact them, including the part where he was told there was "nothing else she could do" when he got a response.

radres• 6 years ago

Something something one basket.

ThePhysicist• 6 years ago

After reading the article I'm still a bit doubtful about the claims of the seller. I'm not saying that Amazon is in the right here or that he's lying about the merchandise being genuine, but some aspects of the story seem rather sketchy. He seems to have been in contact with Amazon for several months, and still he says he was unable to ask them to send his merchandise back to him? If he really ordered his merchandise from the brands directly, how was he not able to simply ask them for a confirmation or proper invoice copy and provide that to Amazon?

Fake merchandise seems to be rampant on Amazon, and clothes/apparel is a great target because the products are "low-tech" and it's hard for a regular customer to tell a genuine article apart from a fake one, so I can see why Amazon is very picky about these things here. Personally I try to never buy such brand items from third-party sellers on Amazon, as my trust in the items being original is quite low.

jariel• 6 years ago

Nothing sketchy here at all.

You seem to think that Amazon has reasonable processes for dealing with people? No, it's Kafka.

The complaints from a few people are easy: "I didn't like this, looks suspicious" is a very easy thing for a few customers to do.

Then the complaint and it's done.

These kinds of things can even happen in the regular court systems.

I don't know who's right and who's wrong but his claims are within reason.

LoSboccacc3• 6 years ago

we had a similar experience moving item off smaller platform. it's a constant barrage of counterfeit claims, even if we sold 1 (one) item, we racked up 10 complaints in a month.

it's a very profitable model to keep small competitors operations out of the system, so of course it's abused to hell and back.

cm2187• 6 years ago

Does Amazon still commingle inventories between sellers? How could they keep track of who provided a fake item?

seanhunter• 6 years ago

That doesn't seem very challenging to a logistics company and falls out of things they already have to do to keep track of their inventory. They probably do somethiing like barcode each thing when it comes in, record which barcode came from where. Scan each barcode when it gets dispatched out to a customer. Now you know the ultimate provider of the item that went to a particular customer.

eisbaar• 6 years ago

I don't understand the story. He was given several warnings that his stuff would be destroyed. Why is it Amazon's fault now?

LatteLazy• 6 years ago

Unpopular opinion: He was told multiple times to remove the inventory or it would be destroyed, in accordance with the contract he signed. He didn't remove the inventory.

JumpCrisscross2• 6 years ago

binding arbitration, which the House panel said gives Amazon the upper hand in disputes

What is the basis for this? I have gone to arbitration against a big company, and won. The arbitrators were all judges, and the only difference from my experience with court proceedings was the speed and cost.

spacemanmatt• 6 years ago

This is what monopoly abuse looks like.

nomorealoha• 6 years ago

What I don't understand is how someone can keep such poor proof of authenticity when hocking questionable products on Amazon? To pretend that illegible evidence of authenticity is okay is disingenuous. Everyone knows that Amazon is full of fakes. You would think scammers would try to have reasonable proof of authenticity so that when the banhammer comes swinging down, they'd have a saving grace.

Plus, the article is clickbait. I don't see how the man is homeless. He's not a rough sleeper. He's staying with family. To call him homeless is absurd, it cheapens the word and erodes our communal empathy.

slostar• 6 years ago

According to wikipedia definition he's 'secondary homeless'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness

"moving between temporary shelters, including houses of friends, family and emergency accommodation"

Actually reading the article, it doesn't mention him being homeless. So unless the original article was edited recently, I'd say the clickbait aspect comes from the HN thread title.

thrownaway954• 6 years ago

you know that whole, "never put all your eggs in one basket" saying... that's exactly what this dude did and he got burned.

while the situation sucks and amazon is a jerk for allowing this to happen... i don't feel bad for him. any business man knows not to do this, it's rule one in everything you do. it places you in the position where you aren't in charge meaning you don't have the upper hand. hard lesson for this dude to learn, but hopefully it prevents others from making the same mistake.

throw_m239339• 6 years ago

The issue has Amazon has taken over most of the ecommerce market. And it doesn't even make sense anymore for many to have their own ecommerce website. They are swallowing everything, except for recognizable brands. That's why brand recognition is so important even if you're small. pol But yes, Amazon "efficiency" and policies mostly favourable to the buyer killed the majority of the competition. They are even killing Ebay.

SteveSmith16384• 6 years ago

The crux of the problem seems to be "when merchants set up shop on Amazon, they waive their right to a day in court by agreeing to binding arbitration to resolve any disputes".

Is this even legal?

xn• 6 years ago

I don't understand why the journalist didn't contact the manufacturers to confirm that the products were authentic.

WarOnPrivacy• 6 years ago

"In order to ensure that customers can shop with confidence on Amazon, we take 'inauthentic' complaints seriously,"
That inventory was everything I had. Amazon ruined my life, and I did nothing wrong

This is what a perfect win for IP maximalists looks like - an automated ruination of lives, whenever IP seems to be disrespected.

oliwarner• 6 years ago

TL;DR: Forced arbitration is the worst.

Arbitration has its place, but I rather think there should be a "small claims" pecuniary limit on what can be considered eligible for this sort of clause. Anything over a few grand and you're talking about sums of money that can literally break people.

Seems somewhat inhumane to stifle recourse.

offtop5• 6 years ago

After being unable to resolve the matter following several appeals as part of our dispute resolution process, we informed this seller six separate times that they needed to remove their inventory from our store by specific dates or it would be destroyed," she said. "The seller failed to request to remove their inventory by the dates provided."

This seems more than fair. I'm not sure why he would put all his eggs in the Amazon basket though.

This very much reads like he wanted to keep selling on Amazon despite them trying to get him off the platform

jjoonathan• 6 years ago

He says he tried to submit a removal request and couldn't.

It's possible he's lying, but Amazon's jankiness is the stuff of legends, so it would be quite horrible to just assume that.

mattferderer• 6 years ago

This sounds like an awful position to put your business in even if the alternatives weren't better.

You're the middleman between manufacturers who view you as small & Amazon who would view you as small.

To me it seems like you're just asking to be squeezed out here & taking on a lot of risk. Am I missing something?

alangibson2• 6 years ago

US-based meta-comment: I see lots of talk in this thread about the problem of customers just wanting to shout at customer support. Maybe I've got election brain, but does anyone else think this is a symptom of the frustration people feel under a political system that no longer responds to the legitimate grievances of people on the bottom of the social and economic order.

rrdharan• 6 years ago

I don’t think Amazon customers posting here about their frustration are anywhere near the bottom of the social and economic order.

alangibson2• 6 years ago

I'm not referencing them. I'm referencing the discussions about perpetually irate, toxic customers.

totalZero4• 6 years ago

In my experience, the quality of customer support has degraded as the volume of sales in the online marketplace has increased. Recently, I had an Amazon customer service supervisor in India (or at least, everyone in the chain had an Indian name and they didn't seem to understand the difference between USPS and UPS) mouth off to me about an issue that eventually resulted in a refund and apology from someone in the USA.

I imagine it is even worse for sellers, because they aren't traditionally viewed as "customers" (thus they are not "always right") and many of them are indeed pushing counterfeit merchandise -- especially when it comes to shoes and apparel. I would not be surprised if Amazon characterizes seller support as a cost center, rather than a profit center.

Personally, when it comes to oft-counterfeited items, I view a brick-and-mortar presence as an indicator of greater trustworthiness. For me, the takeaway from the story about Mr. Govani's lost inventory is that (A) Amazon's seller support is poor, (B) Amazon has no idea how to counteract its problem with rampant counterfeiting, (C) Amazon doesn't see much value in treating sellers as customers of its platform, and (D) Mr. Govani moved way too much existing inventory to Amazon rather than transitioning gradually with freshly acquired product.

Hokusai3• 6 years ago

no longer responds to the legitimate grievances of people on the bottom of the social and economic order. Not only the political system. Amazon itself is doing this. Once customers reach a human being they are extremely frustrated. That is bad for the customer and the employee, only Amazon profits from the situation.

csense• 6 years ago

I hope the seller sues Amazon, and the judge awards attorney's fees and a damages multiplier due to the hardship imposed and the egregiousness of the violation.

LorenPechtel2• 6 years ago

Two things here:

1) Binding arbitration. The arbiters know which side of the bread is buttered, you have to have a pretty extreme case to win in binding arbitration. It should be nuked from orbit.

2) Comingled inventory--there's no mention of whether he used it or not. If it's used and someone else sends Amazon counterfeits that get sent to your customer you get blamed for the counterfeit. The only reason they can be sloppy like this is because of #1.

jiveturkey2• 6 years ago

'now homeless' should be removed from HN title. TFA doesn't state that and it's not in the title either.

highprofittrade• 6 years ago

Imagine if they treat AWS customers this way this doesn't seem like the most customer obsessed company

Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

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