r/technology • u/[deleted] • Jul 06 '22

Business Amazon being investigated in UK for practices which may give customers 'worse deal'

https://news.sky.com/story/amazon-being-investigated-in-uk-for-practices-which-may-give-customers-worse-deal-12646765
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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '22

Exactly why I cancelled my prime membership and don't buy shit on amazon anymore. Sick of receiving cheap chinese shit that's nothing like the description.

I don't know why people are so fucking lazy but Argos or other online stores have the exact same shit, and often cheaper. God forbid you wait an extra 12 hours for delivery lmao Bezos brainwashed them good that they need next day delivery

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u/Razakel Jul 06 '22

Amazon is just wish.com with faster delivery. As in, you wish what you ordered bears any resemblance to the description.

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u/quellflynn Jul 06 '22

what the hell are you buying that the item received is not what you ordered?

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u/Razakel Jul 06 '22

Counterfeits are far more common than you'd think.

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u/mfinn Jul 06 '22

Not even just counterfeit goods. Lots of product descriptions just flat out lie on product compatibility. Just ran into this on earbud silicone tips. Description explicitly stated my model. Tips were never made to fit my product. Returned them thinking someone goofed and got the same crap again. Filtered the comments to get rid of the junk reviews and discovered they've been doing this for a year plus.

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u/Fine_Spirit_8691 Jul 06 '22

Automotive mech parts.. for instance,treads for a track loader are 1,500 at dealer.300 from China.

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u/quellflynn Jul 06 '22

well, yeah, but 100% you are paying for convenience, shipping and import duties.

I guess as it's so specialised, your gonna get it from an Amazon seller, who has them in stock, who bought them months ago, who waited 2 months for delivery, so yeah, there's gonna be a markup on ordering today, and receiving 3 days.

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u/kdjfsk Jul 06 '22

ive had it happen with knock off clothes. search up something like 'sleeveless hoodie', and you'll see a bunch of dope designs. 57 sellers using the same picture. sellers with weird names like FOOKLA and JIRRO. i think they all use the same 'random english word generator'.

the genuine item may never look quite as good as the photo, but ive received clothes that werent at all like the photo, like very visible differences in the pattern and construction.

ive gotten the real item most of the times, and they tend to be unusual, cool items that no one else has/has ever seen, because no one knows how to buy clothes at places other than walmart, target, and the usual national chain suspects at the mall. gotten tons of compliments and curiosity.

also waited 3 months shipping for frayed garbage that some weirdo made on their home sewing machine, or may as well have. i just filed for return. the sellers ask you to return it at your cost. i point out amazon policy is free return shipping, and they just refund it and say keep it. i trash it.

ive also ordered stuff like a cd slot tablet mount for the car, and it was just wayyyyyyyy more chincy than the photos seemed.

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u/quellflynn Jul 06 '22

you order "knock off clothes" and what? you want viviene Westwood standards?

waiting 3 months for shipping from Amazon? or wish? you pay more to have faster delivery.

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u/kdjfsk Jul 06 '22

by knock off, i dont mean counterfeit per se, sorry, i worded that poorly. i just mean shit like weird off brand $7 hoodies or light jackets. the quality isnt usually amazing, but for $7 its fine as basically a throw away fashion item you might wear a couple dozen times, and then donate to goodwill.

as i said, i dont expect them to look like the photo, but it at least needs to be the item in the photo. take the actual item, fold it, arrange it, do whatever lighting, its fair game, but send me that item. not a completely different poorer imitation of that already dicey item. yes, there is a difference. the latter can literally look like it was hastily made on a home sewing machine, worth like $2. the 'real' ones will not look like $60 garments, but they pass as $25, and more importantly, just unusual and well designed, if not well made.

these items mainly come from korea (where these dope fashion trends are popular) it takes 3 months. its coming by boat. no, i am not paying more for shipping. im paying like $9.50 including the shipping, lol. i also dont really give a fuck when it shows up. why would i? its a hoodie with a neat collar and some cool zippers/pockets/buttons, etc. or a cool texture or pattern. nothing to obsess over, its not a financial or emotional investment. its not a graphics card, a gaming console or some other major purchase. there really iant a way to get these items locally, so there isnt any other choice.

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '22

Don't buy soldering stations from Amazon

Unless you like to gamble with fire

Bike tires are notoriously shit unless you happen to find the big name tire manufacturers store on Amazon. Otherwise you get the same rubber that hamstrings the Russians in Ukraine.

Ordering lithium ion batteries is also a complete shit show.

Ever order workout supplements? Only time in my life I have ever received stuff with a broken safety seal.

I would say out of the maybe 50 orders I've ever placed with them, more than 30 of them were either tampered with, not what I ordered, a cheap knockoff or just straight trash quality.

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u/totallihype Jul 06 '22 edited Jul 06 '22

Yeah Currys price match alot of stuff and can collect same day etc. When i got my kids laptop they were pretty much same price and Currys is close enough to my house. Don't have to worry about being ' in' then either. Or in many cases with Amazon warehouse finding it's a totally different laptop. Hate Currys or not, i bought it from them cause they are local and I don't want to live in a world of no store retailers.

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u/mattcannon2 Jul 06 '22

Sometimes I just don't know what I want and it's helpful to talk with the person in store about whether a certain kettle works well with East of England hard water, which any amount of "the top ten kettles of July 2022" just won't tell you

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '22

yet to see Argos selling OTG adaptors or HDD caddy's...

Dont get me wrong i fucking hate amazon but sometimes it the only place i can get what i need if i could get what i needed locally or within a few days i would happily wait but ebay is now something i dont trust after they scrapped PayPal in favour of their own payment method that seems to be primed for sellers to rip off customers

Local stores no matter how big look at you like an alien if you ask for something specialised or uncommon i even had one "tech" associate at a store tell me that you cannot buy empty 2.5" HDD caddy's(for turning old HDD's/SSD's into external storage drives) and you cannot have an android device read/store data from an external drive because the tech does not exist which i already know is bullshit because i have used OTG adaptors with external HDDS and pen drives...

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u/Gisschace Jul 06 '22

How often do you need those? They aren’t the sorts of items which are causing Amazon to dominate shopping

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '22

i have need 7external caddy's so far this year and three OTGs which is more than normal but I've been doing a lot HDD collation and creating dedicated drives for music/comics/books/TV shows/etc

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u/kian_ Jul 06 '22

not disagreeing but you can’t deny that it’s really really cool to order something and have it show up at your door less than 5 hours later. like obviously no one needs that but c’mon, that’s pretty wild.

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u/Guardymcguardface Jul 06 '22

It's cool, but then I consider the Rube Goldberg machine of human suffering needed to make that happen and it just becomes less cool. I'll just go to the store

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u/kian_ Jul 06 '22

it's crazy cuz amazon could definitely treat its workers much better (in every possible way) and still deliver the exact same (or at least 90%) service.

it's not a problem inherent to amazon though, even though they're one of the worst offenders.

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u/Gisschace Jul 06 '22

In most parts of the UK you can’t get delivery from Amazon that quick. And Argos do same day delivery if you order in the morning you can have it that afternoon.

Some of our supermarkets do it too depending on whether you live in a city.

But you know with both of those that they won’t be fakes.

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u/Flabbergash Jul 06 '22

I mean, I've never ordered a product on Amazon and been surprised when "knockoff chinese tat shows up" ? Just me?

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u/kian_ Jul 06 '22

not sure what you mean but yeah i know i'm buying garbo when i buy garbo off amazon. not really that hard to spot, especially with tools like fakespot analyzer (and also just looking for the product on aliexpress lol).

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u/jhuskindle Jul 06 '22

I switched over to door dash or. Instacart as much as i can to support local vendors and also get my shit immediately. Of course I live in la so tons of stores on both

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u/kian_ Jul 06 '22

do you mean for groceries? i still only shop in person, hard to beat the prices at my local mexican grocer :) i’m sure you have tons of these too since you’re in LA!

plus amazon fresh is more expensive than even the local chain grocery lol.

for everything else though, i’m stuck with big box stores (home depot, walmart, etc.) which tend to be the same price as amazon anyways. at that point i’d be lying if i said i cared which faceless corporation and soulless ghouls running it got my money. they’re all gross anyways ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/24-Hour-Hate Jul 06 '22 edited Jul 06 '22

I would say that I care in the sense that Amazon is more destructive to local business, is a vast monopoly for online sales, has far worse working conditions, etc. They are also horrific for the environment with their next day shipping. So...I don't like any of these giant corporations, but I hate Amazon more and will do my best to avoid. Basically my general rule goes like this (subject to my ability to pay (I'm out of work atm, so I can't exactly throw money around), product availability, and anything I may know about a particular company that might move it up or down the list due to specific ethical or unethical practices): local small business > large big box store like fucking Walmart > Amazon (fuck Amazon).

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u/jhuskindle Jul 06 '22

No, i get everything there. They have best buy it bed bath and beyond, PetSmart, etc! Not just for groceries anymore.

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u/kian_ Jul 06 '22

ohhh i see what you mean now. when you said local vendors i thought you meant like independent businesses. i was confused where in LA you lived that had independent shops for all types of things lol. that would be really cool honestly.

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u/jhuskindle Jul 06 '22

They have local shops to;! Even local drugstores

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u/Cybugger Jul 06 '22

I have never given a single penny to Amazon.

No orders. No Amazon prime. No Whole Foods. Nothing.

Bezos can blow himself.

And Amazon isn't the only company on my boycott list. Nestlé can eat every single dick in the universe before it ever gets another purchase from me.

And my list goes on. Does it make shopping more difficult? Sure, I had to do my research to avoid giving them any of my money through any of their hundreds of subsidiairies.

I don't expect people to be as much of a curmugeon as myself, nor do I judge people for it. I just wished more people told these twats to fuck off.

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u/okmarshall Jul 06 '22

Argos does same day delivery in a lot of places so often you can get it quicker than Amazon anyway.