Judge Rules Amazon Isn't Liable For Damages Caused By a Hoverboard It Sold (cnbc.com) 176
Earlier this week, a judge in Tennessee ruled that Amazon isn't liable for damages caused by a hoverboard that spontaneously exploded and burned down a family's house, even though they bought it on Amazon's website. "The plaintiff claimed that Amazon didn't properly warn her about the dangers they knew existed with the product, but the judge didn't agree," reports CNBC. At the time, hoverboards were all the rage; Amazon sold almost 250,000 of them over a 30-day period. The plaintiff claims the company had an obligation to warn customers properly about the dangers it knew existed. "[The plaintiff] bought the hoverboard on Amazon, the receipt came from Amazon, the box had an Amazon label and all the money was in Amazon's hands," adds CNBC. "[The plaintiff] has been unable to find the Chinese manufacturer of the device." From the report: It's the latest legal victory for Amazon, which has for years fended off litigation related to product quality and safety by arguing that, for a big and growing part of its business, it's just a marketplace. There are buyers on one end and sellers on the other -- the argument goes -- and Amazon connects them through a popular portal, facilitating the transaction with a sophisticated logistics system. The courts are reinforcing the power of Amazon's business model as the ultimate middleman. But for American consumers, there's growing cause for concern. [...] But if Amazon isn't liable when faulty products sold through its website cause personal injuries and property damage, customers are often left with no recourse. That's because it's frequently impossible for consumers to figure out who manufactured the defective product and hold that party responsible.
Amazon should be responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
"[The plaintiff] has been unable to find the Chinese manufacturer of the device."
If Amazon can't put the buyer in contact with the company which produced the device, then they should be liable. They sold it, they should be responsible for it. Frankly, even if they can put the person in contact, they should still be responsible, and recovering damages from the supplier should be their problem.
We have consumer protection laws for a reason, and that reason is that not having them costs everyone money. This decision simply lets Amazon push the cost of doing business off onto the court system, which means We The People have to pay for their cost of doing business.
Re:Amazon should be responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
agree. amazon is acting like Uber, falsly saying the sellers are (the equivalent) to Uber's fiction of "contractors" not employees. Hoepfully california or another big state can fix this.
Whenever company's do something terrible (Score:2)
Re:Whenever company's do something terrible (Score:4, Insightful)
California? You must be joking. Amazon is simply not the responsible party here. The merchant has never been the responsible party. They shouldn't be. They didn't make the product.
All this kind of nonsense will do is destroy the ability to do business. That will only drive away people that can feed money into your economy and prevent your cities from going bankrupt.
What ever happened to whining about bottom feeding lawyers attacking whatever "deep pocket" they happen to come across?
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California? You must be joking. Amazon is simply not the responsible party here. The merchant has never been the responsible party. They shouldn't be. They didn't make the product.
Depends on your jurisdiction, here in Norway the thought is that the consumer is an amateur, the merchant and manufacturer are professionals and they share responsibility that the rights granted by law are fulfilled. For example if you import US goods with a 90 day manufacturer warranty that has a 2 year minimum warranty here. Or the customer wants to make a complaint in Norwegian, they can't go oh that must be in English or Chinese. Or if it was missing some sort of license or certification or contains out
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Hence one of the reasons why you don't have the option to buy stuff from Amazon and have it delivered to Norway without using a 3rd party intermediary re-shipper and why consumer prices in United States are 33.77% lower than in Norway.
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Basically for consumer liability you can shoot at anyone left standing until there's no one to shoot at.
And you consider this a good thing? I'm perfectly fine with certain things like UL listing and other fire safety standards but if a company creates a product, properly tests a product, and then sells the product and a defect is found, then it shouldn't be liable for mistakes it didn't know about.
An example I like to use is someone who goes under for surgery and is conscience the whole time. This happens to about 1/100000 people and is a very traumatic experience for the patient but there is no way for th
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Okay... honest and serious question here:
Doesn't that just lead to the lawyers just going after whoever in that chain had the deepest pockets rather than the party that actually screwed up?
... Because that's absolutely what would happen here in the US if that sort of system were allowed. If this sort of lawsuit were allowed to go the other way here; it would be a field day for manufacturers to design, build, and sell absolute janky garbage across the board. And they'd *never* face any consequences becaus
Re:Whenever company's do something terrible (Score:4, Insightful)
All this kind of nonsense will do is destroy the ability to do business.
Ah the old "Europe does not exist" argument. They are responsible in Europe and they are profitable enough to continue to do business there.
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amazon is acting like Uber
No they aren't. They are just saying they are not an exception to the general rule that resellers are not responsible for products they sell. Should you be able to sue the corner grocery store because you got cancer from the cigarettes you bought there?
If every reseller has to do independent testing of every product they sell, our economy will grind to a halt.
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Because it is. Every regulation tells us what we can't do or what we have to do in order to do business. When you add them up, they're onerous and they prevent people from getting what they want.
Adults aren't little children. We're capable of making decisions based on what the risks are. If you're worried about cheap Chinese products on Amazon, then there is a simple solution, pay attention to the listed Manufacturer a
Cheap, low quality vs burn our houses down (Score:4, Insightful)
Approximately nobody wants to be a scooter that will burn their house down. Especially nobody wants their next door neighbor to buy one that ends up burning down your house too.
That's an entirely different thing from products that simply aren't well made, cheap Chinese products that break after a month of use. Sometimes I DO want a cheap product that I only need for a couple of uses. Market forces can more or less work for overall quality, though of course no system is perfect.
Consider also the difference between these:
1. You may not sell cheap stuff made in China.
2. If you sell dangerously defective things, you're responsible for injuries and damages your products cause.
There is a difference between the government deciding what you can and can't do vs the common-sense principle that you are responsible for the results of your actions.
Here buyers are suing in civil court to recover damages caused by Amazon selling dangerously defective goods. This isn't a criminal charge, the government putting people in jail for not doing what they are told. This is a private, consensual transaction - Amazon listed scooters for sale, the consumer paid Amazon for a fun scooter. Amazon instead delivered a fire bomb. The consumer asks that Amazon compensate them for the damage caused by the item Amazon sent them.
Re:Amazon should be responsible (Score:5, Informative)
Because it is. Every regulation tells us what we can't do or what we have to do in order to do business. When you add them up, they're onerous and they prevent people from getting what they want.
Adults aren't little children. We're capable of making decisions based on what the risks are. If you're worried about cheap Chinese products on Amazon, then there is a simple solution, pay attention to the listed Manufacturer and don't buy one! Why the need to use force to prevent the other 250,000 people who want to from buying one?
We're capable of making decisions based on what the risks are.
And that's wrong. We can only make decisions based on the information that we have. If we don't have the data regarding risks, then we don't know what the risks are, then we cannot make a decision based on the risks.
The issue here isn't that the board caught fire, but rather that in this case Amazon knew they caught fire, but did not provide the information to the buyer.
From the embedded link:
"Fox's case was filled with testimony and evidence illustrating that Amazon execs were concerned about the hoverboards sold on its site. One executive deposed in the case said he'd removed a hoverboard from his house before Christmas after hearing about "potential issues."
I have to agree with the plaintiff. If a store sells a product that they know is defective or dangerous, then they are obligated to clearly warn the buyer, and if possible, warn the previous purchasers. It is perfectly OK to sell the dangerous products that are sold to the public everyday, but they are required to carry warnings.
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We can only make decisions based on products that are actually available.
If everyone who makes paint puts lead in it, what is the GP's "simple solution"?
If Amazon truly knew that this product was dangerous, then yeah they have no excuse for continuing to sell it. I've in the past encountered items on Amazon that the vendor misrepresented, that Amazon would not take down listings for. Eg. a medical device with a description and photo that clearly identified one manufacturer, but they shipped a vastly infer
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"It is perfectly OK to sell the dangerous products that are sold to the public everyday, but they are required to carry warnings."
What? Seriously what? You think that's ok? To sell dangerously defective products so long as you stick a warning in the small print?
Idiot.
I didn't say "OK to sell dangerously defective products", I said "OK to sell the dangerous products ".
It's not enough to learn how to read. You need to practice understanding what you read. It's really hard to do, and you'll need help.
Gasoline is an example of a commonly sold and dangerous product. Also included are just about any insecticide or weed-killer.
Charcoal comes to mind as well.
I may be an idiot, but my previous post was not a confirming example.
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All people are asking for is clear information that the product will spontaneously catch fire and burn the house down. If people want to buy a product that does this then they are still able to. I'm not sure why people would want this though.
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.... No.
Amazon has put customers in direct contact with the seller, and that information is present when buying the product. That's like suing the home depot for a problem with a john deer lawn mower. The customer here realized that the manufacturer is not going to play ball, or can't pay the sum so they want to go after the vendor now.
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If the fault turns out to be from a component, they buyer is not expected to track down the supplier of the component, or worse their supplier. It is generally the case though, that the buyer has a claim against the seller.
Re:Amazon should be responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
How do classic brick & mortar retailers deal with this . . . ?
If I march into Wallgreens and buy a bottle of vitamins, and the vitamins turn out to be a Dead Russian cocktail of ricin, polonium and nerve gas . . . is Wallgreens on the hook . . . ? Or can they say,
"We bought a large discount lot of them on the Darknet, and don't know how to contact the seller. But the seller is liable, not us".
Re:Amazon should be responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL, but it seems to me that Walgreen's would be responsible for their brand of vitamin but not the others. It would be responsible of them to play their part in a recall, but I don't know why they'd be on the hook for a QC fail at Dead Russian brand vitamins.
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I hate to mention Uber, but I'll do it anyway. I see a remarkable parallel between Uber claiming that they are "just a ridesharing facilitator who is not responsible for outcomes and mishaps", and this instance of Amazon claiming that they have no part in facilitating the accidents with these hoverboards.
Let's pretend for a moment that Amazon changes their minds, and decides to help t
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How do classic brick & mortar retailers deal with this . . . ?
If I march into Wallgreens and buy a bottle of vitamins, and the vitamins turn out to be a Dead Russian cocktail of ricin, polonium and nerve gas . . . is Wallgreens on the hook . . . ? Or can they say,
"We bought a large discount lot of them on the Darknet, and don't know how to contact the seller. But the seller is liable, not us".
Actually Wallgreens would be off the hook.
Firstly because they'd pass the buck to their supplier, which is 100% legal, the product was missold to Wallgreens as well and secondly, because the FDA is responsible for ensuring that food and medical products are safe for human consumption.
Amazon is not representing these products, they are simply providing a platform for them to be sold.
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The same way amazon does.
The brick & mortar equivalent would be a farmers' market or a flea market. If you have a problem with a product purchased is your dispute with the entity operating the stall you bought it from or with the entity running the entire market? I suspect you will in fact get a "the seller is liable not us" response.
If your Samsung phone explodes do you take it up with the T-mobile store you bought it from? Or do you take it up with the owners of the mall in which the T-mobile is locat
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So basically, Amazon is technically liable for every product thats gets sold, that has fake certification.
Like anything involving electronics that has CE or FCC label.
The keyword here is "technically", because you would still need all things to line up to go to court.
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No. Amazon is providing merchant services to the seller. The seller is the merchant.
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>"If Amazon can't put the buyer in contact with the company which produced the device, then they should be liable. They sold it, they should be responsible for it"
I totally agree with that statement. But ONLY if Amazon can't provide that information. Otherwise, it is not Amazon's problem.
>"Frankly, even if they can put the person in contact, they should still be responsible, and recovering damages from the supplier should be their problem."
Not sure I agree with THAT statement. In those cases, they
Re:Amazon should be responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure I agree with THAT statement. In those cases, they would only be responsible for replacement or refund of what they sold.
Amazon completed the sale, collected payment, and made a profit. They ARE the seller. The person they refer to as the seller on their site is actually a supplier. This is wholly different from the example of a flea market, where people are charged for space rent and then they really are the seller; they collect payment, and complete the sale.
Amazon is the seller, they sold the item, therefore they should be responsible for the damages — which in this case dramatically exceeds the replacement/refund value of the product which they sold.
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in more and more products, amazon is the ODM, spec'ing the actual design of the product (amazon basics, for one) and having someone build it to their specs.
only very large companies can afford to do that, and amazon is one of the world's largest, now.
to absolve them of any fault in this case - wow - that's amazing. not unexpected, given who's running things right now, but still amazing how brazen the courts are in stepping on our necks (seemingly with delight). only thing missing is a furry cat and bezos
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You seem not to use Amazon.
In this case Amazon is the broker, handeling the order, the payment and perhaps the shipping.
The seller is from whom ever the plaintiffs bought the ifems.
Can't be so hard to grasp.
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You seem not to use Amazon. In this case Amazon is the broker, handeling the order, the payment and perhaps the shipping. The seller is from whom ever the plaintiffs bought the ifems. Can't be so hard to grasp.
Yep. But in cases like this, I might actually go with the rule being that the broker has to demonstrate that the item provided was from the specific seller and that they can provide the necessary information to sue the correct party--in other words, you have to keep your records properly and, if you're handling the shipping, you need to keep your warehouse straight as well so all items can be traced back.
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If Amazon sells something, consumer protection laws dictate that they are responsible for it.
In this case Amazon didn't sell something. The court found that consumer protection laws continue to dictate that the seller is responsible for it.
Which part of angel'o'sphere's comment was actually wrong, let alone suggestive that they don't use Amazon?
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Fine. But if you think that Amazon can't figure out who the manufacturer was then I've got a bridge to sell you.
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Sure. But is that how it works in other cases? If I buy a light bulb at Home Depot, and it turns out[1] to be defective, don't I have to take it up with the manufacturer?
That is, Home Depot completed the sale, collected payment, and make a profit. And they are the seller. But I don't see in the analogy they would be responsible.
[1] After their return policy expires, let's. say.
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Not sure about the US but in the UK you go back to Home Depot, as they've broken consumer protection laws.
I believe it's the same in the US.
You don't have a relationship with Duracell. You didn't make an agreement with them regarding the quality or fitness for purpose of the product you bought. You didn't buy it from them.
But hey, you clearly enjoy calling people 'DUMBASS' so don't let me prevent your complete absence of self awareness letting you have fun.
Re: Amazon should be responsible (Score:2, Informative)
You go into Home Depot and buy batteries. They have some famous logo on them which may or may not be faked. The batteries catch fire and burn your house down.
You try to find out where Home Depot got the batteries from. They tell you they only have an email address from some supplier overseas. They have total and complete records of all their interactions with YOU but of course can't be bothered to find out if their mythical stock of batteries is real or fake, and they don't have records of where they ca
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Not sure about hoverboard, but I think it should be certified in order to be sold.
In the USA, you can sell uncertified products all day legally, but a responsible retailer doesn't do that because of the massive risk. Just TRY getting shelf space at Home Depot without UL certification on your electrical doodad. NOT going to happen.
Amazon, on the other hand, does not give one shit about you, or even their good name.
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What makes this even more scummy is that Amazon is doing all they can to blur the lines between third party sellers and Amazon purchases. The marketplace is not a separate subsection of Amazon, it's completely integrated into the main shop and they will show you products sold by them and products sold by third parties interchangeably. To complicate things even further Amazon will stock some third party products in their own warehouses, so everything is handled by Amazon, except the liability. As a customer
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Amazon allows people to sell counterfeit merchandise and mixes goods from different shops in the same bins without any way of knowing ahead of time whether the goods you're getting are the real ones that that seller is selling, or the counterfeit goods that a different seller sold.
Yeah, that's a serious issue. Haven't they resolved that one yet?
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It's because it didn't happen, items don't just get mixed into bins because they look the same. They have to have the same packaging and coding which the products wouldn't have.
Oh, my sweet, summer child. Chinese manufacturers sell complete counterfeits all the time, by which I mean down to the packaging. It's got to the point where when I buy a memory card, I actually complete the warranty registration process immediately. That gives the manufacturer a chance to verify the serial number. Of course, with enough effort a counterfeiter could knock off serial numbers too, but a) they don't seem to be doing that and b) once I've completed warranty registration, I at least have some re
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"[The plaintiff] has been unable to find the Chinese manufacturer of the device."
If Amazon can't put the buyer in contact with the company which produced the device, then they should be liable. They sold it, they should be responsible for it. Frankly, even if they can put the person in contact, they should still be responsible, and recovering damages from the supplier should be their problem.
We have consumer protection laws for a reason, and that reason is that not having them costs everyone money. This decision simply lets Amazon push the cost of doing business off onto the court system, which means We The People have to pay for their cost of doing business.
Should one expect to be able to get in touch with the manufacture when they buy a cheap, Chinese brand knock off product that's never been heard of before? I buy cheap Chinese stuff on occasion but always with the expectation that if it is crap or faulty, there will be little chance of recourse.
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No, they shouldn't. It's not their responsibility. Target doesn't put me in contact with the maker of ZYX product. If it isn't a concern that they can address, they'll tell me to contact the manufacturer. If the person buying the product can't figure out who the maker is, then they shouldn't be buying it... it doesn't matter WHERE you are buying from... Ebay, Amazon, Walmart, Target... if you can't figure out who produced it, then don't buy it and keep looking. If you end up buying crap because you did
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We have consumer protection laws for a reason, and that reason is that not having them costs everyone money.
And here I thought consumer protection laws were for protecting consumers, and not about money. Silly me.
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And here I thought consumer protection laws were for protecting consumers, and not about money. Silly me.
That's not just silly, it's completely unfounded. We live under capitalism, where capital controls the means of production. Capital is the only thing that matters. That's why our so-called democracy is actually an oligarchy.
If there's no financial interest, a thing doesn't happen under capitalism.
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I had myself some unpleasant experiences, now I am very careful to check if the seller has US office/address to return to.
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Jesus fucking Christ can we have one conversation without some asswipe like you dragging Donald Trump into this?
The ONE time it was justified bringing him in and you complain?
He's spent a large part of his presidency removing pesky liability laws that hold back great American business like Amazon.
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Clue: Read the title of your own post...
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Sure.
What do you think Hillary would have done?
Got drunk, passed out, and had the press cover it up by claiming she's a "champion napper". [google.com]
Re:OH BIG GOV'T!!! P-P-P-PUH-PLEEEZE SAVE ME!!! (Score:4, Informative)
We have consumer protection laws for a reason, and that reason is that not having them costs everyone money. This decision simply lets Amazon push the cost of doing business off onto the court system, which means We The People have to pay for their cost of doing business.
So your entire underlying assumption is society is responsible for protecting someone who gets on the internet to find the cheapest piece of Chinesium crap from some seller engaged in Alibabatrage?
Ummm, WHY?!?!?!
I'm not sure I can explain it in smaller words than I did above. When people get hurt because they are dumb and do dumb things, it costs us all money, and it actually turns out to be cheaper for all of us to protect them from doing extremely dumb things. When someone burns their house down, it might burn your house down. They might have to move and consequently not do their job, which has downstream ripple effects that also cost other people money.
Also, keep in mind that people don't even have to be dumb, just uneducated. In part because we have these consumer protection laws, people have gotten used to the idea that stuff they buy from major retailers won't burn their house down. Between the circuit overload protection devices in their homes which are legally mandated, and the usual legally mandated consumer protections that we have come to enjoy here in the supposedly greatest nation in the world, this is usually a safe assumption.
Does this mean that people are getting used to taking less responsibility for themselves in certain areas? Yes, it does. But no one can reasonably be expected to be educated in all areas. The world is simply too complex for that. Given that, isn't it valid to offer people some basic protection? Is there actually some public interest in permitting companies to sell batteries which are best marketed as incendiary devices as if it were a good idea to bring them into your homes? In my book, that's a form of fraud. These devices were utterly unfit for their stated purpose, and constituted a significant public hazard.
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> I'm not sure I can explain it in smaller words than I did above. When people get hurt because they are dumb and do dumb things, it costs us all money,
So what?
That's no reason to pretend that adults are expected to be responsible for themselves or to destroy the underlying mechanisms that allow you to be clothed and fed.
Living in a free society means that you are free to be a moron. The answer is not to ban people like you.
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A prerequisite for an efficient free market is information symmetry. Why do you hate capitalism?
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"Also, keep in mind that people don't even have to be dumb, just uneducated."
Also, keep in mind that people don't even have to be uneducated, just unable to meet an implausible threshold for information gathering. Even if we consider just Slashdot readers, how many could determine whether these devices were actually safely constructed without buying one? My PhD in Electrical Engineering and 14 years in the industry don't mean I can conjure test results out of thin air.
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I'm going to take a what is effectively a skateboard and attach a motor to it powered by a lithium ion battery (a product well know to be be potentially unstable and a fire hazard). Then I'm going to sell it to people who think that putting a motor and what is effectively a skateboard is a good idea.
What could possibly go wrong?
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Yes. Because your contract, even if it's implicit, was with Safeway.
They can, in turn, sue the supplier if they think it's worth it.
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I have a simple solution for Amazon... (Score:2)
Just advise shoppers that they use the products Amazon sells at their own risk - with no guarantees, implied or otherwise.
Doing this would be similar to the "guarantees" we get on software.
How about that?
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Or perhaps you - and half the ACs posting on this story - should learn to understand the difference between a market place and a vendor.
Amazon were not the vendor. They sold nothing. They did not sell the combusting hoverboards.
the products Amazon sells
..are entirely and totally completely fucking orthogonal to this entire fucking discussion.
Not Amazon (Score:3)
I do not think the issue is Amazon in this case: it is Chinese sellers and customer protection in a globalized world in general.
I had once bought a game key on Ebay and the Chinese seller refused to send it to me without me sending him a copy of my ID for age verification. Understandably, the last thing I want to do is sending some guy in China is the information on my ID. I asked for a refund and the seller refused, copy-pasting the same message about how I should give him a good review first. I contacted Ebay, then PayPal, none of whom wanted to help me with my issue despite the seller being marked with all of Ebay’s trusted symbols. The very young-sounding customer support person actually said that I “have the reigns in my hands and should threaten the seller with bad reviews until he refunds me”. I then reported the seller for “review extortion”, which is an offense under Ebay’s own terms of conduct, Ebay confirmed that review extortion had taken place and refused to help me with my refund.
At this point, I gave the Chinese bastard a snarky yet positively-marked review and he returned my money. I am confident that there is a library worth of similar stories that never made it into the court room due to being less high-profile. All of these companies are utter trash when it comes to third party seller customer protection.
Re:Not Amazon (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not think the issue is Amazon in this case: it is Chinese sellers and customer protection in a globalized world in general.
Amazon is deliberately enabling these sellers, with full knowledge that they will defraud customers. Then they are failing to maintain contact information on them that would permit customers to attempt to recoup their losses. They are willfully contributing to this illegal activity, and making literally zero effort to prevent it, which is why they should be held liable.
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Who says they "they are failing to maintain contact information'. Everything sounds better when you make stuff up.
You didn't even make it to the end of the fine summary, did you? Regardless, TFA clearly states:
Since Amazon was the only point of contact, and couldn't put them in contact with the supplier (which Amazon refers to as the "seller" in spite of the clear fact that they are making the sale) they had no recou
Welcome to the Modern World (Score:4, Insightful)
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You all remember voting for this, right?
Now now, you can do better than that, can't you? We obviously didn't all vote for this on either the basis that Trump "lost" the popular vote, or that voter turnout was historically low.
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Now now, you can do better than that, can't you? We obviously didn't all vote for this on either the basis that Trump "lost" the popular vote, or that voter turnout was historically low.
Did I mention Trump? Or the last election? I did not.
However, one party has been preaching the mantra of "government bad, regulations bad" for decades. They are regularly elected to office. We end up toothless regulations and regulatory agencies without funding to actually do much of anything.
Mod parent up (Score:2)
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Apathy is no excuse.
That would be relevant if I were making excuses, but I am not. I am offering explanations. I make no excuse for the fact that shitlords have taken over America, since I am not one of them and I do vote.
Where's the disconnect? (Score:3)
I'm fairly certain that #1 is already in place, and my guess is that #2 is being contested by Amazon, that Amazon is claiming something to the effect that they're more like a postal service than a store. If I have that right, then I wholeheartedly side against Amazon in this case; whether or not they're "like" a store or a delivery service in a traditional sense, they're a new kind of entity and we need tech laws to keep up with new tech entities. I don't think Amazon should be required to do consumer device testing, but IF there is an available database (from a regulatory entity) documenting harm, Amazon absolutely should be required to present that information at the point of sale.
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1) There should be a governmental regulatory agency in place which constantly determines whether a given product can be sold in the US, based on its safety, and IF it can be sold whether the seller is required to warn of any particular or general dangers.
[...]
I'm fairly certain that #1 is already in place,
Eh, kind of. You can legally sell whatever you want, but if the FTC gets too many complaints that a given product is defective, it gets tested. At that point, they CAN force a mandatory recall, but the point here is that it is reactive and not proactive.
2) Amazon should be required to comply with the dictates of said agency.
Once a mandatory recall has been initiated, then they are required to comply (and NO ONE is permitted to sell the affected products.)
3) Amazon should be required to make available the manufacturer's name / contact info / etc, both before the sale and as needed upon request after the sale (even if the vendor has ceased selling on Amazon).
This is the place where Amazon is falling down, and the point at which we should all be able to agree that they should become
at what point are retailers responsible? (Score:2)
In fact,the 7-9 manufacturers that work for these 2 companies are the ones that likely made the hoover boards, which were copies of an American company.
At what point do American companies get held responsible since the CHinese, and in general, all non-western companies, are not.
This sounds like ... (Score:2)
... the piracy issue.
ISPs are the middle man, simply connecting content providers to consumers.
The owners of the IP have a hard time precisely identifying, and litigating, those on either end, so the effort turns to making the provider soak up the liability.
Shooting the messenger.
Don't buy (third party) from Amazon (Score:2)
Actually, I generally refuse to buy from Amazon at all, but I NEVER buy third party from Amazon. The first time I ordered a used book from Amazon, the money disappeared, but the book never showed up, and Amazon disavowed all responsibility. Since then I never buy third party goods from Amazon. If it's a new book, and the local book store can't order it for me, I order directly from the publisher. There have been 2 or 3 exceptions over the last decade. And the last thing I bought from Amazon that wasn't
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After that first experience, new books are the only thing I've considered buying from them. So for me, Amazon only sells books.
Cheap electronics (Score:2)
There's lots of cheap 3D printers that'll happily burn your house down. People on the forums know what parts are dangerous and how to fix them so they're LESS LIKELY to go up in flames but... recently it was noticed that actually most don't have basic firmware protection against runaway heating. Let's say your heating element falls off and gets drug around. Most printers won't detect this and will crank the heat up full blast since it can't read the temperature anymore. FWOOSH.
Yet you can buy these kits wit
Just further cements... (Score:2)
...what I already knew: Amazon is no better than eBay when it comes to costumer responsibility practices.
Just recently I read a post about fake SD cards still being a thing on Amazon, and this has been going on for the better part of the last decade, so it's quite obvious that Amazon simply doesn't care anymore.
But I've stopped buying on Amazon anyways back since they adopted an extremely aggressive tactic of pre-charging some 120~150% import tax for people living in my country. Brazil does have a very pric
Stop buying cheap Chinese s**t (Score:2)
Pretty simple really, do your homework and know what you're buying, then shop price. Don't just search for the cheapest POS you can find in some broad category. There is good stuff and bad stuff out there, don't buy the bad stuff.
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Caveat emptor (Score:2)
If you buy something, a question to ask is "who do I sue?". If you can't identify the party to sue, or they're not exactly reachable using the legal system, then maybe the small price may not be that good.
The usual approach is "meh, made in China" and throw it out and buy another one. But that's when things just die on you rather than explode and burn your house down.
If the local courts can't get to you, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to sell direct to the market. You should get an importer to handle the le
lets make this simple (Score:1)
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What about selling an autopilot which does not automatically pilot?
Before activating the feature for a new buyer, Tesla makes the limitations of the system clear and even gets the buyer to acknowledge that they understand their responsibilities. Amazon deliberately hid the fact that hoverboards were combusting. There is literally no parallel to be drawn there.
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If I buy faulty Tylenol, do I get to sue the store I bought it from?
Yes, I believe you do.
Why does it change when the company isn't reputable?
As far as I know, it doesn't.
Those people did not, and since they couldn't, or wouldn't, find the manufacturer, thy went after Amazon.
Which is where they went wrong. They should have gone after the seller instead.
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"I mean for God's sake, they used to sell opium products as teething pain relief for babies"
Hate to break it to you but it's not just damn furriners that used to do that. it was made and sold in the USA up until 2011, and in Europe Bayer sold medicinal heroin. In Blighty Stickney and Poor's Pure Paregoric syrup had forty-six percent alcohol, one and three-sixteenth "grains of opium per ounce," and contained a dosage chart that included five-day-old infants. They were to be given five drops of the stuff, whi