Funded to the tune of a half billion dollars a year by Google to pretend there's no monopoly, and multiple announcements of them trying to reimagine themselves as an ad-company. They're the best of a bad bunch but they are definitely still part of a bad bunch
Your second point, as well as their so much criticised, especially on HN, attempts at diversification, are trying to fight your first point.
Because they're so reliable on Google funding, they're trying to do whatever they can to find alternative revenue streams. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, especially for the HN crowd.
He's not angry it's an angsty way of writing, a lot of used to write like that as teenagers. There was a time around 5 years ago where ever best selling book raced to have "fuck" or "vagina" in the title.
> My overseas family had such a long number, stored in a book in my grandmothers handwriting, that theres little chance I would have connected and woken them up.
The article is about a phone with one button per person, so the thing that stopped you from doing this is not applicable. You now have a toddler who can press a button whenever they want and dial someone - you don't see how a child who doesn't understand timezones etc. might cause a problem here?
I bought a $120 book from Amazon a couple of months ago, internationally, and they sent the wrong book.
I told them, and they said they'd refund it, don't need to send it back, and they'd even add $15 credit.
The refund never arrived so a few weeks later I got in touch again and they said I need to send it back if I want a refund. They told me the previous CSR had lied to improve ratings. I asked who I can complain to and they said nobody and closed the chat. I reopened it, restarted the refund, it was accepted and then 2 hours later I got an email saying that unless I sent them ID my refund would be rejected and that I can "no longer contact them" about this refund. I ignored that email, sent the book back and got the refund.
Another time I bought a Samsung Fold and it cracked down the middle. I told Amazon and they said they'll refund it under warranty. I sent it back and got a warning that if I return anything else in "non original condition" I'd be banned. Even though it was a warranty return.
That level of service would have been totally unheard of for Amazon 5 years ago.
I recently had a similar experience with Amazon. I bought a pair of AirPods but didn’t like them, so I returned them the next day. Amazon confirmed they’d received the package, but when the estimated refund date passed, I got a message saying they needed more information.
When I contacted customer service, they told me I had to send them a copy of my ID to process the refund. I was really frustrated; I’ve had this account for over 20 years and never had any issues before. I spoke with several representatives, but they all gave me the same response, and a few were even rude and aggressive, something I’d never experienced with Amazon before.
Since I didn’t want to share my ID, I decided to go through my credit card provider (Visa) instead and filed a claim. Visa refunded my money, but shortly after, I got an email from Amazon asking why I’d raised a Section 75 claim (the UK’s credit card protection scheme) and informing me that my account would be closed for fraudulent activity.
I replied with proof that they had received my return and never issued a refund. That was the last I ever heard from them, and the last time I bought anything from Amazon.
Amazon is in a hard spot with this stuff. They have massive problems with refund fraud, where people buy things and returning fake or used items in the box. Asking for ID is one way they try to spot people who are engaged in this activity repeatedly. When you refused to show your ID and did a chargeback, you did the exact same thing actual fraudsters end up doing, and of course they need to fraudulent accounts as otherwise the whole concept of mail-order returns collapses.
You didn't explain why you didn't want to share your ID with Amazon, but it's not an unreasonable request from them as a way to combat fraud.
While understanding their motivation to combat fraud they have a 20-year purchase history and have already established identity through payment methods. This is just lazy and perhaps additional data harvesting.
Amazon got so large they stopped paying attention to the details.
Fraudsters almost certainly gain access to old accounts specifically to "buy" that trust and then farm it for their own uses.
I wonder how much a 20-yr old Amazon account is worth on the grey market. Mine is about that old, and I have – legimately – returned thousands of dollars worth of goods (that were faulty or just didn't work the way I liked) and it is probably very difficult for Amazon to distinguish between my legitimate returns and a hypothetical alternative where I'm a fraudster that just purchased this old account and am laundering broken electronics through the returns system.
How is ID going to help with this in any way? They charge you (bank account/CC) and send you stuff (address), they inspect the return (or rather Should inspect it). What more would they need?
They don't inspect every return - that would make the already ropey economics of allowing returns very unviable - and it's often hard to detect return fraud because the fraudsters are returning an object that's nearly the same as the real thing, just used in ways that maybe aren't obvious given a casual inspection. Or they've raided it for parts and the object looks the same but the internals are gone.
It's not only Amazon that has this problem btw. Lots of online stores do. Return fraud is so prevalent that you should expect to this to become more common. A few bad apples ruin it for the rest of us.
Payment details aren't enough to reliably establish identity in many cases. If fighting this stuff were easy they'd have done it already, they aren't idiots.
So how is buyers ID going to help with Amazon not inspecting returns? Amazon doesnt even mark returns in any way so they dont know where it came from and where it ended up. Hell, they dont even mark/track source of co-mingled inventory!
And crucially - Amazon doesnt do this tracking on purpose so they can have plausible deniability while screwing merchants.
It doesn't help with inspecting returns. It simply adds another hurdle that has resulted in a slightly smaller percent of fewer returns, saving them a significant amount of $$ at scale.
Btw, if Amazon is a fault, where they can't shift the loss onto a seller or third-party, the delays will go on for weeks, if not forever. You have to do a chargeback.
> I’ve had this account for over 20 years and never had any issues before.
"Aged" accounts are a thing you can buy on the black market, as well as hacked accounts of users with long chains of legitimate activity. It's not as strong of an anti-fraud signal as you might think.
Yes but so what? All that proves is the account is aged. It doesn't prove it's not been taken over or sold. People move pretty regularly or order things for friends/family, a change of address doesn't mean anything.
AirPods are very commonly swapped with fakes and returned. It wouldn't surprise me if they added a blanket policy requiring ID for all AirPod refunds no matter what.
Apple products and a few other brands go through a different process for returns at Amazon.
Amazon can't verify everything, but for it's own Fire devices it does check S/Ns. Also Apple has it's own system, they do not mess around. I suggest not buying Apple products from Amazon.
I stopped buying anything significant from Amazon three years ago when I realised I was spending more time trying to understand where my packets allegedly delivered to a neighbour actually were than it would have taken me to just go buy the damn thing in a store. And that’s in Europe.
The research is also completely useless nowadays. 90% of what you find is just people reselling stuff they bought on AliExpress and reviews are all fake.
> Another time I bought a Samsung Fold and it cracked down the middle. I told Amazon and they said they'll refund it under warranty. I sent it back and got a warning that if I return anything else in "non original condition" I'd be banned. Even though it was a warranty return.
I once ordered a new pair of Jeans, expensive ones because I wanted them to last, from Amazon and got an obviously used and ripped pair sent to me.
I sent it back, noted that in my reason for sending it back only to receive an email from them with the same sentiment as you got. Luckily I kept all the receipts (figuratively) and took a lot of photos and screenshots.
Reaching out to support they apologized profusely to me but still it left a very bad taste in my mouth and I'm sure it'll happen again sometime in the future.
I keep going back to Amazon, even though I've been burned occasionally, because the retail shopping experience is that more horrible.
In the context of buying jeans (or really anything), if I go to a retail store, it's a multi-hour, multi-store event that usually leaves me empty-handed. My solution to that was to go directly to Levi's with the model and size of the last pair that fit, and buy a few pairs of them. I recently went back to buy to restock my supply of jeans, only to find that the style that fits has been discontinued—yet another form of enshitification.
.de promised to call me, never called. Split an order in three, used a bank account I had already removed from the system, then made me pay a fee three times when the money naturally could not be retrieved. One item in the order was a fake, when I returned it they claimed I kept it - thankfully I still had the receipt that I returned something, together with some stern words that was enough to end that.
Never buy from Amazon, especially not .de. Germany has a bunch of alternative online shops that are better.
Well, germany has customer protection laws, but before amazon, customer service was always worse than in the US i would say.
Just think about Media markt customer service for example…
Amazon changed that by introducing US-style no-questions-asked 30 day returns etc… but nowadays they are slowly chipping away at that, 14 days is the the norm now, (which is the hard limit anyway, since being set into law a couple years ago)
But yes the customer friendliness is slowly being cut down, due to growing costs. Zalando (an online fashion retailer) has also reduced their return policy recently.
Yep, I'm sure it's the brilliance of Amazon and not the same old trick of creating a monopoly then exploiting it that people have been using since the early middle ages and regularly outlawed because it destroys economies.
Say ... what was Amazon's initial reason for success? Being cheaper by exploiting the interstate commerce clause to avoid paying sales tax when it's competitors weren't allowed to do so? You don't say. Amazon is famous for losing money on their delivery business (up until recently)? It's constantly repeated in 10+ years of their financial statements ...
So either Amazon has completely changed tactics and become truly brilliant and we still don't understand the plan ... or they're up to their old tricks, being slightly cheaper, now with less legality!
... and not just the law but consumer protection agencies. The Verbraucherschutz does not mess around - break the law strategically and you will get banged up hard.
This is what Cory writes about: We need laws and regulations if we want to prevent enshittifiaction.
In the US these laws have been dismantled since the 70s (if I get the text correctly, I'm not expert on US labor law). And in Germany there is a chancellor who is pushing to increase the 40 work week (which still meant up to 50 hours) to a 48 hour work week - that's the change necessary to have Amazon (and others) treat their drivers and warehouse workers with more dignity. /s
Check the Philips Ultinon H7 led bulbs reviews on Amanzon.de. There are dozens on verified reviews complaining that they received halogen (cheap) bulbs in the led bulb packaging, suggesting some internal job at Amazon warehouse.
> I sent it back and got a warning that if I return anything else in "non original condition" I'd be banned.
I have a similar story, they "delivered" when I was out, hidden behind a wall in my garden
when I found the package two days later, the expensive books had been ruined by the rain
I explained to their CS, they issued the return authorisation
then after they received the return they threatened me for not returning in "original condition"
I was a customer since the early 2000s, a prime member since it started, with something like 2 returns total in that time, with tens of thousands of spending (to this exact address)
I don't think there even is a problem, from Amazon's point of view. CSRs can't tell you the truth ("we will try to avoid refunding you or will delay it as much as possible"), they can't stay quiet (because then delaying won't be as efficient) and they can't blame the company (because... well, they can't). So lying is basically all they can do.
They should speak the truth, citing the Amazon policy on the matter, and provide the path for escalation.
As it stands, I will vote negatively for any CSR interaction that doesn't resolve my issue immediately while the conversation is still active, irrespective of whether they say they have addressed it.
In any high-churn job environment like customer support it's easier to assume people will leave rather than fire them. Most of the time you'll be right. That means there's no incentive to manage bad workers.
Well they must give the stateside CSRs a different script because whenever I win the lottery and get an American on the phone it's a night and day difference. Notably they seem capable of solving complex problems without lying or smoke and mirrors.
An actual example, I recently had an issue that while straightforward and not that difficult to solve, was likely "off script". After being handed off between 4 different chat agents, and subsequent phone calls with two different Indians (who lied and made promises that weren't kept), my problem was not solved. At my wits end (and nearly 2.5 hours of my time wasted) I called back one more time. Inexplicably, I got a lady with a Southern accent. She solved my problem in under 10 minutes (and that included the approval she had to get from her supervisor).
Yeah - I think they’ve put a big focus on reducing returns over the last year. I bought a Quest 3 last year. One of the controllers totally packed in within half an hour - thumb stick permanently locked to full. Wanted to do an RMA.
Amazon told me to go hang, said I couldn’t return used goods, it would have to be unused in the box, and that I should contact meta.
I contacted meta, who told me to go hang, as they don’t officially support Portugal, which is where Amazon Spain happily shipped it.
So it’s just sat in a box gathering dust since, and I now avoid using Amazon whenever possible. I had already ditched meta so frankly I should have known that I was going to step on a rake.
> Amazon told me to go hang, said I couldn’t return used goods
I don't buy it. Don't we have actual consumer protection laws here in europe? We can return anything we bought online in 14 days time, full refund, no questions asked.
That’s the law, yeah - and if the goods are faulty it’s actually up to two years.
But this is Amazon - they don’t need to follow consumer protection laws - I think their specific get out is that they’re Amazon Spain, and I’m having stuff shipped to Portugal, and Spanish consumer protection regs (which implement the EU regs) only protect consumers in Spain.
I think their specific get out is that they’re Amazon Spain,
IANAL, but I don't think it matters. Any webshop in the EU must sell to all EU customers and they should provide the same warranty, etc. to all EU customers as if you were buying it in the country they are selling from (Spain in this case). The EU is a single market.
Amazon is violating EU consumer protection law here, but they probably do it because most customers will feel helpless and not sue them. If you do not want to sue them, the best thing is probably to file a complaint with the Portuguese consumer authority. It's really important to do this, because only when enough people do such a thing, a pattern can be established and they can warn or sue Amazon.
In my experience in the UK, Amazon is better than consumer protection laws, and miles better than other vendors. They won't question or require lots of information etc. to support things in however many years of warranty, or even outside of it.
Not to mention the standard is 30 day returns, more than double the legally mandated 14 for distance selling.
I don't understand why you were even talking to support - if it was clearly defective within half an hour (much less than 30 days) you could have just created a return yourself without talking to anybody?
Because it’s Amazon Spain and I live in Portugal - they only do return labels etc. for a collection point 200km from where I live, otherwise, you have to ship stuff back at your own expense. No option to automatically open a return.
It’s basically the Amazon uk returns process from 20 years ago.
They should repair it under warranty, period. If they cannot make a return label, you can send it back. IIRC they are also responsible for the shipping cost, but they can refund it afterwards when they are not able to create a return label.
I think your mistake might be that they are sticking to the letter of the law. Don't ask for your 14-day cool-off period, because strictly I think the product needs to be sealed (though many sellers are more lenient):
Instead ask for a repair under warranty, which they are required to do as a seller. They cannot point you to the manufacturer, the seller is responsible for handling warranty for the first two years:
You don't have small claims court? Here in Canada, it's $150 to register, you fill out the form yourself, no lawyers are allowed, and you argue your case in front of a judge.
(A company can have someone represent them, but if it's a lawyer, they must also have a rep. from the company there. and there can be no legalise, and the judge must explain anything to you if you ask)
There is no forced discoverability. EG, the other side cannot ask for all sorts of documents. You just include your evidence in the filing.
There is no ability for the company you sue, to compel costs if you lose.
For $150 you get a lot of joy out of hassling a company behaving like this. And amusingly, they still consult lawyers, and spend on a lot on lawyers. They can't be used in court, but they of course as a company consult legal experts.
I napkin mathed it, the one time I sued a company. I figured it cost them $25,000 to defend when I spent $150. If even a small percentage of people take them to task for breaking the law, they'll turn around quick.
Always use your enemies strengths as a weakness against them.
You should look at the process, but view if from the perspective of a hobby.
They do, but it’s only available to Portuguese citizens - I am a legally resident alien, but am excluded from that system, as it requires a citizen card to start a claim.
Julgados de Paz is available to non-citizens, what are you talking about? So is contacting the livro de réclamations and making a chargeback with your card provider.
How strange to try to claim the legal system has no reconciliation process for tourists or EU passer-bys. You're allowed to say you just couldn't be bothered to go through the trouble.
Go look at the website - you have to use authenticao.gov, which requires a digital mobile key, which requires a citizen card, which I cannot have unless I am a citizen. The offline process requires me to travel 200km each way to spend a day queuing.
Amazon Spain are Spanish, and are not subject to the Portuguese livro de reclamações.
As to making a chargeback - I like having a bank account, and being able to pay for things online - any time you do one you take a risk your bank will decide to throw freezes and KYC at you until you give up.
In theory. In practice, you go to the financas, they hunt around on their computer for a while, and then they tell you it’s not possible without a citizen card. I’ve tried repeatedly, as it’s a pain in the arse not having one, and have repeatedly been told it would be easiest for me to get citizenship first.
And yes, believe it or not, Trás-os-Montes exists. I know you think Coimbra is the northern limit of the country, but people do live up here, and the nearest service desk for many things is Porto.
Anyway, you go vote chega, or whatever it is you do.
Saying "It's not available to not citizens" is wildly and massively different than "It's more work for non-citizens". It's literally a lie and dishonest.
And given you've already said things that are not true, I'm highly skeptical that there are not other means to handle this. I bet there are ways to access authenticao.gov without being a citizen. I bet there are ways that you don't have to go 200km. You can probably send the forms by snail-mail, by post or courier. I bet you're just leaving things out again, or haven't researched properly, as you've shown this to be the case with prior comments.
In terms of what Amazon is subject to, you can get a court judgement in one jurisdiction, and have it enforced in another. You're in the EU too, and I would be astonished to discover this isn't super-easy there. And legislation likely enhances cross-border cases like this. And if companies ship into another country, they can be blocked until recourse happens.
Point is, you're just (again) saying "Oh well!" without really knowing. You're just saying that's the case, because you're presuming that's the case. You don't know. you just say it is so.
Chargebacks are a part of online life. They are common. I've never, ever heard of a bank ever being hostile over them. The very premise is weird and absurd. It's just a part of banking, nothing unusual, nothing surprising, and a process we all have to go through from time to time.
Perhaps you shouldn’t shoot your mouth off on shit you don’t know about and resort to calling people liars.
You can only use authenticao.gov if you have a citizen card. This is a fact. The offline process involves physically going to the office in Porto, which is 200km from me. There are no forms you can just mail. I have been through this. Shit, go try the process yourself if you’re so sure.
You also evidently know nothing about EU law. The EU issues directives. Member states implement them. They are national pieces of legislation, not transnational.
As for chargebacks, the last time I did one, over a hire car that didn’t materialise, my bank put me through the wringer, and I no longer bank with them.
Anyway, thank you for your enlightened fucking comment.
If you're going to provide half truths, and lie about situations, you shouldn't get so upset at it being pointed out. Or at people not believing what you say, after a while.
I would hope that consumer protection organizations can help you with that without having to engage lawyers: similarly, Amazon is not interested in long running legal battles if they see you are serious.
Because it's still better than the alternatives. I recently ordered a small item from a specialist retailer. Payment by Paypal was easy enough (ethically questionable, yes, but faffing about with credit cards on the internet in 2025 is just a complete PITA not to mention insecure). But the delivery was a nightmare. It took weeks, to the point that I needed to change the delivery address. But customer service turned out to be an AI bot which ignored everything I wrote while confidently reassuring me that it had understood and was acting on it. In the end I had to cancel the whole purchase. A terrible experience, alas worse than anything I've ever had from the evil monopolist of Seattle.
Amazon has so dominated online retail that there are many vendors that only sell through them.
So if you want a certain item, your options are, if you're lucky, find a physical retail store that sells the item, or order it from Amazon. If you're not very lucky, they don't sell in retail stores, only online. Only on Amazon.
My family has vastly reduced our purchases from Amazon over the past several months, but there are still some things that we basically don't have a choice in, especially given that we live in a rural area without ready access to many physical retail stores.
They are in reverse chronological order. I only buy cheap crap from them now, like Ethernet cables, sd cards, books. Never anything over $20 and I never will
How did you even tell them that they sent the wrong book?
When an item I ordered is delivered as the wrong item or when it never arrives, I can only select from a list of items in order to inform them about the bad delivery and none of the items lists "item never arrived" or "wrong item arrived".
And there is no other way to complain about the delivery/item--no help chat, no email I can contact.
One of the return options is 'item did not arrive'. You can also select 'I need help with another issue' or something like that, and either chat with support and explain or request a call.
(At least, in the UK. Like sibling comment to yours it's the amazing support and returns that makes me shop at Amazon (.de in their case) - I don't recognise the disaster described elsewhere in thread and I probably wouldn't shops there!)
I boycotted Amazon in January because of you-know-who and Bezo's swift and utter obeisance to him. It's surprisingly easy to go back to the old ways of waiting a little while for shipments if you're capable of planning ahead. (Speaking of which, it might be time for those of us who are post-Amazon to start thinking about our Christmas shopping.)
Unlike the author of the article, I don't believe it's possible to fix Amazon. He's talking about regulations as a remedy, but the U.S. is not likely to pass such regulations any time soon. The U.S. government is far more likely to threaten other nations for imposing such regulations or taxes on American companies operating in their jurisdictions. We saw this very thing happen when Canada was forced to delete its digital services tax.
If you don't think Amazon is delivering good value for your money, stop giving Amazon your money. Even though there is no direct competition for delivering Chinese junk to your doorstep overnight, stop giving Amazon your money. "Good, fast, cheap. Pick two." Amazon promised us all three, but failed to deliver just like all the rest.
Off the top of my head I can't remember but something like I need help with an order, then click "something else" or ask the automated chat to put you through to someone.
>They told me the previous CSR had lied to improve ratings
This was over chat? You have the transcript? I find it hard to believe they would say this. Amazon CSR have a very strict script they have to go by. But they do lie, get everything in writing.
My refund experience on Amazon (France) has been the best I've ever had. Just a wizard that led me through about 6 questions, at the end of which it said your refund is approved. Took about 5 minutes, all automated.
That level of service is for on-boarding customers. Sounds crazy, but they had a multi year on-boarding plan. We are now on-boarded, so why would they keep funding an on-boarding program that accepts any and all returns? The on-boarding process was complete awhile ago.
Retention is the next program they’ll have to initiate, but no reason to finance this now as there are no competitors just yet.
Listen, when it was said that corporations are amoral and sociopathic, it was not a joke.
That’s a good point. I can tell you from firsthand experience that the abundance of cameras in our society absolutely have a profound effect on the ability of law enforcement to solve individual crimes. To the point you are making how do we transfer those successes into reducing the level of crime?
My thoughts on that are probably not very popular on here and those are to just build larger jails and equip those with drug rehabilitation options. The larger jails allow us to not just kick the people back on the streets immediately but compel steps that help eliminate recidivism. Another source of criminal behavior is mental illness. I have no clues on how to fix that except perhaps concentrate on the causes.
All these cameras and recording devices exist for that same reason Advil exists in that it helps a toothache. Doesn’t really solve the problem but fights the symptoms.
If you think prisons turn criminals into law abiding individuals, or that that's even their purpose, you've got some more figuring out to do before teaching.
The US already has the largest prison population in the world and yet still has extremely high crime on par with countries that lack functioning goverments. So how exactly are more prisons and arrests going to lower crime when it has failed to do so for decade after decade?
Your cure is worse than the disease! Our risk of violent crime is lower now than almost any point in history. We make crime better by improving the lives of the average person. Jails don't fix socioeconomic issues, they in fact make them worse.
I honestly can't tell if the pragmatic engineer is a well regarded site or they are just very good at promotion on LinkedIn and hacker news. I suspect the latter but I'm getting more curious
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