Amazon is a small miracle. They stock everything, it comes right to your door, the prices are competitive in general and with Subscribe and Save you are doing even better. E-books are also incredible and with Prime you get Instant Video thrown in for free.

I'm sure bad experiences happen but compared to driving to the big box suburban wasteland to browse through a limited selection, Amazon is a godesend.

In my experience, Best Buy’s return policy and process has been awful. Granted it’s been years because it was so bad. Literally the worst of any store I’ve ever shopped at.

Last time I bought a router from them it was defective. I had to stand in line for over an hour. The clerk was surly and didn’t believe it was defective. Kept opening the box, pulling everything out, looking at all the pieces. Putting it all back. Over and over.

Then he didn’t said he couldn’t accept it because the receipt was ripped - which it was when the check-out person ripped it out of the register. He said they could take it back, but I wouldn’t be able to make any other returns.

I ended up asking for the manager who took another 15 minutes to arrive, argue and get it sorted.

The return took almost 2 hours. Absolutely crazy.

Counterdote: I recently purchased a monitor at Best Buy, decided after a couple weeks I didn't like it (for a variety of reasons), and returned it without hassle. Just walked up to the counter, handed them my receipt, told them I didn't like it, and they handed me money. Took less than five minutes.

Not to continue this too far but ditto. Completely fine return experience. I also don't have to worry about fakes nearly as much at brick & mortar stores. That said I still use Amazon extensively, for better or for worse.

I exchanged an item at Best Buy about 2 months ago. Took about 5 minutes. Forgot my receipt, but they were able to find it with my cc. They opened up the box to make sure the original items were inside, and brought me a replacement while I was at the counter.

Still not quite as good as Costco or REI, but at least with BB I know I'm getting the good I actually purchased and not some cheap Chinese knockoff.

Where are people getting all these chinese knock offs? I have never had this happen on Amazon I am curious what products people are getting

> Where are people getting all these chinese knock offs? I have never had this happen on Amazon I am curious what products people are getting

Here's a 1 TB microSD card [1]. No such product legitimately exists [2], so it must be a data-destroying counterfeit.

4.5 stars, $80.

That one was easy to spot, but it's my understanding that pretty much every MacBook charger on Amazon is a kock-off counterfeit [3]. They get the case perfect, but the electronics inside are a fire hazard [4].

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Wazzey-Micro-Memory-Adapter-1024GB/dp...

[2] https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/8/31/16232618/s...

[3] http://www.businessinsider.com/majority-apple-accessories-am...

[4] http://www.righto.com/2015/11/macbook-charger-teardown-surpr...

> This item is only available from third-party sellers.

I know that it’s not fair to expect customers to distinguish between legit and shady listings, but I consider this effectively a “do not buy this product” warning.

What have you done to verify you never received a knock-off?

I checked every one of my SD cards when I learned about Amazon's problem with fakes... Turns out I'd bought two fake SanDisk cards. They looked and worked like the real ones but the serial numbers were invalid. Maybe they'd continue working fine, or maybe one day I'd lose 64GB of photos in the middle of a vacation... who knows?

Needless to say, that destroyed my in Amazon. How can they guarantee they aren't selling malicious IOT devices, counterfeit healthcare products, cheap kitchenware made of toxic materials, or even the products of slave labor?

Was it shipped and sold by Amazon or by a 3rd party?

This has been the secret in my experience. Pay for Prime, and only buy Prime items. For me the convenience is worth it, even though I know I’m feeding directly into what Amazon wants; to not fix their massive counterfeit problem.

> This has been the secret in my experience. Pay for Prime, and only buy Prime items. For me the convenience is worth it, even though I know I’m feeding directly into what Amazon wants; to not fix their massive counterfeit problem.

That won't really help. There are prime-eligible counterfeits shipped from Amazon's warehouses due to the Fulfilled by Amazon program. Even buying from a known trustworthy seller is not enough, as Amazon commingles FBA/Prime-eligible inventory from multiple sellers of the same item:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-amazon-pooled-merchandise-op...

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

Fulfilled by Amazon, from one of their 3rd party sellers.

Lower-cost electronics, mostly, and toys. So: memory cards, USB and power cables, batteries, etc. That's all stuff I now buy at Best Buy. I've purchased my last 3 TVs from Best Buy; and generally any purchase that I need to play with before fulling the trigger, like cameras.

Also: anything food-related that's by a major brand (like Oxo or Rubbermaid) I buy from a local store, as a lot of the Chinese Alibrands don't comply with FDA requirements but are advertised as if they were.

I told this story before, but I got a charger with a fake Intertek (an UL competitor) mark. Intertek had an alert on their site that this company just put their mark on a product. I told amazon cs and they refunded my money... but continued to sell the fraudulent product.

This was 2+ years ago and the last thing I will ever buy on amazon that uses electricity.

> Then he didn’t said he couldn’t accept it because the receipt was ripped. He said they could take it back, but I wouldn’t be able to make any other returns.

Looks like somebody being told by the manager not to accept returns or over return quota or something. Something shady definitely going on there... I never had such experience with local BB store, but I guess it depends a lot on local management.

This. While Best Buy can be convenient in a pinch the company, in terms of after-purchase-support is a joke. Case in point I ordered a washer/dryer set from them a couple months ago. Overall it saved about $50 but I felt like I was helping a local company as Best Buy HQ is here. Never again. Not only did they not show up with my delivery 3 times they had the nerve to show up over 90 minutes late the delivery day and had excuse after excuse after excuse. The moved me between two different escalation support people (out of TX) because of the first misstep and never provided me an easy path to contact anyone directly in the process. On top of all that ordering on .com means anyone local is 100% useless. I emailed the Best Buy CEO spam inbox and ended up negotiating $250 back after they ended up wasting well over 16 hours of my personal time waiting on no-shows and on the phone. I won't spend another dime with them after the Geek Squad manager who came out on delivery day as a "premium convenience to make sure everything went smoothly" drove back and forth in front of my house for an hour because he clearly knew the delivery was, yet again, late and he didn't acknowledge or apologize for the failure to deliver as promised. When I called him out on it he flat out lied to me. Best Buy seems to be a lot of internally segmented groups, none of which are empowered to solve a customer problem.

Hmm I had a great experience last week in San Francisco.

Took 10 minutes. And even though I returned the opened XBox controller a few days after their return window, they gave me store credit.

I was a happy customer.

I just charge back.

They screwed me over on a price match and I ended up getting the whole thing charged back.

BestBuy want to play games? I can play too.

By law a company can not refuse to return a defective item I believe. Whether they do it or refer you to the manufacturer, one way or another you are fully entitled to a refund if the item is defective. The whole "You can't make any returns if you make x amount" is more a scare tactic.

> In my experience, Best Buy’s return policy and process has been awful. Granted it’s been years because it was so bad. Literally the worst of any store I’ve ever shopped at.

Last few times I've had to return something to Best Buy, it's been pretty painless and quick. They know their competition is Amazon and one of its strengths is its return experience.

I have a 10 minute rule. If I’m in line or get hassled for a return, I get chargeback. With Americans express, you can do it online from your phone with no hassle at all.

Most retail purchases can be returned via the credit card no problem.

I have no doubt you'll get flagged at some point. I felt the same way before I even knew they would close my account. It didn't matter that the account was created in the 90's or early 2000's or that I had been a prime member for years or that I was spending around $10k a year there. They even kept my prime payment and didn't refund it. It's just a game of chance with their systems. You simply will never know what you did that triggered them but eventually, I think many prolific Amazon users get their accounts closed. Never mind that all the returns/problems are because Amazon carries fake shit, garbage products, and lately, won't even attempt to deliver packages with their shit ass Amazon delivery service (those assholes should all be fired). This is no doubt why Best Buy is flourishing.

> It's just a game of chance with their systems. You simply will never know what you did that triggered them but eventually, I think many prolific Amazon users get their accounts closed.

For Amazon customers in the EU, GDPR is supposed to help with the "You simply will never know what you did that triggered them" part as they are required to explain what led them to close the account.

Yikes. That sucks. I’ve heard once your account is flagged there is literally nothing you can do to use Amazon anymore. Can you elaborate on how it happened to you and when? I am pretty liberal when it comes to returns but I don’t use the system unless necessary.

I'm not sure why but I just got an email that said that my account might be in violations of their return policy. I stopped using them and a couple of months later, they sent another email saying the account was closed. Whatever I did, it was very typical shopping behavior for a small household and small business. There were a number of returns of fake / broken items. I figured that was Amazon's business. Selling a ton of fake / broken garbage and eating the returns because they are aware of the shitty quality of their merchandise. It literally is most of their business!!! Whatever it was, I never got clarification because Amazon doesn't have an actual return policy that can be violated in this way. They are just a bunch of liars and thieves. They sell fake / broken shit and they steal your prime membership money. Seriously, what kind of shitty company does business this way and treats their paying members this way? Fuck them.

> There were a number of returns of fake / broken items.

This is not typical at all.

That sounds typical to me. This far I have had a slightly higher than 50% success rate with AmazonBasics items. I don’t think I will be purchasing many more. Especially since they have started forcing me to mail back $5 defective chargers before they will send a replacement.

You clearly haven't shopped at Amazon. It's the most typical Amazon experience there is. That's what they sell:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/amazo... http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-find-fake-products-onl... https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/30/17301714/amazon-counterfe... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-walmart-newegg-third-par...

If you believe your account is flagged, you can sell that account to people who are willing to purchase Aged Amazon accounts, they will buy out the remainder of your Amazon prime payments.

Is that even a thing? What exactly would they do with Aged Amazon accounts? Setup a FBA storefront?

Sell reviews, more than likely. A review left by a seasoned account with an established and long purchase history appears far more legitimate than from an obvious shill account, and is correspondingly more valuable.

The same sort of incentive can be found in a lot of places. There's a pretty niche but healthy market for aged companies, for example. So rather than winding down and dissolving your entity, you can make a few bucks by selling it. And rather than making a new company, you would just buy one of those dormant entities. With multiple incentives, one of the primary being that the established entity will have an aged enough paper trail to pass a lot of fraud checks and credit opportunities that a new entity couldn't.

It's not that you won't get the money back this time, but that they will refuse to sell you anything in future.

Oh yeah. When you get flagged in their system it’s pretty brutal. But you have to be extremely malicious to have it happen to you. Especially if you have a strong background with the company (member for many year + prime member for many years). Not only will they black list your address but every address on the account you own, meaning if you sent your friends a gift from amazon they will not longer be able to use amazon anymore. They go above and beyond for the abusers of the system. But to be flagged for that abuse, it typically is extreme circumstances. You can be very liberal with their return policy as long as you’re not malicious you’ll be okay.

You make a very strong statement regarding a data point of one, that is to say yourself.

Immediately thereafter you list a way you can get flagged through no fault of your own because a friend who was flagged shipped things your your address as a gift.

I don't want to have to establish a strong background of years of membership in order not to get treated like trash. I'm not interviewing for a job or a date I just want to give you my money for goods that aren't counterfeit.

When you have a large minority of fakes and problem shipments you are going to have outliers. People whom you shipped 5 fakes/broken stuff in a row.

Banning these people means that not only can I not trust you to sell me a legit good I can't trust you not to turn your back on me afterwards.

Haha, I did a lot of research back in the day when I first started using prime to make sure that all the crap I received that I believed warranted a return wouldn't have my account banned. I wasn't just using my own experiences, but my research experience as well. I do agree with the rest of your statement though. Although if you ran Amazon you'd probably have to also agree with banning people that take extreme advantage of the system (obviously extreme, not semi-advantaging the system). Unlike Walmart or Best Buy, when you return things to Amazon you also have to account for shipping to and from the customer. I understand why Amazon does it-- if even 0.5% of the Amazon population took advantage it would be ridiculously unprofitable for Amazon to be running.

Now the fact that they sell fake crap and expect people not to use the return policy is obviously ridiculous. If you're going to continue selling fake crap, then you better be willing to allow people to return that fake crap without consequences. So I definitely agree with your point.

(and maybe yank your Kindle collection and AWS resources at the same time...)

Which is why you should have a separate account for AWS vs your Amazon.com account, and you should download and rip the DRM off your Kindle books.

Part of the appeal of Kindle for me is that I'm really shitty at keeping backups effectively.

Separate AWS account won't necessarily save you - if they can connect the two by name, address, credit card, etc. they're at risk. If you've got a business, having it under the business name might do the trick, but that's still a risk.

You just shouldn't buy drm encumbered things nor trust anyone who might ban you for no reason with no recourse.