I saw this fascinating article about an arbitrage scheme between Amazon and Ebay:
https://entrepreneur.com/article/278622 Ebay sellers copy the description of an item on Amazon, post that description on eBay, mark up the price, then let Amazon handle both the deliveries and the returns. Entrepreneurs on Amazon end up getting angry complaints from consumers who feel ripped off on eBay for their products. Some of these arbitrageurs even charge a restocking fee for returns, even though they don't handle the returns. Amazon does.
The other issue is fake reviews:
https://howtogeek.com/282802/how-to-spot-fake-reviews-on-amazon-yelp-and-other-sites/This one has literally been driving me crazy when shopping online. It's a pain trying to figure out what products actually have good reviews from consumers. I often think I can spot the fake reviews but it ends up being a massive waste of time trying to find good products with legitimate reviews for items. if you screen on Amazon for the best reviewed whatever many of the ones that come to the top are full of fake reviews. And then of course there is the fake or counterfeit product problem too. It's gotten to the point where I wonder if shopping online really makes as much as sense as it once did.
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On the other hand, I'm not going to cry for Amazon. They pay pennies to the sellers on their platform and keep most of the profits. If they have a problem with what eBay sellers are doing they can ban them.
Re Amazon Reviews:
I've written 25 or more over the years and they're not fake! What I've noticed is that my (well supported) negative reviews often receive a slew of "not helpful" comments, sometimes within minutes of submission - knocking them down on the heiarchy of "helpful" reviews others are likely to look at. This leads me to believe some sellers employ trolls specifically to attempt to discredit negative reviews of their products - especially better supported ones.
To their credit, Amazon appears to require that reviewers who received free or discounted products in return for submitting a review provide a disclaimer to that effect in their review. And (it's a joke) that some highly rated products have a preponderance of reviews containing that disclaimer. I'll rarely, if ever, buy such a product. Amazon also indicates whether the writer is a "verified purchaser" of the product or not - for what it's worth. That doesn't rule out the review being fake - but would make it harder (and expensive) to submit a fake one.
80% of the time (or more) the reviews on Amazon have proven helpful to me in making purchase decisions (and led to good purchases). This is particularly true of technology where it's critical to know exactly how the product operates and what it can/cannot do. I admire some of the effort and diligence many reviewers put into their reviews. I've also used the "question" feature that accompanies the reviews and almost always have received helpful answers from the community.
When a review sounds "too good to be true" click on the reviewer to see what else they've reviewed. A lot of times you'll find they were only active around the time of that review (and may have reviewed a bunch of other products in the same short time frame to make it appear they were real reviewers.) Those fakes are easy to sort out. I'd say when you spot someone who's reviewed a variety of products going back 10 or 15 years, they're likely genuine. Finally, one thing I hate is when sellers nag you to submitt a review within days of receiving a product. Telling me to do something generally has the opposite effect.
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PS: Remember the MacBook Pro I was yacking about a few months ago? Bought it from a seller on Amazon and it's just beautiful. Looks to have had about 2 years of light use from what I could tell. The seller had promised 6 months of AppleCare remaining. When it arrived, I called Apple and found that it actually had more than 10 months of AppleCare (warranty and tech support) still remaining. But - as always, exercise due diligence - and buyer beware.
This issue that Lewis brings up is news to me and I thank him for posting it. Amazon has a real problem on their hands. It seems that everything went downhill when Amazon let others sell through their service instead of a pure Amazon experience as in the beginning.
Also guys, I'm a very experienced eBayer and a very happy one. And the reason is I figured out way early that you only buy stuff that can't really go bad. Like a phone case - perfect example.
I never every figured out why the heck one would buy a car on eBay.
Derf
I had a lengthy talk with Apple reps. With rare exceptions, AppleCare transfers along with the device when ownership changes. AppleCare coverage is limited to 3 years from the computer's date of original purchase. Since Apple confirmed (by serial number) that the unit had more than 10 months AppleCare remaining, that's how I could tell it had only been in service about 2 years. The 300+ days of tech support remaining was better than the 90 days that come with a brand new unit.
We generally use an iPad - but need a laptop for taxes, word processing and a few other things. Probably use it 25-30 days a year. The 13.3" MacPro shipped from a highly rated reseller at Amazon. It's a 2012 model (date of release) but has been upgraded to 16GB RAM and is running the latest version of IOS (Sierra). A new (latest generation) MacPro sells for over $2500. I thought that at under $600, considering our needs, this was a better way to go. It's a really cool machine. While not Retina, the screen is still very sharp and clear. First I've owned with lighted keyboard. Has built in CD/DVD drive which the latest models lack. And excellent battery life.
(From Apple) "Every Mac comes with a one-year limited warranty and up to 90 days of complimentary telephone technical support. Extend your coverage to three years from your Mac original purchase date with the AppleCare Protection Plan." http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD008LL/A/applecare-protection-plan-for-mac-pro