this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 184 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Amazon turned out really weird. I feel like the idea of Amazon should be consolidating reputable retailers together, but they decided to open the floodgates to random people and now it's little better than wish.com. Maybe they should split the site up and push all the random sellers onto a different platform.

[–] Squizzy 67 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I trust nothing on there anymore, it is very difficult to wade through the crap. All I want is a 3m HDMI 2.1 cable and I don't believe what I'm getting.

It's like chinavasion but with better marketing.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey man, I've got your cable right here: 10m 5m 3m 2m 1m HDMI 1.4 2.0 2.1 cable male female for Xbox 360 One Series S X PS3 PS4 PS5 Wii U Switch Apple PC iPhone iPad 4K 4:4:4 16:9 1080p 60Hz 120Hz.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah yes, CHORUTY brand, my favorite

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It'd worse than things like Temu. With that you just know you're buying cheap knockoffs with let's say questionable quality. On Amazon, you don't know what quality you're getting, for a worse price, and even worse delivery times (my last purchase from Amazon took 2 months to deliver. For a book!).

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

Amazon has basically become a delivery company with a shop front and no responsibility.

Their selling fees are utterly incomprehensible, but their calculator reckons you'll get about half the money for a £18 item and about 60% of it for a £45 item.

I feel like for that sort of cut, Amazon should be taking full responsibility for the fire hazard bullshit available from them.

Amazon, Uber, Deliveroo, etc are just leeches.

[–] TwoGems 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does Temu actually send the items?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

In my experience, yes.

[–] billiam0202 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I've always bought cables from Monoprice first and Amazon second.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Just bought from them for the first time the other day, good all around experience 🙂

[–] Squizzy 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Have you had any issues, I'm seeing ridiculously long cables that I didn't think we're commercially available like 15m 48gbps HDMI which I thought was above the length maximum

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is it fiber or copper? Copper is probably not going to get you that far, but fiber can supposedly still deliver a decent signal at up to 60m.

[–] Squizzy 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't understand, wouldn't the cable need to be copper to be a HDMI? If it was fiber you'd need something to convert the signal back to electrical from optical before the TV no?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are HDMI cables that are basically HDMI to fiber tranceivers. The HDMI plug draws power from the HDMI port to use active components to convert to a fiber signal.

[–] Squizzy 1 points 1 year ago

You have no Idea how much you have blown my mind this is crazy! I am getting one

[–] billiam0202 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are optical HDMI cables with much longer maximum lengths than passive copper cables. I assume the electrical - optical conversion is done in the plug itself.

[–] Squizzy 1 points 1 year ago

That is unbelievable, I never knew this. I can't believe there is a terminal in the jack allowing for the conversion it's really impressive.

[–] slumberlust 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Bought some plant stuff for the wifes bday and the company name on Amazon was XXXtenacion...wtf does that even mean? Why xxx? I don't know, but there are thousands of these ai generated/poorly translated brandings going on.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] slumberlust 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You are right! I double checked it's XXXFlower, not the rapper :)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I would've believed you either way lmao. The amount of weird brand names when I'm looking for something as generic as, say, a HDMI cable, wouldn't make me surprised if a seller named themselves after XXXTentacion

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Fun fact: XXXFlower not the rapper is Chance the rapper's second cousin

[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It used to be the safe alternative to eBay... Nowadays maybe it's the opposite

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yep, just bought a new pixel directly from the Google store on Amazon. They shipped me a refurbished one that was carrier locked to Verizon. It's been 3 weeks since I shipped it back and they still haven't checked it in n for a refund. Prob never buying anything worth more 200 bucks from them again.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Bet it wasn't google, it was something 'xingwang productions' calling themselves google.

Raspberry pi had loads of these during the shortage (still does, I think).. the listing has 'Raspberry Pi model 4B' and 'Visit the raspberry pi store' and '#1 best seller' and you dig a little and find it's a reseller who's shifting at a markup.

Amazon do nothing to prevent companies masquerading as others.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The problem is Amazon puts everything with the same SKU in the same bin. So your "xingwang productions" Pixel phones are in the same place as the official "Google Store" stuff.

I basically stopped buying on Amazon unless there's no other way to get what I want (or it doesn't matter that much) because of this. Definitely not touching any food, skin cream, etc from there or expensive electronics.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I am pretty sure they already stopped doing that for a long time. I mean mistake might still happen but I do not think they do that anymore.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

See, this is weird. Normally I get a refund the moment I drop it off at UPS/Kohls/USPS. They don’t even wait for the item to actually reach their warehouse most of the time. This includes a $4k laptop with a DOA thunderbolt port.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That had been my prior experience as well. I've bought and returned several more expensive items in the past, but I think they've made some recent changes to their return policy. Now they're not returning funds for expensive items until they've checked it in.

[–] PlantJam 13 points 1 year ago

I've seen so many Amazon drop ship listings on ebay. They don't even use different pictures.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I just got straight to the source on Ali for all my chinesium stuff, although if you don't want to wade through the express it can be a chore. And express vendors can be as expensive as Amazon.

Ebays not bad, especially for used gizmos. And anything important I just get it from a legitimate retailer.

[–] Landmammals 1 points 1 year ago

It really is. On eBay the seller has a rating. On Amazon the item has a rating. You're just sort of randomly buying the thing you want and hope to get a good seller.