Originally Posted by
Mark Stone
I've never had a problem with Amazon, and buy a lot of stuff there. As a matter of fact, I bought my Meridian Trike there --
You can tell the BS listings from the legit.
Maybe you could in the past. Much harder now.
Fake / paid / manufactured reviews are a big problem.
Plus many of the "Ask a Question" comments are from totally unknowledgeable sources,
along the lines of "I don't have one but it might fit.."resulting from Amazon soliciting comments without vetting who they are asking , answers, or respondents.
Erroneous Pictures, bad descriptions, irregular pricing , shipping outside of Amazon , and counterfeits are growing.
The whole Fulfillment By Amazon process is poorly monitored to prevent problems, and may encourage them.
Even with trying to be cautious it appears a crapshoot.
? Documentation?
80% of the Shimano Acera RD I just searched for were copies, conspicuous counterfeits, mislabeled, were sold outside of Prime with delays and/or high shipping or priced as 4-5X retail gotchas. Run the search, yourself and see.
The faux Customer Service is generous, because their monitoring of vendors is so bad, like they are just in on the game.
This is driving out good vendors, who get doubly stung.
It's getting to be as risky as Alibaba, which appears to be their model for the future.