On the bench where this is being written, there’s a Mitutoyo vernier caliper. It’s the base model with a proper vernier scale, but it’s beautifully made, and it’s enjoyable to see younger hardware hackers puzzle over how to use it. It cost about thirty British pounds a few years ago, but when it comes to quality metrology instruments that’s really cheap. The sky really is the limit for those in search of ultimate accuracy and precision. We can see then why this Redditor was upset when the $400 Mitutoyo they ordered from Amazon turned out to be nothing of the sort. We can’t even call it a fake, it’s just a very cheap instrument stuffed oddly, into a genuine Mitutoyo box.
Naturally we hope they received a refund, but it does raise the question when buying from large online retailers; how much are we prepared to risk? We buy plenty of stuff from AliExpress in out community, but in that case the slight element of chance which comes with random Chinese manufacture is offset by the low prices. Meanwhile the likes of Amazon have worked hard to establish themselves as trusted brands, but is that misplaced? They are after all simply clearing houses for third party products, and evidently have little care for what’s in the box. The £30 base model caliper mentioned above is an acceptable punt, but at what point should we go to a specialist and pay more for some confidence in the product?
It’s a question worth pondering as we hit the “Buy now” button without thinking. What’s your view? Let us know in the comments. Meanwhile, we can all be caught with our online purchases.
Thanks [JohnU] for the tip.
Amazon should act responsibly if they want to be anything more than a money making machine. What, they don’t want to be anything more than a money making machine? Caveat emptor.
This is seemingly just an incident of someone switching out the real one for something that looks/weighs the same and then returning it, keeping the real one. Amazon’s returns process is often abused and I have received products which are clearly used but have been sold as new.
That makes a lot of sense. Amazon still shouldn’t be responsible. They didnt do it, the other person did! /s
At this point anything with even a remote chance of being Chinesium with no further refinement and support from an EU (etc) company is not worth it. Even the simplest and already cheap to make products are being turned into garbage, and then sold at prices that imply quality, and often with that sort of product its not even possible to fix it to be functional…
Amazon and the likes are almost worse than playing the lottery for all their physical products now, as odds are good all you get is lots of transport costs and a pile of waste. At least the lottery just takes your money without all the additional costs!
Problem is, people want to think ( or are taught to ) that the cheap trash is good enough, and those that charge more are exploiting them ( but these same people will not accept a reduction on their wages or on the goods themselves produce ) .
Then the companies that produce itens with some quality end up closing shop, and people are left with only the shoddy items ( but will keep complaining nobody makes a good X anymore ) .
the two great evils of the modern e-shopping experience are fake products and poor search. i hate how amazon and newegg (et al) have degraded into federated garbage. it absolutely obliterates all hope for the search function. and then you don’t know what you’re getting, but they are trying to make you think you know what you’re getting, and that is very frustrating. if half the listings have an unreasonably low price, it’s because they’re fake…but then if you buy the one with the reasonable price, that one is expensive-and-fake!!!
the mind-boggling part is that amazon could easily solve this problem by putting more scrutiny on their relationship with their vendors. they can ban vendors for a whole list of easily-detectable deceptive practices, and they don’t have to allow vendors to sign up in a way that permits ban-dodging. amazon is destroying its brand on purpose. just like walmart before it.
i actually find it is a big improvement to simply go to the more transparently low-quality marketplaces. for example, i hate federated amazon and newegg but i am perfectly happy on ebay, which has been essentially federated since its inception. it doesn’t feel deceptive on ebay. and the same for going to temu to buy knockoff goods — i am getting the knockoff i ordered so there’s no cognitive dissonance.
the odd thing is, ebay’s search function works is almost always hole-in-one for me. i don’t know why that is, but it’s great.
they have little to no incentive to improve the marketplace when it’s only 12% of revenue, let alone profits. The store is more of a marketing gig for the brand at this point.
I still take these gambles because Amazon has a decent return policy. eBay has been like this for a while with all the cheap Chinese crap. PayPal returns strongly favor the customer. Wield that policy like a hammer.
When I don’t want to waste time or effort it’s straight to the “authorized distributor”. Always more expensive but always the product I asked for.