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Google Broke Up a Vietnamese Con Scheme After an Employee Was Scammed Buying a Bluetooth Headset (cnbc.com)
A Google executive found a high-end Bluetooth headset selling at a steep discount on Google Shopping website earlier this year. He placed the order, but much to his surprise, the headset never arrived at his doorstep. He tried calling the seller, but it turned out that the number listed on the website was disconnected, and the merchant wasn't based in the US, as the website had indicated. Instead of kicking the seller off the website, Google launched an investigation and it soon realized the problem ran too deep. From a report: But instead of simply banning the bad actor from listing new products, Google Shopping's trust and safety team initiated a global probe that ultimately tracked down 5,000 merchant accounts wrapped up in a sophisticated scheme to defraud users. "I think we caught them right at the tip of when they were trying to scale up," Saikat Mitra, Google Shopping's director of trust and safety, told CNBC. The story, which Mitra is sharing publicly for the first time, reflects Google's never-ending battle against scams, a fight that requires engineers and their increasingly sophisticated machine learning tools.
It also illustrates the risks that consumers face as Google aggressively tries to win back product searches from Amazon and stay relevant in the future of e-commerce. Although Google Shopping may look like a marketplace, it really isn't. Amazon and eBay operate shopping platforms that connect sellers with buyers and offer protections like money-back guarantees. Google, by contrast, sends shoppers off its site after they click on an item, and thus has no visibility into what happens after the transaction.
It also illustrates the risks that consumers face as Google aggressively tries to win back product searches from Amazon and stay relevant in the future of e-commerce. Although Google Shopping may look like a marketplace, it really isn't. Amazon and eBay operate shopping platforms that connect sellers with buyers and offer protections like money-back guarantees. Google, by contrast, sends shoppers off its site after they click on an item, and thus has no visibility into what happens after the transaction.
A Google executive...
If that to you or I - peasants - we'd be given the run around and basically told to "suck it".
After years of scam, google exec had to get scammed to start any investigation. Who cares about 100.000 complains they received earlier...
I got scammed!
Google: Too bad.
Google Exec:
I got scammed!
Google: Let's find the scum and make a press release of how much good we're doing!
If it hadn't happened to a Google exec it would never have been investigated.
Google shopping wants to compete with amazon.com or fleabay? Seems unlikely, as google doesn't actually sell products. It's a search engine that tricks users into thinking there is a store hosted on google.com. Not only that, but many of the results actually end up being listings on fleabay or amazon.com in the first place. If google wants to compete in e-commerece, then they will prob have to.. you know, engage in actual e-commerce.
A Google executive found a high-end Bluetooth headset selling at a steep discount on Google Shopping website earlier this year. He placed the order, but much to his surprise, the headset never arrived at his doorstep. ...
Geez, and this guy is an executive at Google?
If that to you or I ...
I meant: If that HAPPENED to you or I ...
WTF?
I can re-read shit multiple times and still not catch stupid shit like that.
Is there some designer "issue" I can claim to have or am I just some inattentive dipshit?
Don't worry, I call myself the latter ALL the time. Teachers used to really berate me and later so did my employers.....
I tried mindfulness training, but all that revealed was how many times I breathed between fuck ups.
The main problem with globalization is that we need to rely on corporations, such as Google, to investigate and punish fraud. Although Google did the right thing in this case, they're doing the wrong thing in far too many cases.
Personally, I think that globalization is just a bad idea. Neverthless, the corporations love it because it gives them immense power and profits.
Did he ever get his headset?
5000 scam merchants doesn't sound like the tip.
You seem surprised? Being a executive is all about who you're friends with.
Ah, to have the power to be able to mobilize a global corporation on your behalf. Truly, we are like insects in the face of these people's glory.
A Google executive found a high-end Bluetooth headset selling at a steep discount on Google Shopping website earlier this year. He placed the order, but much to his surprise, the headset never arrived at his doorstep. He tried calling the seller, but it turned out that the number listed on the website was disconnected, and the merchant wasn't based in the US, as the website had indicated. Instead of kicking the seller off the website, Google launched an investigation and it soon realized the problem ran too deep.
Now, see ... when that happens to me I start wondering whether this is a scam ... I suppose Google executives are wired differently. I always get a bit of a kick out of greedy bargain hunters. This is not to say that all bargain hunters are greedy, in fact just a small minority of few of them fits that description, but that minority is a pretty reliable source of amusement. Years and years ago there was this case in Germany where people bought a mobile phones from a Swiss company by mail through a magazine ad for a ridiculously low price (this was before internet commerce took off). What they got was a toy phone although that was not necessarily obvious from the ad. Lawsuits ensued which ended with a very Swiss judgement where the judge basically told the plaintiff that: "...Yes this is an awfully expensive toy phone, but if you are dumb enough to expect to get a working mobile phone for that price you are dumber than a bag of hammers". If it looks to good to be true it probably is...
If all it takes is pissing of a large corporation to get sh!t done, can we re-route a few of the annoying daily robo calls I get to google?
Amazon and eBay operate shopping platforms that connect sellers with buyers and offer protections like money-back guarantees. Google, by contrast, sends shoppers off its site after they click on an item, and thus has no visibility into what happens after the transaction.
Which is why Google Shopping has no chance of competing with Amazon or eBay.
It was a fair trade, at first. Your searches answered for infos about what you were interested in at that moment in time. Anything else google has done since has come at such a great cost that it's close to theft. Ask google what the true cost of a lifetime of advertising and psychological warfare is. They know but they won't tell you.
He tried calling the seller, but it turned out that the number listed on the website was disconnected.
Haha, someone at Google saying he was frustrated that he was unable to phone a business to communicate a problem? Gee, that sounds similar to the many complaints people have for Google when trying to reach out for support with their purchased products and services.
Google pats themselves on the back. Google claims to be preventing fraud. Google is not the bad guys, they only direct you to the bad guys. See. We're so good that we put other bad guys away. Well, those that we can't get a kick back from in advertisement dollars.
but there's no way that's actually the case. Amazon and eBay are wormy with this sort of scam, and they put actual effort into combating it. The only reason Google thinks they caught this early is a combination of willful ignorance and wishful thinking.
just a ghost in the machine.
Amazon and eBay operate shopping platforms that connect sellers with buyers and offer protections like money-back guarantees. Google, by contrast, sends shoppers off its site after they click on an item, and thus has no visibility into what happens after the transaction.
Actually...Google has started to roll out where you buy things without leaving Google. It's still just rolling out, but I've seen it every once in a while. I've seen it show up a couple times (ironically on stuff I wasn't trying to buy) and have backend knowledge of it happening from a sales side of things. Kind of nifty the way it works, but I doubt that it'll ever catch Amazon. The end user is told that their product is being fulfilled by [insert merchant here] and they never leave the Google page.
And no, I do not work for Google. I work for a company that has partnered with Google on this particular topic.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
No cure for stupid. There just isn't.
This is why buying through a reputable site is necessary, even if it costs $2 more.
I'd assume it was a 20-something doing this. Part of life that most people learn as a child without "perfect" friends. Trust, but verify.
What they did is ultimately good, but how they likely did it???
A citizen / corporation witnessing a crime and reporting it is one thing. Suspecting one and actively investigating it across international boundaries using powerful spying tools that the police might not have been able to use without subpoenas or warrants is very different. Is this not vigilantism?
If such capabilities were automated and deployed en masse to detect patterns instead of investigate specific reported instances, we'd start running into the problem of innocents being investigated. That happens in the justice system too with often devastating results to those whose lives are destroyed for nothing, but not as often as can happen when big data mining is employed.
We shouldn't go there. It fails the risk/reward test.
Tech firms like Google (and many others) are accustomed to operating without any accountability. They did a great job of dealing with this situation BUT... it's a situation that should never have occurred in the first place. Vet the sellers, vet the developers - take responsibility for the products and services you create.
If your biggest effort is manipulating searches for political favors - You. Are. Doing. It. Wrong.
A cynical man would say they're publicizing this now in an attempt to distract people from all the bad publicity they're getting lately.
Never heard of "Google Shopping"...use Amazon, eBay and Alibaba all the time; never had a problem.
Aha, maybe that's the problem TFA refers to, then....
Save your time, skip the article. It has no details on how Google fight scams, it just tells us it happens.
Google Execs should be using Google services and learning how to improve. The story was presented poorly that a gullible Exec purchase led to a revelation about a widespread and known scam problems. In Japan, the news regularly posts stories about consumers chasing deals to good to be true then stuff never arrives. Surprise, Surprise, Surprise. Google should have indicated they were monitoring scam reports which happened to include on from its own employees ( not an Exec should not matter level). Anyway, Google will be learning from this experience and benchmark what others do to curtail to improve their services. I have not tried this service from Google much like the other sites even Mercari that have mostly legit stuff since requires a lot of effort for the modest purchases I would consider for such channels. If you have time / energy can save / earn but factor in the effort/ risk. I will someday soon now explore Google for search comparisons
What is this Google Shopping? Does anybody who doesn't work for Google use it? Is this article a publicity campaign?
So instead of doing this just from the start, they only did this after a google executive was ripped off.. Shows how much google really cares..