Amazon Slammed for Destroying As-New and Returned Goods (fortune.com)

Amazon is destroying "massive amounts" of as-new and returned items, raising the ire of the German government and environmental campaigners, local media reported. Fortune: The types of items being destroyed here go way beyond the "health and personal care" products that Amazon has long been destroying when people return them, for sanitary reasons. We're talking things like washing machines, smartphones and furniture. The revelation drew an angry response from the German government and environmental campaigners. "This is a huge scandal," Jochen Flasbarth from the German environment ministry told WirtschaftsWoche. "We are consuming these resources despite all the problems in the world. This approach is not in step with our times." Greenpeace's Kirsten Brodde said there was a need for a new "law on banning the waste and destruction of first-hand and usable goods."

Comments

It's about cost...

[MikeDataLink]

I sell some products on Amazon. In many cases (especially electronics) Amazon will not/can not determine if the product is actually good or bad (ex: a consumer firewall that customer claims is not stable or reboots). It's most likely cheaper to have Amazon destroy it than to pay to ship it back, pay an employee to test it and repackage it, list it on feeBay as used/open box to resell it, and pay to ship it yet again (if its even good).

Mike

Re:It's about cost...

[JMJimmy]

More than this, as a business do you want to take the chance sending someone a piece of furniture that's been infested with bedbugs by a customer who's returned it? Or deal with having to check for malware on every smartphone that's returned? etc.

Re:It's about cost...

[Joce640k]

Ummm... no.

It's about the planet.

At some point people have to wake up and realize it's NOT all about the money.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

oh right thats why we need to close all local stores and make amazon great again. fuck the planet

Re:It's about cost...

[Joce640k]

Does it have to be destroyed on the off-chance?

There's plenty of people out there who'd take that risk if they could pay less than full price.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

At some point people have to wake up and realize it's NOT all about the money.

So would you willingly purchase a piece of furniture infested with bedbugs or lice in the fabric material?

Or a washing machine with the same in the filtering system?

Or a smartphone that was rooted and had spyware and malware installed on it?

Because you can have all of those things, so long as you're willing to accept the legal punishments for willingly spreading disease in violation of the rest of the worlds health codes and laws, and accept full financial responsibility for ALL damages your infected spamming/DDoSing computing hardware causes.

Sometimes it isn't about you pushing your problems onto the rest of the world to cleanup in the name of "protecting mother earth", it's about the very real harm and lives lost due to your choices.

Re:It's about cost...

[Chris Mattern]

There's plenty of people out there who'd say they'd take the risk for a lower price, but would then turn around and sue you if it turned out bad. They'd probably win, too, no matter what they signed; there are consumer rights you can't sign away. So Amazon can't resell this junk.

Re:It's about cost...

[Joce640k]

No, I want Amazon to accept the consequences of their business model.

If it costs them extra to de-louse everything and do a factory reset on every returned smartphone then that's too bad.

All it means is that the prices charged by Amazon will resemble more closely the true costs of doing business in that way.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

  In many cases (especially electronics) Amazon will not/can not determine if the product is actually good or bad (ex: a consumer firewall that customer claims is not stable or reboots).

This kind of stuff is bought all the time, in bulk, by retailers that deal specifically in merchandise like this. A There's secondary markets all of the place that buy this stuff and re-sell it and a tiny fraction of the original price. I've been to many of these stores much of my life. A few years ago I bought some of those Atari 2600 "all-in-one" consoles for dirt cheap at such a place. I think I had to go through 4 different units (and return them) until I found one that worked.

My guess is the REAL reason it's destroyed is the retailer will only refund Amazon the price of the defective merchandise if Amazon destroys it. Why does the retailer want to destroy it? Because they want to limit its impact on the secondary market to lower prices. Sometimes these are called "grey markets" because manufacturers want to make it sound like there's something wrong with them.

Re:It's about cost...

[ChromeAeonuim]

A European government getting angry at an American company over a complex problem without proposing a viable solution? What a shocker. And look, Greenpeace is at it too, natch.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's plenty of people out there who'd take that risk if they could pay less than full price.

I think this is precisely the point. After accounting for risks, the business can't sell it for less than full price.

Even if the business sells it AS-IS there is still the issue of having your name/brand on it.
When some idiot buys AS-IS because it's cheaper, he'll still go on social media to complain about it.
When the business says, sorry, but you bought it AS-IS, social media will still skewer the brand of the "heartless business" to shit.

And for what purpose? Barely breaking even on shit merchandise?
I don't think any business would sign up for that.

Basically, if there is a law, Amazon is going to ship all the stuff to a huge flea market.
There it will sit until the folks there figure out what the businesses already did:
This stuff isn't worth crap, time to pitch it.

Next, a law on disposal of flea market goods.

Re:It's about cost...

[tlhIngan]

Does it have to be destroyed on the off-chance?

There's plenty of people out there who'd take that risk if they could pay less than full price.

Depends on the store. At the very least, it must be destroyed - rendered non-working. And stores take great care in this - stuff marked as destroyed cannot be sold or given to anyone but a recycler. (This is especially important if insurance claims are involved - a fire in a part of the warehouse may "destroy" everything, but insurance will require that every last item be accounted for - even if the product is sealed inside the packaging and thus still good (think products like booster packs for games and such, plus tons of shrinkwrapped and clamshell products).

Of course, other stores can do this - if they don't mind having Amazon hold onto them, you can list it on eBay and other sites as an "AS IS" product and have Amazon drop-ship it for you to them.

Problem is, it's up to the stores to do it - Amazon themselves can't do it since they don't appear to have an "AS IS" capability on their site that basically means you bought it, you can't return it, etc.

Re:It's about cost...

[DarkOx]

how about checking for malware on every IoT washer or fridge.

Re:It's about cost...

[davidwr]

If it costs them extra to de-louse everything and do a factory reset on every returned smartphone then that's too bad.

Many devices don't have a true factory reset.

If I install a rooted firmware I can usually survive a so-called factory reset.

If I am a state actor or other highly-funded actor (Mafia?) out to damage a company's reputation and I deliberately replace the guts with look-alike act-alike p0wned hardeare that I know will he re-sold, I "win."

I don't blame Amazon for their actions.

Now, if hardware vendors were required to buy back returned merchandise for refurbishing or parts-recycling (including a true "factory reset), that would help the environment a lot. It might result in slightly higher prices but society will adjust.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds to me like you want Amazon and Amazon alone to have additional restrictions that no one else does.

You do realize, with exception of the electronics, that this practice is written in the law for manufacturers since the 1950's right?

You are in effect wanting Amazon and/or the manufacturer to use up more fossil fuels to send the products back to the manufacturer to be destroyed and the materials recycled in the exact same way as Amazon is doing now.

As for the electronics, again, you are still refusing to accept any responsibility for the harm your still infected after a factory reset phone WILL cause to the rest of us. I think that gives the rest of us plenty of justified reason to simply say no.
Almost anything with a processor and persistent memory that only the manufacturer can actually fully reset is a fairly new type of risk and should be dealt with in a more appropriate way.

Now you can certainly argue manufacturers shouldn't be allowed to produce such products locked down to prevent their safety by others, and not build in planned obsolescence, but that's both another topic and not really the one being discussed.
Yes Amazon makes their own branded electronics too, and for those they are in whole responsible for just as the others are for theirs. Beyond that it doesn't really fall on the store.

Re:It's about cost...

[rainer_d]

^^^^This!

Can't upvote you, unfortunately.

It's the same with gas-prices: Why is gas so cheap? Because the costs at the fuel-pump do not represent the true costs of actually recreating the crude (and most of the costs associated with the environmental impact).

It's business-model not unlike somebody selling pirated version of some software. He can sell it at a very low price and still make a profit - because the true costs are accumulating elsewhere.

Sustainable business-models - they both ain't.

Re:It's about cost...

[DarkOx]

No you want to dictate to them how they dispose of their property. You're a totalitarian a-hole just admit it.

Amazon IS accepting the consequences of their model. They accept most returns from their customers no questions asked. They eat the cost of the returned merchandise. Once they accept the return its their property again! They can do whatever they want with it! That is the way it should be!

Re:It's about cost...

[orlanz]

They would actually have to pay equal or more than full price. The logistics and stocking of these types of items is high because of the rarity and high defect rate. This is why non-profits and volunteers usually soak up the middle costs in getting used items to that low cost sector. However, unlike regular retail, there is no steady supply of the items, its a hit or miss. So the supply chains to move this stuff needs to be recreated over and over again which adds to the high cost.

I have seen two local businesses that did just this, go out of business due to the overhead involved. They rented cheap space and basically got used/opened/defective merchandise from local big stores. Think perfect sofas with a broken foot or unopened laundry detergent with a ripped label. They got the stuff for like 90% off. They did their own transport. And for some stuff, they couldn't keep them on the shelves. But there was much they had to pay for disposal because it wouldn't sell and just took up space (again, no volume in disposal). So they had to be careful of what they took on and customers wouldn't find the same bargain every visit. The overhead involved in each specific item, just wasn't worth it.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

"infested with bedbugs by a customer who's returned it? Or deal with having to check for malware on every smartphone that's returned?"

I guess IYHO with the washing machine it's possible that the user washed 'unmentionables' in it, the hairdryer might have dried pubic hair and in the case of a dishwasher the dentures box, he might have sat naked on the returned couch, watched porn through the glasses ...?

But seriously, what's wrong with people?

Re:It's about cost...

[DogDude]

No, I want Amazon to accept the consequences of their business model.

Absofucking-lutely.

Re:It's about cost...

[DogDude]

You describe a situation in which the only concern is money. You're missing the entire point of this discussion.

Re:It's about cost...

[avandesande]

Dump the stuff in a warehouse and hold a monthly auction of the stuff to bidders with business license.

Re:It's about cost...

[Immerman]

Pretty sure you can buy almost anything at your local secondhand store on an "AS-IS, No Refunds" basis.

Re: It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you talking about? Amazon sells used items (mainly books). It could easily do this for other items.

Re:It's about cost...

[Wycliffe]

Does it have to be destroyed on the off-chance?

There's plenty of people out there who'd take that risk if they could pay less than full price.

And that's exactly what Amazon says they are doing. They sell it at a reduced price and/or sell it to a liquidator. In some cases though, for a variety of reasons, things have to be destroyed. My dad actually is a liquidator. He buys random stuff from a variety of places. The FDA makes him destroy some stuff. He destroys other stuff because there is too much liability, it's been recalled, it costs too much to ship, it can't be tested, or he can't legally sell it for whatever reason. He once got a Harley and tried to apply for a title for it. Harley called and said that it had to be destroyed to protect their name. I believe they even compensated him for it. It was a perfectly good bike but wasn't up to their standards. My guess is though the most common reason something gets destroyed is because it is cheaper to destroy it than to properly vet it and sell it just like it is cheaper to buy a new dvd player than to pay someone to fix a broken one.

Re:It's about cost...

[grahamsz]

I think there is a solution to be found here.

We most sell clothing in b&m retail stores. Customers get to see and touch the product, try it on, and have a higher confidence that it'll meet their needs. Our returns rate is usually 1% and we usually opt to have the retailer destroy anything they deem unsaleable. It's of course going back to a retailer that understands that product category and can usually make a pretty good call. We've sampled those returns from time to time, but the majority are truly unsaleable and it's not worth the shipping cost (and carbon footprint) to bring them back to our facility.

We also sell a little on Amazon and we request back all the "unsaleable" customer returns, which are probably 3-4x higher than our b&m rate. Still the majority that comes back to us from Amazon simply has the packaging torn open and the item appears to be in perfect condition. We've got an outlet channel we can funnel that through and we collect a little value back, though for a seller that didn't have anywhere to liquidate those products I can see why they'd opt for destruction.

So you've got this pool of gray items that aren't "resealable as new" and aren't "total trash". There are plenty of viable solutions here

- let the customer keep the item and/or donate it locally
- have domain-specific returns staff that understand what they have and how to test it. An electronics retailer wouldn't destroy a cellphone that appears to be in good cosmetic condition. They'd test, erase and sell it as open-box. That's harder for Amazon, but by no means impossible.
- Send all the "gray area" items back to the manufacturer/supplier where they can do the testing or liquidation

The governments job isn't to mandate the solution. Solutions exist, they just happen to be more expensive than throwing stuff in the trash. All the government would need to do is tax the destruction of otherwise saleable items, or simply of destroying more than x% of the product that's returned and it'd suddenly be cost effective to fix the issue

Re:It's about cost...

[XXongo]

If you read the second of the links on the German language website (which you have to click through to get to-- should have been linked here but it wasn't), it makes exactly these points: the "Scandal" is mostly invented; Amazon doesn't destroy stuff it doesn't have to, and they go to some amount of effort to sell at lower cost, or donate, stuff that is returned but can't be resold "as new". https://www.wortfilter.de/wp/h... (translate: https://translate.google.com/t... )

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

A buyer's ability does not limit a seller's culpability.

Re:It's about cost...

[orlanz]

But that would be worse for the planet. There are many scenarios where the resources expended to "fix" something has a higher environmental cost than to just dispose of it. Heck the QA needed to determine when this is so adds to that environmental cost.

If you had a steady stream of the same defective phone; like at the factory, sure it makes sense to review and fix them (more like fix the manufacturing process). But in this situation, the defect line is giving you a flat screen, followed by furniture, cellphone, shirt, etc. There is no environmentally friendly way to sort, rate, and breakdown or resell these things. You don't have the volume to come up with an efficient process.

When people say "Its NOT about the money", it usually implies "not about making more money". That's fine. But in another way, Money is the best metric we have to measure cost. Its not ideal, but its better than anything else we have. A toothbrush costing $1 encompasses the sum total of all human labor involved in producing that toothbrush and getting it to you. To add labor on top of that; someone needs to support it by paying that price and society won't.

Now, I am not say Amazon nor regulations shouldn't do anything. Some products are just bad for the environment and shouldn't be made. Take one time use plastic straws. Throwing them away is a negative environmental value, and recycling them is a bigger negative value. In which case... just don't make them; ban them.

Re:It's about cost...

[DarkOx]

No I am describing a situation my primary concern is personal property rights. Its no business of yours or anyone else's what I do with my property or what Amazon does with theirs. If I want *want* purchase 1000 iPhone X's to use in place of clay pigeons over my field - that's all me.

You have all ready legislated all sorts of consumer rights where Amazon has to take returns in the first place and now you want to seek to tell them what they can with the returned goods - who they can sell it to when under what circumstances etc. You are basically going full command economy on them!

Should we have basic laws that prevent them from doing obviously harmful things like dumping them at sea or something - yes but beyond that they should be able to dispose them how they wish - resale, recycler, refuse heap etc. Keep in mind they probably have to PAY to have the trash hauled away too. They are not 'getting some kind of free ride here'.

Re:It's about cost...

[DogDude]

I don't give a flying fuck about your personal property rights when they're polluting my air and water. Your greed doesn't trump my health.

Re:It's about cost...

[DarkOx]

Yes but buyer beware works in that case because you physically inspect the merchandise before purchase. Some larger GoodWill stores even have a bench in the back where you can plug electronics in and stuff to see if they work yourself!

That is hard to do online! So there would always be a question of did Amazon accurate represent the condition of the product, or did they not mention it rattles when you pick it up etc?

Re:It's about cost...

[halivar]

That literally has nothing to do with TFA.

Re:It's about cost...

[Baki]

It would not be cheaper if they had to pay the fair price for pollution waste management.

Unregulated markets are unfair markets, as much of the burden and real cost to mankind is shifted into the future or into other regions of the world.

Re:It's about cost...

[timholman]

There's plenty of people out there who'd say they'd take the risk for a lower price, but would then turn around and sue you if it turned out bad.

In fact, you could be certain that some people would make a living out of doing this: accepting reduced-price or donated goods from Amazon, and then suing repeatedly.

Do a search on "Gersh Zavodnik" as an exemplar.

Re:It's about cost...

[Ol Olsoc]

Pretty sure you can buy almost anything at your local secondhand store on an "AS-IS, No Refunds" basis.

Yet many people are taken to court over as-is sales. Most plaintiffs lose. The only ones who don't can prove fraud. So guess what the plaintiffs claim. But you're still dragged through the mud.

I still like my idea of shipping everything returned to Germany at full price plus shipping, all to be covered by Germany. Who could oppose that - especially when the good people of Germany are demanding to control what Amazon does? Step up and do your duty.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

You describe a situation in which the only concern is money. You're missing the entire point of this discussion.

You own a business, do you never ever throw out returns? Never? Not once. You pay full price always for the product to be back in working order. Imagine getting a defective $100 video card and spending $2k diagnosing and fixing a proprietary IC.

It's not about the money right? You should spend that $2k or be labeled a bad person.

Re:It's about cost...

[Kjella]

There's plenty of people out there who'd say they'd take the risk for a lower price, but would then turn around and sue you if it turned out bad. They'd probably win, too, no matter what they signed; there are consumer rights you can't sign away. So Amazon can't resell this junk.

And for good reason too, if you could sell goods "as-is" with no warranty they'd make it part of the standard boilerplate, which is what consumer laws are supposed to protect against. Not to mention all the shady companies that would send out faulty batches and pretend you got the lemon, too bad that's the risk you signed up for. And consumers who'd blame any problem they have on being a faulty return claiming you scammed them, even when it's unrelated. And there will be mental cases you've pissed off because they lost their job or whatever that'll make bad returns with malice.

Basically you either have to take it in and process it before you can sell it again or you have to sell it as scrap or parts. But the former costs too much money and selling a piece of clothing as a rag isn't worth anything so it's not worth doing. Personally I think free returns is inflating the price for everyone else, if something is defective or not as advertised sure. If you pay the restocking fee if you get buyer's regret, fine. But reality is that some of us are subsidizing people who can't be arsed to figure out what they actually want before they buy it.

For me, I think the items I've wanted to return because they're defective or not matching the description greatly outnumber the products I've wanted to return for other reasons. And in most cases I've simply been asked to visibly destroy it, snap a photo and they'll either send a new one or refund me the money. It's not worth their time or my time to waste more resources on a broken product. It will eventually become trash anyway, it's just a small percentage that skipped being useful in between.

Re:It's about cost...

[XXongo]

If you read the German-language discussion, they do dispose of returned merchandise in secondary markets whenever they can. It is only stuff that they can't dispose of through secondary markets that is destroyed.

https://www.wortfilter.de/wp/hintergruende-zum-amazon-skandal-amazon-mitarbeiter-enthuellen-sie-vernichten-im-auftrag-des-onlineriesen-taeglich-zehntausende-neue-produkte/

Re:It's about cost...

[DarkOx]

Interestingly I don't give a flying fuck about your personal health - I value my freedom and I want to protect the freedom of my children etc.

I am not trying to destroy the planet. I am not suggesting Amazon should just be able to dump about PCBs and lead batteries in the local wilderness area or something. I am saying they have basic rights to what they want with stuff that belongs to them. If you care so much go live in mud hut and eat only raw vegetation foraged etc and leave the rest of us alone.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure it does. Amazon's business practices for reselling returns would get fucking spanked in Germany because they're fraudulent. That's why they don't bother and just throw the shit away.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what amazon warehouse deals are.

It's not even a risk because amazon will take a return on the item.

Well, you do risk your time for a very small discount.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

He once got a Harley and tried to apply for a title for it. Harley called and said that it had to be destroyed to protect their name. I believe they even compensated him for it. It was a perfectly good bike but wasn't up to their standards.

What kind of Corporate Dystopian crap is that? He or his liquidation company owned the bike. They can offer him money to trash it, but they have no say-so on whether it *has* to be destroyed. Not even the local, state, or the feds can do that unless your motorcycle is made out of radioactive materials instead of "glass... and tubes." The government can prevent you from riding it on the streets, but your property rights trump Harley's PR department.

Re:It's about cost...

[AmiMoJo]

So in countries with worse consumer laws what happens to returned items? How is it better than the EU?

Re: It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

So many words to justify trashing things. Imagine if it was something valid, you'd be doing a book on the subject.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, you're both wrong and you're both doing an admirable job of demonstrating it.

Re:It's about cost...

[Cyberax]

Can I dump lead batteries _near_ your property? Perhaps a little bit upstream to make sure the lead leaches out properly?

Hey, I would even buy a couple of square meters it'd take to place the batteries.

Re:It's about cost...

[AmiMoJo]

Amazon is not a person. Amazon is a huge corporation.

German law recognises that large corporations have an enormous amount of power, and are prone to acting like sociopaths if unchecked. It also expects them to contribute to the betterment of society, in exchange for all the benefits it recieves.

Not destroying perfectly good stuff at a cost to the environment, mostly externalised away from Amazon, is no infringement of personal liberties because Amazon is not a person.

Re:It's about cost...

[rogoshen1]

I still like my idea of shipping everything ... to Germany at full price plus shipping, all to be covered by Germany.

Hey if it works for for Syrians, Somalis, and Iraqis... (also: how to get a -5 flamebait almost instantaneously)

Re:It's about cost...

[oh-dark-thirty]

Thiis is exactly right, it's all about legal liability. Next time you see some asinine rule or practice put in place by any organization, I can virtually guarantee it's there to limit liability.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

They can do whatever they want with it! That is the way it should be!

No, in fact they can't "do whatever they want with it". They can't grind it up and dump it in the sea. They can't feed it to babies. We have regulations on how to dispose of things. This isn't a anarcho-capitalism.

What's the fundamental difference between regulations that say you have to dispose of something properly, to regulations saying you must first try to re-sell things properly? They're both about eliminating waste, just different approaches to the same problem. Re-selling it is normally a far better option that the (mostly a lie) of recycling.

Re:It's about cost...

[hey!]

I once volunteered for a group which tidied up and fixed used furniture and housewares and provided them to poor families.

The economics of that was interesting. I once fixed an old Singer sewing machine that had frozen up because the old oil had congealed. Now if you paid me what my time was worth as an engineer that'd make no sense: you could buy a new one for that. But in fact I wasn't paid in money. The next week a family came in and the mom knew how to sew. When I loaded the sewing machine on the van I had the satisfaction of seeing something I'd fixed with my own hands go where it would mean clothes for the kids.

Sometimes we got antiques or other pieces that were valuable. These went to auctions and the proceeds bought re-manufactured mattresses. Other times we got stuff that was just trash; this went into the dumpster, or if it were metal to a scrap dealer with the pennies earned going into the mattress kitty.

I suspect the same kind of charitable sweat-equity economics could be applied to a lot of the things being destroyed by Amazon. They could go to community volunteer groups and diverted to local causes where they would do good without affecting the primary market for those goods.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure you can buy almost anything at your local secondhand store on an "AS-IS, No Refunds" basis.

Yes, but most secondhand stores do not have pockets the depth of Amazon's, (in fact, I'm betting NONE do,) limiting the amount of money a lawyer could get representing you in a case against them. While you could counter that most don't have armies of lawyers as Amazon no doubt does, that probably doesn't mean they want to deploy that army in combat, so to speak. I'm sure they'd much rather have them bored, sitting around the office, flicking folded-up bits of paper at each other, if that means a zero-percent chance of losing a massive judgement on that particular day. Either that, or you want them busy, but busy doing things BESIDES defending you in court. You want them either demolishing your competitors, or finding tax loopholes and dodges, working out acquisitions that make you even more money, etc.

At any rate, this whole business is largely academic. All that this may mean is a new business will pop up whose whole purpose in existing is buying Amazon's crap, and disposing of it for them. Even if Amazon can't form this themselves through some legal chicanery in which they pretend the new company isn't really just a subsidiary of the main one, through X number of shell companies and transnational alliances, someone will end up doing it if push comes to shove, and the stuff will still end up going straight into the landfill, or wherever it's going now. Maybe a different country's landfill, but a landfill nevertheless. Or maybe it will be declared "fuel" and be burned, so end up not in a landfill, but in the sky, in the oceans, and in us... but yeah. You're not going to change things a multinational corporate behemoth does by a single country outlawing them.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

well they can refuse to issue tags/title, which makes it just an interesting decoration. I had a coworker, car had an accident, got the ins to pay to fix it, but SOMEHOW it got reported as salvage only and a new title got issued in the computer, which means when he went to renew the plates 3 mos later, he couldn't and went round and round with the state (TN) for several weeks in a insurance provided car because the tags were invalid and because of the title, didn't qualify for temporary tags...

Re:It's about cost...

[JackieBrown]

They sell the stuff back as refurbished at a reduced price.

Then they end up getting Slashdot articles about how second hand stuff is being sold without being "properly" checked.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

And look, Greenpeace is at it too, natch.

I would tell them to fuck off, I don't negotiate with terrorists.

Re:It's about cost...

[angel'o'sphere]

So Amazon can't resell this junk.
A returned washing machine or smart phone hardly is junk.

Re:It's about cost...

[war4peace]

I live in the EU. Here, most returned items are being resold at lower prices. I've had some amazing deals on practically brand-new stuff, hardware indistinguishable from the full price one, with the exception of damaged box, for example, which who in their right mind would care about?

Re:It's about cost...

[angel'o'sphere]

If I want *want* purchase 1000 iPhone X's to use in place of clay pigeons over my field - that's all me.
No it is not. At least not when you get caught. Electronic waste, even if the phone is brand new, has to be disposed lawfully and that means environment friendly. A 1000 violations would likely not cost you dearly in fines but impose jail time, good luck, idiot.

Re:It's about cost...

[angel'o'sphere]

I value my freedom and I want to protect the freedom of my children etc.
Your freedom ends where it touches and restricts my freedom, and my health is probably my highest good of freedom. You must have pretty weird definitions for terms like freedom etc.

I am saying they have basic rights to what they want with stuff that belongs to them.
No they have not ... we are beyond that stage of 'civilization' since a few hundred years, at least in part of the planet.

Re:It's about cost...

[JackieBrown]

People then shouldn't be allowed to return perfectly good stuff.

Should Amazon be allowed to destroy everything without inspection (other than to verify it's the correct product) that the customer returned as defective? If not, then what should be the penalty to the consumer if they lie about it so they can get the free return and refund.

Re:It's about cost...

[JackieBrown]

No, I want Amazon to accept the consequences of their business model

Why do you think there should be a consequence for their business model?

How much of the internet do you want to go away? Just the store part?

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or require the hardware vendors to actually make a "factory reset" not require a return to the manufacturer, and provide documentation and the tools required to perform such a reset to the purchaser, and make said tools user-friendly enough that it doesn't require a bunch of CLI gibberish to make it work.

They used to do this with PCs. Nowadays the PC gets thrown in the bin along with everything else because the inability to easily repair the product gets the manufacturer a chance at another sale.

This practice is not just limited to electronics either.

Yet another instance of Right To Repair being the answer to a problem created by greed.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

Some larger GoodWill stores even have a bench in the back where you can plug electronics in and stuff to see if they work yourself!

Really? Charity organizations like LifeLine and St. Vincent de Pauls actually refuse to accept electrical goods as donations because (a) it costs the charities more money to have them safety certified by an electrician than its worth to sell and (b) they've been sued for products causing electrical fires in the past, despite said safety checks, and the legal risk is untenable.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't give a flying fuck about your personal property rights when they're polluting my air and water. Your greed doesn't trump my health.

Where do you live? What do you drive? What do you own? What have you thrown away? Your greed doesn't trump my health!!!!!!1!!!

Re:It's about cost...

[EvilSS]

He once got a Harley and tried to apply for a title for it. Harley called and said that it had to be destroyed to protect their name. I believe they even compensated him for it. It was a perfectly good bike but wasn't up to their standards.

What kind of Corporate Dystopian crap is that? He or his liquidation company owned the bike. They can offer him money to trash it, but they have no say-so on whether it *has* to be destroyed. Not even the local, state, or the feds can do that unless your motorcycle is made out of radioactive materials instead of "glass... and tubes." The government can prevent you from riding it on the streets, but your property rights trump Harley's PR department.

If it had been issued a scrap title, it's almost impossible to get it re-titled. However he should have been able to part it out. Guessing Harley paid him more than it was worth for him to do that.

Re:It's about cost...

[Nethead]

Quit trying to bring knowledgeable sense to our outrage gunfight.

Re:It's about cost...

[dpidcoe]

Can I dump lead batteries _near_ your property?

Did you miss the part where he said he's not saying they should be able to just dump that kind of stuff?

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

> And look, Greenpeace is at it too, natch. I would tell them to fuck off, I don't negotiate with terrorists.

To the contrary, it was the french military secret service which mined the Greenpace ship while the envies protested nuke testing in the Muroroa atoll. The frogmen messed up the timer and a photo journalist drowned. Some agents were captured in Australia and not released until Paris owned up to its terrorist act.

After that Greenpace sought some insurance for self-preservation and female activist eventually seduced a british soldier who worked on H-bomb maintenance, handing her a "cosmic atomal top secret" classified book on Trident missile warhead components. GP parted the book into several chapters and spirited them into all corners of the world, then leaked a few pages to the press (which are also visible on the web). Suddenly, all kinds of efforts to sabotage GP ceased and they were eventually assimilated into the establishment.

Re: It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this was all goodwill stores. Mine sells all kinds of electronics. There's not a bench, but all the ones around here have a large number of plugs on about the middle shelf in that section.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

When will people get this? THEY dOn'T CARE AbOUt Y0U , YOuR ChILDReN OR Y0R ENVIR0NmENT!

Fuck you!!

Re:It's about cost...

[ScentCone]

So what you're saying is that the waste management companies should charge more, and presumably, write bigger checks to ... you, I guess? Amazon isn't a waste management company.

Re:It's about cost...

[JMJimmy]

For something like that you don't need an army of lawyers - just small claims court an a subpoena for Jeff Bezos to appear. He is legally responsible for all actions taken by his company after all. That alone would generate a settlement in most cases which turns a few hundred dollar return into a multi-thousand dollar settlement.

Re:It's about cost...

[GNious]

I still like my idea of shipping everything returned to Germany at full price plus shipping, all to be covered by Germany. Who could oppose that - especially when the good people of Germany are demanding to control what Amazon does? Step up and do your duty.

I'm confused - do you think Amazon Germany should NOT be subject to German laws?

Re:It's about cost...

[khchung]

the "Scandal" is mostly invented

I saw the "Greenpeace" in the summary and could already guess that.

Re:It's about cost...

[Cinnamon Beige]

So in countries with worse consumer laws what happens to returned items? How is it better than the EU?

Some of them it's not an issue of 'worse' consumer laws--if the consumer laws say that, as long as I am informed of the risks ("This was returned for being buggy, may be firmware, may be software, may be hardware, may be luser error") then I cannot complain if, surprise surprise, I just got a buggy piece of hardware.

I know that where I live in the US, this applies for anything I can physically inspect before buying--if I knowingly choose to buy, say, a dead microwave? I'm probably going to look very silly if I attempt to sue, much like if I chose to buy a box of Very Open Knockoffs and complained because I got...Very Open Knockoffs, which was exactly what I was told I was buying.

From the sound of it, Germany's consumer protection laws may be worse in the sense that they screw everybody over--if you've had problems with people suing because they got a dead microwave when that is what they knew they were getting, that means that it's too risky for you to sell me one which may be dead even if you do tell me as much...which means I can't buy a defective item when I want to. (I might wish to have parts, or want it for purposes where its defects are not an issue at all--a smartphone that's useless as a phone can still be used for a lot.)

Re:It's about cost...

[Cinnamon Beige]

I know the rules can vary depending on how you're buying it--returned-as-defective stuff tends to get sold locally where I am, because a physical inspection matters, though in theory you probably could sell known-defective items to people who won't have a chance to inspect it before the purchase is final as long as you're clear and accurate in informing the buyer about what they are purchasing. (I've seen a car listed online as going for, basically, just enough money to make it legally a sale--so the title can be transferred--with it openly said that it does not run and moving it after purchasing will be the Buyer's Problem. I actually do have the contacts now that I would need to make such a deal worth considering--namely, my current partner would probably be kept happily busy getting it back into working order, and for all I know could get the truck running again then and there.)

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you've never heard of eBay. It's an online website were you can buy all sorts of things at all levels of quality. There are also lots of online auction sites were you buy large lots of stuff. Sometimes you only get to see the packaging, you don't even know what's inside. Some of the auction sites deal exclusively with storage containers/lockers. None of those sites pull everything out and let you look at everything. If you're lucky you get a picture from the door and the dimensions of the unit. People make a nice living buying this junk full-time.

There are tons of people who would buy returned items from Amazon. Amazon is one of those evil tech companies, they just hide their true nature significantly better than the other ones.

Re:It's about cost...

[Cinnamon Beige]

how about checking for malware on every IoT washer or fridge.

Wasn't there an article on here not so long about about how some IoT things were shipping with malware infestations?

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

He's lying. He said the exact opposite: They should be able to do whatever they want with their personal property. That means if they want to dump it they get to dump it. He's making arguments against himself and can't even see it.

This is one of the main things wrong with politics. People morph concepts in their head and exclude everything which doesn't fit as 'something else' even when it's the same thing looked at at a different angle.

Re:It's about cost...

[Ol Olsoc]

I still like my idea of shipping everything returned to Germany at full price plus shipping, all to be covered by Germany. Who could oppose that - especially when the good people of Germany are demanding to control what Amazon does? Step up and do your duty.

I'm confused - do you think Amazon Germany should NOT be subject to German laws?

Germany is only one country, As the European Union has shown, they want world domination. All of it - every single return sent back to Amazon must go to Germany.

Re:It's about cost...

[Cinnamon Beige]

If you read the German-language discussion, they do dispose of returned merchandise in secondary markets whenever they can. It is only stuff that they can't dispose of through secondary markets that is destroyed.

https://www.wortfilter.de/wp/hintergruende-zum-amazon-skandal-amazon-mitarbeiter-enthuellen-sie-vernichten-im-auftrag-des-onlineriesen-taeglich-zehntausende-neue-produkte/

And the complaint appears to be about the amount of things that they cannot dispose of in secondary markets, which suggests that Germany is trying to basically put on a show to improve their standing among the anti-capitalist Greens or distract people from problems they have caused.

Re:It's about cost...

[Wycliffe]

What kind of Corporate Dystopian crap is that? He or his liquidation company owned the bike. They can offer him money to trash it, but they have no say-so on whether it *has* to be destroyed. Not even the local, state, or the feds can do that unless your motorcycle is made out of radioactive materials instead of "glass... and tubes." The government can prevent you from riding it on the streets, but your property rights trump Harley's PR department.

It was already marked as "destroyed". It wasn't supposed to still exist. Someone messed up. It was basically stolen property at that point.

As far as governments requiring you to destroy stuff, they do it all the time. My brother owns a wrecker service and the FDA is the worst. One inspector will let him take home a freezer full of steak and the next inspector will sit out there and watch until every last frozen steak is buried in the ground. Vegetable oil, steaks, frozen foods, you name it, they want it destroyed. And sometimes it's not even food stuff. Sometimes a place like walmart will have a slightly damaged load, get the insurance money, and then require that it all be landfilled because they don't want to sort thru what is good and what is bad and they don't want someone else selling slightly damaged goods with their name on it. Other times, they don't care and we spend a week giving away carloads of stuff to whoever will take it.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah it's funny how that works out sometimes.
I helped a local business/friend make a square space website, if I had changed them what my company charges customers for my time that web site would have cost like 30,000 dollars lol.

Re:It's about cost...

[blackest_k]

Quite strange really that Amazon seems to have shifted to this position.

For several years Amazon has been infuriating 3rd party sellers by taking returns and then selling them again as new instead of returning the items back to the seller.

So customer one buys an item thats doa and gets returned. Amazon then put it back in stock and the next customer who orders the product gets the obviously not new dead product. Third party seller gets his reputation damaged at the least...

So now they are just destroying returns...
Isn't there some middle ground.

Re:It's about cost...

[MoarSauce123]

They can still donate it rather than send it to the dump. If they would have done it right they could turn this into a massive PR campaign.

Re:It's about cost...

[MoarSauce123]

eBay is mainly one thing: expensive for the seller. Besides that, Amazon has its own resale platform, they do not need to bother with eBay.

Re: It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

Logic and facts aren't really your thing, apparently...

Re:It's about cost...

[Chris Mattern]

And get hit by an expose campaign about how they're inflicting dangerously defective goods on the poor and helpless. You can't win.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

Once they accept the return its their property again! They can do whatever they want with it! That is the way it should be!

What, like dump it in the river? No.

You missed a bit: "They can do whatever they want with it! (subject to the requirements of the law)"

The law will typically say they can't dump it in a river or something, or probably burn it even on their own property, So it's already not theirs to do *whatever* they want with it.

If the local law says they can't destroy it except under certain conditions, then they will need to follow the law.

Although it's fairly clear you think that amazon should be above the local laws of the countries it operates in.

Re: It's about cost...

[Ol Olsoc]

Logic and facts aren't really your thing, apparently...

Whoosh.

Go read a history book. Then you might understand that little post of dark humor.

The cleverest thing you did today was post as AC. So you got that going for you. Which is nice.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

They can still donate it rather than send it to the dump. If they would have done it right they could turn this into a massive PR campaign.

Then you'll get a different batch of leftists screaming that Amazon is giving broken crap away to the underprivileged.

Re:It's about cost...

[bill_mcgonigle]

Prisoners work for low wages. Refurbishing and testing equipment would build marketable skills.

Re:It's about cost...

[lgw]

Amazon isn't disposing of things improperly - that's not the argument being made. They're disposing of things correctly - the argument is whether they have the right to dispose of what they want to dispose, not about how things are disposed.

Trying to force businesses to sell items below cost (in this case, to make them lose money vs disposal cost) never ends well.

Re:It's about cost...

[lgw]

Amazon is not a person. Amazon is a huge corporation.

That's a disingenuous argument coming from you.

With anyone else I'd argue that people don't somehow lose rights by acting as a group, but I know you don't actually believe individual should have these rights either.

It's not about person vs corporation - you want the government to have the power to tell everyone "no, you can't throw that away". Stop with your silly "corporations are evil" emotional appeal - it's transparent and irrelevant.

Re:It's about cost...

[lgw]

Your freedom ends where it touches and restricts my freedom.

No, it obviously doesn't. Everything each of us do, or choose not to do, negatively affects someone else in some small way. Everything.

Freedom involves accepting small harm or risk from others: that's just how freedom works. Only children (and Sith) deal in black-and-white absolutes.

It's a quantitative question, and such questions can be hard because we're talking about things that are hard to quantify.

People obviously do have the fundamental, natural right to do what they want with their property. That's what "property" means. If you want to restrict that fundamental right, the burden of proof is on you to show the harm avoided exceeds the freedom lost. And these things are hard to measure, so it had better exceed it a lot. Further, you need to show that your rights-restricting proposal restricts freedom the least of all the ways you might solve the problem.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

or more importantly, there are probably charities and non-profits that would gladly test and then use or destroy the products for you. -

Re:It's about cost...

[Cyberax]

This simply means that externalities are not priced properly. For something material-heavy like a washing machine it's quite possible for externalities to be more expensive than the list price.

Re:It's about cost...

[Agent0013]

It is pretty funny that your example of shooting iPhones over a field would result in the PCBs being dumped like your other example of what Amazon should not be able to do.

Re:It's about cost...

[lsatenstein]

Does it have to be destroyed on the off-chance?

There's plenty of people out there who'd take that risk if they could pay less than full price.

What is the dollar amount of the item? For something in the $50.00 range, its cheaper to destroy than fix, unless you find a bunch of kids/hobbists who could make use of those things.

If I return a $200 watch because its too large/small or heavy, would that go into the "crush it up" bin?

Re:It's about cost...

[lgw]

So hippies like to claim.

Re: It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

Years ago I worked for a company that received and tested answering machines that were returned to Panasonic for whatever reason. It was not unusual to open the cassette door to find it had been housing a great multitude of roaches. Very, very nasty. Those were of course discarded promptly, while the nice ones that were clean and worked well were (apparently) resold as used somewhere.
Also, I once bought a computer from a reseller in NJ, and when I unpacked it, roaches exited the shipping box.
Be wary of buying returned goods; you don't know where they've been, and many of them *should* be destroyed along with the vermin that reside within.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

But to those that will be gone before it is their problem, why should they care?

Re:It's about cost...

[thegarbz]

but would then turn around and sue you if it turned out bad.

What the hell is wrong with Americans that they turn to suing for every little disagreement?

Re:It's about cost...

[thegarbz]

When some idiot buys AS-IS because it's cheaper

I think the idiot is the one paying good price when a refurbished unit is just fine. By the way putting AS-IS on the package does not absolve consumers of protection or companies of responsibility. If the device is defective they still need to honor the warranty, repair, or replace.

Most stuff that is sold as refurbished is in perfect condition.

Re:It's about cost...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a profit motive to incarcerate more work....prisoners I mean. This is already happening in the private prison system where more bodies = more dollars.

Re:It's about cost...

[Cyberax]

And so far they've been consistently right about pollution. For example, externalities like mercury emissions from coal combustion are still not priced at all in the US (don't know about Germany but they are probably even worse after the nuclear phaseout). Then there's pure carbon cost - it takes a lot of energy to make 20-30 kilograms of steel and aluminum.

Re:It's about cost...

[thoughtlover]

Thank you! No, a lot of this stuff doesn't need to be thrown away, yet they find a way to write it off the bottom-line.

It reminds me of how many college students just throw working computers, TVs, stereos, etc., in the dumpster at the end of the year. Absolutely disgusting the throw-away culture that's developed the last 60 years is.

Losing the right of abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

So now people will no longer be allowed to throw away their goods? Or is this going to be limited to Amazon?

Re:Losing the right of abuse

[mi]

It will be limited to those "engaged in economic activity" — like GDPR and the entire "right to be forgotten" concept. There will be people welcome this intervention and lamenting, once again, "why the US can't be more like Europe".

Insert the cautionary tale beginning with the "when they came for corporations I did not object, because I do not have a corporation" here...

Re:Losing the right of abuse

[davidwr]

In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.

Love that sig!

You can't have it both ways

[www.goatse.ru]

Amazon for years has done what it can to clean goods and resell them if they have been returned. There are videos of former employees speaking about what Amazon does. If there are some shoes that have been obviously worn but still look new, they might throw an air freshener or ionizer at it. If a woman's bikini bottom looks new enough, they might repack it without putting a protective strip in it. The list goes on and on.

You can't have it both ways, Miss Mash. Either this kind of stuff is thrown out, or they try to make a recovery. And if they try to recover the goods, in reality, nasty things are going to happen.

Re:You can't have it both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually one can sell them on a secondary market for open/used/as-is goods. That's the ethical thing to do and brick and mortar stores have done it for a long time. Of course this doesn't align with Amazon's goals to move as fast as possible, ditch overhead and transfer costs to the supply chain.

Re: You can't have it both ways

[reanjr]

Amazon does not maintain inventory for these products. They don't have the infrastructure in place to take in a returned couch that was never manufactured, stored, or shipped by them in the first place.

Re:You can't have it both ways

[Joce640k]

What Amazon needs is a checkbox on their page that allows people to choose:

a) I only want guaranteed new goods, charge me premium price and a "restocking" fee for anything I return.
b) Returned goods are acceptable to me, charge me regular price.

Re:You can't have it both ways

[Chris Mattern]

Won't work. People can't sign away their consumer rights. If they get a bad product and sue, they'll win no matter what boxes they checked.

Re:You can't have it both ways

[Joce640k]

Alright, but keep the restocking fee.

Most of Amazon's 'problems' aren't caused by defective goods, they're cause by people who buy three of everything so they can try them out at home.

(and make the youtube 'unboxing' videos and/or go to parties in the new clothes before returning them to Amazon)

Re:You can't have it both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they could call this secondary marketplace Congo >.>

Re: You can't have it both ways

[sh00z]

Which is why (in the US, can't speak to Germany) they work with liquidators who move the returned stuff. This leads to awesome bargains for those who cheap out on consumer electronics. I got a like-new, returned $200 "power comes on, but water never heats" espresso machine for $30. Cracked it open. Sure enough, the thermostat had come loose from the tank, and without proper feedback it eventually blew the thermal fuse. One $6 replacement part, and it was up and running again. For those handy with a soldering iron, with some time to spare, and willing to take a little risk, Amazon returns are fun. Check the seller "karensbarn" on eBay. Returned underwear? Maybe not so much. Go ahead and destroy it.

Re:You can't have it both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

the thing that drives me nuts, is I buy something shipped and sold by amazon as "new" quality and I have been sent: a computer power supply (750w gold rated) missing the power cord, and all cables untwisty-tied, when it would normally be bagged and tied up. I don't know if someone just returned it because it didn't fix their problem or if it fried their box and it got misfiled on return. A hard back book (last 12mos LRK Beekeeper series) that came as a library discard including dust jacket and bar codes. Two identical stereo Bluetooth earbuds, one perfectly shrink wrapped, the other, everything was loose, and then a new VZW branded USB-C charger, that had multiple layers of tape on the box flap and clearly worn, VZW branded USBC wall warts in a bag labeled as apple lightning...

I am guessing this has to do with the Birkenstock issue (https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/07/21/142255/amazon-loses-huge-footwear-company-because-of-fake-products-a-problem-it-denies-is-happening ) - all items with the same sku go in one bin and no one confirms that stuff actually is new when it goes into the bin.

Re: You can't have it both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

We should transfer the cost to the delivery companies that move all these goods around. They need to take responsibility for facilitating our throw away culture.

Re: You can't have it both ways

[cayenne8]

Returned underwear? Maybe not so much. Go ahead and destroy it.

Hell NO!!!

Repackage that stuff....slap a picture of a porn star on the front, and it will sell like hot cakes!!!

Re:You can't have it both ways

[XXongo]

Won't work. People can't sign away their consumer rights. If they get a bad product and sue, they'll win no matter what boxes they checked.

Which is commendable, for goods that are returned for cause.

Many web retailers, however, have a policy of returns for any reason, including "I changed my mind". (Or even, in the case of my wife, "I bought three in different colors because I wasn't sure which color I would like best so I wanted to try them all, and am now returning the two I didn't like.")

Re:You can't have it both ways

[Chris Mattern]

Yeah, it's great when you're not the one paying for it. The guys who do have to pay for it, though, may decide that it's better just to avoid the whole hassle and just throw it away.

Re:You can't have it both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

They shipped me an angel food cake pan a bit ago that I don't think was "used", but it was completely missing the inner tube part of the pan assembly. The box it shipped in had a double layer of Amazon's special packing tape that advertises crap on it too, the outer one sealed and the inner one cut.

So someone ordered it, took the part they needed, returned the outer pan shell, and then it got shipped to me with no inspection (per the tape layers I could get apart), including the original box, as a new sale.

I ordered another one and did a return on the half-pan, but it still isn't resolved so I don't know if they're going to accuse me of stealing half of it. Only $15 but I'm sort of annoyed.

I'm 90% sure they've sold me returned blu-ray discs as new too (the outer shrinkwrap is very different) but I don't really care on those, they're indestructible and I only buy them on sales.

Re: You can't have it both ways

[JackieBrown]

That in the US.

In the EU there is to much risk involved for amazon due to all the consumer protection laws in place.

It's cheaper to destroy the item then risk selling it.

Re:You can't have it both ways

[Obfuscant]

Alright, but keep the restocking fee.

You charge me a restocking fee for a defective product, either one that you said was new and was a factory-defective product, or one of your "returns" where you tried to weasel out of a warranty of assumed fitness, and you will wind up in court. And I'll win.

Re:You can't have it both ways

[Luckyo]

In EU, all remote shopping has legal mandate for a "changed my mind" clause for some time (here it's two weeks). This isn't about vendor. This is about law. Vendor has no ability to compel you to cede this right.

Requirement however is that whatever you return is in original packaging, and vendor can restock is at new. I.e. you could at most take it out of packaging and look at it, or try clothing on as you would in a store. Plugging it in for example is a pattern of usage, at which point this particular clause no longer grants protection.

Note that this is for "changed my mind" and not "product is faulty/not as advertised/broken" issues. Those are handled under different parts of the relevant legislation.

Re: You can't have it both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

That in the US.

In the EU there is to much risk involved for amazon due to all the consumer protection laws in place.

It's cheaper to destroy the item then risk selling it.

Hopefully the legislative burden will eventually become so high that people stop making the shit in the first place.

Seems like an opertunity

[Anonymous Coward]

If this so upsets your German sensibility maybe you should offer to buy the returned items instead of dictating what others should do.

Not new..

[sqorbit]

This is not new, companies have been doing this for a long time. Companies now are probably destroying items daily. Amazon just happens to be big enough to get caught. Not that we should be defending Amazon or this practice but it's always easier to blame large companies.

Re:Not new..

[Scarred Intellect]

This.

I spent a summer working in Office Depot's Returns Consolidation Center in Auburn, WA. We accepted returns from pretty much every Office Depot west of the Mississippi River. And Chicago. At times, I'd receive bubble wrap, or pallet wrap, or boxes...I could use all of these, especially the boxes for repack...but no. They have to get destroyed. They were brand new, unopened (or still folded, for the boxes) and immediately useful to us. But bureaucratic paperwork says it needs to be destroyed, so out the went.

The amount of HP ink cartridges I received still baffles me. And whoever packed those water coolers for return that still had water in them, may your ancestors forever be cursed to torment in hell!

Re:Not new..

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the dumbest thing I've read this week. What horrendous mismanagement.

Re:Not new..

[Anonymous Coward]

And whoever packed those water coolers for return that still had water in them, may your ancestors forever be cursed to torment in hell!

Companies sells overpriced, low quality garbage from China with no concern for their customers, and you get upset that your customers had no concern for the company? You are a fucking lapdog. If anyone is going to hell, it's you.

Re:Not new..

[Anonymous Coward]

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG

WITH PALLET RESELLING AWESOMENESS

NOT DESTROYED

WINKLEVOSS TWINS KNOW WHATS WHAT

They say not to use so many caps, it's like yelling, but they never say "can you read louder/quieter".

In what manner does that make sense anways? It's like, my apk hosts file just wants to capitalise Donald Trump (who is a horrible person btw) but I'm not yelling, I'm typing and I'm not typing with a velocity so strong that it blows out the ear drums of the little crickets that live inside my keyboard.

Re:Not new..

[Actually, I do RTFA]

it's always easier to blame large companies.

Also, changing their behavior causes huge changes. Changing a small company's behavior causes small changes.

Re:Not new..

[maestroX]

We accepted returns from pretty much every Office Depot west of the Mississippi River. And Chicago. At times, I'd receive bubble wrap, or pallet wrap, or boxes...I could use all of these, especially the boxes for repack...but no. They have to get destroyed.

Common practice in retail for decades. Selling or giving away units is a tax liability and creates your own competition.
There's absolutely no positives for the company in this, only risks.

Sadly, because I'd liked to bring home and fix or tinker for personal use many times over; usually strongly regulated as theft because the company does not want an additional sales point at the backdoor.

Re:Not new..

[Scarred Intellect]

Except I was asking to use them FOR WORK. For repacking things that arrived in broken boxes, or for wrapping pallets RIGHT THERE.

I absolutely understand they don't want employees to take them, then employees would just ruin things, or ask customers to run things, and then take them home.

Instead, I'd have to patch boxes with excessive tape, and then use ridiculous amounts of pallet wrap to help keep it together on the pallet...

Re:Not new..

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want somebody to blame try the far reaching consumer rights that allow Europeans to return anything for weeks after delivery no questions asked.

The system encourages consumers to return stuff so they can buy it again cheaper as a returned item.

Plus, if companies want to resell those returns they still have to provide 1-2 years of warranty on a product that either got returned because something's wrong or has been used to an unknown extent.

Re:Not new..

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they need help this summer? As bad as it was there is something to be made of the situation. I can spend all day popping bubble wrap, and if pressed show the paper trail asking me to do it!

Re:Not new..

[dpidcoe]

The amount of HP ink cartridges I received still baffles me. And whoever packed those water coolers for return that still had water in them, may your ancestors forever be cursed to torment in hell!

You buy a printer for $50, then notice that it's $65 for one set of cartridges or $80 for 2, so you buy the two pack. Except that the printer breaks 6 months later before you've been able to use all of the ink. You go to buy another one, but your model isn't available anymore, and none of the new ones support your current stock of ink cartridges. Since your unused cartridges are now basically really expensive paperweights, you return them.

Re:Not new..

[Anonymous Coward]

You could be concerned that someone is dumb or lazy enough to not empty the water before loading water coolers into trucks.

Explains why sellers are..

[kila_m]

Its explains why Ive seen some sellers offering their stuff for free on http://reddit.com/ and http://www.opusdeals.com/ etc

Meanwhile in germany...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sie zitierten einen "Regierungsangestellten"; und sie wissen nicht, dass sie nur der Hausmeister ist! LOL! SAD!

Fake news, antiamazon Propaganda again

[cwebb1977]

https://www.wortfilter.de/wp/h...

Only one _real_ solution to this:

[Gravis Zero]

Mandatory recycling for everything. I'm not talking, you recycle 80% of stuff and the rest gets shoved in a hole in the ground, I'm talking 100% is transformed into material for a product or becomes fertilizer.

This isn't some absurd idea either because it's either this or we destroy the ecosystem and hope we engineer a way to survive.

Re: Only one _real_ solution to this:

[Anonymous Coward]

And when the costs of recycling go up, the market will start making items easier to recycle!

Re:Only one _real_ solution to this:

[Anonymous Coward]

What about you make and run your own business on this premise and show us how it's done, shit boy?

Re:Only one _real_ solution to this:

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything becomes fertilizer... some stuff just take a very long time. Most stuff will decompose well before some fallen trees do (200-300 years).

automotive scandal

[sdinfoserv]

Too bad the Germans didn't get so incensed when - every single one - of their automotive companies lied about diesel emissions and wrote software specifically to fool testing....

Re:automotive scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Those germans need to get hit hard again. 10, 100, 1000 Dresden!

Re: automotive scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

F your whataboutism crap. They sent people to jail, which cunt Americans do not do. You and everyone else bends over and spreads.

Re: automotive scandal

[sdinfoserv]

Sorry - COWARD - not 1 German, or anyone, went to jail....
Post proof or go away.

Re: automotive scandal

[sdinfoserv]

actually, I lied - so the the US has sentenced 2 Germans to prison... that's for violating US laws in the US... Germans have sentenced no one as of yet.

Re: automotive scandal

[Anonymous Coward]

And actually no German ever received financial compensation from the automotive companies that lied about diesel emissions.

Something similar happened to me

[timholman]

I ordered an external battery pack for a UPS from Amazon several months back. When it arrived and I unpacked it, the case was visibly bulging on the top. Not wanting to risk plugging it in, I contacted Amazon for a return. Instead, they refunded my money on the spot and told me to take it to the nearest recycling center.

I could understand Amazon's reasoning. Why risk shipping a possibly defective battery that might pose a fire hazard? And for what I paid for it, it was hardly worth trying to repair or refurbish.

From Amazon's point of view, if it's cheaper to dispose of the goods rather than repair or refurbish them, then that's the smart move. They can't even donate them, because what happens if a lawyer sues because someone was injured by a donated item that Amazon knew was defective? The much safer route, economically and legally, is simply to destroy the returned items. It's part of the cost of doing business at their scale.

Re:Something similar happened to me

[Solandri]

From Amazon's point of view, if it's cheaper to dispose of the goods rather than repair or refurbish them, then that's the smart move.

Technically, it wouldn't cost Amazon any more to repair/refurbish them. They'd end up just passing the cost on to other customers via higher prices anyway, just like you're already paying for the items they dispose of.

The problem happens when one company decides to "do the right thing" and repair/refurbish these items, while a second company decides to just dispose of them. The second company then ends up being able to charge lower prices while maintaining the same profit margin. Customers will buy from them no matter how much the first company advertises or publicizes that "hey, that other company is destroying the environment by telling you to throw defective items away instead of sending it back for repair." That sets up a race to the bottom where all companies have to adopt the disposal policy used by the worst company, just to compete on a level playing field.

Re:Something similar happened to me

[Anonymous Coward]

. They can't even donate them, because what happens if a lawyer sues because someone was injured by a donated item that Amazon knew was defective?

I'm not american so I'll take your word for it that that is a possibility. And I'll just say what a fucked up country it is.

It reminds me of pre-revolution France when under-weight loaves of bread had to be burned rather than be sold "as-is" while people were starving to death in the streets.

Re:Something similar happened to me

[JackieBrown]

So you would pay more for refurbished products than new ones?

Re:Something similar happened to me

[will_die]

Not from amazon but my best so far was was a wifi transmitter selling for around $50 that I purchased from the manufacturer. I got three box in the main each with one. I wrote them tell them of the error and they told me to do a return to sender. Took them to the PO and they would not allow that so I told the manufacturer I would need to be sent the shipping costs and then I would send them, never heard back so I gave the extras away after a few months.

The worst was back a decade or two ago there was a company that produced really sucky version of popular software. They would then get lists of computer people and just mass mail the CDs and software packages out along with an invoice for payment; along with the "if we made an error and don't want this product mail back". I got a bunch of those and the phone calls demanding payment. At that time found out that any merchandise sent to you unsolicited via the US post office is yours to keep or feed to the garbage can.

Re:Something similar happened to me

[Anonymous Coward]

> I got three box in the main each with one.

I could not parse this. What actually happenned?

Returns, who takes returns anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

I have had broken or defective items replaced but they did not want it returned. They left it up to me to dispose of the item. And this is not just Amazon.

Return because I did not like it is a different matter.

the other side of the story

[slashmydots]

I bought a refurbished Toshiba laptop from Newegg. Right out of the box, the wifi would constantly disconnect. The device appeared in the device list, it saw area wifi, but it looked like the card shorted out every 3 minutes or so and reset itself. It couldn't maintain a connection. It took me about 15 minutes of testing to determine that was it and I was only 100% sure that was the problem and not the driver's fault after replacing the wireless card with another one. Thanks, person who checked it out and said the previous buyer was incorrect and the wifi did in fact work. Although I'm being massively sarcastic. There's no way a reasonable person could put in enough effort and have enough skill to test that specific issue and who knows if "wireless problem" was even reported in the RMA. The previous customer may have simply said "something" was wrong and returned it.

But, but, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

It is Good for the ECOnomy

Look...

[nospam007]

...that guy is the richest man on the planet for a reason, if there was a way to sell that junk _for a profit_, without getting sued to hell and/or get bad press, he would do it.
Trust me.

Re:Look...

[bluefoxlucid]

The implication is he can make better profit on new than used.

I guess we need some kind of infrastructure to handle this. New business venture?

Amazon gave me a $175 thing once...

[Slugster]

A few years back I ordered something small that cost $12 or so. I think it was some kind of Park bicycle wrench.

What they sent me was this:
https://www.amazon.com/YELLOW-...
An air-conditioning test and charging manifold, that was priced $175 at the time.

I got on the website and requested a return and explained what happened, and then for the next few days started getting two different sets of messages.
One set was the usual automated set that said I had to return the item by a certain number of days or I would get charged for it.
The other set was real people responding, telling me that I wouldn't get charged for it and that I didn't need to return the item and that I could dispose of it as I pleased.

When I asked why they didn't want it returned, the real person said that some items are hazardous enough that if they make a mistake and send one out, they will not accept if back for any reason. I said that I had only opened the shipping box and not the sealed item box itself, and he said that didn't matter. I could keep it since they would just destroy it if it was returned, and the company didn't want to pay the return shipping cost just to destroy it. I never got charged for it either.

I gave it to my AC repair guy, since AC maintenance is not a hobby of mine and it's not good for much else.

Ever since then I have wondered however,,,, what is the most-expensive thing that Amazon has given away just because they shipped the totally-wrong item? I don't know how happy they'd be to talk about that, but it would be an interesting read...

Re:Amazon gave me a $175 thing once...

[jittles]

A few years back I ordered something small that cost $12 or so. I think it was some kind of Park bicycle wrench. What they sent me was this: https://www.amazon.com/YELLOW-... An air-conditioning test and charging manifold, that was priced $175 at the time. I got on the website and requested a return and explained what happened, and then for the next few days started getting two different sets of messages. One set was the usual automated set that said I had to return the item by a certain number of days or I would get charged for it. The other set was real people responding, telling me that I wouldn't get charged for it and that I didn't need to return the item and that I could dispose of it as I pleased. When I asked why they didn't want it returned, the real person said that some items are hazardous enough that if they make a mistake and send one out, they will not accept if back for any reason. I said that I had only opened the shipping box and not the sealed item box itself, and he said that didn't matter. I could keep it since they would just destroy it if it was returned, and the company didn't want to pay the return shipping cost just to destroy it. I never got charged for it either. I gave it to my AC repair guy, since AC maintenance is not a hobby of mine and it's not good for much else. Ever since then I have wondered however,,,, what is the most-expensive thing that Amazon has given away just because they shipped the totally-wrong item? I don't know how happy they'd be to talk about that, but it would be an interesting read...

I bought a $400 android tablet from Amazon (a few years ago). They shipped it LaserShip and the courier tried to steal the package. I called LaserShip after they claimed it was delivered and video surveillance showed it was not. Guy tried to weasel out and make excuses. Eventually admitted that the courier had opened the package and the tablet box. I told them to return it to Amazon. I complained to Amazon and they gave me an instant refund. LaserShip then threw the box on my front porch and tried to claim it hadn’t been stolen - open boxes and everything. Video surveillance showed he literally threw it there from the street trying to stay of-frame in the camera. I actually found it on my porch and told Amazon about it. They told me they would not be able to keep it after it had been stolen by LaserShip. They told me I could do whatever I wanted with it and I still got my money. Still have that tablet to this day.

Liar

[DogDude]

Too bad the Germans didn't get so incensed when - every single one - of their automotive companies lied about diesel emissions and wrote software specifically to fool testing....

You're a liar. "The Germans" certainly did "get so incensed". They sent people to prison over it.

Re:Liar

[DNS-and-BIND]

None of the CEOs went to jail. They pointed the finger at lower managers and the CEOs got off scot-free. It's distressing when distracting tactics work on people. :(

Re:Liar

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad the Germans didn't get so incensed when - every single one - of their automotive companies lied about diesel emissions and wrote software specifically to fool testing....

You're a liar. "The Germans" certainly did "get so incensed". They sent people to prison over it.

I‘m an American in Germany. Please name the person that the German authorities sent to prision. I am actually unaware of anything more than investigations and pending charges.

Re:Liar

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is more than we seem to do in the US...

Re:Liar

[thegarbz]

None of the CEOs went to jail.

Who said anything about CEOs? That's called goal-post moving.

Destroying can be safer or more cost effective

[Anonymous Coward]

Washing machine: As a company, do you really want to risk reselling a machine that has even the slightest possibility of injuring a second-hand purchaser, or giving them some kind of disease? Why even risk being sued for potential EXPOSURE to some disease that the original purchaser had?

Furniture: Bed bugs. Lice. Bodily fluids. Enough said

Smartphones: Malware, intentional modification of the firmware or software, and exposure to bodily fluids...

Forget all that nonsense - shred it, recycle the shred. Move on.

please don't feed the fundies

[epine]

If it costs them extra to de-louse everything and do a factory reset on every returned smartphone then that's too bad.

It's not good for the planet to artificially inflate the cost of doing business. It might sound good on the surface, but doesn't survive careful analysis. Price is almost always the best proxy available (in a woefully complex world) for planetary resources consumed, when one includes resources consumed directly, as well as those consumed via opportunity-cost displacement.

Nor is it good to offer libertarian fundamentalists a convenient platform from which to save the world (correctly), because they also tend to mix in canards like trickle down (ideologically).

It might be better for the environment...

[TomGreenhaw]

to destroy items responsibly instead of burning yet more fossil fuel to ship them only to be determined to be scrap anyway.

A lot of petty stuff from Amazon lately

[Anonymous Coward]

I genuinely like Amazon and am glad they're challenging the retail sales model, but boy have I seen them do some petty stuff lately.

I bought a returned desk from Amazon, and it came with less than half the screws, was missing both of the included hex wrenches, and had the wrong top. The manufacturer actually took care of the problem after one email with photos and sent me a new one. Amazon struck my review where I complained of their warehouse and praised the manufacturer. I suppose I should be grateful Amazon even told me they had done so. When I complained about a fba seller lying to me, they struck the review, "took full responsibility" and didn't contact me.

We've all seen one star product reviews that are actually idiots complaining about third party sellers and not the product. Maybe I was naive, but it never before occurred to me Amazon was petty enough to let those go through but would be willing to strike named complaints of Amazon itself.

Their gagging me has given me the impression they currently prefer to destroy and conceal rather than build a solid infrastructure and culture to handle their own friendly return policy.

Narrow Case

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but you have a very narrow business case. Look at TFS. "washing machines, smartphones and furniture. " How do you identify and repair a real or imagined defect in a washing machine, and then make any money selling it? You're probably ahead scrapping, at best (for the environment) you can break even parting it out, but then again, which part was bad? Smartphone? Go ahead and sell a defective low-budget smartphone with no rework line. Furniture? Okay, who wants the "new" chair that may have been pissed on?

Re:Narrow Case

[grahamsz]

Our washing machine was an open box that we got from a regular retailer. I'm pretty sure it had been used before, but was effectively new, warrantied and a bit cheaper than it would have been.

Was it tested? I have no idea. But i'll bet a manufacturer service center could run a self diagnostic on it and have a pretty good idea if it's working or not. Same for smartphones - they are small and light, they could go back to samsung, be inspected, factory reset and tested before going out to consumers who are happy to take the savings.

Now I don't doubt that paying someone to hook up a washing machine, run it through a test cycle, the drain it and repackage it for sale costs a significant amount of money and that it's more cost effective to drop it in a landfill. However I think the EU's point is that this is unnecessarily wasteful and that we (as a global society) would be better off if that stuff did get reconditioned for sale.

In a somewhat unrelated note, I do believe that Amazon make this worse by offering free returns for anything that's defective. This creates an incentive for the customer to say a phone is defective because "the battery life isn't as long as advertised". Then they have painted themselves into a corner where the consumers fabricated defect means they can't resell that product as new.

Re:Narrow Case

[Obfuscant]

they could go back to samsung, be inspected, factory reset and tested before going out to consumers who are happy to take the savings.

What "savings"?

That phone has already been through the manufacturing/distribution/retail system. It was tested before it left the factory. It was shipped to a distributor who sold and shipped it to a retailer. The retailer sold the product. At each step, the costs were added into the price of the product.

So, the product is returned for some reason. The retailer returns the money to the customer. That means they've already lost all the costs involved in the first sale.

In addition to all the costs involved in making a second sale of the same thing, they are expected to send the device back to the factory for a factory reset/flashing just to be sure nothing malicious was done to the phone while in the hands of the customer. That costs money. Shipping it around costs money.

And YOU expect the retailer (or someone) to sell the product for less than the first time. After adding on a bunch of costs. What "savings" do you imagine exist that would justify a lower selling price?

However I think the EU's point is that this is unnecessarily wasteful and that we (as a global society) would be better off if that stuff did get reconditioned for sale.

The EU's point is that this stuff belongs to Amazon until it is sold to a consumer and Amazon should not have the right to with with something it owns as it sees fit. Amazon has something that it could be forced to give or sell below cost to an EU resident, and the EU thinks it has the authority to order Amazon to do that.

In a somewhat unrelated note, I do believe that Amazon make this worse by offering free returns for anything that's defective.

Now I know you are ... well, if something is defective from the seller then it is OBVIOUS that the seller should not only refund the purchase price but pay for getting it back. Forcing a customer to pay for shipping a defective product back just to get the refund on the purchase is absurd. "Free returns" is so obvious as to need no justification, except to some people.

Then they have painted themselves into a corner where the consumers fabricated defect means they can't resell that product as new.

You've fabricated the corner, because the fact that the product was SOLD means it cannot be sold as new again, defective or not.

Re:Narrow Case

[grahamsz]

> And YOU expect the retailer (or someone) to sell the product for less than the first time. After adding on a bunch of costs. What "savings" do you imagine exist that would justify a lower selling price?

The sales price of any item is determined by what the market will bear and not the cost to make it. In reality it costs our factory more to produce a factory second (because of the extra QC, repackaging and maintaining a separate sales channel, yet we sell them for less than our first quality items because the value of the item has nothing to do with the cost.

> Now I know you are ... well, if something is defective from the seller then it is OBVIOUS that the seller should not only refund the purchase price but pay for getting it back.

I perhaps worded that wrongly. My point was that Amazon encourages consumers to use the defective label to get free return shipping. In reality I think they should probably offer free returns for any reason. Then "I didn't like the color" wouldn't be an "item not as described".

> You've fabricated the corner, because the fact that the product was SOLD means it cannot be sold as new again, defective or not.

Is that true? I'm pretty sure if i return a shirt to the store with the tags on it then it'll go right out and be sold as new in most situations.

Re:Narrow Case

[Obfuscant]

The sales price of any item is determined by what the market will bear and not the cost to make it.

How remarkably naive. It is a combination of both. If it costs $100 to make something, but the market will only pay $50, then NO company is going to go into business selling that item for just $50. You claim that the price is based on what "the market will bear", and yet it seems not to be true. Just a simple example is all it took to shatter your myth.

You are misapplying the economic principles that would maximize profits by thinking they determine when ANY profit will be made. When we say that the "market will not bear" a $100+ price for a thing that costs $100 to make, we aren't saying nobody will buy them. We're saying that the maximum profit won't occur at that price. Fewer people will buy them. Fewer will be made, and economies of scale will not help drive the cost down. But don't ever forget -- that company is still going to make a profit. It CANNOT make a profit, and cannot stay in business, if it sells its product for "what the market will bear" if the costs are higher than that.

As for selling "seconds", many companies realize that the costs can easily overcome any lower sales price, in either loss of sales of new equipment, continuing support for the second, or loss of market share when uninformed consumers believe that the "second" is a first run product and decide to buy from someone else for better quality.

This is the problem Amazon is in, and even they do try to move the "seconds" out through surplus or other channels. It's only the things that will not sell that way that they are destroying. And MY point is that these items belong to Amazon until they are sold, and the EU has no business telling them that they have to provide them to anyone for any purpose.

My point was that Amazon encourages consumers to use the defective label to get free return shipping.

Amazon does what Amazon has to do when it ships a defective product to someone. Don't blame Amazon for this problem. They're not forcing people to lie.

Then "I didn't like the color" wouldn't be an "item not as described".

"An item not as described" is not "a defective item", either. I've gotten "item not as described" before. In just one example, the item was not as described (a 50 Ohm 50 Watt resistor), but it was a perfectly functioning hot melt glue stick.

Re:Narrow Case

[grahamsz]

I'm certainly simplifying economic theory some, and I can see why it's not often cost effective to sell a factory second or reconditioned item. Also recognize the arguments for why fashion houses don't want seconds on the market at all.

However I think the EU is well within their purview if they want to regulate that. They are working towards setting up binding rules on food waste that will (I presume) create a legal requirement that supermarkets don't throw salable food in the trash and presumably motivate customers to buy it. I get that very notion offends some people's sensibilities, but the EU is very much in the business of telling you what you can and can't do with something you own.

The EU can absolutely set up a tax structure that makes it unattractive to for businesses to throw stuff that has residual value into the trash. Then that simply tilts the whole economic structure in favor of reuse.

Returned Goods

[Darnocobra]

Amazon does sell off some of their returned items, at least here in the states. The sell them by the truckload to auction houses, who auction off all the goods as is, with no warranty. There are multiple warehouses across several states that bring in these items, take pictures, and post them up for sale. Local pickup only, and they have viewing hours for the items up for sale. I have gotten many good deals on items that were brand new at a fraction of the cost. Not just Amazon, but also some other big stores like Home Depot and Sams Club.

Re:Returned Goods

[JackieBrown]

That is cool. I'm going to look into that.

The downside about the consumer protections laws in the EU is the seller is probably liable for the 2nd/3rd hand stuff they sell even if they claim it possibly defective.

Re:Returned Goods

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Have a site or two you could point me to?

Re:Returned Goods

[Darnocobra]

bidfta.com

Not liability

[SeattleLawGuy]

It's not the liability, or at least not just the liability, for most items.

It's customer focus. The primary focus of Amazon is customer obsession. The whole business orients towards that. A product returned by one customer is more likely to be a problem for another--it's more likely to be in, say, the bottom 10% of product quality for that item. Asking a customer to return a product is also a hassle for the customer.

New laws can fix everything!!! Not

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Greenpeace's Kirsten Brodde said there was a need for a new "law on banning the waste and destruction of first-hand and usable goods."

Yeah, that's right. Pass a law and the problem goes away. That idea has worked so well for centuries with assaults, thefts and murders.

New laws always have loop-holes due to poorly defining the scope and intent of the law and consequences nobody intended, such as Amazon saying "Ok, no more free returns. You pay us US$20 for the return and if it actually doesn't work you get the $20 back, otherwise we keep it and you're out $20 because of a new law."

Re:New laws can fix everything!!! Not

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's right. Pass a law and the problem goes away. That idea has worked so well for centuries with assaults, thefts and murders.

So, Captain Logic, you are saying that because laws against "assaults, thefts and murders" are not wholly effective we should what? Legalize them? Duh!

You're freedom doesn't matter much

[rsilvergun]

if you live in a cancer village.

Your freedom ends when it starts to hurt someone else. At that point regulation begins; with all it's complex trade offs. The GP was being provocative, but everything he said is reasonable. The goods Amazon is destroying were likely made by factories in China that pollute heavily and the destroyed goods will likely wind up in a landfill somewhere in Asia (probably Vietnam or India, China's cut the US off). People are going to die from that pollution. That's not idle speculation or me being a libtard jerk, it's just a fact.

Europe seems to be the only one trying to do anything about it. The Libertarians like you say you want to help but your polices never do. For all the effectiveness of the free market you'd might as well pray.

Re:Trump!

[Anonymous Coward]

Associating Trump with Hitler. How original.

Re:Pot calling kettle black

[Anonymous Coward]

> I mean Germany just didn't return the conquered Poles, Jews, and Gypsies. They burned them up first so they could not be reused.

1., German Reich had no problem with the polish people (as in white ethnic polish people, not the galizian khazars). White polish were even more anti-semitic them the germans themselves.

2. Gipsy is the scum race of the earth. Fortune telling scammers, thieves, robbers, rapists, knife attackers, murderers of the elderly. They terrorize north-east ******* every night, 8 year old white girl just got raped and strangled by them, they always attack in herds like jackals and they multiply like rabbits. ****** government is now refurbishing WARPAC era Mi-24 attack choopers in Russia, for use in case a "gipsy ISIS" forms in ****** county. Regrettably the EU doesn't allow ******** to restore the gendarmee to keep them at tab, in place of the too soft and PC police force.

The ghetto african rapper drug dealer is an angel compared to them gipsies. Originally they come from north India, which came under muslim rule in the 10th century AD and soon the pasha had them expelled en masse towards Egypt, because no matter how many hands the guards chopped off per sharia law, the gipsy wouldn't cease stealing. En route they learned the ways of robbery and murder from the swamp arabs, becoming even more wretched by the time they arrived in Europe. Work is not in their vocabulary. Israel had 10k gipsy citizens in 1955 and less then 500 remain today, most of them were expelled for lawlessness.

3. Most everybody despises jews in Europe, cue their immense, immoral greed and fraudulent manners and their hostility to christian values of an established civil society (as well as their prominent role in creating uncomparably genocidal communist dictatorships, 100 million dead total). It is well-known that atheist-amoral jews like the vile George Soros nowadays use gipsy race as a kind of biological weapon against Europe, they force national governments to provide all kinds of benefits for 8-kid multiplying gipsy families.

rofl

[Anonymous Coward]

Been there, done that...it's a huge pain.

I throw away a truck load of working power wheelchairs each year because there is no profit in used ones when NEW ones are free from people insurance company which won't be bothered to determine if a used one will work for someone. Easier for them to order from a catalog for the given payment code of ones that qualify.

$5k, $10k $15k per wheelchair and toss them in the recycle bin with 10 hours on them.

Tends to make one take all those 'Green' complaints with a grain of salt. Give me a use for these and then I'll worry about the extra 5 gallons of water my showerhead uses!

Time to bale up your strawmen

[OrangeTide]

And even if he was anti-semitic, racist, xenophobic and homophobic those are not an impeachable offenses.

That might even get him on the $20 bill to replace Andrew Jackson.

Come on slashdot, put 2 and 2 together

[Anonymous Coward]

We've seen lots of articles on UBI (and lots of comments how it won't work)
What are those people who get UBI going to do? Buy STUFF
Well here is STUFF being thrown away

Lawyers at work

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work in a factory making high value machines, including X-Ray machines.

It was owned by a subsidiary of an electronic manufacturer.

The parent of the company (which owned the factory I worked in) was acquired by Broadcom - and since Broadcom don't do X-Ray Machines, the lawyers have decided all the *BRAND NEW* X-Ray Machines which we have built must be destroyed.

I tell you, it was a heart broken experience watching brand new X-Ray Machines which could have been donated to many 3rd world countries, of organizations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres and put into good use were hacked with big hammers into bits and pieces.

It's the fault of lawyers.

Re:Trump!

[MoarSauce123]

The mod down came because the comment has absolutely nothing to do with the original post. Not everything is about Trump.

We need a system of tubes...

[Anonymous Coward]

...1 tube for every man woman and child connecting to every other man woman and child.

Re:Pot calling kettle black

[Anonymous Coward]

Most everybody despises jews in Europe

Maybe in your local shitheap. Maybe among your 'social circle'. Polls show only about 20% of Europe is anti-semetic like you. So not 'most everybody'.

Deception

[Anonymous Coward]

One point that I did not see in other comments is that by reselling or otherwise disposing of returned goods opens up Amazon to deceptive practices by supposed customers. Let's say I get/purchase a returned pricey electronic goodie as for some fantastic low price. In turn I could order the same thing new from Amazon and then send back to them the damaged previously returned pricey electronic goodie. Yeah, I know about serial numbers etc. But if you think this is a bit far fetched you've not seen dumpster diving in Silicon Valley.
By destroying returned damaged goods Amazon assures itself that it's not feeding these sort of schemes.