Amazon Prime

[this4chris2012]

I purchased on eBay some lotion which came today from an Amazon Fulfillment Center, Amazon Prime on the tape and box and an Amazon gift card inside.

Another case of an eBay seller using Amazon for free shipping. I usually have a live and let live attitude, but for some reason this bugs me.

[llllady]

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

If you go down to the bottom under help, scroll to the bottom of the help list there is a "need more help" option that allows you to enter your problem. Maybe you can do it there?

Any seller who will steal from Amazon has the potential to steal from you.

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Seller paid $99 (is that what it is now) for a Prime Account.  Doesn't seem like stealing to me.  They used their account to their best monetary advantage, just like Amazon and eBay do...always looking for a way to turn another buck.

Life's too short.  On a scale of 1 to 10 and things to worry about in life, this ranks about a -100.

[slati_2013]

As long as I get what I ordered, I don't care about anything else. I must point out that lots of sellers actually own the items and use Amazon to fulfil the orders. I don't have Prime and yet a couple of my past orders have been delivered by Prime. I don't care or ask why. I got what I ordered. The rest is between Amazon and it's accountants. I seriously doubt the people at Amazon are crying over your free shipping. 

[lintbrush*]

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@omgitlightsup wrote:

Violating the Prime rules is not the same thing as stealing from the shopping mall. It's more like stocking your corner bodega with food from Sam's club. Amazon just doesn't want you to do it, because you're cutting into their profits.

Prime is a grossly overpriced bundle of free shipping and a whole bunch of garbage nobody wants, like streaming movies and Kindle loans.

The US Postal Service used to have a problem with people stocking up on Priority Mail flat-rate boxes and putting Parcel Post labels on them. They countered that by printing "Priority Mail" on both the inside and outside surfaces. FedEx and UPS are similarly annoyed when you use their competitors' boxes to mail things. But you won't go to Hell for doing it.

I'm honestly shocked that people think this is an ethical matter. Like a person who would drop-ship with Amazon Prime would beat a child or sell drugs to homeless people. You probably have a pirated MP3 or two on your hard drive, and I don't care in the least.

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It's stealing no matter how you slice it.  And it's absolutely not the same as buying from Sam's to sell at your corner store.  Sam's club sells items that are actually intended to be sold by other merchants/vendors. 

Your Amazon Prime account is intended and personal use - not business use.  

Their TOS says:

Prime members are not permitted to purchase products for the purpose of resale, rental, or to ship to their customers or potential customers using Prime benefits.

It more than an ethical matter.  It's outright theft no matter how small you think it might be.  It affects all of us as companies have to raise their prices to cover this type of shrinkage/theft. 

[mr_lincoln]

@this4chris2012  You got a lot of good replies ... below is a link from the Help Pages on Drop Shipping ... there is a link in one of the sections for "eBay Solutions Directory" with a note to read their terms and services ... Amazon is not on that list but this could be an out of date Help Page needing some updating.

And I am sure if you read Amazon's UA it probably states in so many words that you can't do what your Seller is doing ...

https://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/product_sourcing.html

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

So it's ok with you if your competitors use free Priority Mail boxes and put lower class or lower weight labels on them? It's not breaking the law, it's just violating the rules.

Nope, it's stealing. And it's giving the theiving sellers an unfair advantage against their ethical competitors. Wrong all around.

[omgitlightsup]

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lintbrush* wrote: 

Their TOS says:

Prime members are not permitted to purchase products for the purpose of resale, rental, or to ship to their customers or potential customers using Prime benefits.

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The only difference between Prime and Sam's Club is that one little clause in the TOS. Sam says it's OK. Amazon says it's stealing. 

If you want to purchase wholesale items from a distributor, you have to display a tax certificate, merchant's license, financial statements, all kinds of things that only resellers can do to demonstrate that you are in fact a reseller.

If you want to purchase items with Amazon Prime, all you need is the ability to click on any one of myriad buttons that are literally shoved in your face every time you visit the site. In fact, it's arguably more difficult not to use Amazon Prime when making purchases.. you have to hunt for the very small "no thanks, I do not want to save $4" button to check out.

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It more than an ethical matter.  It's outright theft no matter how small you think it might be.  It affects all of us as companies have to raise their prices to cover this type of shrinkage/theft. 

This reminds me of my undergrad college courses, where everyone was circulating copies of the last year's homework and the courses were graded on curves. I struggled desperately to stay ahead and earn grades on my own merits for about half a semester and then realized that life is not fair and there are no consequences for cheating.

Is it against Amazon's wishes/TOS? Absolutely. Is it wrong/illegal/unethical? Come on. Like others have said... there are way more pressing matters to lie awake over, even here on eBay.

[omgitlightsup]

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

So it's ok with you if your competitors use free Priority Mail boxes and put lower class or lower weight labels on them? It's not breaking the law, it's just violating the rules.

Nope, it's stealing. And it's giving the theiving sellers an unfair advantage against their ethical competitors. Wrong all around.

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No, my point was not that it's OK to do this.. it's that people do it no matter what, and the only way for the USPS to stop it was to make it extremely difficult. If people are willing to steal from the US Govt, they are not going to have a problem with stealing from Amazon, especially when it's such an ambiguous and victimless form of "theft." They paid for Prime membership, and they paid for their purchases. 

[retrose1]

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@omgitlightsup wrote:

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lintbrush* wrote: 

Their TOS says:

Prime members are not permitted to purchase products for the purpose of resale, rental, or to ship to their customers or potential customers using Prime benefits.

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The only difference between Prime and Sam's Club is that one little clause in the TOS. Sam says it's OK. Amazon says it's stealing. 

If you want to purchase wholesale items from a distributor, you have to display a tax certificate, merchant's license, financial statements, all kinds of things that only resellers can do to demonstrate that you are in fact a reseller.

If you want to purchase items with Amazon Prime, all you need is the ability to click on any one of myriad buttons that are literally shoved in your face every time you visit the site. In fact, it's arguably more difficult not to use Amazon Prime when making purchases.. you have to hunt for the very small "no thanks, I do not want to save $4" button to check out.

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It more than an ethical matter.  It's outright theft no matter how small you think it might be.  It affects all of us as companies have to raise their prices to cover this type of shrinkage/theft. 

This reminds me of my undergrad college courses, where everyone was circulating copies of the last year's homework and the courses were graded on curves. I struggled desperately to stay ahead and earn grades on my own merits for about half a semester and then realized that life is not fair and there are no consequences for cheating.

Is it against Amazon's wishes/TOS? Absolutely. Is it wrong/illegal/unethical? Come on. Like others have said... there are way more pressing matters to lie awake over, even here on eBay.

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The consequences for cheating at college is higher costs as the colleges are now changing books and curriculum every year.  I have a friend that is a physic professor who's summer job is editing new problems and textbooks every year for next years classes.....at $50 an hour.  That means that next years course will be higher to pay him for that.

It won't be just the abusers of Prime that will have to pay another fee hike next year to use it.  They are stealing from everyone.

A simple solution would be for Amazon to allow a limited number of uses of their Prime shipping.  If they did maybe xx up to/or $xxx amounts, most average users would never hit the numbers and abusers would burn through it rather quickly.

[omgitlightsup]

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@retrose1 wrote:

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A simple solution would be for Amazon to allow a limited number of uses of their Prime shipping.  If they did maybe xx up to/or $xxx amounts, most average users would never hit the numbers and abusers would burn through it rather quickly.

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Definitely... Prime should support a free volume of shipping equivalent to a "power shopper," not a "retailer." If you're getting hundreds of packages a week delivered all over the place, you should start paying for them. If you're a fairly affluent shut-in and get 20-30 packages a week delivered to your own home, you should have the opportunity to save on shipping. 

Another good tip for Amazon would be to stop slamming Prime customers with stuff they don't need. Some of us are already paying hundreds of dollars a month for the same things from our cable/internet providers and really don't want streaming video and music. I'd be helping everyone pay for Prime if they didn't insist on selling me things I don't want.

[mr_lincoln]

@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

So it's ok with you if your competitors use free Priority Mail boxes and put lower class or lower weight labels on them? It's not breaking the law, it's just violating the rules.

Nope, it's stealing. And it's giving the theiving sellers an unfair advantage against their ethical competitors. Wrong all around.

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Agreed ... break that down and you get two words "a" and "greed" ... and all that goes with them ...

[omgitlightsup]

Michael Sandel's series of lectures on justice are a good watch. Better than spending time in these forums anyway. After listening to him for 20-30 minutes, you should begin to realize that "fair" is a very subjective term.

[pikabo-icu]

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@omgitlightsup wrote:

Michael Sandel's series of lectures on justice are a good watch. Better than spending time in these forums anyway. After listening to him for 20-30 minutes, you should begin to realize that "fair" is a very subjective term.

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So are:

ETHICS

INTEGRITY

and the dreaded..........

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

But the Golden Rule "Do unto others...." still applies.

The problem is; too many people are seeing all of the above as the exception rather than the RULE. Just because others may be doing it, doesn't make it right.

Eventually there will be a slew of people complaining their PRIME got cancelled, their Amazon & eBay account suspended... It may take them time to catch up but they will... 

[missjen831]

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@sg51 wrote:

I still don't see what the problem is?

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Most of the time the problem is that the buyer could have saved money by simply ordering from Amazon. Its a hard lesson for some buyers, who did not do price comparisons before they pulled the trigger on the eBay item. 

[Anonymous]

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@retrose1 wrote:

While some say that it isn't an ebay issue, it will be when the buyers leave negs or neuts that say - Thanks for letting me know that I can get it cheaper on Amazon.

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@retrose1

While it wasn't a negative or neutral, that is almost identical to the message I DID leave for a seller who did this.

[Anonymous]

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@missjen316 wrote:

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@sg51 wrote:

I still don't see what the problem is?

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Most of the time the problem is that the buyer could have saved money by simply ordering from Amazon. Its a hard lesson for some buyers, who did not do price comparisons before they pulled the trigger on the eBay item. 

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That actually wasn't my problem with it.  I absolutely took responsibility for failing to do my due diligence prior to ordering.  I wasn't ticked at the seller for this, I was ticked at myself for this... and I did learn.