I don't know if I'm wired weirdly, but I vert rately return things. I really don't like dealing with customer service, and I kind of live by a "buyer beware" motto. One time amazon shipped me a broken AmazonBasics mouse. For $6.88 I said screw it, literally not worth my time, and just stopped doing business with Amazon.
On larger problems, I would issue a chargeback with my credit card company. I have won 4 of those for between $25 and $1500!!!
I used to have an Amazon seller account where I would ship video games and books. People who tried to return items and complain to Amazon were literally the death of my business. One chargeback wiped out the profits from 100 successful sales.
So like I said, I'm not sure if I'm wired differently, but I don't like this phenomenon and avoid it 99.99999% of the time.
> I really don't like dealing with customer service
Most online retailers (including Amazon) require zero interaction with customer service to return something. Some clothing stores actually send retail labels in the package itself.
> On larger problems, I would issue a chargeback
> One chargeback wiped out the profits from 100 successful sales
It's really wrong to issue a chargeback when the seller is willing to work something out, and it seems like you were bitten by the same type of behavior.
Amazon requires zero interaction? I didn't know, it's been a few years since I have interacted with them, and I always remember my friends and family having to call Amazon to fix some issue, which, good on Amazon for handling that process efficiently.
Any seller who is willing to automate returns and eat costs is good in my book. Sadly, as a small shop, I couldn't automate that process and couldn't eat many costs whether I was in the right or in the wrong. So it was a big problem when Amazon would just automatically side with the customer, no matter how hard I tried to work with them and prove my credibility.
Like I said, I try to avoid issuing chargebacks wherever I can, 99.9999% of my purchases are just fine. But I've charged back 2 plane tickets and 2 parking tickets, believe it or not, and my credit card company was just absolutely stellar in handling the situation for me, since the companies involved were totally corrupt and non responsive.
So the net net of all of this is, unless you have deep pockets to fund your customer service ops (an increasingly large cost center), you will probably get burned on chargebacks and returns.
This will only increase the centralization around Amazon and Walmart, which I would define as "not always a good thing".
Thank you for this. I agree that they are cowards. Damore is completely right, certain members of our society are shaming others into silence for supposed psychological safety.
I also feel that money and political power are on the line too, which just heightens the needs for shaming others into silence, in their minds.
Let's see what happens to our posts.
EDIT: also Damore was attacked non-stop during his interview with Siliconbeat if I remember correctly.
I'm honestly not in the position to judge whether his sources were correct or not. If you read the memo and listen to him (e.g. on the Rubin Report) however you realise he doesn't want to hurt anybody, not even close. He is an extremely intelligent, introverted guy.
But I don't care about it being right or wrong. Google wanted all opinions to be on the table (in theory). Damore is just the latest example of someone (usually a little right wing) to get in trouble for his political opinions. I don't want this shit to come to Europe, I want to be able to have political discussions with my colleagues.
Speaking up for anyone who is unjustly attacked, no matter what political affiliation, is all we can do. I firmly believe Silicon Valley will eat itself. Silicon Valley is so big, because it cared about results, not diversity. Shifting their attention to diversity will increasingly bug investors and/or hurt profits so bad, that the next big tech hub will arise.
It's already arrived to Europe anyway. There is one mainstream view regarding (1) how to solve the immigration crisis, (2) whether or not different cultures and religions are equal, (3) whether or not a nation has the right to make a decision about its future.
If you don't agree about any of these, you're quickly denounced as alt-right, Nazi etc. In extreme cases, you can lose a job. It's not happening frequently though as people are not stupid and learned to keep a low profile. You can discuss things in a more open way with your friends, but you better avoid any online discussions if you can be identified, no matter how reasonable your argument is.
That donation becomes "speculation" if the token received from donating (i.e paying a price for a token) becomes tradable to other people.
Of course it is a questionable medium to speculating in, since there is no real mechanism holding the ICO-offerer to any obligation to deliver what they say they will deliver.
At least with a traditional stock market that is slightly more regulated, transparent, etc, we can reasonably expect that everyone from Apple to Zapos will attempt to deliver on what they say they will, with theoretical criminal charges being the price to pay for those who deliberately defraud investors.
Plenty of things could be manufactured or coded in these areas. Cheap housing and materials in general mean you could make a really awesome hacker house or even factory for physical goods.
Of course the real problems are:
1) VCs don't invest here
2) A startup's success is usually based on its ability to sell itself (using networking contacts) to a larger corporation
3) who then REALLY don't want to have an office in Nowhere, Alabama
If they did want to do it, they would have done it already. Lord knows they have the money.
"Improving patient outcomes" is quite possibly the most disgusting, 1984-esque buzzphrase right now.
It's worded so that like, "who could be against that?" is what anyone would think.
So some shady ads pushing startup is out there trying to handwave how they're making everyones life better and improving outcomes, despite not providing any innovation.
It would be like saying my meth dealer is improving my life outcome because I have more energy now.
I care about Newegg, I feel they offer me good prices and service. I bought many things from them over the last decade.
So if this suit succeeds and Newegg takes a massive hit (for seemingly real fraud), a few big dogs will make money and the consumers will get shafted.
Will be interesting to see what happens. Part of me wonders why it's "buyer beware" for the consumer, but if you're a big bank and you get ripped off, it's time to sue everyone you can.
Which is why I avoid the whole investing charade all together and just cut my expenses instead! Woohoo!
No mortgage, no marriage, no restaurants, no fancy gadgets, just a nice relaxing low cost of living life with friends who feel the same way.
Every once in a while I take some controlled investing risks, but hell if I would ever plunk 300k in a mutual fund and just safely assume everything will be fine when I check it 30 years from now.
Just a friendly reminder, from a former Oracle employee who was laid off recently, that Oracle is cancerous, rapacious, and DOES NOT respect you as a user or customer.
They WILL audit you. They WILL sue you. They WILL harass you. They WILL deceive you. Period. End of story. And they will make 100k easily off of you.
DON'T use Oracle products unless you are prepared to deal with these types of arbitrary, long, painful battles.
I enjoyed reading this article and all your behavior does is censor relevant and interesting info.
That you announce it for kudos is even more infuriating.