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I've continued to buy thousands of dollars with Amazon because they're the best gig for batch buying across multiple product categories, but if I lived in the States more often I would buy local when possible. Reviews are still a joke, but they give a general wind of what to expect. Way too many fakes still, but this is the system we have. Not the cheapest by far, but the most convenient. Sad they kind of sucked the soul out of whole foods too. Yes, like Wallymart, they are too big to fail.
Tip for consumers:
They need to use their AI to screen out fake reviews and products, also unsafe products like spa treatment devices, ear endoscope...
Products used:
Blink security system still working after 4 years.
I've been using Amazon.com for over a decade with mostly positive experiences (I usually buy in batches of $1000 since I live overseas most of the time). Lately, I find their platform very troubling. Last week the android app self-bought some off-brand deep muscle massager in my pocket overseas, and was set to buy 4 more. I discovered this by a confirmation e-mail which showed it was going to send the pocket-purchase to a USA hotel address I used months ago. How does this happen, I didn't have one-click buy on, and when I go to buy products for real, they make me follow many steps.
Another thing I've noticed in the last two years is the blatant AI price manipulation when you leave multiple products in your cart while evaluating them. The prices for those items keep going up, then down a bit, then really up, then they start playing with availability. There is no longer any price guarantee so when I finally paid for my purchase, many of the "in cart" items had noticeably increased. Yet, even two days later when checking prices I found the items has returned to the lower price. Many examples of this, so don't keep items in your cart.
Fake branded products are a real problem on Amazon, I have bought several by accident. User reviews are also being faked, you can read 4-5 star reviews that have nothing to do with the actual product. If you don't believe me read reviews on "sonic bark controllers". I've noticed products that have lots of bad reviews are being cancelled, then resold as a new product to shed the bad reviews. Total manipulation. Most of these products aren't for large dollar items so most of us don't bother to send back. The few time I've bought and left negative reviews, somehow the seller is able to get my real email and write notes begging me to change my review "my family depends on my sales..."
If Amazon has more money than god, why aren't they securing the platform and protecting the buyers? They make more sales not doing so... Again, another example of a good company corrupted by money. I will only be buying things I can't find anywhere else, in fact, I think Walmart is probably the good guys now compared to Amazon. So sad, greed and unregulated capitalism once again doesn't protect the buyer. The "Market" will eventually correct itself? I sure hope so, but it's always at the expense of the little guy.
Tip for consumers:
Double check the prices with other vendors, buyer beware of fakes and don't leave items in cart until ready to buy
7/28/21 was my first order with ILGM.com when I bought 5 Granddaddy Purple fem seeds. Everything went super, quick delivery, 100% germination. Then 9/18/22 ordered 5 Bruce Banner fem seed and all failed to germinate. Excellent customer service gave me account credit. Waited until 2/20/24 to use that credit and purchased 5 MK Ultra fem seeds and just tried to germinate six days ago, another fail! Before and inbetween these dates I used other seed banks without issue and have 10 years experience. I love the company, the site, CS, but wholly crap, two fails in a row and I have to move on... Just ordered from The Attitude and gave up on ILGM because these delays have been real bummers for my schedule. Out $100 for a lot of effort wasted. Very sad ðŸ˜
Tip for consumers:
Bad odds
I've been using anytime for over 6 months and although they notify me of new mail both on the app and email, that's the only notification. For example, after notification of mail, I went to the app and chose to forward to my selected address. One day later, nothing shows up, not even the initial contact. This is the second time I've used it and the second time there is no tracking or indication of the progress. 2 of 2 fails, last time I emailed the location directly and they said sorry, then finally forwarded and charged me $23 to put in another envelope and mail overseas. Took over a month to get the letter. This time I have no clue what's up, so sad, I thought I'd found a solution for expats retiring overseas, can't recommend.
Tip for consumers:
Call location directly everytime to verify they are doing what you asked
Products used:
Mailbox
Ebay is about as bad a platform as you can get, fakes, ripoffs and a company that really doesn't care. Avoid
Tip for consumers:
Look elsewhere
Products used:
inferior product fake branded
I've been using the paid "Power" plan of SmugMug for 6 months now while simultaneously using Google Photos. While neither are perfect, the clear winner for me is Gphotos. I'm an experienced web designer for over 20 years and have amassed 40k photos and videos of my life. The plan was to upload all these files to my SM account to sort and display the best of the best. I used a custom domain name and put together sharing albums, and it looked good. However, all the ticks in the system were a constant fight and irritating. When I would email CS they were responsive, but never had a solution. Even asking how much space do my photos use on the server were beyond their ability. I didn't find it as intuitive as Gphotos, the AI is first gen, the phone apps have issues, and it just isn't worth committing to the long term with their platform. I wanted to like SmugMug, but I don't.
Tip for consumers:
if you like google products don't switch
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