Be Careful Who You Buy From on Amazon!

Did you recently see an Ooni Pizza Oven on sale for 90% off?? I want to show you what happened when I tried to buy it. And I'll show you what to watch out for on other sketchy deals!

Always make sure you check out the 3rd party seller's reviews on Amazon before buying.

[tarmiga]

Hey Ben, basically you're right about them hoping some people forget about the refund option, but more importantly: since u have to adhere to THEIR third party refund policy, they can request whatever information they want to issue you the refund. And from there they can either sell ur info, keep it, and do whatever they want

[brandonut]

The reason they create the tracking number is to keep their account from getting auto flagged and taken down for not shipping the item. Amazon will also release the funds to the seller once the “item has shipped”.

Source: sold on eBay and Amazon since 2014

[erebostd]

Amazon gets worse every single day 😵‍💫 - they even block you from reviewing if you point out obviously problems with an item, but the (big) seller disputes them. It’s insane.

[JoeBob]

The Amazon scam that annoys me the most is where the scammer hijacks an old 5-star listing and adds a different product to it. And people think that the new product is great because it has 5 stars.
And it means that you have to really dig down into the old reviews and see if the people reviewing them are talking about the same item.
For example you might look at a listing for a kettle, and the recent reviews will have 1 star saying the kettle is crap, but the reviews from 2-3 months ago talk about how it feels nice and soft against your skin, and it fits nicely into the washing machine.

[ryanbenson]

Sellers will often "accidentally" create a discount code that makes an item free or heavily discounted so that they can become a top seller, then some of them will send you a message asking you to cancel the order because if you don't they will get fired. They want you to cancel the order because that way they won't lose their top seller badge. It happened to me recently with a mini desktop PC.

[shannon]

I had a similar experience this summer when I purchased a special pillow and they did the same thing with creating a tracking number and saying my order was taking longer than expected. I contacted the seller and didn’t receive a response. I decided to file a dispute with my credit card company. I had to wait a couple months for the dispute to become finalized but my credit card company refunded my money. So glad I went that route be asking for the refund the other way. Thank you for helping us navigate these scams. Your are the best! Can’t wait to see you back in the SP call center again. 🎉

[siannes]

This is why I always buy products shipped/sold from Amazon. Buying from 3rd party sellers can be sketchy AF. Buyer Beware!

[stephaniehumphries]

I am so surprised that Amazon lets this happen. I’m giving Amazon the side eye now. Thank you so much Ben for exposing this you are amazing 😘

[Tyler-femm]

Thank you for doing us all a solid. Very educational for people who are not familiar with scams!

[justinlawson]

Thanks for the PSA. Always count on Ben Dover to keep us up to date on these scammers.

[inkgoeswildalaska]

Thanks for pointing out where to find the actual seller. I’ve always just looked to see if it was shipping from Amazon or a third party store. In this example I would have thought it was coming from Ooni.

Update: I went to Amazon last night to check this out. Sure enough when I clicked on one of the Ooni pizza ovens listed for $150, then clicked on the seller’s listings, I found a bunch of high end items…all listed for $150. Some of those $150 “bargains” were brand new sectional sofas! Who, in their right mind, would think you could order a sectional sofa, online, for $150??? Just the shipping alone would probably run you close to $1, 000! My husband and I purchased two electric bikes years ago, from the lower 48, and we paid $1, 000 to ship them to Anchorage. We then had make the four hour round trip to Anchorage to pick them up. Needless to say I wouldn’t fall for a $150 sofa on Amazon. Amazon’s reputation and credibility will suffer if they continue to allow these scammers to utilize their website.

[mattm]

I've had an Ooni pizza oven for a few years now. It makes good pizza, but being pellet fired its a little bit of a pain in the butt to use and clean. Hopefully everyone who got scammed will get their money back.

Same thing happened to me back in the spring. Had a pair of headphones in my wish list and suddenly they were $50 cheaper from a 3rd party on the official listing. Seller name was identical. I bought knowing it could be fake but Amazon has pretty good support when it comes to this stuff. In the end, I got a refund pretty quickly.

[fayelinae]

I am in awe at how many people see amazon as this reputable company that is not shady at all.

[robbywilcox]

I deal with credit card disputes and Facebook sponsored ads at prices too good to be true at work often.

These disputes always lead to shipping taking months for cardholders to receive in the US. When a product eventually arrives, it is a tiny, bubble mailer with customs form indicating an item weighing a few ounces with a value of $5 and nothing like huge, expensive product consumer ordered.

I've seen bouncy balls, fake sunglasses, soap dishes, handkerchiefs sent when cardholders expected things like huge patio furniture set, adjustable 50 pound dumbbells, electric car, motorized scooter, sewing machine table, etc.

In my view, the reason for the garbage product being shipped is so it will appear cardholder received item purchased when disputed with credit card company. Keep the videos coming!

[MarshallRawR]

It could be a few things. Number one is what you said. No matter what, if even just one person doesn't ask for a refund, it's a net win for the scammers. Number two could be them promoting their storefront in the algorithm to set up a future legit store and be already a bit better in the rankings. Finally, it could also be a brushing scam. It is when you collect real customer addresses and ship random crap to be able to mark them as legit customers on a different website to boost rankings.

[Kio_]

amazon can be really confusing sometimes, even using it regularly i feel like i have to check everything 5 times for not receiving bad surprises

[palermoVmusic]

I actually bought the Xbox you showed. Similar seller situation, but mine was actually marked as “delivered” to an address in Virginia. I live in Michigan. I chatted with an Amazon rep and they took care of it immediately as if it is a regular occurrence. I was surprised that it said delivered in Virginia and Amazon, knowing I am in Michigan, didn’t catch on. Strange new scam we have going on how huh? 😳

[cuk]

A friend and I each ordered a heavily discounted air-fryer through Amazon marketplace last year, knowing that if there was a problem we could claim a refund. It never actually got that far, though, as a day later both of our orders were automatically cancelled as “this item is no longer in stock”. On reflection we both got off lightly without having to put in a claim from a, now obvious, scam listing.

[robertcop]

I bought a friend a hydroponics planter that had really high reviews and none of the accounts looked like bots. I have no idea who I actually bought it from because the item is no longer available for purchase, but the thing was completely broken in under a month. I'll definitely double and triple check next time I order something from Amazon.