eevBLAB 96 - BUSTED! - Dymo Gets WORSE!

As if Dymo adding DRM to force you to use their labels wasn't low enough, they have been BUSTED reusing their old 450/4XL Amazon listings in order to keep all their old positive reviews to make you think people are positively reviewing their new 550/5XL DRM model!
This deception should be reported to Amazon.

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#Amazon #BUSTED #Dymo

[EEVblog]

UPDATE! Amazon have responded on Twitter that they would investigate. Now a few hours later it seems they have purged reviews. This video shows 943 ratings for the 550, now it's 131 for the same URL listing!

[xjet]

Dymo DRM and Amazon's scammy reviews. A marriage made in heaven!

[martinlutherkingjr.]

Isn’t this against Amazon’s seller agreement? Dymo should get banned from selling on Amazon.

[Poptartg]

We should mass report these listings to Amazon's fraud department. Clearly they're falsifying product reviews at that point.

[chevylization]

About a month ago I posted a one star, detailed review about the 550 on amazon, including photos of the RFID tag on the paper, followed by its immediate return. A week later amazon informed me that the review was removed and I was banned from posting reviews for "community rules violation" on this review. That explains everything.

[RK-knud]

This listing reuse is a common occurrence on Amazon, however seeing such a big company do this is shocking.

[jeremiefaucher-goulet]

I'd love to witness their internal meetings, emergency meetings, see the panick on their face as the executives realize they've just killed their brand. But I'm probably dreaming... I doubt they've realized it yet.

[alexroge]

They aren’t the only people doing that on Amazon, I see it all the time where the reviews aren’t even based on the same model. Amazon appears to be complicit

[Haskellerz]

SSD and HDD manufacturers have been doing this for years.
Releasing products with good quality components, then replacing them with the cheapest components that don't pass QC.
Amazon doesn't care

[timlaunyc]

This is exactly what some fly-by-night vendors do. Sell something that's high quality, then repurpose the same product landing page for a lower quality production run of the same product.

[fredmorton]

Thanks for highlighting this. As a happy Dymo user, both 450 and450xl, I was just in the process of replacing older units. This came up just in time and will have saved me a load of cash. Will now be looking at Zebra

[mc]

I always hated this Amazon thing with the combined reviews for Multiple Products...
I wanted to check some reviews for a product before buying and all the reviews were for another model listed on the same page..

[MikeBramm]

Dymo should be banned from Amazon for a period of time due to violating Amazon's Terms of Service.

[tahustvedt]

DRM is the scourge of the consumer experience. They've been making life harder for customers since the early 80's, probably even earlier.

[jkobain]

Digital restriction management? Love them all for that «enhanced customer experience».

[tangomango]

Thank you Dave for bringing it to our attention. Like so many, I will keep away from Dymo if looking for a new labeller.

[mateiberatco]

Most people also forget to think in the future: Dymo can "update"/switch the DRM and shipping only rolls that work on the future models. So the 5xx rolls will get pricier and then unobtainable.

[youdontknowme]

Just browsing around for products on Amazon in general is such a frustrating, insufferable pain in the ass anymore... I stopped using them years ago. I have better luck on *eBay*, now that says something

[electronash]

That's a HUGE loophole on Amazon.

eBay (as an example) doesn't let you change the title nor description of a listing once it's gone live (AFAIK).
They only let you add to the existing description.

If Amazon lets you change the title and even the photo, then it must have been open to this abuse for a very long time.

Either way, shameful of Dymo as well. The DRM thing was bad enough.

I'll give it a few months until China are selling inserts for third-party label rolls, with a self-resetting RFID tag. lol

(or a simple mod chip for the printer, which fools it into thinking a tag is present.)

[dmuntz]

*Always* sort Amazon reviews by most recent. This also handles the case where a legit product is replaced by a Chinese knock-off, or the far-too-frequent case of companies making a product worse w/o changing the model number.