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Amazon leaves sellers without remedy after 1p automated pricing glitch

3 pointsby truscheover 10 years ago

1 comment

Someone1234over 10 years ago
The Guardian should be ashamed of itself, what utter twaddle.<p>Third party sellers used RepricerExpress to auto-price their goods. RepricerExpress screwed up and priced everything to 1p. Sellers lost TONS of money.<p>But reading this article you&#x27;d blame Amazon for this:<p>&gt; Amazon has refused to come to the aid of thousands of small family-owned businesses that have lost tens of thousands of pounds due to a technical glitch that caused their products to be sold for a penny.<p>No mention of a third party, they clearly want the reader to think that it is an Amazon technical glitch.<p>&gt; The sellers, many of whom are operating from their garage or spare bedroom, have demanded that Amazon take some responsibility for the error caused by a third-party software glitch. Some have already instructed lawyers.<p>Why? Just why? Amazon had no part in causing this. The sellers used the software, the software broke. Amazon doesn&#x27;t own or make it.<p>&gt; Amazon has accepted no liability for the loses suffered by its sellers, from whom it takes a slice of each sale helping it to make annual profits of $20bn.<p>Why would they? They didn&#x27;t do anything that they could possibly be liable for!<p>Literally the term &quot;RepricerExpress&quot; doesn&#x27;t appear until the 9th paragraph, halfway down the article. The article clearly tries to place blame at Amazon&#x27;s feet (going so far as to suggest they&#x27;re liable for this!).<p>Seriously this is the worst article I&#x27;ve ever read on The Guardian&#x27;s website. It is intentionally misleading tabloid junk of the worst kind. The first article on this topic is far better:<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/dec/14/amazon-glitch-prices-penny-repricerexpress" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;money&#x2F;2014&#x2F;dec&#x2F;14&#x2F;amazon-glitch-p...</a><p>The same author then wrote this second article, linked back to their first article, but tried to blame it all on Amazon in the second article (while giving correct attribution in the first to RepricerExpress).<p>It is just strange. This junk gives the Guardian a bad name.