I was searching for office supplies on Amazon and came across an affiliate selling basic office supplies for ~100x the normal prices...like a pencil sharpener for $515. There's a few items on their first page which are priced normally, but as you dig almost everything is priced so high that it seems impossible they would ever make a sale unless there's some criminal activity involved.
How is this embezzlement? That would mean Amazon is in on it.
Isaac Hall
It's an affiliate. Amazon just handles the money. The affiliate ships the goods. If it's corrupt government employees...maybe the box contains some cash along with your $500 plastic pencil sharpener?
Nicholas Nguyen
>That would mean Amazon is in on it. It must be nice, being this naive.
Chase Anderson
Interesting. Have a bump.
Asher Lewis
It's a money laundering operation.
Leave them alone and mind your own business.
Camden Powell
but who is actually purchasing anything like that ?
Matthew Clark
I read a story a while back of some guy whose business allowed him to buy his own office supplies off of Amazon. It would be super easy for someone to set up an account as an Amazon Merchant post items for sale for more than 10 times their actual worth and then purchase them with the word credit card. If these expenses never got properly looked over people may assume $600 for a calculator was actually a batch of calculators that was ordered for a bunch of employees. This is definitely a possibility for a huge scam/money laundering. Good spot op. Now how can we find someone to be held accountable.
Why else would everyday office supplies be selling so rapidly at 100x the price.
Ethan Wilson
Damn white nights.
That being said, this is also a way to legally generate taxable income. One company would buy all of its supplies at an inflated cost from another company owned by the same majority owner, and would then write off the taxes and put them toward travel, trips etc while retaining all of the liquid assets.
Zachary Gray
will give you a bump. anybody remember during the early days of pozzagate how that user found "broken hard drives" for sale on ebay also at exorbitant prices?
Carter Garcia
Some people sell drugs this way. Usually you gotta know from a vendor what item to purchase and from who. Makes easier transaction deals between two parties and makes it seem like you bought a $600 calculator.
Drugs are sold this way. Im doubtful it's anything kid related.
Ian Thomas
>$550 for a box of 100 plain folders that you can get at wal-mart for $0.40 each >Hundreds of positive reviews
Something has to be up with this, there's no way it's legit.
Jace Butler
I've been seeing quite a lot of this too, while looking at computer hardware, monitors and such. Also furniture.
What the fuck is going on?
Kayden Green
u think people aren't dumb enough to pay those prices?
Joseph Myers
It's fuckin where they have this much reviews
Jackson Mitchell
>Have $1m in illicit cash >Purchase inflated bullshit for shell company >Report profits on legit company >Can now make legitimate purchases with laundered cash >Amazon provides layer of protection in exchange for marketplace fee
Dominic Smith
I see the same thing on eBay all the time
Jace Bailey
Why not, you know.. Try buying it?
Adrian James
probably all the reviews and feedback are from people who bought this stuff at normal prices, and now for some reason the price got bumped up enormously, probably just a pricing error by the seller's automated system or something. or it's the jews.
Julian Gonzalez
>Do not, I repeat, do not purchase from this seller. Your order will miraculously turn out missing in transit. >By Ezra K. on October 17, 2017. >Message from Amazon: This item was fulfilled by Amazon, and we take responsibility for this fulfillment experience.
Sebastian Flores
What the absolute fuck.
$34 label maker for $1400, 5500 positive reviews.
Blake Long
I’ve seen air guitars sell on eBay for hundreds.
Christopher Price
Perhaps most of those reviews are for the same item but sold at a reasonable price from other vendors.
Dominic Torres
I used to be an high volume online merchant and I can answer this easily.
The prices are set super high because they are out of stock on the item. They have maybe only one or two left in stock that they just hold on for a warranty replacement or something, but otherwise do not have any regular stock available for sale.
The idea is that most people with sense will simply not buy the item, and given that they still had an active listing/webpage with the item being available for sale, they save their search rankings on ebay or google shopping or whatever. If they sell out, the ebay listing dies, or the web page goes on google as no stock, either way they lose a fuck load of search ranking. Having a listing left with one or two items available for high amounts is preferable to that.
Of course, if the occasional idiot comes along decides to pay $120 for something they ordinarily sell for $20, that last one or two items they've been holding on to will be used to fulfill the order. This happens surprisingly more often then you'd think; fucking people just don't read. They bookmark a listing several days ago thinking they'd come back to buy it from later, and when they do return they just press the buy button without thinking or reading again.
Angel Wood
Reminds me of those 500$ hard drives full of CP on ebay a few years back.
Mason White
bump
Henry Barnes
>white knights Being this autistic. This is likely your tax money you welfare collecting neet faggot. Of course you wouldn't care cause you probably haven't contributed anything to the society you leech off of daily.
Ethan Scott
One of the glue reviews is by an account called "chicagosouth".
Probably inner city school workers embezzling from the tax payers.
Juan Richardson
Have wondered about this phenomenon for a long time, but never really questioned it. In fact, I'm getting >sleepy
Lincoln Cooper
Possibly, but the seller itself has hundreds of positive reviews per month too.
Josiah Hall
What did they mean by this on $500+ box of folders?
Levi Hall
>That would mean Amazon is in on it 60%+ of everything sold on amazon is by a third party, Amazon is like ebay but without the bidding.
The overpriced items could be the result of a malfunctioning repricer, but it could also be drop shippers who don't hold the items they list. Such people will list 200k items at a massive price hoping to get a few retards buying each day. Either one of those options is common.
Aiden Perry
Makes complete sense but let's continue to speculate for the fun of it
Luke Bell
>chica go south Spic doing anal?
Andrew Hall
sounds like a great way to launder money if you ask me.
Jacob Ross
Two small coincidences are at play here. They bought the shit when the price was at its normally low volume. Probably then left the shitty feedback for some other defective chinese made item they bought for the wrong merchant. Happens frequently.
Gabriel Reyes
Well done OP.
Lucas Rivera
>tfw this headline isn't satire I don't even know where to begin.
Lucas Baker
I know a guy who setup a bogus company in some shithole country and got a credit card with the company bank, he then used the card on overpriced stuff like this to get the credit to his personal account. This is the only thing I can think of.
Angel Hughes
Wait didn't a ceo or someone in amazon just quit after an employee of his got busted for PEDOing? I think
Zachary Perez
>retard comes into thread refusing to entertain any idea besides the one he assumed to start >confederate flag checks out.
Nathan Collins
Amazon prime and believe.
Aaron Ramirez
>If it's corrupt government employees...maybe the box contains some cash along with your $500 plastic pencil sharpener?
>school district needs ti-83 calculators >has $8 million budget for all school supplies in general, money of course comes from public funding >school administrator sets up bogus company >buys wholesale office/school supplies for his company >resells them to the school district he's in charge of >increases the prices an order of magnitude or more >pockets the difference >casual investigation would make it seem like the district is buying bulk goods instead of individual items at rip-off prices
How to be a millionaire, why throwing money at schools doesn't work, and why there's more administrators in a school than there are teachers - 101
Cooper Wright
Thanks for volunteering, give us an update on what it is.
Ryan Scott
I think you may have a point user. Something's not right here. Send in a tip to the FBI (srs)
Dominic Davis
I sold around 10 million dollars worth of shit on ebay before I retired. I know this shit, and have done exactly what OP is describing myself. There is no conspiracy here, just small online merchants and retarded computer algorithms from amazon/ebay/whatnot at work. And of course, retards like you.
Aiden Collins
But more than 90% of their inventory is priced like this...and it's not 2-3x more expensive. It's 10x or more. What business model is that?
Could be public school employees running the storefront, and buying the "products".
Nathaniel Lewis
proof it's selling rapidly or at all
Jackson Price
absolutely not
consumerist retards go for whatever is cheapest, and second to that, whatever the tv brainwashes them into buying
you can convince a consumerist retard to spend $500 on a pen, but without the tv brainwashing they automatically fallback to buying the cheapest possible goods no matter the quality of them.
consumerist retards would not buy these office supplies at these prices without very strong brainwashing efforts by an advertiser
Gabriel Parker
If you do you'll get the item. Even if they got nothing in stock they'll buy it from some other merchant just to ship it to you. And then they'll do their very best to weasel out of any and all attempts from you to return the item for a refund.
Owen Sanchez
If you truly believe there's a conspiracy, buy something from them, this is what will happen:
They're just a shitty business that happened to have run out of stock on a lot of stuff. Late fall/early winter tend to have the best online sales.
Isaac Ramirez
Just to clarify, the company was legit but not really anything to it more than a bank account with credit. The listings he pumped the money in to was his own listings, of course.
Julian Gomez
Nope. Even more so for internet shoppers
Ethan Collins
I want 2 see more suspicious things I'm bored
Jace Rogers
That's a commonly used kickback/drugs/RX/other contraband selling method. In europe ebay was the medium of choice, you just list shitty mediocre demand items like used children school backpacks for absurd prices and mark it as collector item for in person pickup... >classic scout whitey dog backpack = 2g of coke >classic scout whitey dog school bag = 10g of coke >classic TX calculator advanced edition = 30x 10mg Ritalin >classic TX scientific graphical calculator with enhanced software = 30x 20mg Ritalin LR >etc pp... Those shopping lists where known around university circles... If you need something just look this shit up, pay by wire transfer/pp, print the confirmation number and collect it next day at the designated toilet stall/cantina table...
Andrew Gray
They get ~1000 positive store reviews a month, positive reviews are from sales.
Blake Parker
oh, so it's just a front for some other kind of product
What costs $500, has a 'front jewel', can be relatively mass produced, but needs to be hidden from casual browsers on amazon?
counterfeit goods wouldn't be this expensive, it's probably not drugs, and jewels go on luxury items. What kind of luxury items might be illegal to buy/sell?
William Price
No, there are all sorts of services where you can pay to have a ton of positive reviews, likes, instagram accounts/twitter accounts be created and do what you want them to do. The question is, why are they doing this
>What does pol think this is? A still, user. Pol thinks it's a fucking shill
Henry Rodriguez
>$1400 label maker >batteries not included
Jews
Gavin Foster
How does this work? His own bogus company was selling the overpriced stuff to his legit company? Is this legal? Wouldn't a simple investigation reveal this? I'm not very knowledgable.
Christopher Walker
It's money laundering you fucking mong.
Daniel Rogers
>If you truly believe there's a conspiracy, buy something from them, this is what will happen:
I sent them a message asking what I get with my $515 pencil sharpener. Doubt I will get a reply but will be interesting to see.
Thomas Parker
Is that legal?
Cameron Bennett
>the reviews are fake
this is proof that amazon reviews are not legit.
Julian Thompson
This. Money laundering makes more sense than drugs/pedo shit.
Joseph Anderson
>this is proof that amazon reviews are not legit.
It's interesting the "angry" reviews are from orders that Amazon vs the affiliate fulfilled. ie the customer didn't get what they expected.
Juan Cooper
A lot of fake ID and Drug sites use amazon postings as a way to receive cash.
Adrian Hughes
legal, illegale nobody cares. just look up blackhatworld.com. That's the place where they sell anything and everything regarding the internet. From followers, likes, digital CC's to positive reviews on any platform... If you can spare $10-1000 you can buy pretty much anything. Nobody cares.
Jayden Ramirez
I'll answet it, because you fucking idiots see conspiracy everywhere. Adding item to amazon cost money, while changing its price not - so if something is out of stock, you do not take off the item, you change price to some bullshit-high that noone will pay, and keep it untill you restock. When you have item back, you just change it to regular.
Angel Myers
Pretty much yes, it's probably highly illegal, I imagine he could get a ton of shit for fraud but don't think the chances of getting caught are that high.
Eli Barnes
Most likely explanation. Even if he "sold" one or two of theses and bought the rest of the supplies legitimately he would be rich pretty quick. I mean just 10 transactions are worth 5-10k.
The crook could even go as far as writing up fake statements since he is buying selling them to himself. The statements/receipts could say bulk of 3000 pens but are only a 5pk.
Elijah Mitchell
It's best to only buy from legit affiliates or sold by Amazon.
Of course you shouldn't buy from Amazon because of Bezos and taking down Confederate flag.
Charles Cruz
You sure you're not being dramatic here? it's probably nothing. The reviews are just pooled from when the products are stocked by amazon, as they've got top 100 reviewers and whatnot reviewing these products.
1977 reviews for same calculator from amazon, $30.
The prices are probably jacked up placeholders instead of saying out of stock for whatever reason.
Blake Taylor
Sorry, the other way around I mean. His bog company was buying "nothing" via the listings made with his legit business.
Aiden Foster
Sounds like corrupt government employees to me (No doubt diversity or a white woman)
Brody Sanchez
Noice.
Henry Barnes
So the credit card was racking up a debt in the shithole country which he then doesn't pay off? Did he use a fake ID there?
Adam Wright
The affiliate has made over 63,000 sales. The product reviews are separate from seller ratings. Two different things. 63,000 is the number of buyers who bothered to leave a seller score, the number of transactions could be much higher.
For the "jack the price up til we restock." theory to hold water, 95% of their items are out of stock. For such a busy affiliate to allow themselves to run out of almost everything doesn't make a lot of sense.
Hudson Torres
The store itself gets a massive flow of positive ratings.
Samuel Miller
What if it's a way to scam for more public funding?
It's not uncommon for branches of some corporation to buy iPads and Macs for all their employees and change them every year just so their allotted yearly budget gets used up so next year they can request for more.
Maybe it's school and college departments are doing the same thing to request more public funds next year and we already know how many billions are funneled into them and the education quality is still shit
Connor Stewart
I believe those reviews are for the item in general, not for the overpriced one. When NES Classics were going for $200+ most of the one star reviews were about the prices.
John Carter
Read the description. Probably sold in bulk.
Bentley Rodriguez
>The prices are probably jacked up placeholders instead of saying out of stock for whatever reason.
This.
I can't speak for Amazon as i've never been a retailer, but this is exactly what I do with all of my Ebay stores.
It's a lot less work and free to simply edit prices, whereas re-listing costs money.
It also has the added benefit of helping with search manipulation and you also occasionally get a dumbass who buys something at a ridiculous price.
It's fucking amazing how sheltered, clueless and generally naive you fucktards can be at times.
Sebastian Reyes
fucking morons onm gibs that browse pol and never worked a day in life
you raise the price of the item when youre out of stock so you dont have to relist and lose the feedback
most of them, order from china which take weeeks and weeks to arrive so no gaurantees
also sage since this isnt political thread and probably a slide attempt
Leo Mitchell
I know he never paid the debts racking up, but I'm not entirely sure about if he used fake ID's or if they had some sort of shell companies registered as owner. He did have a partner, or an accomplice if you will. Real shady guy but the parties he would throw on occasion were massive.
Anthony James
Look at the recent reviews for some items, they're all "verified purchase". Unless Amazon is in on the scam, then they had to be actually bought by someone's Amazon account.
Bentley Scott
Amazon charges a monthly subscription fee and a percentage per every unit sold, there's no cost of actually putting up a listing and when you run out of stock the listing simply go inactive until you either remove it or re-stock.
I do know that some merchants and affiliates like to raise the price (never 100x or more, just a bit), it has something to do with the ranking. Slow sales for a month is better for ranking than no sales at all, but this is irrelevant unless it's your private label and no one else is selling on that listing.
Ryder Brooks
I-is this the thread that's getting slid? fuck its a mess tonight.
John Edwards
I found very similar listings on ebay with massively over priced items and the seller was indeed registered in Israel. It's a scam of some sort, money laundering perhaps or selling between business as a tax write off
Jose Powell
Sometimes I have low lives on the bus or something try to talk me into using my bank account for a business idea or a fraud scheme. It's quite easy to find gullible people, promise them money, and do things in their name.
Zachary Ramirez
Yeah, it's the market place just one step before you have to go for the .onion. >spam software >blog networks for promotion >bulk accounts for social media >any kind of software proxies >complete turnkey shilling websites including promotion they have it all including all the know /biz/ scams
Ian Barnes
>Amazon >Cash
Pick one
Kayden Cox
Good job, you just alerted (((them))) that there are people aware/suspicious of (((their))) activities.
Nolan Harris
Is it ok to get a 300$ Acer laptop from Amazon? I mean, is it returnable if it's defective such as the screen without some restocking fee? I would imagine other repairs I'd have to contact the manufacturer for warranty
Wyatt Wood
amazon listings are a shitshow, they change over time, they didn't actually cost that much
Alexander Martinez
I wonder if any governments or political agents are using their services... I bet the FBI (or whoever is doing this) is looking at them if they are seriously investigating the Russian collusion story.
