That’s a bit alarmist - but no one had to ‘look at the sun’.
I made a pinhole viewer and it took me all of 15 minutes.
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… and a program called “Transparency,” …
It seems to me that the problem the glasses had in the first place was too much transparency.
It’s actually less clear than it appears to be. If a 3rd party seller is using ‘fullfillment by Amazon’ without FBA labeling; you can end up getting whatever has the same SKU as what you ordered and happens to be most logistically convenient to ship. Maybe it’s identical; maybe it’s just labelled to look identical: even if the seller isn’t trying to scam you, if some other seller is running a scam on the same item, you might get one of their units.
I have no doubt that the logistical efficiency gains are impressive and were carefully studied by Amazon; but murky supply chains rarely involve the fun kind of surprise.
(edit: just for clarity; I’m not sure if this ‘commingling’ affects things purchased specifically from Amazon and also fulfilled by Amazon; or whether they firewall internal and 3rd party stock; and it’s only 3rd party stock that is treated as fungible between vendors; the former case would be even more dire, but I don’t know enough about the situation to say if it occurs; the latter case makes buying from even honest and reputable 3rd parties more risky than you might expect; and the sources are unequivocal about it being the case; indeed, much of what is written on the subject is from the perspective of 3rd party sellers worried about getting burned when they get the nasty review and complaint because somebody else’s counterfeit was shipped to their customer because it had the same SKU, which is understandably something that makes a merchant who lives or dies by their reviews and can be kicked from Amazon for policy violations or just attracting too much flak at pretty much any time a bit nervous.)
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Early on I bought 200 pairs directly from eclipseglasses.com and distributed them to family, friends and coworkers. I’d have sent them to BB regulars if I could. I’d rather spend $2 a head than folks wind up with scarred retinas.
I’m not always a huge fan of the merch here, but I really want Boing Boing to be an outlet for reputable eclipse glasses in 2023 and 2024.
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Sorry, but that’s simply not true. Properly made eclipse glasses won’t allow any more radiation to reach your eyes than normal.
Your ophthalmologist was, not unwisely, likely trying to avoid a malpractice suit, by discouraging you since he couldn’t control the conditions of your viewing.
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I agree, and I’ll suggest as much.
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I’ll definitely make BB my supplier if they do.
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“Counterfeit” might not be the right word here, because I don’t think the sellers of faulty eclipse glasses were trying to pass them off as coming from other more reputable manufacturers, rather that they were claiming they met ISO standards when they didn’t (or hadn’t even been tested).
Initially I ordered from Amazon a “family pack” of adult and kid size glasses that claimed to meet ISO standards, but once they arrived I saw they were cheaply made in China and didn’t give any specifics about the standard they claimed to meet (they should’ve said they met ISO 12312-2:2015, but these just had the ISO logo and nothing else). I did some research and ordered new ones from Lunt, planning to return the first set to Amazon. Then I read that Amazon had emailed customers about a refund I was annoyed that they hadn’t emailed me, but maybe a week later they did, granting me a refund and telling me to just trash the cheap glasses.
From my experience I think they did the right thing. I can understand not anticipating the need to police their sellers’ eclipse glasses for standards compliance, but once the issue became known I think they acted quickly and appropriately.
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Has this happened to you?
If Amazon didn’t get responses to those e-mails, I don’t see how that’s “diligent.”
I hate making phone calls, but eyesight is kind of important.
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Their responsibility is to notify the customer, not to quiz the customer to ensure they understood the notification.
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It is all third party on amazon. amazon makes a tiny percentage of the items that they sell.
the ball and shells game that Bezos has set up makes Amazon’s back-office my bullshit instead of where it belongs: to the entity that sold it.
They have three different return policies depending on who is selling and where it comes from and and and.
it is the trick that facebook did with privacy settings … change them enough times to make customers give up and purchase instead of futzing with settings or fine print.
I cancelled my amazon account and sent Geoff Bezos ( iknow ) an email calling the amazon marketplace a breeding ground of anti-consumer corruption, and that I hated that he was sitting back getting richer off of it.
FYI … you have to contact customer support over the phone to cancel your amazon account. Lots of “efficiency” in that process.
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E-mails only count as notification if folk actually receive them. Messages which arrive in spam folders cannot count as a successful contact.
Also, it’s not like Amazon doesn’t know the customers’ mailing address, too.
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I didn’t buy eclipse glasses** from Amazon, but I’m sure I heard about their warning consumers at least a couple dozen times in the lead-up. I feel sorry for the folks who are suing if they really didn’t hear about it. I wonder how wide-spread that actually is. I never miss a legit email from Amazon (and they send me plenty), but I definitely get a lot of fake Amazon spam. (If I could only spend a fraction of those $50 reward cards for being a good customer.)
**That’s right. I bought my welder’s goggles with shade 14 glass lenses for the Transit of Venus years ago. Where you have guys been?
Says you. I took the advice of the expert, but hey, you do you.
Customers initiate a trade relationship with Amazon which involves email as the primary means of communication. It is reasonable for Amazon to assume that email to the customer will not end up in the trash folder.
Maybe they should also email the customers’ mothers, and get them to call the customers. And wipe their noses.
I’ve been viewing eclipses since the early 1960s, and never once did it occur to me to not take full responsibility for my own eyes.
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It is not. E-mail filters are written by engineers, seldom by the users, and mistakes (“false positives”) happen all the time.
It is why I rely on the phone and/or paper mail for any critical correspondence which requires follow-up.
What has this got to do with anything? E-mail is sometimes unreliable and sometimes ultimately fails to connect with a recipient—which is the whole point of communication. I don’t understand why anyone would try to dispute this, unless they had really limited practical experience with communicating with e-mail.
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So do I…as a customer. Amazon refunded the price, emailed customers, gave interviews to the media, the story was all over the internet. It isn’t their fault if a few customers remained ignorant of the situation.
Of course, as I said upthread, anyone knowingly trafficking in fake eclipse glasses should get harsh punishment.
E-mail is sometimes unreliable and sometimes ultimately fails to connect with a recipient—which is the whole point of communication.
Sure, but that doesn’t make any communication failure Amazon’s responsibility.
This isn’t the first product that has ever been recalled for safety issues, and the law not only allows email notifications, it encourages them. You can even sign up for an email notification list from the CPSC. There has never been an expectation that consumers verify receipt of the recall notice. You might not think the standard is adequate, but it is the norm, and it is unreasonable to hold Amazon to a higher standard.
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Just correcting an inaccuracy. Not trying to tell you what to do.
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You’re entitled to your opinion.
