Not to be an apologist for Amazon, but I’m pretty skeptical of this methodology. Anyone who reads the one-star reviews when choosing a product knows that the people who leave product reviews are mostly [abnormal], and have a tenuous grasp of cause and effect.
“I dropped this wine glass from my second-story patio onto the concrete pad below and it broke, will not be buying again!”
“The UPS truck delivering my package crashed into a tree and caught fire, and when the driver limped to my front door and handed me my package, there was a dent on one corner. Terrible product!”
“I bought this bluray player for my living room, and now the tv in my bedroom doesn’t work.”
“This laptop needed a three-prong outlet, so I snipped off the ground prong and plugged it into an adapter on another adapter, and it shorted out!”
And the more popular a product is, the more bizarre reviews it’s going to get. Since AmazonBasics are almost always the most-purchased product in their categories on Amazon (likely because of a combination of low price and algorithm shenanigans), they’re going to have the most negative reviews in terms of raw numbers.
I bought a couple of Amazon Basics USB-C cables precisely because they were on a list of USB-IF certified products. I wonder if that certification was false, or just meaningless?
I recently had an Amazon Basics HDMI cable fail after a couple of years of use. It had a lifetime warranty, so I called to get it replaced. Customer service insisted it only had a one-year warranty, and when I sent them a copy of the original order, which had “backed by an AmazonBasics lifetime warranty” on it, they tried to argue that “lifetime warranty”=“life of the product”, and since my cable had died…
2 years back I bought an Amazon Basics heater for my son’s dorm room. It was extremely highly rated with people raving about it. He used it all winter, loved it. I explored many and it was criminally cheap for all the features, including 2 tip-over mechanics, which I liked because, well, college student user.
He used it until it literally stopped working. I went to buy a new one and couldn’t find it. Found it in my order history and got a dead link. Contacted Amazon and was told it was recalled due to multiple fires. Never got an email. Not sure how robust their program to recall even is.
I read the report & watched the video and realized that we had one of those AmazonBasics 30-pin cables for our old iPad3 plugged in right at my desk. I unplugged it and sliced the plastic cowl open and yup, exposed wires were molded right into the plastic. Needless to say, I cut the cable so no one could pluck it out my electronics recycling bin and try to use it.
And now I’m on the hunt for other AmazonBasics things in our house. . .
It seems a USB cable made with sufficiently small wire gauge and insulation that wasn’t fire resistant, could become a fire starter while staying under the the current limits of a properly designed USB power source. Not saying that’s necessarily the case here, but I’ve definitely seen cheap USB cables that didn’t meet USB specs and would probably even fail basic electrical codes for current carrying capacity and materials used.
I bought an AmazonBasics dehumidifier because it was a lot cheaper than the Whirlpool one that failed after two summers and the Friedrich one that failed after one summer. I figured if I have to replace them every year or two I might as well get a cheap one.
Well, now I don’t know what the answer is, except to build one myself. How much is pure ammonia nowadays?
I think it’s important to source where your quote at the end comes from. Without attribution it looks a bit like you’re saying Amazon is saying that is how they determine a recall - but it’s a movie quote!
If their supply chain for these “basics” products is anything like their process for other goods, then the doors are going to be wide open to a flood of counterfeiting:
Replacing insane with abnormal is less problematic, but ableist language is frowned upon here.
While Amazon reviews are a mess because of astroturfing, brushing, competitor sock-puppets, people complaining about the price while saying nothing more and sometimes admitting they didn’t even buy the item, people self-admittedly leaving reviews for things they didn’t even open or were damaged by carriers, and people using the reviews as a contact the seller area, none of that has to do with mental health or normality. It has to do with dishonesty and stupidity.
And even with all that, I still read reviews because lots of reviewers are good smart people trying to help out their fellow buyers for nothing but goodwill.
you’ve forgotten one type of reviewer i particularly enjoy, the comic performance artist.
you can find what i’m talking about with some of the one star reviews of major literary works. look through one star reviews of war and peace by tolstoy or in search of lost time by proust. some of those are hilarious.
I bought surplus military dehumidifier for about 50$. It’s extremely well made (it has Danfoss compressor), if a bit loud and ugly. I’m using it for 12 years already and it’s still good as new. Last year I’ve rented it for two weeks and made more money than I paid for it.
What a great idea! The ugly I wouldn’t mind but the noise might be annoying. I’ve also had fleeting thoughts of contacting some specialty HVAC contractor to install a laboratory grade one. But that would be at the other end of the cost spectrum.
I have the same/similar shredder with the same problem. Luckily it started doing that while I was nearby. I switch it to off now, rather than leave it in auto. Every now and then the auto shutoff kicks in after I shred something, but I still switch to off.
