Amazon sold bottles of urine marketed as an energy drink, a new documentary reveals. The company also makes it alarmingly easy to sell dangerous items to children.
  • BillDaCatt@kbin.social
    1123·
    1 year ago

    So let me see if I have this right:
    A dishonest seller packaged human urine as an energy drink and offered it for sale on Amazon as some kind of weird experiment. The seller then successfully sold the urine to friends through the site but refused sales to others. So the real crime, selling bodily fluids as food, was committed by the seller, but only to friends who knew what they were really getting.

    The bit about the seller being also employed by Amazon sounds like a red herring to make it seem like Amazon had some kind of prior knowledge about this.

    I love complaining about Amazon and all of their failings as much as the next guy, but I’m having a hard time seeing Amazon as the bad guy in this instance.

    • quindraco@lemm.eeEnglish
      222·
      1 year ago

      You could try reading the article. Almost nothing in your summary is accurate.

      • skulblaka@kbin.social
        111·
        1 year ago

        Just went and read the entire article. That’s pretty much spot on. Journalist sneaks into Amazon warehouse with a camera, interviews drivers, gets caught, and then has the idea to sell bottles of piss (real piss? Fake piss? Empty bottle? It’s not specified) on Amazon. Which some people then buy and then an Amazon automated service contacted him about boosting his business.

        There’s also a bonus bit in there about his daughters being able to buy knives and rat poison from Alexa without any age verification.

        It brings up some notable points in the age verification section, and it brings up some notable points about life as a delivery driver, but as far as the actual product is concerned it’s hard to paint Amazon as the bad guy this time. This is clearly a ridiculous item. If you’re shopping and you click on and order a clearly labeled bottle of piss, when it arrives on your doorstep that’s your own problem.

        That said though if just anybody can post and sell literally anything, even things like that, and Amazon does nothing to monitor what they’re selling through their site - well, Amazon is going to get flooded with garbage and scams sooner rather than later.

  • dan1101@lemm.eeEnglish
    1693·
    1 year ago

    TLDR, not an Onion headline, just a test to see what Amazon will allow. A person came up with a “Release” brand drink, filled bottles with urine, successfully listed them on Amazon, but only shipped them to friends that ordered them. Other people ordered them too though, but were not sent the product.

    Another example of a multi-billion dollar company that doesn’t curate their products/services. Costs too much money they would only profit 234 billion instead of 244 billion.

    • HubertManne@kbin.social
      6·
      1 year ago

      wait. so lovers of piss play where not sent the product they ordered??? Not cool man. leading them on like that.

    • RedditWanderer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      1 year ago

      And they’re going to spend 1 billion dollars on themselves to make sure they don’t end up spending millions on others.

    • joelthelion@lemmy.worldEnglish
      222·
      1 year ago

      Another example of a multi-billion dollar company that doesn’t curate their products/services. Costs too much money they would only profit 234 billion instead of 244 billion.

      In the long term it’s a terrible strategy. People will lose confidence and stop shopping there. I’ve almost stopped and I know I’m not the only one.

      Not that most executives care about long term…