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Comment by retSava | Hacker News Reader

This is one of many exploitative habits of Amazon. Others include not ensuring products follow regulation, eg on hazardous substances (lead, etc), or on electrical safety. They also make your local {book, game, hobby, ...} shop go bankrupt.

You don't -have- to buy there, if you have the financial means I urge/recommend/encourage you to buy locally or from a responsible seller. Even if they are slower, less things on offer, etc. You probably already know some small local stores you would be sad to see shut down. Support them! (if you don't already)

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> follow regulation

This one bit me recently when I bought a package of budget light fixtures (in Canada, from amazon.ca) and then my licensed electrician informed me that he wouldn't be able to install them as they didn't have a CSA or UL mark. (edit: originally I had mis-recalled and said CE here)

To their credit, Amazon did allow me to return them without penalty, and now my review there warns other consumers that those are only for DIY use and even then you are risking your home's insurance coverage.

> and now my review there warns other consumers that those are only for DIY use

Actually make sure with a incognito window that this review is actually visible. I've noticed that some reviews of mine have been "shadow-banned" and while it looks like they're still there when I'm logged in, once I try in a incognito window the review doesn't show up publicly anymore. My reviews were just basically facts about the products themselves, and received no word from Amazon about breaking any rules.

I posted a legitimate negative review once and it got immediately memory-holed. I laugh every time they send an email begging for reviews. I'm not wasting my time if you're going to hide the truth.

The few times I've tried leaving a negative review, Amazon has either taken it down or it has disappeared like this. The game is rigged.

Huh, that's interesting; I can see one negative review on the logged-out page, but clicking "more" or any of the star ratings prompts me to log in.

Once logged in, there are multiple 1-star reviews present, including some others referencing the missing certs.

In any case, the listing is here for anyone else interested: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CRGMS1Q5

I've noticed this too. Vine Gold Amazon program member, but sometimes my reviews are rejected or shadow banned for no discernible reason. I think there may be some corruption in the review moderation process (as well as in the commingling process, which I've also had problems with).

> This one bit me recently when I bought a package of budget light fixtures (in Canada, from amazon.ca) and then my licensed electrician informed me that he wouldn't be able to install them as they didn't have a CE mark.

The CE mark signifies compliance with European Union standards and regulations. Why would you expect Amazon Canada to care about that?

Yes, sorry, I've updated my comment; the fixture actually does have CE, it's CSA/UL that were missing. My apologies.

IIUC Chinese manufacturers often put the "CE" mark on things that haven't been certified, and rationalize it as the mark meaning "China Export"

I have never heard of a case of a homeowner's insurance claim being denied based on imrpoper DIY work. One of the main points of insurance is to protect you against your own negligence.

Still, I would make the same decision and steer clear of such lighting fixtures!

CE conformity is a self-declaration by the manufacturer, so essentially the honor system, not an actual certification program like TüV. Items without a CE mark cannot legally be imported or sold in the EU, but there is little enforcement.

CSA and UL are definitely 3rd party assessments though.

Ah yes, I'd looked this up before but then forgotten it. My original comment would be better stated as "Chinese manufacturers often put the 'CE' mark on things they haven't designed to conform to the guidelines, and have no intention of standing behind the liability for ..."

The replacement ones that the electrician selected were only slightly more expensive and I was able to clean up the look of them with 3d printed shrouds:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7165347

I've really got to get back into 3D printing. I was building a Voron back when it would have been like serial number 20. Got it to the point where I was printing its own parts (using stub parts made of plywood and whatnot). Life happened, I disassembled it to move, and I've still got the frame sitting around plastic-wrapped for the past ten years.

I wasn't even thinking LED fixtures. For LED fixtures with built in power electronics, I would definitely want the product to be NRTL recognized.

I was late to the 3d printing game and in part that was just not wanting it to become a junk factory of disposable toys and fidgets. I've definitely printed a bit of that kind of thing but overall I've been pleased with the number of small household fixups that it's been possible to do using it.

Just last night for example my microwave oven stopped registering that the door was closed, and within a few tries I was able to print a replacement for the latch bracket that had broken off. At any previous time in my life that would have been either a whole new door or replacing the entire unit.

For sure, I've got a list of "household fixups" to print when I finally do get around to rebuilding the thing.

Just a note of caution about the microwave though. I don't know what bracket broke off your microwave, but usually the door switch is a safety mechanism to make sure the door cannot be open while the magnetron is on.. Make sure a new 3D printed bracket isn't able to break off and cause the safety switch to remain on!

Oh yeah, I'm well aware. The PLA bracket is non-structural and only supports the original latch piece.

That said, I was alarmed to see online lots of people who were also replacing the latch itself with printed parts. That sketches me out a lot more, though I guess it could be fine with PETG or ABS.

I couldn't think of something worse than demanding Amazon decide what is counterfeit or violates regulations and policing that rule. The law on both those points is far too complex for the result to be anything but Amazon blocks what the big brands tell them to and protect them from competition.

Amazon is essentially a logistics company with a search engine. It doesn't really make sense to have them enforce regulations or counterfeiting rules than it would to make UPS and google. It's not like they hide who the seller is on any item (it's listed as sold by).

What your complaining about is a fundamental consequence of anything that lowers the barriers to selling goods. You once needed to buy a storefront to sell retail goods, later you at least needed sufficient name recognition for people to visit your website -- that investment gave anyone whose goods were counterfeit as well as regulators assets to seize.

But just like making it easy for every citizen to publish their thoughts means we see lots of hate and dumb shit online -- anything that lowers the barriers to selling retail goods (in general a good thing) will make it easy to sell counterfeit or defective crap.

In the long run, I suspect tech will make reputable 3rd party evaluations easier to access but let's not blame Amazon for not becoming an arm of the state and judging what is and isn't legal.

It's far easier and efficient to have the seller be responsible for what they sell, rather than every buyer learn relevant regulations and research whether any potential buy follows that.

And regulations are necessary since many sellers are without ethics/morals and simply want to sell.

The cost to the individual can be huge (eg cancer, home burnt down), and the society as well (environment etc).

I get the line of thought that "a simple product search engine like Amazon" shouldn't be held responsible for every single small item sold, but I think they should. The information and power balance is incredibly offset here.

Don't forget that Amazon is one of the largest companies on this planet, to a large extent because they take this shortcut of "money first, responsibility later". So I do blame Amazon (among others). The old discussion of privatization of profit and society takes the risk and cost...

> You don't -have- to buy there, if you have the financial means I urge/recommend/encourage you to buy locally or from a responsible seller

That is assuming the component is even available locally or from a responsible seller. I live in a small city (half a million people). It is often impossible to find parts locally even for popular products that were purchased locally. Then there are parts where it is impossible to find official replacements, either because it is outside of the product's support windows, or because the replacement parts were never available to start with.

Yup, an important caveat. And sometimes, it may not be available, due to it not legally being allowed to be sold there (eg not following relevant regulations). And that's a valid enough reason for it not to be sold there, regardless of seller.

For some kinds of things, I don't have a local store that sells it. Maybe that's less of an issue if you live in big city, but not everyone does.

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