Indeed. Seems that Amazon is doing this more and more. Here in the US, I've just received a used (and damaged) Rode microphone, sold and shipped by Amazon 'as new'. And as you said, I returned it and decided not to order anything valuable from them, ever again.
Still, I wonder if these (arguably illegal) practices are still worth it for merchants and companies, considering that there's no enforcement and the majority of consumers don't drastically change their shopping habits when being abused.
So I'm going to do something I don't normally do and defend Amazon only a little bit...
What likely happened was that somebody had an old and broken Rode mic and decided to scam Amazon. They purchased a new one, put the old one in the new packaging, and sent it in as a return with "ordered by mistake" or some other reason that doesn't indicate a broken or faulty item.
Amazon warehouse employees certainly don't (and never can) check out every return item for full functionality. My guess is that at the most, they make sure it's not just an empty box or a brick.
So, the only signal that Amazon has about whether to restock the item again is what the buyer stated for a return reason. If they tell the truth, they might get someone to take a closer look at the item and decide that it's not actually new. If they lie, they are both scamming Amazon and the next buyer.
Amazon _could_ treat _all_ returns as defective and destroy the returned items (historically how many brick-and-mortar retailers did it), but given their generous return policies, this probably means quite a big hit to their bottom line.
I've had this experience with several big retailers recently. One is B&H, who sold me a "new" Focusrite 18i20 4th Gen last month which had clearly been opened, cosmetically damaged, and returned. I've also had this experience many times with Sweetwater (musical instruments retailer). There used to be a sales rep there who would participate in a particular musician's forum that I was a member of and would get us a slightly better price than is standard if we ordered through him directly. Many people who did so, including me, received what was clearly opened and returned items, sold as new. I assume they do this because the vast majority of people would rather not bother and will just accept a small defect.
I've spent 5 figures with them over the last few years, and they've always been good to me too. I'm writing this off as a one-time mistake, but I really hope it doesn't become a trend.
Could also be caused by a bad employee doing shenanigans or a could also be a one off mistake. But it could be something B&H is doing to unsuspecting customers and that is terrible for their reputation.
They’ve been sorta good, but rumors if things like this have been persistent for a decade. Photographers would get a few copies of a lens, and then return copies ones that were not up spec. B&H would allegedly just relist those as new, not open box. Many manufacturers don’t seal their boxes…
I heard some rumors though I'm not sure how widespread the issue is. So far B&H has had a pretty good reputation, maybe they changed management and whoever is in charge doesn't care about reputation, only profits.
This isn't new, it's just becoming a bit more prevalent. Anyone who shopped at Fry's Electronics knew it was nearly impossible to find something that hadn't been reshrinkwrapped by them (I suspect they'd reshrinkwrap everything sometimes so you couldn't tell).
Dealing with the cost of returns is a major part of a modern retailer, and Amazon has got to be through the roof with the numbers they receive.
Things I absolutely won't order from Amazon: products you put in your body, products you put on your body, and electronics. Their business model and fraud are pretty much indistinguishable at this point.
I wonder how they are going to prevent abuse-theft, assuming the products are free or under the market's cost. There will always be someone wiping it all (to sell or whatever), and the vending machines will be always empty. Or, if there's some measure (e.g. limiting supply per person via biometrics), it may turn to be a disincentive for some people that need it.
Not sure about the SP3, but my SP4 (which, btw, had no problems running Linux) was afflicted by the so called "flickergate", and I didn't manage to replace it. Since then, I sworn off any Microsoft hardware. Their software and OS, I had sworn these off years before, which makes these devices even less appealing...
They don't have the same guarantees as a real rolling release distro. My experience of SID is things randomly breaking and having to be very careful whenever you update. And because it is not a "production" intended rolling release, they don't have the same guarantees for security fixes either - they can be quite unhurried.
Many DD are running unstable, so it should be non-breaking enough for most people. The most common breakages are file conflicts. It is a shame we didn't fix such issues yet, as it is a bit difficult to fix the problem, but having testing as an additional source and rolling back the problematic package should fix the issue. I don't remember any other kind of breakages (other than upstream regressions, but this is a rolling release) for the past five years. If you tried unstable 10 years ago, this is now vastly different.
On the other hand, I remember Arch transition from readline 6 to 7 making the system unbootable (2016) if you did upgrade at the wrong moment. I don't know if package containing libraries are now versioned to avoid such issues.
I think the main difference you get by using Arch is AUR (we don't have that in Debian) and, I think, more fresh packages (mainly because it easier to package for Arch than for Debian).
> They don't have the same guarantees as a real rolling release distro.
I can guarantee my distro will bring world peace, help you lose ten pounds and get 10% better gas mileage.
Unlike rolling release distros, Debian doesn't try to pretend that rolling releases are as reliable. It's exactly what it says on the tin. Both are probably equal in terms of reliability, but Debian is actually honest about what that reliability level is.
IME Sid mostly causes issues if you try to cherry-pick programs or libraries from it, mostly because you get into dependency hell. I have successfully done it with aptitude’s (not apt) package solver, but it’s a pain. If you run full Sid for everything, ironically it’s more stable.
That said, on my servers I just run stable and then compile anything I want that differs, and make sure it doesn’t clobber the system’s version. Like altinstall for newer Python versions. I’ve yet to have an issue this way.
> IME Sid mostly causes issues if you try to cherry-pick programs or libraries from it
Instead of doing this, create a Debian Stable (or Testing, if that's what you're running) repository on OBS¹. Fork the packages you want from Debian Unstable into your repo, and let them build against your preferred Debian release. If some of them need newer deps, pull in their deps, too. Add your repository to your system and upgrade that way.
Or if you're not that attached to only using DEBs, just use Nix or Guix to install newer software.
I've always seen Russell Brand -like many street preachers- as something similar to the raw verbal intelligence we see now in LLMs: capable of bringing a stream of words with interesting derivatives, easily interpretable as agreeable and intelligent, and then hallucinating a little. Yet in the depths of those regurgitated concepts that are a mix of things you've already seen, you search for glimmers of any abstract idea that you haven't thought before. Something that tickles your brain. And you find none.
Still, I wonder if these (arguably illegal) practices are still worth it for merchants and companies, considering that there's no enforcement and the majority of consumers don't drastically change their shopping habits when being abused.