always read the reviews

[cellio]

I needed a new thumb drive, so I figured I'd just get one from Amazon along with some other stuff I needed. I found a reasonable-looking candidate but looked at the reviews, the first few of which were bad. How can a thumb drive be bad? The first review said it was unreliable (not described further); the second said it came with malware. I looked at a couple other options, and -- same sort of complaints.

Hmm, I said. These are all third-party sellers (different ones, in the few product pages I looked at). Amazon isn't vetting them and never gets its own hands on the products. They're just an aggregator. I would buy a thumb drive from Amazon, but their credibility does not extend to other sellers they happen to host -- I shouldn't trust a thumb drive being sold by "Joe's Anonymous Store" any more than I should trust one I find lying around waiting to spread the malware within. Even if Amazon eventually boots sellers with lots of complaints, that doesn't help me, now.

I had an errand to run today anyway and figured I'd pick one up in person at Best Buy. That's how I found out my local Best Buy isn't there any more. Oops.

I've bought electronics online from NewEgg before and that's always been fine, so I headed there next -- where I saw that the products I was looking at were listed as third-party sellers. I didn't know NewEgg did third-party sellers. I wouldn't have thought to look if not for those Amazon reviews.

I finally ordered from Best Buy online; I figure it's probably really them, and if there's a problem I can, if necessary, go to a (less-local) brick-and-mortar store to deal with it.

Comments

[hlinspjalda]

Mr. Fixer suggests this might be a price-point problem with Amazon ones. We recently got a batch from Amazon at a slightly higher price point because of the shape (they look like stylized housekeys in different colors, with a hole for hanging on a ring), and they've behaved fine. He also gets them at the local Office Depot or Staples from time to time.

I agree about NewEgg; that's really not good. D-:

[cellio]

Yeah, I didn't realize NewEgg was doing that now. Big disappointment. I'll still shop there but now I know I need to be careful to check first.

That makes sense about the price point. I skipped over the "so cheap you wonder what the catch is" ones and was looking at the next tier. I did notice the multi-packs too; those seem handy too, and are getting inexpensive enough to be willing to occasionally give one away ("no it's ok $relative, you keep it! (I know how bad you are about antivirus maintenance)").