You are the biggest e-commerce company in the world and it's not even close. Well, you're not even an e-commerce company. You have your hands in AWS 🤑, advertising, Prime Video, and AI. It really should not be hard for you to keep your storefront safe. Every couple of weeks, I have to chat or call with your shitty customer service team to do the same exact thing.
Earlier today, I got this email:
Here's the story.
For the last 6 months or so, I have repeatedly called or texted every couple weeks to report the same exact product. It's called a suicide cord, and it looks like this:
For those unaware, this may look just like a reverse extension cord, which it sort of is, but if you plug it into the wall, the other end has 120V of electricity ready to injure or kill a person.
You may wonder what kind of situation would cause a person to even want such a product, and there's two. The first group of people are people on Christmas who lit their tree upside down, i.e. with the plug at the stop and the socket on the bottom. All they want is something that can power their Christmas lights from the other end, and I can forgive them for that. The only people they are placing in danger are themselves.
The second group is far more dangerous, reckless, irresponsible, and stupid. The people that make up this group are people who are smart enough to start a generator, but too stupid to read the manual. If the power goes out, they grab their portable generator and start it.
The problem starts with hooking it up to their house. People smarter than a bag of rocks will have their home fitted with automatic transfer switches and dedicated generator hookups that comply with electrical regulations. Unfortunately, not everyone does that. In theory, you could take a double-ended extension cord and plug one end into a household outlet, and another end into the generator. Great, all their lights and appliances have power now (assuming that the load does not exceed the limit of the generator or that outlet's circuit breaker).
You know what else also has power? The power line outside their house. Linemen working to fix the power outage would expect that during a power outage, there is no power in the lines, but unfortunately using a suicide cord can result in power being fed backwards into the grid, thus shocking or even electrocuting linemen attempting to restore power.
Morons.
Now this is not a new problem by any means. Generators have existed for well over a hundred years, and the suicide cord isn't a new invention by any means. Hardware stores have solved this problem a long time ago by doing a crazy thing called "hiring human beings who know not to sell these".
Amazon, however, does not have humans screen products before listing them. I think you can see where this is going.
Every couple of weeks I call or chat to report the latest listing of a suicide cord. If it gets taken down, it's back up a week later from another seller. Today I called and got told I would be called back in 5-10 minutes. What actually happened was I got this email:
I had to call again, which took another 30 minutes out of my day. Eventually, though, I was told that it would be taken down. It's still up. 😐
I really don't understand how Amazon can ignore this issue. They all use the SAME IMAGES. Why don't they flag listings with those images for human review?? It cannot possibly be that hard. In fact, this has been an issue for so long that the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC) issued a warning about this exact product TWO YEARS AGO.
They even have a picture of it!
It cannot possibly be that hard to filter this out.
Do better, Amazon. I will keep contacting support until this product is gone.
Update 2024/5/9 - the product is STILL THERE. I called Amazon and the rep told me that they "escalated it". We'll see how it goes.
Thank you Default. Or Danny.
The blog post was originally published 2024/4/6. Ugh.
Oh and apparently over 100 of these get bought a month.
Update 2024/6/1
So the Usoway one is gone... but I found another 😐
I called Amazon. They said it would be processed in 7-10 business days.
We'll see about that.
Update 2024/6/11
It wasn't taken down AND I found another one.
I called and they said that "no escalation occurred", at which point I asked that the issue be escalated, and I asked that this second listing also be included in the report. This agent noted that they would not give me a timeline or say that it would be removed at all, unlike the previous agent, despite me letting them know about the USCPSC warning about it. Insane.
They said that I would get a call back in 3-5 business days to let me know when they get an update on the internal ticket.
I have been calling for MONTHS. It cannot possibly be that hard to stop this thing from getting listed.
Anyway...
We'll see if that does anything.
Welp, i just got done publishing the last edit to this post, and I found ANOTHER ONE.
Ugh. Calling again.
As I'm ON THE PHONE with them, I find ANOTHER.
I added them all to the list.
Currently writing this on hold with Amazon... found another.
The multipack versions of this one mean that we get 3 awful product listings for the price of one!
This marks the first hour today that I have spent on the phone with Amazon.
Still on call with them, found a blue model, with 3 options, meaning we get ANOTHER 3 SKUs to add to the list.
That makes 10 total, with 9 purchasable right now
Apologies, dear reader, for the huge long images.
I'm finding these things faster than this poor Amazon rep can report them 😭
Well, the rep said 2-3 business days for someone to review the report.
Project Farm voice - "we're gonna test that!"
Welp, I'm finally off the second call of the day. Total time spent on the phone with Amazon today: 1h20m.
Update 2024/6/14:
So of the 9 recently reported, 7 have been removed so far. That's a start. We'll see if the rest disappear soon.
...aaaaaaand I found 13 more. Good Lord.
It feels like nobody at Amazon cares about this. I'll call them AGAIN today.
Got on the phone and reported the 13, and while on the phone I found 3 more, so I reported 16 SKUs.
The agent on this one was very helpful, polite, and articulate. He said that he filed a mega-ticket including the USCPSC link, and noted that the link would be very helpful to the team.
Time on call: 26m
Update 2024/6/20:
They removed 4 of the 16 reported. They are all in one ticket, so I don't know how they deemed 4 of them to be dangerous but the rest not to be? I called (28m on phone) and was told that maybe it was because they needed to get the "seller's side" of the story... for some reason. I really don't see a valid point here, given that they have the USCPSC link to the press release. No amount of seller arguing should counteract the government. Whatever. They said call back in 3 (assuming business) days. Ugh.
Here's the latest on the shopping list. Note the product image specifically promoting its use with a generator:
Okay time to search for more, and call back if I find any...
Oops. I found 15 more. These screenshots of the megalist are gonna get really long. Not exactly my fault, though. If you hate scrolling so far though dozens of suicide cords, maybe you should get mad at Amazon instead. 😇
It's gotten ridiculous at this point. Well it was ridiculous before, but even more now.
Time on call: 10m just to report these additional 15 products. Fuck you Amazon.
Anyway I decided to search one last time just after I got off the call, and I found ANOTHER SIX. Called again, for the third time in an hour. Apologies to the poor reps who have to write out these reports. I was told that it would be reviewed within 24h. Time on call: 7 mins.
Anyway, here it is in all of its glory.
To be continued...
Update 2024/6/27:
They're not taken down. Before calling today, I reported an ADDITIONAL 14 SKUs. Today's report had some interesting stuff. First was the first red cable I've seen:
Second was this random guy they used, I guess as "endorsement" from a construction worker stock photo or something. 🤷
I called to report the 14 SKUs and they told me the items would get taken down in 48 hours. I was also told that I would get am email telling me when the items were removed. we'll see about that.
Anyway, I hope you like scrolling because I'm going to keep posting longer and longer screenshots of this list.
Update 2024/7/1: 30 still available for purchase, so it looks like they removed 7. I really don't understand how I report them in batches but only a few actually get removed.
Anyway, they removed 7, but I called today to report 7 more so I guess nothing ever change. When I asked about the previous reports, I was told by the agent that the other reports were "still being worked on", whatever that means. They didn't give me an ETA this time, so that's something. Time on call: 16m 46s.
Also, I have yet to receive a single email update on any of the reported products thus far. 😐
Updated list:
Update 2024/7/14:
They have removed 2 of the products from the previous screenshot. I called and asked for an update, and the rep was able to see the previous ticket. She told me that it had been forwarded to the "investigations team", and she said that they handle things in 2 weeks. She then said that I would receive an email update about it tomorrow, since it has been 13 days. we're gonna test that!
Time on call: 3m 10s