Worked with a guy that used this to his advantage. He sold CD's and DVD's through FBA. He would get them "new enough" looking via buffing them out (often making them unplayable), shrinkwrapping them, and then hope whomever got them wasn't him that got the commission for that sale and instead the person who bought "from him" got one of the actual new ones. He made a killing off of this since "used" inventory was incredibly cheap for a whole pallet of them.

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gottorf 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

By "used this to his advantage", it sounds like he was just a fraudster?

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withinboredom 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

He called it "arbitrage". But yeah, I agree.

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immibis an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Fraud is legal now. In the USA, at least.

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boelboel an hour ago | parent [-]

Fraud is good, these companies need their revenue so they can create an all powerful AGI. If you don't allow them to scam they'll lose against the chinese

	▲	user3939382 20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		You got downvoted but this bizarre logic is really what passes in SV.

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BiteCode_dev 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No it's not fraud, it's a growth hack. And it's not lying, it's advertising, it's not spam, it's a cold email, it's not patent trolling, it's IP protection.

But maybe it's maybelline.

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xnorswap 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Does this story have a happy ending such as a conviction for fraud?

	▲	withinboredom 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yeah. He got banned from Amazon eventually (selling counterfeits). Wife divorced him. Lived in his car for awhile (he called me begging for a job). He got his life back together, eventually.
	▲	fc417fc802 13 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Honestly Amazon deserved it for engaging in commingling in the first place. The happy ending would have been them discontinuing the practice 10 years ago.
	▲	greenavocado 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The vast majority of theft and fraud goes unpunished