It is sad that this person got scammed, and there are a lot of legitimate comments in this article.
But I have to admit that at first I thought the "scam" was going to be that these $200 smart smoke alarms aren't a real product.
Certainly for me, the risks of adding such complexity to such an important product are not worth it, especially at 10x the cost.
I would also be extremely frustrated with the outcome but I have to wonder, why not sell these smoke detectors if the secondary market availability is so bad and other people have the same problem? My first guess is that options like eBay have just become to onerous to be the amateur seller such sites were originally created for?
eBay has gotten massively evil in the last 5 years.
They're hiding search results to push buyers into paying more, they're internally colluding with sellers on the platform to raise prices, they've forced binding arbitration on anyone that does business on their platform, and theyre so overridden with chinese junk that its literally become easier to find authentic products on Temu for some brands.
I'd go with offerup or mercari or something. More painful but not in a soul-stealy way.
It is sad that this person got scammed, and there are a lot of legitimate comments in this article. But I have to admit that at first I thought the "scam" was going to be that these $200 smart smoke alarms aren't a real product. Certainly for me, the risks of adding such complexity to such an important product are not worth it, especially at 10x the cost.
Remember people paid to buy a toothbrush with an app.
I would also be extremely frustrated with the outcome but I have to wonder, why not sell these smoke detectors if the secondary market availability is so bad and other people have the same problem? My first guess is that options like eBay have just become to onerous to be the amateur seller such sites were originally created for?
eBay has gotten massively evil in the last 5 years.
They're hiding search results to push buyers into paying more, they're internally colluding with sellers on the platform to raise prices, they've forced binding arbitration on anyone that does business on their platform, and theyre so overridden with chinese junk that its literally become easier to find authentic products on Temu for some brands.
I'd go with offerup or mercari or something. More painful but not in a soul-stealy way.