I recently had need to buy a thermal camera. I wanted to buy a good quality one that would last a long time without spending £1000’s on some overkill industrial device. I looked for online stores that aren’t amazon, but I couldn’t really find any named stores/brands that I’d heard of selling decent ones. So I tried to search for reviews, but literally every review either had affiliate links trying to get me to buy the expensive ones on amazon, or was a literal ad on youtube disguised as an indie review with sub-10k views from some nobody channel. So I reluctantly looked on Amazon, and as usual a load of the reviews there are ai-generated and I have no real idea which products are actually good, and there are a thousand knock-off cheapo products from alphabet-soup companies with names like AXLGOFN, which I’m not remotely interested in.

I eventually managed to find and buy a decent camera, and it was the same price on amazon versus some other site I hadn’t previously heard of, so I bought it on the other random electronics site.

But, my question is more broad: how do you navigate the online hellscape? Do you have a philosohpy or strategy about how to navigate a market you know nothing about and pay a sensible price for a good product without getting scammed? This experience just seems to be normal now, and it’s exhausting. I’m sick of ai-generated reviews, I’m sick of “paid reviews” and youtube videos of “this company sent me this product for free with these 12 talking points which I will now read to you”, and I’m sick of companies called AXLGOFN trying to sell me cheap tat that will last 14 minutes.

  • Pika@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    4·
    1 day ago

    I just look at reviews and history from sites I trust. I know that most third party sell companies like ebay are very buyer friendly, and if that fails my credit card has basic fraud features so worst case scenario I issue a chargeback.

    Basically:

    1. if the site has price history or a way to see recently sold item prices, enable it to get a general idea of what is considered a fair price
    2. don’t buy off a seller with bad reviews or very little reviews (sorry to new sellers thats just how it is)
    3. use a payment method that will have your back if you get scammed (i.e NOT any type of crypto currency, pay in cash services like money network or paypal family, checks, etc)
    4. be proactive, keep track of the shipping info, don’t be afraid to reach out to the seller or in best case the websites support if something seems fishy

    I bought an ice machine off Ebay a few months back, the seller had listed it in CAD, imagine my surprise when I got a chinese shipping agency tracking number and even more curious was that the package weighed less than 1 oz. I decided to wait just in case it was a mistake, I kept watching that tracking number, it kept bouncing back and forth between the same 4 locations for about 3 weeks before I reached out to Ebay and explained the situation. I never even bothered reaching out to the seller, Ebay immediatly refunded my money and within a day or two both the product and the seller page didn’t exist anymore.