Say what you will about how Amazon may be destroying small businesses in almost every sector from books to food, there is something truly great about being able to browse one website for literally anything you could desire, and then to have those items come to you within 24 to 48 hours.
The magic of Amazon is in its super fast shipping and quality products. In most cases, products will have plentiful reviews so that you are never in a situation where you are purchasing completely blind. Buying from Amazon can get addicting, which can lead to silly purchases like a waffle maker.
Waffle makers are obviously awesome since they make delicious waffles, but they aren't exactly a necessary item for everyday life, are they? If you do get one, however, the last thing you want is for it to already come with a waffle, but that's exactly what happened to one unsuspecting Amazon buyer.
When you open a package from Amazon, you expect it to be brand new. It's not like Amazon is Ebay where buying used goods is commonplace. This is especially true for cookware which needs to be clean and sanitary for you to feel comfortable using it. Brian McCarthy is a man with a daughter who was gifted an Amazon package for Christmas from her grandmother last month. She excitedly opened it and it turned out to be a mini Babycakes brand waffle maker.
Upon opening the packaging, she found a surprise that both makes sense and makes no sense all at the same time. Sitting inside the contraption was an old, crusty waffle that had already been cooked inside. Sure, the waffle maker is supposed to be for waffles, but that doesn't mean its supposed to come with one.
Some Amazon items can be sold through third-party merchants who use Amazon's platform, and sometimes these items are used, however, McCarthy has a screenshot of the order as proof that reveals it was an Amazon item through the Amazon Prime service. Amazon is looking into the incident but hasn't offered any possible reasons it may have happened. It is a sobering reminder that just because it came from Amazon doesn't mean that the item will be in perfect condition.
Amazon sells 40 percent of all online retail items. That kind of sheer quantity has already led some questionable items to be listed on amazon, including counterfeits, banned and unsafe products, and products taken from the trash. In most cases, those shady situations were through third party sellers, but third party sellers account for 60% of all Amazon sales.
Amazon makes efforts to stop the sale of counterfeit or banned/unsafe products, but there are sure to be many products that slip through the cracks. What makes the waffle situation so unique is that Amazon sold this item directly. Joe Kaziukenas is the CEO of e-commerce research firm Marketplace Pulse and he believes that someone must have returned it to Amazon and Amazon then thought the item was new and unused so they resold it.
Other reviews for this specific waffle maker have stated that it is hard to clean and that theirs included stains to indicate someone had used it before them. It may be a relatively isolated incident, but it is a good reminder not to trust anything just because it comes from a huge corporation. Always wash cooking items before use.
