Top 10 Worst Things Amazon Has Been Accused Of

Sometimes convenience comes with a cost. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the 10 Dark Secrets Amazon Doesn't Want You to Know.

For this list, we’ll be looking at some sinister facts about this retail giant.

If you’re an Amazon fan, one of the things you probably like most about the site is how inexpensive everything seems. Why would you buy dish soap from a local store when you can get it cheaper on Amazon - and have it shipped to your house for free? But the reality is, Amazon allegedly has its sellers raise the price of items that are being sent to Prime members to make up the cost of “free” shipping, according to more than one lawsuit. With the use of “one-click” ordering, they can convince you to shop without overthinking your purchase. Some of these strategies work so well that the average Prime member spends $1500 a year on the site (as of 2016).

Amazon has brought us into the future in so many ways, and with the Alexa “virtual assistant,” we can feel as if we have a helpful robot in the house like in sci-fi shows. She can tell us the weather, answer our pressing trivia questions, and of course, reorder items from Amazon for us. But many reports have accused the technology of logging our personal information and keeping it for future use. We can only imagine how useful it would be for the site to keep track of our likes and dislikes in order to market products to us.

When you’re shopping on Amazon you’ll probably notice that there’s the sale price (which is what you’ll pay) and the “list price.” The list price is supposedly the retail cost of the product, but evidence has shown that these numbers are often overblown by vendors in order to make it seem like items are being sold at a steeper discount. The Canadian version of the site was forced to pay the Competition Bureau a $1 million penalty fine (and an additional $100,000 in costs) for these dishonest marketing tactics.

Remember when Amazon was mainly for buying books? Now they’ve expanded, but in the process, they’ve changed the publishing industry forever. Many high-profile authors, including Stephen King and John Grisham, were involved in a petition over agency pricing, which demanded that the corporate giant leave room for authors and publishers to make a profit. The petition stated, "We encourage Amazon in the strongest possible terms to stop harming the livelihood of the authors on whom it has built its business. None of us, neither readers nor authors, benefit when books are taken hostage." Not only that, but Amazon controls which books appear on its sales rankings, and there have been cases where books containing LGBTQ storylines have been mysteriously removed, allegedly for containing “adult” content.

Having items shipped to you in two days may be convenient for shoppers, but it can take a significant toll on the environment. Anyone who has ordered from Amazon knows how much packaging is involved with any individual item, with small products often arriving in outside boxes. Employees of the company have protested their climate policy, making demands such as aiming for zero emissions by 2030 and leaving behind their connections to oil and gas companies. Amazon also provides funding to climate change deniers like libertarian think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Republican politician Jim Inhofe.

When you buy an ebook, you probably assume that you own it forever, like you would with any other non-digital product. But the reality is a little more complicated. While the Kindle terms of service may state that Amazon “grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content,” there have been several instances of books being removed from people’s accounts. Many sources have found that if you dig through the fine print, you’ll find that you actually are only licensing these books, and that’s something that can be taken away at Amazon’s discretion.

Today, they’re earning over $10 billion a year, but in the beginning, Amazon became famous for not turning a profit. Some sources say that this was all part of their business model and that they never intended to make a profit in the first few years of operation. Instead, they were able to undercut prices in many different industries, convincing shoppers to switch from brick and mortar shops. As each year passed, their profit margin steadily increased, and while it’s still actually modest, they’ve clearly found a way to earn the big bucks anyway.

Nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes… right? Well, not for Amazon. In 2017 and 2018, Amazon paid zero federal income tax, despite its billions of dollars of profit. Not only that, but they actually got millions of dollars in refunds! How did they pull this off? In years when they were less profitable, they offset their future taxes, in a move that has brought them plenty of criticism from across the political spectrum. They have also historically avoided charging sales taxes whenever they can, which gave them an advantage over other businesses who were forced to charge customers more.

If you’re not already worried about Amazon having a monopoly on pretty much everything, consider this: Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. One of the most respected daily newspapers in the country, The Post was purchased by Bezos in 2013 for $250 million… in cash. Technically, Nash Holdings LLC owns the paper, but that is run by Bezos. He is reportedly not involved in day-to-day decision-making, but it’s still concerning that he ultimately has control over this major media source. And if this wasn’t enough, Amazon has entered into the world of food and now owns Whole Foods as well.

It’s easy to forget that there are real people behind your lightning speed delivery. By now, there have been countless reports on the poor working situations that Amazon employees face on a daily basis. They are asked to work in inhumane physical conditions, pressured to reach unrealistic targets, and many have been pushed to the point of considering suicide. This has caused employees to strike in several notable cases. Amazon has responded to all of these claims by making an effort to raise the company’s minimum wage to $15 an hour… but at the same time, they eliminated bonuses and stock awards for hourly workers.