hen Brian McCarthy's daughter opened an Amazon package from her grandmother late last month, she discovered a mini Babycakes brand waffle maker¹ meant to be her Christmas gift.

上个月末，Brian McCarthy的女儿打开祖母在亚马逊上买的东西的包裹时，发现是送给她的圣诞礼物，一个Babycakes 迷你华夫饼机。

But when she opened the new waffle maker, she found an old, crusty-looking waffle already inside, her father says.

她爸爸说，她打开这个全新的华夫饼机时看到里面有一块又老又硬的华夫饼。

Amazon sold the item directly through its Prime service, according to a screenshot of the order viewed by Recode, as opposed to by a third-party merchant that uses the Amazon platform to sell goods to Amazon customers. And the product was not advertised as used or refurbished, according to the same screenshot.

Recode查看了订单截图，发现这个机器是亚马逊直接在金牌服务上售卖的，而不是第三方商家使用亚马逊平台向客户出售的。该截图显示，产品介绍中未说明被使用过或翻新过。

Amazon told Recode it is investigating the incident and wouldn't speculate on possible reasons for the alleged³ experience.

亚马逊对Recode说正在调查此事，不会对这一事件的可能原因进行推测。

Either way, the case of the crusty waffle serves as a reminder⁴ that Amazon customers can still face uncertainty⁵ about the origins and authenticity⁶ of the products they purchase from the site, even when Amazon itself is fulfilling the order. That's remarkable⁷, considering Amazon accounts for nearly 40 percent of online US retail⁸ sales today, according to eMarketer, and considering that Amazon says it cares so much about quality that it employs a vice² president of "customer trust."不管怎样，这次硬华夫饼事件对亚马逊的客户是一个提醒，他们从该网站上购买的产品的来源和真实性都没有保证，甚至连亚马逊自己的订单也是如此。eMarketer数据显示，现在亚马逊占美国网络零售总销量的40%左右，而且亚马逊说很注重产品质量，还聘请了一位“客户信任”副总裁，所以这一事件颇为引人关注。

Just in the last few months alone, media reports have highlighted the ease with which shoppers on Amazon can — intentionally⁹ or unintentionally — purchase everything from counterfeits¹⁰, to banned and unsafe products, to items that had previously¹¹ been tossed in the trash.

仅仅在过去的几个月里，媒体报道就强调过消费者在亚马逊上有意无意地就能买到假货、禁止出售的不安全产品，还有曾被扔进垃圾桶的东西。

In most of these instances, the products in question came from third-party sellers, which account for nearly 60 percent of all products sold on Amazon today. The Wall Street Journal, for example, reported last month that some marketplace sellers list products for sale on Amazon that they have plucked out of the trash, and the Journal's own reporters were able to do the same.

此类情况中大多数问题产品都来自第三方商家，而现在亚马逊近60%的产品都来自第三方商家。比如上个月《华尔街日报》报道说亚马逊上一些卖家出售的产品是从垃圾堆捡来的，报社的记者自己就能做到。