9 ms·

Amazon's policies promote counterfeiting

433 points by hop 9y ago

IntronExon 9y ago
I used to shop waaaay too much on Amazon, but I’ve largely stopped and almost entirely as a result of counterfeits. If I wanted the experience of shopping in an open air market, I’d hoof it to one. I also really feel for people like the OP who do nothing wrong, but have a good idea and market it successfully. Amazon, I’d be back in a heartbeat if you fixed this. Sellers and buyers deserve better, and this kind of thing, along with bullshit reviews are a cancer in your business. If you wait for the first frank signs of disease to register, you’ll already be in terminal decline.
z0r 9y ago
I think this is a pretty big deal and has been for at least a few years, yet there have been no repercussions for Amazon yet. It feels like it should be illegal to enable this kind of thing.
- jimmy1 9y ago
  I think Amazon should go back to just being a bookstore, maybe seller of indie items, kind of like that etsy-like nichce and focus on AWS, which is their clear cash cow at this point. This whole being an "everything" store thing is a drain on them, and a drain on our economy. Plus they aren't exactly winning in some of the categories they thought they would be now -- groceries for example -- Walmart has shown they will fight to the absolute death on that, and I don't think they can win in that space (buying Whole Foods was a nice gesture, but Whole Foods reputation was fading from that "cool grocery store that has all this organic stuff" to "just a really expensive grocery store" especially once all the other grocery stores started carrying organics). Of course the kicker is if they can release their fully autonomous drone fleet. Which may be what, 10...20 years off after sorting through FAA regulations at the minimum?
  - devmunchies 9y ago
    But wouldn't having a lot of consumer mindshare contribute to their cloud infrastructure being more attractive? People choose names they recognize.
    - jimmy1 9y ago
      AWS was put on the map almost entirely by engineering blogs (which I am not saying is a bad thing -- it's a testament to their services), like the famous Netflix moving everything to AWS article. Before that it was blogs on S3 and SQS. They were well known and generating a billion in revenue as early as 2011, and this was well, well before AWS was "mainstream" in terms of you start seeing public adverts now for AWS everywhere.
dionian 9y ago
I ordered an instant pot on amazon. instant pot box shows up, with mfr.s packaging.... I opened it and similar-looking - but much cheaper - chinese knockoff was in box. if amazon's customer service wasnt so good i would have dropped them already. (I know it's not them making the mistake, but still..) however I buy stuff there much less frequently now since i have no way to know if I'm getting counterfeits for certain types of goods.
- freyir 9y ago
  It's strange that a company sells its customers counterfeit goods, and we still praise them for "good customer service."
  - drharby 9y ago
    Is it? Customer service is independent from the primary business transaction being executed. They are fucking up but compensate through good cust. Service. Seems like a policy decision, as fighting it costs more than the break fix
    - freyir 9y ago
      It is. Good customer service should start with not selling customers counterfeit crap in the first place. Instead, the phrase "customer service" means something extremely specific, i.e., a good return policy for customers who realize they've lost at Amazon's game of counterfeit roulette.
    - wmf 9y ago
      To me, "service" encompasses the entire experience of dealing with the company. A company that makes mistakes and fixes them quickly shouldn't be considered better than a company that doesn't make mistakes in the first place.
      - maxxxxx 9y ago
        "A company that makes mistakes and fixes them quickly shouldn't be considered better than a company that doesn't make mistakes in the first place." If the mistake is their normal way of doing business they should be rated as bad.
peterwwillis 9y ago
Amazon will replace whatever stupid crap you end up with. This is why it doesn't hurt their brand. You know they will fix it, so it's just a minor inconvenience to the customer, most of the time. Meanwhile, it shuts down businesses. You'd think politicians might care about this, but they're too busy handing out billions to get them to move to their state.
- sfilargi 9y ago
  It does hurt their brand. People have to go through return and re-order. It’s becoming like eBay.
- oldcynic 9y ago
  It's hurting their brand, even if they haven't realised. I don't want 3 attempts and returns to buy a battery, or charger, or any of the dozens of categories this affects. I don't want to be buying co-mingled inventory on lines I know are prone to counterfeiting. So I think of Amazon as 2nd rate - (because of this). So do many of my friends who have been affected by this as it's become far from rare.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ymerej 9y ago
  I went through what must be five cycles of returning counterfeit Samsung batteries (easy to detect counterfeit -- the NFC didn't work) to get replacements which were counterfeit. Chatting with customer service was an exercise in futility.
oldcynic 9y ago
This is ruling out Amazon for so many categories of product and has been going on for years. Yet they don't seem to be bothered. So now I look on Amazon, then see if I can buy direct or from a different retailer.
- jeffwilcox 9y ago
  I've seen this especially in the power charger category... Apple power chargers I end up always just having to go to the Apple Store for now. Sigh. I want to use Amazon, but have had so many sketchy "Apple" products sent my way.
  - dahdum 9y ago
    It’s outright dangerous to buy that type of product from Amazon, even if you buy “ships and sold from amazon” their inventory mixing means you can get counterfeits just as easily. If selling fake solar eclipse glasses didn’t hit them with the clue bat, I’m not sure what will.
    - coatmatter 9y ago
      This is good article you've probably already read on the topic of counterfeit eclipse glasses: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/science/eclipse-glasses-recalls.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/science/eclipse-glasses-r... Perhaps the worst thing in my mind about the lack of education (for one reason of another) with reference to eclipse glasses is that good pairs can easily be shared around with minimal planning (I always buy extra new pairs as souvenirs more than anything). The partial phases just aren't things that anyone stares at for minutes on end, and totality requires that eclipse glasses be removed. Hopefully there'll be more experience at hand and education by 2024 to avoid a repeat of 2017 (which in the grand scheme, was mostly isolated cases of poor outcomes - for most people, the biggest risk would have been driving to an eclipse site).
  - osterwood 9y ago
    It's really anything branded as by "Apple" on Amazon. Look at the reviews of the Apple Thunderbolt Cable [1] -- 40% are 1 star reviews and many mention the cable being fake. Similar story on the Apple USB Ethernet adapter [2]. I bought one a few years back and it identified itself with Chinese lettering in System Preferences. Ken Shirriff did an amazing teardown of fake Apple chargers [3] and found a number of safety hazards relating to high voltage isolation. Teardown of the USB Adapter [4] found it used a part that doesn't exist (label does not match any known package for that IC). 1: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Thunderbolt-Cable-2-0-White/dp/B00YHUBV6Q/#customerReviews https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Thunderbolt-Cable-2-0-White/dp/... 2: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-USB-Ethernet-Adapter-MC704LL/dp/B00W7W9FK0/#customerReviews https://www.amazon.com/Apple-USB-Ethernet-Adapter-MC704LL/dp... 3: http://www.righto.com/2014/05/a-look-inside-ipad-chargers-pricey.html http://www.righto.com/2014/05/a-look-inside-ipad-chargers-pr... 4: http://projectgus.com/2013/03/anatomy-of-a-cheap-usb-ethernet-adapter/ http://projectgus.com/2013/03/anatomy-of-a-cheap-usb-etherne...
akeck 9y ago
Because of the counterfeiting on Amazon, I’m becoming price-insensitive and ordering direct from brand websites. I’d rather order once at full mark up than burn time dealing with fakes.
hemoglob2 9y ago
while i agree with your post, "The current counterfeit seller, suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd (yeah they sound legit), " could be construed as a racist comment
- sdrothrock 9y ago
  I think it could be CONSTRUED as a racist comment, but the person thinking of it that way would be really stretching, in my opinion. 1. All of these counterfeit items are coming from China. 2. The legit seller is ElevationLab, which "suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd" is not. 3. "suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd" is a Chinese name. 4. "suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd" is a very customer-unfriendly name -- not something you'd see from a big foreign-facing Chinese company. So all in all, it doesn't seem racist at all to point out that this company name seems illegitimate. If the author had MADE UP a "Chinese-sounding name" like "nihaobaobaomao," then yeah, I could follow an argument pointing out that statement as being reasonably construed as racist. But in the context of talking about Chinese companies producing cheap knock-offs, I don't see a problem with naming the company and pointing out that the name itself does not sound like a legit company at all.
  - shard 9y ago
    Some counterpoints and comments. 1. So many legit items come from China that as a consumer you can't dismiss something out of hand just because it came from China. 3. Huawei is a Chinese name, Xiaomi is a Chinese name. See #1. 4. This is a legitimate point. The company did not optimize their name for a non-Chinese audience. I think the main thrust of why that comment has racist tones is because it feels like the main complaint is that it's a foreign (non-Western) sounding name, hard to pronounce and funny looking, therefore it cannot be legitimate. (Actually, I don't know if you did it on purpose, but nihaobaobaomao is a great name... It's very cute and sounds like "Hello bundle kitty"...)
    - sdrothrock 9y ago
      Great comments, but I think I disagree with some of them. :) > 1. So many legit items come from China that as a consumer you can't dismiss something out of hand just because it came from China. This is true, but I don't think it's a counterpoint. Regardless of how many legitimate products come out of China, the fact remains that the huge, huge majority of counterfeit products are from China. So if you're looking at a counterfeit product, the odds are that it will be from China, regardless of how many other legitimate products out there are from China. > 3. Huawei is a Chinese name, Xiaomi is a Chinese name Those were ones I was thinking of, which is why I added the "not something you'd see from a big foreign-facing Chinese company" bit. It's a foreigner-unfriendly name, terrible for marketing, searches, and sales. I can't imagine a legit company trying to use it overseas. Something like Huawei or Xiaomi (or in other cases, Samsung, Hitachi, BMW, Volvo, etc.) are short and sweet, simpler to digest and remember. > I think the main thrust of why that comment has racist tones is because it feels like the main complaint is that it's a foreign (non-Western) sounding name, hard to pronounce and funny looking, therefore it cannot be legitimate. I do completely agree with that, but in my opinion, with the evidence in this case, the complaint itself couldn't reasonably be construed as racist. In hindsight, my argument about "shorter, more professional names" is basically this quote ("hard to pronounce and funny looking") boiled into more reasonable terms... > Actually, I don't know if you did it on purpose, but nihaobaobaomao is a great name... It's very cute and sounds like "Hello bundle kitty"... You caught me. :P I couldn't bring myself to type something really stereotypically racist.
mullingitover 9y ago
My mileage apparently varies, because I've been shopping heavily on Amazon for years and have never had a counterfeit item show up on my doorstep.
- exolymph 9y ago
  That you know of.
  - johnpowell 9y ago
    I use this stuff for my fishtank that conditions the water. It is primarily for removing chlorine. So I got a bottle off of amazon. A few months later I am at the pet store and they carry the same stuff. I notice the bottle in the pet store has the label printed directly on the bottle. The one I got from Amazon was what looked like the same label but was just a sticker. So I buy the one at the pet store and a water test kit. I test both bottles and the one from amazon did the same to remove the chlorine as just letting water sit out did. While the one from the pet store did what I was expecting. The stuff is a clear liquid and has no odor.
- bencollier49 9y ago
  The things which really get my goat are the awful-quality print-on-demand facsimiles I sometimes accidentally buy when I'm looking for an old book. Seriously putting me off Amazon. Nationalise and break them up already!
  - cimmanom 9y ago
    Try AbeBooks instead.
- emerged 9y ago
  I'm a bit confused as well, because I've spent well into 6 figures on the site since the beginning days of Amazon, and I've literally never noticed a counterfeit product. So if this is a super common problem, they are some quality counterfeiters.
exolymph 9y ago
Counterfeit products [1] and scams [2] are persistent problems on Amazon. It's very unfair to the legitimate merchants who are trying to compete without screwing over customers. They've been yelling at Amazon for YEARS to do something about this. Presumably Amazon decided that making it harder to sign up as a third-party seller would hurt their metrics more than it would help customers. [1] https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch.html https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch... [2] https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-fraud-scam-sellers.html https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-fraud-scam-sellers.htm...
fpvracing 9y ago
I designed a hardware product but haven't brought it to market because even if it is successful, Chinese manufacturers will reverse engineer it and then have a cheaper clone on the market within weeks, long before I can recoup even the cost of manufacturing, let alone make a profit. And since I can't afford to pursue legal action, it seems pointless to manufacture the product, and everybody loses. I wonder how much innovation is stifled this way.
- __alias 9y ago
  What's the hardware product? It's not like the counterfeit version will take over your product that fast and you'll always be able to keep a local market.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- krapp 9y ago
  So hire a Chinese company to manufacture it on the cheap to begin with. Isn't that what everyone does anyway? The market doesn't care about who has the best idea, or who had it first, it only cares about who comes to market with the best deal for the consumer.
  - prepend 9y ago
    A friend of mine tried this. Chinese company delayed shipment to US and flooded amazon with counterfeits made on the same line. By the time the product made it through customs his “partner” had sold thousands.
    - lowdest 9y ago
      I was wondering if that would be an issue. It might be worthwhile to present it to the factory as something else. E.g. a quadcopter part presented as handheld fan for hot weather.
- prepend 9y ago
  Cool, then open source it to screw the scammers and make a harder to fake product next time. Sorry.
NathanKP 9y ago
Full disclosure I work for Amazon (on the web services side). The author of this article clearly doesn't know much about selling on Amazon, because what he is asking for is possible. It's called the Amazon Brand Registry. You can contact the infringment team using the details here and initiate the process of getting your brand / ASIN locked so that other people can't sell it without your permission: https://www.amazon.com/report/infringement https://www.amazon.com/report/infringement Also check this out: https://services.amazon.com/brand-registry.html https://services.amazon.com/brand-registry.html If you have a popular product then counterfeiters are unfortunately inevitable, but you do have options to fight back and stop them. There is also Brand Gating which is a little harder to get. Look up ASIN or Brand Gating for information. Basically you can order the counterfeit product and report it to Amazon. It can cost a couple thousand in legal fees to register your brand and get all the paperwork unless you are capable of doing it all yourself, but it is possible.
- prepend 9y ago
  Why is Amazon not actively seeking out patterns of counterfeiters and suggesting this to sellers. Just doing simple image machine learning should get 90% of scammers. He AWS team is great about this. Looking for abnormalities. Looking for posted AWS keys. Proactively. The retail guys need to get some of the cloud guy smarts. Or ethics. Either/or will help stop this. I don’t sell, but I can barely buy from amazon because of all the scam copies and fake reviews.
  - elefanten 9y ago
    I second this strongly. Have basically stopped shopping from Amazon entirely. Haven't ever read a single word from Amazon to reassure me (as a buyer) about counterfeits. At least nothing beyond completely cookie cutter PR stuff that my brain just dismisses. Let's see some stats. Let's see some action plans. Let's get all these sellers' horror stories out of my various feeds. Where's all that?
    - discoursism 9y ago
      > Let's see some stats. Let's see some action plans. Let's get all these sellers' horror stories out of my various feeds. Where's all that? Not sure if you're aware, but Amazon's doing pretty OK by all publicly available signs. To the extent what's bothering you is even a real issue, it's not bothering anyone else enough to stop them shopping on Amazon. I doubt Amazon feels much pressure to post action plans to satisfy the tiny minority of people who have strong opinions about this issue.
hoelle 9y ago
Jeeze, looking at the product page it's really hard to spot the seller and make sure you've chosen a legit vendor. Also, Anchors are a great idea. I'm a VR developer and my desk is pretty crowded with headsets, so I just ordered a few to try them out. Hopefully the real ones arrive!
stevbov 9y ago
Last year I had two products I bought on Amazon arrive that were obviously previously opened. No warning at all when making the purchase. They didn't appear to be counterfeit but I still returned them. Now I avoid Amazon whenever I can.
thro1237 9y ago
Isn't it possible to bring a class action lawsuit? This is precisely the kind of things that a class action suit is a good remedy for.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  It is. But read before you click! “Any dispute or claim relating in any way to your use of any Amazon Service, or to any products or services sold or distributed by Amazon or through Amazon.com will be resolved by binding arbitration, rather than in court, except that you may assert claims in small claims court if your claims qualify. The Federal Arbitration Act and federal arbitration law apply to this agreement. There is no judge or jury in arbitration, and court review of an arbitration award is limited. However, an arbitrator can award on an individual basis the same damages and relief as a court (including injunctive and declaratory relief or statutory damages), and must follow the terms of these Conditions of Use as a court would.” https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=508088 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId...
fencepost 9y ago
The writer advises people to "look at the seller," but Amazon's commingling of products means that doing so is often useless. I believe I've also seen mention that there's a way to prevent that by assigning your own numbers and paying Amazon more, but for something like this where there is only one legitimate supplier I'm not sure it would do any good. (edit: NathanKP posted relevant links as I was posting) What's amazing to me is that these days I'd consider eBay a safer option for a lot of purchases - at least there I know what seller I'm dealing with.
- CamelCaseName 9y ago
  You need not pay Amazon to label your products with your FNSKU to avoid commingling -- sellers can do themselves with a printer and tape. Amazon simply offers the option and charges $0.20/unit to do it.
  - fencepost 9y ago
    But if you're already the only legitimate source for that SKU what do you do? If a counterfeiter orders one of your items then duplicates the packaging including the SKU/UPC will it get commingled with your product even if it shouldn't?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > The writer advises people to "look at the seller," but Amazon's commingling of products means that doing so is often useless. Only if the seller is Amazon or fulfilled by Amazon, since those are the only ones affected by commingling.
- KWD 9y ago
  When I learned of the commingling they do I changed my mind about using FBA to list some products. It has also changed my mind on products I purchase when I see others are selling it FBA. Though I still use Amazon a lot, I have also increased my local shopping for products I would previously have just purchased from Amazon.
wybiral 9y ago
Amazon should do what they can to weed out this kind of thing. But consumers can also be more aware of the sellers on Amazon.
- glup 9y ago
  Awareness isn't enough: even if consumers know that there are counterfeiters and other bad actors, they doesn't mean that they know who they are. This is in part because the review system is compromised.
- 0xcde4c3db 9y ago
  You can "buy from" a seller that provided 100% legit units and still end up with a counterfeit because Amazon threw them all in the same bin ("commingling"). This is the basis of the Daimler lawsuit: there were counterfeit items "sold by Amazon.com", whereas Amazon had previously gotten a pass because they weren't actually selling the counterfeits themselves.
jnbiche 9y ago
I've become quite disenchanted with Amazon because of this counterfeit issue along with the fake review problem. In addition, Amazon customer service -- traditionally excellent -- has only been good to acceptable recently (they've started using Chinese agents who don't really seem to understand American customer service and also sometimes struggle with English). I really wanted to drop Prime this year, but the wife uses it for some books and movies she likes and begged me not to. However, I've started ordering my stuff directly from sellers whenever possible. Occasionally, I order from Amazon if I need something quickly, but prefer to order directly even then if the seller has a rush delivery option (attention sellers! always offer an expedited delivery option, even if you think no one will use it!)
- ilamont 9y ago
  Chinese agents? Are you sure? I thought most overseas customer service was outsourced to Phillipines or India ... or to Amazon's AIs.
sokoloff 9y ago
> Jeff Bezos, if you're reading this, come on - this is day 2 activity. It's always "Day 1" at Amazon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTwXS2H_iJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTwXS2H_iJo
sitkack 9y ago
They sold me a counterfeit Horowitz and Hill [0], since it was outside of the return window the support person basically said, "you have an interesting memento". [0] https://artofelectronics.net/the-book/counterfeit-editions/ https://artofelectronics.net/the-book/counterfeit-editions/
- Spooky23 9y ago
  File a credit card dispute.
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    That's a great option until you realize they can close your Amazon account for chargebacks, which in my case would mean the loss of thousands of dollars worth of Kindle books.
    - abecedarius 9y ago
      Good point! I've only bought ~10 Kindle books over the years because DRM, but had been getting more open to it. Then just recently they started delivering ads to the iPad reader as 'notifications' with a red icon that won't go away until you tap to see. They may think that's a minor new feature which they only use occasionally, and which their average user will appreciate. But to me it looks like the start of "I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further."
      - Spooky23 9y ago
        I don’t buy ebooks, with a few exceptions mostly from Apple. Check out your library system. My library has an amazing selection of books, usually available in EPUB and Kindle formats. If you live or work in New York State, you can get library cards in many libraries including NYPL. NYPL also lets you access Brooklyn.
    - Spooky23 9y ago
      I didn’t realize that was a thing. Thank you and great point.
kop316 9y ago
I have all but stopped buying from amazon due to this problem. But I have to say, this part bothers me: "For the record, I love Amazon as a customer, I buy way too much stuff with Prime, I'm a long shareholder, and think they are on track to become the biggest company in the world (unless they get broken up for anti-trust reasons)." If you are actively losing money from this problem and still buy from them, you are actively sabotaging yourself!
- nicky0 9y ago
  Show me who among us is not contradictory in our behavour.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
Apparently, the US Customs and Border Patrol is in charge of seizing counterfeit goods. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cbp-intercepts-over-3m-counterfeit-goods https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cbp-interce... I wonder if contacting US Government representatives to ask them to have CPB investigate Amazon warehouses as a nexus of counterfeit goods would be useful. I bet if CPB officials raided an Amazon warehouse and went through and seized all counterfeit goods in the warehouse, Amazon would quickly find a solution to this problem.
- sneak 9y ago
  > I bet if CPB officials raided an Amazon warehouse ha. This has about the likelihood of happening as DEA enforcement at Mar-a-Lago.
theonealtair 9y ago
This is why I only buy Apple products from Apple, Amazon is flooded with counterfeits.
cjcfjrf 9y ago
Not only that, Amazon India openly allows misleading product description and the cse "overlooks" it when you talk to them. In India it's a standard practice to overstate objectively wrong things about products. Eg. Hard drive model number product make: pvc dumbbells vs cheap plastic filled with sand. Yes that's a thing on the site. The attitude of Amazon India is we don't care about bad publicity as long as people are buying from us so not even shaming them here, just mentioning.
RyanShook 9y ago
Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s response when asked earlier today why inflation has remained so low for so long: “It’s a phenomenon we don’t completely understand... it could be partially explained by the Amazon effect.”
Keverw 9y ago
I always thought the counterfeit good program was fulfillment by Amazon mixing items with the same UPC code. I ordered a power supply once and it had all chinese writing on it, and plus it didn't power up unless I kept turning it and fiddled with the connector. Was concerned, so sent it back. Didn't want it to catch on fire. It had a English brand name on the listing though too. I was looking at new earpods, and even in the reviews people mentioned they got fakes. https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MD827LL-EarPods-Remote-Mic/dp/B0097BEG1C/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1519959044&sr=8-3&keywords=earpods https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MD827LL-EarPods-Remote-Mic/dp/B... - I went to a local walmart instead and bought it online. Even Walmart, NewEgg and Sears website's have the same program as Amazon with counterfeits. I don't trust them as much as I did when shopping online. The NBC nightly news did a story about this last week. https://youtu.be/klbPhwE44hI https://youtu.be/klbPhwE44hI "Ships from and sold by Amazon" I guess to look for... I still use Amazon for AWS and Kindle though... But for Physical products I feel like I got to be more careful. Edit: It looks like from "0xcde4c3db" Post, it still can happen even if sold by Amazon. Wow. One of the things they recommended to do is to buy directly from the brand's website, which is kinda annoying since need a bunch of accounts, and Amazon Prime is a nice benefit too you can't use externally. Which is a great thing for digital nomads who don't want to wait for a package in the same area too long. Another thing is fake memory too. SD Cards and flash drives. If you search "2TB USB flash drive" on Amazon and scroll down some. There's some 2-2.5 star ones where some of the reviews mention it's fake. One of them even mentioned no company currently makes a 2TB USB Flash drives. However they do make 2TB USB SSD's. Plus I wouldn't want to try your luck with some of these items, as if you they are fake and you return it. I'm unsure if Amazon counts those returns towards the total returns before they close your account. I wouldn't want to risk it and be proactive. If i'm unsure about a item, it's less of a headache to just buy elsewhere. I hope they solve this somehow, as Amazon is really convenience and I really want to trust them more. There's really no other online store like them that's a one stop for all. Still like Amazon but got to be more careful with all these stories lately.
- CamelCaseName 9y ago
  >"Ships and sold by Amazon" is something to look out for I guess Don't get too comfortable. Malicious sellers can open a vendor account with Amazon and sell their counterfeits this way.
nsx147 9y ago
I have sold on Amazon for about 3 years now, over 2000+ skus FBA. The items I sell are pretty easy to counterfeit (much easier than OPs). There have been plenty of sellers come in and undercut price and subsequently destroy my products ratings because customers received fakes. I started moving my products into the Brand Registry and all of a sudden the counterfeit sellers started disappearing...and now they don't exist anymore. So at one point a few years ago I was on this guys side and was starting to write up cease & desists but I believe Amazon is getting better at it. Haven't seen any counterfeit sellers on my listings that last for more than 30 days in a while.
- CamelCaseName 9y ago
  With so many SKUs, it's easy to relax. OP has nine so one fake seller can wipe out a substantial amount of revenue overnight for her.
hapnin 9y ago
Ironically, Alibaba is trying to fix counterfeits in the supply chain. Amazon should follow suit. https://medium.com/@alitech_2017/blockchain-based-qa-the-end-of-fake-products-in-e-commerce-6f9b28a75735 https://medium.com/@alitech_2017/blockchain-based-qa-the-end...
Lazare 9y ago
I have absolutely started to reduce my purchases on Amazon due to my lack of confidence in what I'm going to be getting. The counterfeiting issue is real and serious. At this point, I trust that if I go to the trouble to ensure it's not "fulfilled by amazon" and I'm buying from the actual seller, I'll probably get a legit product. Otherwise, I have no way of knowing what I'm going to get. I continue to be mystified why Amazon doesn't view this as a huge issue.
JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
What do people here think of rfid blockchain products like VeChain that are hoping to solve this problem? Is it a solution?
jamesgeck0 9y ago
Counterfeiters on Amazon have been hitting the board game market hard. From an interview [1]: > We feel, and this number is speculative (but it's going to be somewhere on that range), that Asmodee North America’s sales are going to be affected somewhere between five and ten million dollars, this year alone. We believe for some games, that more than 70% of all sales in the U.S. market have been counterfeit. 1. https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/39296/icv2-interview-asmodee-execs-counterfeiting https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/39296/icv2-interview-asm...
jmartinpetersen 9y ago
Are there the same problems with counterfeiting in their grocery department? How can you be sure that your organic flour, almonds and coffee or are really what they claim and not some relabelled non-organic GMO product?
mrarjen 9y ago
Really enjoy this post and the reactions of it. I also have been looking around on Amazon for small furniture and some other small products, but as a consumer, a great deal of research is needed to detect fakes or sub par products. If you know what you want to buy, you are indeed best off buying directly from the product creators site and not get tempted by far cheaper alternatives amazon suggests... Birkenstock is a great example of this where it escalated https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/12/22/birkenstock-accuses-amazon-failure-tackle-fake-replicas/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/12/22/birkenstock-...
DrScump 9y ago
I wonder how tolerant of Ring product knock-offs Amazon will be now.
siner 9y ago
Oh my god, I want this product(original) but it is not available on amazon.de! It would be amazing to get your products in Germany. I just ordered it on amazon.co.uk as shipping was less expensive than getting it on www.elevationlab.com.
tylerjwilk00 9y ago
I have been purchasing more and more from Walmart. Initially I thought it was hopeless for Walmart to catch up to Amazon but counterfeits are destroying my trust in Amazon and Walmart has really stepped up their online ordering the last couple years. Amazon is feeling increasingly like eBay.
sneak 9y ago
Dear OP: I’d prefer a cheaper, “counterfeit” version of the product you discuss to the one you produce.
- DanBC 9y ago
  I can understand wanting to have a similar but cheaper product. Good enough is fine for most people. I don't understand why you'd want counterfeit branding too.
Khaine 9y ago
I've basically stopped buying things from Amazon because it is so hard to tell where your goods are coming from. With co-mingling even if you buy from a legitimate seller it is impossible to ensure that you get a legitimate product. I'd rather spend a few extra dollars and remove all of this hassle and buy directly, or from a more trustworthy place.
dalbasal 9y ago
A large chunk of the most important and/or profitable tech businesses are really private “markets.” That is, they don’t just sell goods and services. I would put all advertising businesses in that category too Amazon is an obvious (and very literal) example, as are app stores. But, Youtube is another example. People post videos. People watch videos. People place ads on videos. Google is at the centre coordinating this stuff. Very few markets are cleverly designed or run. Adwords was an example of a clever one. The auction, is the centrepiece and it reached its current state pretty early in adwords’ history. It was designed cleverly, with a ton of attention to incentives and 2nd order effects. Youtube, as a marketplace, is terribly designed. The “monetisation” systems are almost designed to produce spam, and discourage unique “maker” content. The differentials in earnings of similar content on youtube, vs any other medium are immense. Why does a podcast, TV show or other medium (lets assume it’s the same content) make so much more than a youtube channel. How is it possible that a million views a week is not enough to pay for a 2-man basement operation? The big boys need to get some economists on board, good ones.
CamelCaseName 9y ago
You should not have left a one star review on your competition. That's a surefire way to land in hot water if they report you.
enknamel 9y ago
> And Jeff Bezos, if you're reading this, come on - this is day 2 activity. That is a serious burn. It really drives home the point of how serious this issue is.

433 points by hop 9y ago

I used to shop waaaay too much on Amazon, but I’ve largely stopped and almost entirely as a result of counterfeits. If I wanted the experience of shopping in an open air market, I’d hoof it to one. I also really feel for people like the OP who do nothing wrong, but have a good idea and market it successfully. Amazon, I’d be back in a heartbeat if you fixed this. Sellers and buyers deserve better, and this kind of thing, along with bullshit reviews are a cancer in your business. If you wait for the first frank signs of disease to register, you’ll already be in terminal decline.

z0r 9y ago

I think this is a pretty big deal and has been for at least a few years, yet there have been no repercussions for Amazon yet. It feels like it should be illegal to enable this kind of thing.

jimmy1 9y ago
I think Amazon should go back to just being a bookstore, maybe seller of indie items, kind of like that etsy-like nichce and focus on AWS, which is their clear cash cow at this point. This whole being an "everything" store thing is a drain on them, and a drain on our economy. Plus they aren't exactly winning in some of the categories they thought they would be now -- groceries for example -- Walmart has shown they will fight to the absolute death on that, and I don't think they can win in that space (buying Whole Foods was a nice gesture, but Whole Foods reputation was fading from that "cool grocery store that has all this organic stuff" to "just a really expensive grocery store" especially once all the other grocery stores started carrying organics). Of course the kicker is if they can release their fully autonomous drone fleet. Which may be what, 10...20 years off after sorting through FAA regulations at the minimum?
- devmunchies 9y ago
  But wouldn't having a lot of consumer mindshare contribute to their cloud infrastructure being more attractive? People choose names they recognize.
  - jimmy1 9y ago
    AWS was put on the map almost entirely by engineering blogs (which I am not saying is a bad thing -- it's a testament to their services), like the famous Netflix moving everything to AWS article. Before that it was blogs on S3 and SQS. They were well known and generating a billion in revenue as early as 2011, and this was well, well before AWS was "mainstream" in terms of you start seeing public adverts now for AWS everywhere.

dionian 9y ago

I ordered an instant pot on amazon. instant pot box shows up, with mfr.s packaging.... I opened it and similar-looking - but much cheaper - chinese knockoff was in box. if amazon's customer service wasnt so good i would have dropped them already. (I know it's not them making the mistake, but still..) however I buy stuff there much less frequently now since i have no way to know if I'm getting counterfeits for certain types of goods.

freyir 9y ago
It's strange that a company sells its customers counterfeit goods, and we still praise them for "good customer service."
- drharby 9y ago
  Is it? Customer service is independent from the primary business transaction being executed. They are fucking up but compensate through good cust. Service. Seems like a policy decision, as fighting it costs more than the break fix
  - freyir 9y ago
    It is. Good customer service should start with not selling customers counterfeit crap in the first place. Instead, the phrase "customer service" means something extremely specific, i.e., a good return policy for customers who realize they've lost at Amazon's game of counterfeit roulette.
  - wmf 9y ago
    To me, "service" encompasses the entire experience of dealing with the company. A company that makes mistakes and fixes them quickly shouldn't be considered better than a company that doesn't make mistakes in the first place.
    - maxxxxx 9y ago
      "A company that makes mistakes and fixes them quickly shouldn't be considered better than a company that doesn't make mistakes in the first place." If the mistake is their normal way of doing business they should be rated as bad.

peterwwillis 9y ago

Amazon will replace whatever stupid crap you end up with. This is why it doesn't hurt their brand. You know they will fix it, so it's just a minor inconvenience to the customer, most of the time. Meanwhile, it shuts down businesses. You'd think politicians might care about this, but they're too busy handing out billions to get them to move to their state.

sfilargi 9y ago
It does hurt their brand. People have to go through return and re-order. It’s becoming like eBay.
oldcynic 9y ago
It's hurting their brand, even if they haven't realised. I don't want 3 attempts and returns to buy a battery, or charger, or any of the dozens of categories this affects. I don't want to be buying co-mingled inventory on lines I know are prone to counterfeiting. So I think of Amazon as 2nd rate - (because of this). So do many of my friends who have been affected by this as it's become far from rare.
deleted 9y ago
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ymerej 9y ago
I went through what must be five cycles of returning counterfeit Samsung batteries (easy to detect counterfeit -- the NFC didn't work) to get replacements which were counterfeit. Chatting with customer service was an exercise in futility.

oldcynic 9y ago

This is ruling out Amazon for so many categories of product and has been going on for years. Yet they don't seem to be bothered. So now I look on Amazon, then see if I can buy direct or from a different retailer.

jeffwilcox 9y ago
I've seen this especially in the power charger category... Apple power chargers I end up always just having to go to the Apple Store for now. Sigh. I want to use Amazon, but have had so many sketchy "Apple" products sent my way.
- dahdum 9y ago
  It’s outright dangerous to buy that type of product from Amazon, even if you buy “ships and sold from amazon” their inventory mixing means you can get counterfeits just as easily. If selling fake solar eclipse glasses didn’t hit them with the clue bat, I’m not sure what will.
  - coatmatter 9y ago
    This is good article you've probably already read on the topic of counterfeit eclipse glasses: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/science/eclipse-glasses-recalls.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/science/eclipse-glasses-r... Perhaps the worst thing in my mind about the lack of education (for one reason of another) with reference to eclipse glasses is that good pairs can easily be shared around with minimal planning (I always buy extra new pairs as souvenirs more than anything). The partial phases just aren't things that anyone stares at for minutes on end, and totality requires that eclipse glasses be removed. Hopefully there'll be more experience at hand and education by 2024 to avoid a repeat of 2017 (which in the grand scheme, was mostly isolated cases of poor outcomes - for most people, the biggest risk would have been driving to an eclipse site).
- osterwood 9y ago
  It's really anything branded as by "Apple" on Amazon. Look at the reviews of the Apple Thunderbolt Cable [1] -- 40% are 1 star reviews and many mention the cable being fake. Similar story on the Apple USB Ethernet adapter [2]. I bought one a few years back and it identified itself with Chinese lettering in System Preferences. Ken Shirriff did an amazing teardown of fake Apple chargers [3] and found a number of safety hazards relating to high voltage isolation. Teardown of the USB Adapter [4] found it used a part that doesn't exist (label does not match any known package for that IC). 1: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Thunderbolt-Cable-2-0-White/dp/B00YHUBV6Q/#customerReviews https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Thunderbolt-Cable-2-0-White/dp/... 2: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-USB-Ethernet-Adapter-MC704LL/dp/B00W7W9FK0/#customerReviews https://www.amazon.com/Apple-USB-Ethernet-Adapter-MC704LL/dp... 3: http://www.righto.com/2014/05/a-look-inside-ipad-chargers-pricey.html http://www.righto.com/2014/05/a-look-inside-ipad-chargers-pr... 4: http://projectgus.com/2013/03/anatomy-of-a-cheap-usb-ethernet-adapter/ http://projectgus.com/2013/03/anatomy-of-a-cheap-usb-etherne...

akeck 9y ago

Because of the counterfeiting on Amazon, I’m becoming price-insensitive and ordering direct from brand websites. I’d rather order once at full mark up than burn time dealing with fakes.

hemoglob2 9y ago

while i agree with your post, "The current counterfeit seller, suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd (yeah they sound legit), " could be construed as a racist comment

sdrothrock 9y ago
I think it could be CONSTRUED as a racist comment, but the person thinking of it that way would be really stretching, in my opinion. 1. All of these counterfeit items are coming from China. 2. The legit seller is ElevationLab, which "suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd" is not. 3. "suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd" is a Chinese name. 4. "suiningdonghanjiaju Co Ltd" is a very customer-unfriendly name -- not something you'd see from a big foreign-facing Chinese company. So all in all, it doesn't seem racist at all to point out that this company name seems illegitimate. If the author had MADE UP a "Chinese-sounding name" like "nihaobaobaomao," then yeah, I could follow an argument pointing out that statement as being reasonably construed as racist. But in the context of talking about Chinese companies producing cheap knock-offs, I don't see a problem with naming the company and pointing out that the name itself does not sound like a legit company at all.
- shard 9y ago
  Some counterpoints and comments. 1. So many legit items come from China that as a consumer you can't dismiss something out of hand just because it came from China. 3. Huawei is a Chinese name, Xiaomi is a Chinese name. See #1. 4. This is a legitimate point. The company did not optimize their name for a non-Chinese audience. I think the main thrust of why that comment has racist tones is because it feels like the main complaint is that it's a foreign (non-Western) sounding name, hard to pronounce and funny looking, therefore it cannot be legitimate. (Actually, I don't know if you did it on purpose, but nihaobaobaomao is a great name... It's very cute and sounds like "Hello bundle kitty"...)
  - sdrothrock 9y ago
    Great comments, but I think I disagree with some of them. :) > 1. So many legit items come from China that as a consumer you can't dismiss something out of hand just because it came from China. This is true, but I don't think it's a counterpoint. Regardless of how many legitimate products come out of China, the fact remains that the huge, huge majority of counterfeit products are from China. So if you're looking at a counterfeit product, the odds are that it will be from China, regardless of how many other legitimate products out there are from China. > 3. Huawei is a Chinese name, Xiaomi is a Chinese name Those were ones I was thinking of, which is why I added the "not something you'd see from a big foreign-facing Chinese company" bit. It's a foreigner-unfriendly name, terrible for marketing, searches, and sales. I can't imagine a legit company trying to use it overseas. Something like Huawei or Xiaomi (or in other cases, Samsung, Hitachi, BMW, Volvo, etc.) are short and sweet, simpler to digest and remember. > I think the main thrust of why that comment has racist tones is because it feels like the main complaint is that it's a foreign (non-Western) sounding name, hard to pronounce and funny looking, therefore it cannot be legitimate. I do completely agree with that, but in my opinion, with the evidence in this case, the complaint itself couldn't reasonably be construed as racist. In hindsight, my argument about "shorter, more professional names" is basically this quote ("hard to pronounce and funny looking") boiled into more reasonable terms... > Actually, I don't know if you did it on purpose, but nihaobaobaomao is a great name... It's very cute and sounds like "Hello bundle kitty"... You caught me. :P I couldn't bring myself to type something really stereotypically racist.

mullingitover 9y ago

My mileage apparently varies, because I've been shopping heavily on Amazon for years and have never had a counterfeit item show up on my doorstep.

exolymph 9y ago
That you know of.
- johnpowell 9y ago
  I use this stuff for my fishtank that conditions the water. It is primarily for removing chlorine. So I got a bottle off of amazon. A few months later I am at the pet store and they carry the same stuff. I notice the bottle in the pet store has the label printed directly on the bottle. The one I got from Amazon was what looked like the same label but was just a sticker. So I buy the one at the pet store and a water test kit. I test both bottles and the one from amazon did the same to remove the chlorine as just letting water sit out did. While the one from the pet store did what I was expecting. The stuff is a clear liquid and has no odor.
bencollier49 9y ago
The things which really get my goat are the awful-quality print-on-demand facsimiles I sometimes accidentally buy when I'm looking for an old book. Seriously putting me off Amazon. Nationalise and break them up already!
- cimmanom 9y ago
  Try AbeBooks instead.
emerged 9y ago
I'm a bit confused as well, because I've spent well into 6 figures on the site since the beginning days of Amazon, and I've literally never noticed a counterfeit product. So if this is a super common problem, they are some quality counterfeiters.

exolymph 9y ago

Counterfeit products [1] and scams [2] are persistent problems on Amazon. It's very unfair to the legitimate merchants who are trying to compete without screwing over customers. They've been yelling at Amazon for YEARS to do something about this. Presumably Amazon decided that making it harder to sign up as a third-party seller would hurt their metrics more than it would help customers. [1] https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch.html https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch... [2] https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-fraud-scam-sellers.html https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-fraud-scam-sellers.htm...

fpvracing 9y ago

I designed a hardware product but haven't brought it to market because even if it is successful, Chinese manufacturers will reverse engineer it and then have a cheaper clone on the market within weeks, long before I can recoup even the cost of manufacturing, let alone make a profit. And since I can't afford to pursue legal action, it seems pointless to manufacture the product, and everybody loses. I wonder how much innovation is stifled this way.

__alias 9y ago
What's the hardware product? It's not like the counterfeit version will take over your product that fast and you'll always be able to keep a local market.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
krapp 9y ago
So hire a Chinese company to manufacture it on the cheap to begin with. Isn't that what everyone does anyway? The market doesn't care about who has the best idea, or who had it first, it only cares about who comes to market with the best deal for the consumer.
- prepend 9y ago
  A friend of mine tried this. Chinese company delayed shipment to US and flooded amazon with counterfeits made on the same line. By the time the product made it through customs his “partner” had sold thousands.
  - lowdest 9y ago
    I was wondering if that would be an issue. It might be worthwhile to present it to the factory as something else. E.g. a quadcopter part presented as handheld fan for hot weather.
prepend 9y ago
Cool, then open source it to screw the scammers and make a harder to fake product next time. Sorry.

NathanKP 9y ago

Full disclosure I work for Amazon (on the web services side). The author of this article clearly doesn't know much about selling on Amazon, because what he is asking for is possible. It's called the Amazon Brand Registry. You can contact the infringment team using the details here and initiate the process of getting your brand / ASIN locked so that other people can't sell it without your permission: https://www.amazon.com/report/infringement https://www.amazon.com/report/infringement Also check this out: https://services.amazon.com/brand-registry.html https://services.amazon.com/brand-registry.html If you have a popular product then counterfeiters are unfortunately inevitable, but you do have options to fight back and stop them. There is also Brand Gating which is a little harder to get. Look up ASIN or Brand Gating for information. Basically you can order the counterfeit product and report it to Amazon. It can cost a couple thousand in legal fees to register your brand and get all the paperwork unless you are capable of doing it all yourself, but it is possible.

prepend 9y ago
Why is Amazon not actively seeking out patterns of counterfeiters and suggesting this to sellers. Just doing simple image machine learning should get 90% of scammers. He AWS team is great about this. Looking for abnormalities. Looking for posted AWS keys. Proactively. The retail guys need to get some of the cloud guy smarts. Or ethics. Either/or will help stop this. I don’t sell, but I can barely buy from amazon because of all the scam copies and fake reviews.
- elefanten 9y ago
  I second this strongly. Have basically stopped shopping from Amazon entirely. Haven't ever read a single word from Amazon to reassure me (as a buyer) about counterfeits. At least nothing beyond completely cookie cutter PR stuff that my brain just dismisses. Let's see some stats. Let's see some action plans. Let's get all these sellers' horror stories out of my various feeds. Where's all that?
  - discoursism 9y ago
    > Let's see some stats. Let's see some action plans. Let's get all these sellers' horror stories out of my various feeds. Where's all that? Not sure if you're aware, but Amazon's doing pretty OK by all publicly available signs. To the extent what's bothering you is even a real issue, it's not bothering anyone else enough to stop them shopping on Amazon. I doubt Amazon feels much pressure to post action plans to satisfy the tiny minority of people who have strong opinions about this issue.

hoelle 9y ago

Jeeze, looking at the product page it's really hard to spot the seller and make sure you've chosen a legit vendor. Also, Anchors are a great idea. I'm a VR developer and my desk is pretty crowded with headsets, so I just ordered a few to try them out. Hopefully the real ones arrive!

stevbov 9y ago

Last year I had two products I bought on Amazon arrive that were obviously previously opened. No warning at all when making the purchase. They didn't appear to be counterfeit but I still returned them. Now I avoid Amazon whenever I can.

thro1237 9y ago

Isn't it possible to bring a class action lawsuit? This is precisely the kind of things that a class action suit is a good remedy for.

Spooky23 9y ago
It is. But read before you click! “Any dispute or claim relating in any way to your use of any Amazon Service, or to any products or services sold or distributed by Amazon or through Amazon.com will be resolved by binding arbitration, rather than in court, except that you may assert claims in small claims court if your claims qualify. The Federal Arbitration Act and federal arbitration law apply to this agreement. There is no judge or jury in arbitration, and court review of an arbitration award is limited. However, an arbitrator can award on an individual basis the same damages and relief as a court (including injunctive and declaratory relief or statutory damages), and must follow the terms of these Conditions of Use as a court would.” https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=508088 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId...

fencepost 9y ago

The writer advises people to "look at the seller," but Amazon's commingling of products means that doing so is often useless. I believe I've also seen mention that there's a way to prevent that by assigning your own numbers and paying Amazon more, but for something like this where there is only one legitimate supplier I'm not sure it would do any good. (edit: NathanKP posted relevant links as I was posting) What's amazing to me is that these days I'd consider eBay a safer option for a lot of purchases - at least there I know what seller I'm dealing with.

CamelCaseName 9y ago
You need not pay Amazon to label your products with your FNSKU to avoid commingling -- sellers can do themselves with a printer and tape. Amazon simply offers the option and charges $0.20/unit to do it.
- fencepost 9y ago
  But if you're already the only legitimate source for that SKU what do you do? If a counterfeiter orders one of your items then duplicates the packaging including the SKU/UPC will it get commingled with your product even if it shouldn't?
dragonwriter 9y ago
> The writer advises people to "look at the seller," but Amazon's commingling of products means that doing so is often useless. Only if the seller is Amazon or fulfilled by Amazon, since those are the only ones affected by commingling.
KWD 9y ago
When I learned of the commingling they do I changed my mind about using FBA to list some products. It has also changed my mind on products I purchase when I see others are selling it FBA. Though I still use Amazon a lot, I have also increased my local shopping for products I would previously have just purchased from Amazon.

wybiral 9y ago

Amazon should do what they can to weed out this kind of thing. But consumers can also be more aware of the sellers on Amazon.

glup 9y ago
Awareness isn't enough: even if consumers know that there are counterfeiters and other bad actors, they doesn't mean that they know who they are. This is in part because the review system is compromised.
0xcde4c3db 9y ago
You can "buy from" a seller that provided 100% legit units and still end up with a counterfeit because Amazon threw them all in the same bin ("commingling"). This is the basis of the Daimler lawsuit: there were counterfeit items "sold by Amazon.com", whereas Amazon had previously gotten a pass because they weren't actually selling the counterfeits themselves.

jnbiche 9y ago

I've become quite disenchanted with Amazon because of this counterfeit issue along with the fake review problem. In addition, Amazon customer service -- traditionally excellent -- has only been good to acceptable recently (they've started using Chinese agents who don't really seem to understand American customer service and also sometimes struggle with English). I really wanted to drop Prime this year, but the wife uses it for some books and movies she likes and begged me not to. However, I've started ordering my stuff directly from sellers whenever possible. Occasionally, I order from Amazon if I need something quickly, but prefer to order directly even then if the seller has a rush delivery option (attention sellers! always offer an expedited delivery option, even if you think no one will use it!)

ilamont 9y ago
Chinese agents? Are you sure? I thought most overseas customer service was outsourced to Phillipines or India ... or to Amazon's AIs.

sokoloff 9y ago

> Jeff Bezos, if you're reading this, come on - this is day 2 activity. It's always "Day 1" at Amazon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTwXS2H_iJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTwXS2H_iJo

sitkack 9y ago

They sold me a counterfeit Horowitz and Hill [0], since it was outside of the return window the support person basically said, "you have an interesting memento". [0] https://artofelectronics.net/the-book/counterfeit-editions/ https://artofelectronics.net/the-book/counterfeit-editions/

Spooky23 9y ago
File a credit card dispute.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  That's a great option until you realize they can close your Amazon account for chargebacks, which in my case would mean the loss of thousands of dollars worth of Kindle books.
  - abecedarius 9y ago
    Good point! I've only bought ~10 Kindle books over the years because DRM, but had been getting more open to it. Then just recently they started delivering ads to the iPad reader as 'notifications' with a red icon that won't go away until you tap to see. They may think that's a minor new feature which they only use occasionally, and which their average user will appreciate. But to me it looks like the start of "I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further."
    - Spooky23 9y ago
      I don’t buy ebooks, with a few exceptions mostly from Apple. Check out your library system. My library has an amazing selection of books, usually available in EPUB and Kindle formats. If you live or work in New York State, you can get library cards in many libraries including NYPL. NYPL also lets you access Brooklyn.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    I didn’t realize that was a thing. Thank you and great point.

kop316 9y ago

I have all but stopped buying from amazon due to this problem. But I have to say, this part bothers me: "For the record, I love Amazon as a customer, I buy way too much stuff with Prime, I'm a long shareholder, and think they are on track to become the biggest company in the world (unless they get broken up for anti-trust reasons)." If you are actively losing money from this problem and still buy from them, you are actively sabotaging yourself!

nicky0 9y ago
Show me who among us is not contradictory in our behavour.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago

Apparently, the US Customs and Border Patrol is in charge of seizing counterfeit goods. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cbp-intercepts-over-3m-counterfeit-goods https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cbp-interce... I wonder if contacting US Government representatives to ask them to have CPB investigate Amazon warehouses as a nexus of counterfeit goods would be useful. I bet if CPB officials raided an Amazon warehouse and went through and seized all counterfeit goods in the warehouse, Amazon would quickly find a solution to this problem.

sneak 9y ago
> I bet if CPB officials raided an Amazon warehouse ha. This has about the likelihood of happening as DEA enforcement at Mar-a-Lago.

theonealtair 9y ago

This is why I only buy Apple products from Apple, Amazon is flooded with counterfeits.

cjcfjrf 9y ago

Not only that, Amazon India openly allows misleading product description and the cse "overlooks" it when you talk to them. In India it's a standard practice to overstate objectively wrong things about products. Eg. Hard drive model number product make: pvc dumbbells vs cheap plastic filled with sand. Yes that's a thing on the site. The attitude of Amazon India is we don't care about bad publicity as long as people are buying from us so not even shaming them here, just mentioning.

RyanShook 9y ago

Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s response when asked earlier today why inflation has remained so low for so long: “It’s a phenomenon we don’t completely understand... it could be partially explained by the Amazon effect.”

Keverw 9y ago

I always thought the counterfeit good program was fulfillment by Amazon mixing items with the same UPC code. I ordered a power supply once and it had all chinese writing on it, and plus it didn't power up unless I kept turning it and fiddled with the connector. Was concerned, so sent it back. Didn't want it to catch on fire. It had a English brand name on the listing though too. I was looking at new earpods, and even in the reviews people mentioned they got fakes. https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MD827LL-EarPods-Remote-Mic/dp/B0097BEG1C/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1519959044&sr=8-3&keywords=earpods https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MD827LL-EarPods-Remote-Mic/dp/B... - I went to a local walmart instead and bought it online. Even Walmart, NewEgg and Sears website's have the same program as Amazon with counterfeits. I don't trust them as much as I did when shopping online. The NBC nightly news did a story about this last week. https://youtu.be/klbPhwE44hI https://youtu.be/klbPhwE44hI "Ships from and sold by Amazon" I guess to look for... I still use Amazon for AWS and Kindle though... But for Physical products I feel like I got to be more careful. Edit: It looks like from "0xcde4c3db" Post, it still can happen even if sold by Amazon. Wow. One of the things they recommended to do is to buy directly from the brand's website, which is kinda annoying since need a bunch of accounts, and Amazon Prime is a nice benefit too you can't use externally. Which is a great thing for digital nomads who don't want to wait for a package in the same area too long. Another thing is fake memory too. SD Cards and flash drives. If you search "2TB USB flash drive" on Amazon and scroll down some. There's some 2-2.5 star ones where some of the reviews mention it's fake. One of them even mentioned no company currently makes a 2TB USB Flash drives. However they do make 2TB USB SSD's. Plus I wouldn't want to try your luck with some of these items, as if you they are fake and you return it. I'm unsure if Amazon counts those returns towards the total returns before they close your account. I wouldn't want to risk it and be proactive. If i'm unsure about a item, it's less of a headache to just buy elsewhere. I hope they solve this somehow, as Amazon is really convenience and I really want to trust them more. There's really no other online store like them that's a one stop for all. Still like Amazon but got to be more careful with all these stories lately.

CamelCaseName 9y ago
>"Ships and sold by Amazon" is something to look out for I guess Don't get too comfortable. Malicious sellers can open a vendor account with Amazon and sell their counterfeits this way.

nsx147 9y ago

I have sold on Amazon for about 3 years now, over 2000+ skus FBA. The items I sell are pretty easy to counterfeit (much easier than OPs). There have been plenty of sellers come in and undercut price and subsequently destroy my products ratings because customers received fakes. I started moving my products into the Brand Registry and all of a sudden the counterfeit sellers started disappearing...and now they don't exist anymore. So at one point a few years ago I was on this guys side and was starting to write up cease & desists but I believe Amazon is getting better at it. Haven't seen any counterfeit sellers on my listings that last for more than 30 days in a while.

CamelCaseName 9y ago
With so many SKUs, it's easy to relax. OP has nine so one fake seller can wipe out a substantial amount of revenue overnight for her.

hapnin 9y ago

Ironically, Alibaba is trying to fix counterfeits in the supply chain. Amazon should follow suit. https://medium.com/@alitech_2017/blockchain-based-qa-the-end-of-fake-products-in-e-commerce-6f9b28a75735 https://medium.com/@alitech_2017/blockchain-based-qa-the-end...

Lazare 9y ago

I have absolutely started to reduce my purchases on Amazon due to my lack of confidence in what I'm going to be getting. The counterfeiting issue is real and serious. At this point, I trust that if I go to the trouble to ensure it's not "fulfilled by amazon" and I'm buying from the actual seller, I'll probably get a legit product. Otherwise, I have no way of knowing what I'm going to get. I continue to be mystified why Amazon doesn't view this as a huge issue.

JohnJamesRambo 9y ago

What do people here think of rfid blockchain products like VeChain that are hoping to solve this problem? Is it a solution?

jamesgeck0 9y ago

Counterfeiters on Amazon have been hitting the board game market hard. From an interview [1]: > We feel, and this number is speculative (but it's going to be somewhere on that range), that Asmodee North America’s sales are going to be affected somewhere between five and ten million dollars, this year alone. We believe for some games, that more than 70% of all sales in the U.S. market have been counterfeit. 1. https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/39296/icv2-interview-asmodee-execs-counterfeiting https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/39296/icv2-interview-asm...

jmartinpetersen 9y ago

Are there the same problems with counterfeiting in their grocery department? How can you be sure that your organic flour, almonds and coffee or are really what they claim and not some relabelled non-organic GMO product?

mrarjen 9y ago

Really enjoy this post and the reactions of it. I also have been looking around on Amazon for small furniture and some other small products, but as a consumer, a great deal of research is needed to detect fakes or sub par products. If you know what you want to buy, you are indeed best off buying directly from the product creators site and not get tempted by far cheaper alternatives amazon suggests... Birkenstock is a great example of this where it escalated https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/12/22/birkenstock-accuses-amazon-failure-tackle-fake-replicas/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/12/22/birkenstock-...

DrScump 9y ago

I wonder how tolerant of Ring product knock-offs Amazon will be now.

siner 9y ago

Oh my god, I want this product(original) but it is not available on amazon.de! It would be amazing to get your products in Germany. I just ordered it on amazon.co.uk as shipping was less expensive than getting it on www.elevationlab.com.

tylerjwilk00 9y ago

I have been purchasing more and more from Walmart. Initially I thought it was hopeless for Walmart to catch up to Amazon but counterfeits are destroying my trust in Amazon and Walmart has really stepped up their online ordering the last couple years. Amazon is feeling increasingly like eBay.

sneak 9y ago

Dear OP: I’d prefer a cheaper, “counterfeit” version of the product you discuss to the one you produce.

DanBC 9y ago
I can understand wanting to have a similar but cheaper product. Good enough is fine for most people. I don't understand why you'd want counterfeit branding too.

Khaine 9y ago

I've basically stopped buying things from Amazon because it is so hard to tell where your goods are coming from. With co-mingling even if you buy from a legitimate seller it is impossible to ensure that you get a legitimate product. I'd rather spend a few extra dollars and remove all of this hassle and buy directly, or from a more trustworthy place.

dalbasal 9y ago

A large chunk of the most important and/or profitable tech businesses are really private “markets.” That is, they don’t just sell goods and services. I would put all advertising businesses in that category too Amazon is an obvious (and very literal) example, as are app stores. But, Youtube is another example. People post videos. People watch videos. People place ads on videos. Google is at the centre coordinating this stuff. Very few markets are cleverly designed or run. Adwords was an example of a clever one. The auction, is the centrepiece and it reached its current state pretty early in adwords’ history. It was designed cleverly, with a ton of attention to incentives and 2nd order effects. Youtube, as a marketplace, is terribly designed. The “monetisation” systems are almost designed to produce spam, and discourage unique “maker” content. The differentials in earnings of similar content on youtube, vs any other medium are immense. Why does a podcast, TV show or other medium (lets assume it’s the same content) make so much more than a youtube channel. How is it possible that a million views a week is not enough to pay for a 2-man basement operation? The big boys need to get some economists on board, good ones.

CamelCaseName 9y ago

You should not have left a one star review on your competition. That's a surefire way to land in hot water if they report you.

enknamel 9y ago

> And Jeff Bezos, if you're reading this, come on - this is day 2 activity. That is a serious burn. It really drives home the point of how serious this issue is.