12 ms·

Amazon's Chinese Counterfeit Problem Is Getting Worse

146 points by dforrestwilson 10y ago

kelukelugames 10y ago
Chinese counterfeit Magic cards are a disruptor. Wizards of the Coast, Magic's parent company, maintains a reversed list of historic cards. Listed cards can never be reprinted to protect their prices on the secondary market for collectors. Many players complain this is a bad for the game. As the counterfeits are getting better, more players buy them, pressuring Wizard to act. Maybe Wizards will abolish the reserved list. Reserved list: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/official-reprint-policy-2010-03-10 http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/official-reprin... More links: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27693_Counterfeit-Cards.html http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27693_Counterfeit-Cards... http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/how-to-dismantle-the-reserved-list/ http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/how-to-dismantle-the...
- stephengillie 10y ago
  The argument could be made that players are simply trying to play with cards they can't normally obtain. Obvious counterfeits have often been allowed in unofficial games "by proxy" - allowing players to construct more powerful decks than they could afford. It would then come down to how much the counterfeit is worth to the player. So long as these aren't being passed off as legitimate cards, I don't see an issue.
  - epimetheus 10y ago
    Do most places allow this proxy card without owning the actual card these days? Back when I played in 93-97 you could use proxy cards, but it was usually a land card marked with an indicator of the real card, and the person had to pull out their real card (usually in a plastic case) to show they actually had it (and show the stats). I had a friend with a color printer that tried to make counterfeit cards to use as proxies (not to try and sell, the printer he had back then was not very good), he got caught at a game night at a shop (unofficial tournament) and was actually banned from there.
    - bpicolo 10y ago
      Sometimes a store will hold proxy tournaments for certain formats, but not for the standard format, and they can't be officially sanctioned events. There was a big deal about it recently with relation to counterfeiting. http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/proxies-policy-and-communication-2016-01-14 http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/proxies-po...
      - seanp2k2 10y ago
        I don't play any card games, but what's honestly the big deal? Is the game about card-collecting skills, or deck-building and play strategy? It's hard to argue the latter and ban people for not having an original version of a card. I guess I don't really "get it", or I had way too much fun playing ridiculous mods (where it was fair because everyone had equally ridiculous stuff) for games (Mr. Pants Excessive Overkill for Quake 3 comes to mind). IMO it'd be fun to play some Magic tournament with all fake cards, so everyone could build their dream decks, then see who was better at building the best deck and better with play strategy.
        CamperBob2 10y ago
        This. In addition to card games that intentionally reward skilled counterfeiters, there should be MMO games designed to reward the best hackers and botmakers. Also, there should be an "unlimited" category in real-life events like the Olympics and Tour de France, where the team with the best drug lab wins. I think we'll start to see more and more games like this emerge over the next few years/decades, as the possibilities of traditional sports and games (and the humans who play them) are exhausted.
        tabio 10y ago
        Pay to Win is the evil. Magic the Gathering is good. Because.
  - mcphage 10y ago
    How long before people won't be able to tell the difference (at least without tests that are prohibitively expensive or would destroy the card)?
- brownbat 10y ago
  > to protect their prices on the secondary market for collectors A lot of Wizards' approach to tournaments and playable cards is designed so that the secondary market's influence on the game is minimized.[0] They saw beanie babies and comics implode in value after waves of speculation, so they set up a schedule where they churn out new cards and retire old ones on a predictable schedule. All this means the company has to think as little about the secondary market as possible. You're right that counterfeits are a disruptor, but I think that's more a threat for current cards, not because people will print a bunch of black lotuses and moxes. [0] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/04/16/400140583/how-success-almost-killed-a-game-and-how-its-creators-saved-it http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/04/16/400140583/how-s...
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  Wizards needs old sets to become rare & obsolete, for many reasons. It helps them sell more cards, and it also gives them far more creative leverage with new cards. They don't have to play test & ensure balanced play across the entire catalog (some stupid good cross-decade combos have showed up on accident over the years) and they have more ability to avoid rampant power creep, which according to some has been a big part of why the game has lasted.
berntb 10y ago
The product I've seen crash and burn in quality on Amazon UK is Koss PortaPro headphones. Loved those for many years, but the last few broke inside weeks. I am wondering if I should try to buy a last pair directly from the manufacturer. I am quite happy with my new Sennheiser, but they don't feel right... Anyone in the US with recent experience?
- kawsper 10y ago
  I bought a small "SanDisk" branded USB-storage device, I plugged it in, and started transferring files to it while I went to lunch. When I came back, the transfer was complete, I unplugged the device, and I burned my fingers! So now I have a broken USB-port in my Macbook, because I trusted Amazon to not sell me a fake product. I wrote a review, and rated it poorly, but they are still selling it[0], and most reviews are positive. They even write "by Sandisk", and "Dispatched from and sold by Amazon". https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005FYNSZA/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005FYNSZA/
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- gaza3g 10y ago
  I bought a portapro during a Black Friday sale a few years and my experience was kinda like yours: it broke after a few months of use.
- diyorgasms 10y ago
  I bought mine 18 months ago and I am extremely satisfied with the quality (both build and sound) for what I paid. They absolutely live up to the reputation PortaPros have.
macNchz 10y ago
This has become a frustrating part of shopping on Amazon, to the point that I typically filter to only show things sold by Amazon themselves. Too many of the marketplace items are fake crap with paid-for reviews. Since they're mixed in together by default, the effort in trying to discern good from bad makes for a pretty crummy experience overall.
- syshum 10y ago
  This will not always save you. If a company uses the "Fulfilled by Amazon" service they ship their stuff to amazon and it is co mingled with all of the other SKU's purporting to be the same item, including Amazons own stock
  - epimetheus 10y ago
    Co-mingling isn't set by default (or wasn't last I was selling a couple months ago), you have to select it, and it can be bad news for a seller (one seller got banned from amazon and had to pay to destroy or ship home 50k products because one of the items in the stack that got sold "by him" was counterfeit)
    - ikeboy 10y ago
      I assume you're referencing https://startupnation.com/start-your-business/plan-your-business/amazon-fba-program/ https://startupnation.com/start-your-business/plan-your-busi..., which I've seen referenced a couple times as an Amazon seller. There are a couple of problems with his story. First, Amazon denied it was due to comingling: "I’m just calling to inform you that there were no other sellers of that item that were in the co-mingling program" Second, he apparently didn't show up to the lawsuit and had a judgement by default. Never a good sign. Third, he was moving hundreds of thousands of items, but couldn't afford a lawyer? Fourth, he cites as evidence that his items were comingled the fact that his returns came from a different warehouse than he sent them to. As someone who regularly sends items to FBA warehouses, this is bullshit. Amazon sends your own inventory between their warehouses, and you can track this in reports. Often I send to warehouse A, and it immediately goes to my reserved inventory, and then it goes to another warehouse a few days later. Anyone who doesn't know this didn't invest enough time to learn about Amazon policies, and you should doubt their story.
iandanforth 10y ago
I get the feeling that Chinese businesses (who are making the real products as well) are shouting to the American consumer "you are getting ripped off, here's how much these products cost without a huge profit margin." There are plenty of low quality fakes, but as Jack Ma said, some are better than the licenced versions.
- kazinator 10y ago
  Some system of clamps and shock cords for holding down a fitted bed sheets can hardly be fake. Anyone's implementation is likely as good as anyone else's. Though Whalley has a patent on it, the article claims, prior art for the basic idea can be seen on any truck that has a tarp tied down over a bunch of cargo.
  - eli 10y ago
    The knockoff razor blades, however, are not nearly as sharp as the real ones.
    - copperx 10y ago
      Whose knockoffs? There are some quality ones.
      - berntb 10y ago
        ... and how do you know which one is of high quality when you buy? Since the products are copies -- how would you know you don't get ripped off next week, when Amazon sell some other copies? The packaging etc look the same, by definition... It is just not realistic to keep up with the exact details and doing a complete quality check whenever you buy anything, from toilet paper to cars. Every time. I predict that this is just a short phase. If the quality of products at Amazon will be a total dice throw, the consumer reaction will be to buy directly from the producers' web sites. That is not in Amazon's interests, so they will soon be more transparent. Or become irrelevant.
kazinator 10y ago
And of course Jamie Whalley has nothing Made in China in her home. Just "real" stuff. > Her patented product called BedBand consists of a set of shock cords, clamps and locks designed to keep fitted bed sheets in place. All these parts made in USA?
- xienze 10y ago
  People are downvoting, but if her product is manufactured in China that's pretty much the reason her product was copied in such short order.
  - WillPostForFood 10y ago
    It isn't manufactured in China, that's one of their main selling points.
kakuri 10y ago
It's infuriatingly difficult to buy anything of quality on Amazon. I really hope they improve the situation.
- grendelt 10y ago
  The books and digital videos I get have been great quality.
  - awqrre 10y ago
    Do they let you download the videos or do you have to stream them?
- blantonl 10y ago
  Their EC2 servers are pretty good quality.
  - carterehsmith 10y ago
    This reminds of something I read - apparently, for whatever reason, not all EC2 instances of the same class perform the same. So, some large AWS customers (like Netflix) keep spawning instance, run some benchmarks on them, then if the instance is in top X% as far as performance goes, they keep it; otherwise they drop it. Which means that, what a regular customer gets, is an instance that someone (or multiple someones) found not good enough and dropped ;]
    - superuser2 10y ago
      Do we have reason to believe low performance is an enduring property of the instance, or could it just be that instance performance varies over time (i.e. when neighbors are hungrier)?
    - fludlight 10y ago
      Regular customers can run benchmarks and drop sluggish servers, too.
jeffdavis 10y ago
This can be solved by requiring higher-risk merchants to put money in escrow for a while (maybe an initial amount plus some fraction of revenue). If they turn out to be selling counterfeits, amazon could use the money to set things right. Otherwise the merchant gets the money.
- stordoff 10y ago
  Don't Amazon already do this? IIRC from the few things I have sold on Amazon, I had to wait 2-4 weeks after an order for the money to be paid into my bank account.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    Yes. For the first six months after you start selling there's a two week reserve (plus the standard settlement wait). Every time you have a significant increase in sales they'll apply a reserve and monitor your metrics before removing it.
- joelthelion 10y ago
  I think the main problem is that Amazon is making no real effort to fight it,not that solutions don't exist.
hobaak 10y ago
AliExpress is increasing serving more US customers for looking for bargain price. I guess that Amazon is aware of that so they take blind eye for the low priced counterfeits.
shostack 10y ago
For some categories where Amazon sells its own brand (which keeps growing), I wonder if this benefits Amazon.
davidf18 10y ago
Firms should start using serial numbers for their products that can be verifiable on the web and in fact could be registered with the manufacturer. A totally different and important problem is counterfeit drugs. There are ways to battle counterfeit drugs.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  Most items aren't expensive enough to be worth it.
dmritard96 10y ago
Its interesting how much sympathy is expected for these people who make a silly little product and have foreign competition, but would a reaction be similar if it was an Amazon Basics product?
- dmritard96 10y ago
  Not sure I understand the downvoting here but fine. perhaps clarifying my question would help. Today: Brand 1 makes product and sells on Amazon. Files IP to try and prevent others from copying their idea. Brand 2 (Chinese company) makes similar product and sells through amazon - results in headlines like - Amazon has a Chinese problem. Brand 3 (Amazon Basics) - makes similar products and has Chinese supplier add logo to their generic product. Even though brand 1 has the same problem (arguably worse), because Amazon does it instead of a Chinese company it is seen as less problematic.
  - detaro 10y ago
    Are there Amazon Basics products where IP is an issue? I only know them from USB chargers, cables, rechargeable batteries, …, stuff where there is little innovation.
    - dmritard96 10y ago
      http://www.geek.com/news/amazonbasics-is-copying-all-the-best-products-on-amazon-and-selling-them-for-less-1652879/ http://www.geek.com/news/amazonbasics-is-copying-all-the-bes... They had a design patent (basically meaningless) and amazon just modded and started owning them.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
Udo_Schmitz 10y ago
Every time I see counterfeit power adapters/chargers on Amazon I wonder why the original maker–e.g. Apple–doesn’t lean on Amazon to stop the sale of those. Additionally, if someone dies or a house burns down[0], couldn’t that open Amazon to lawsuits? [0] 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...
- imaginenore 10y ago
  Because there's no easy way of telling if they are fake. What if they bought a bunch at the Apple store and are selling them at a lower price to get rid of the inventory?
  - Udo_Schmitz 10y ago
    Sometimes it is very easy to tell but Amazon will ship it to customers anyway. Imagine you are looking for a "85W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter" for a MacBook Pro at Amazon.com. First link after search for "apple power adapter for macbook pro" goes to: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MagSafe-Adapter-MacBook-Display/dp/B008ALAAV0/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1468194829&sr=1-2&keywords=apple+power+adapter+for+macbook+pro https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MagSafe-Adapter-MacBook-Display... Now read this review (verified purchase): https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RNA9AYHGA5JG0/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B008ALAAV0 https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RNA9AYHGA5JG0/ref...
discardorama 10y ago
The biggest problem with Amazon reviews is that they'll let you post a review of something you never bought! Sure, they do add the "verified purchase" tag for things you bought; but for calculating the aggregate stats, etc. Amazon will cleverly ignore the fact that you could just be talking out your ass (or selling reviews). I find this very dirty on their part, and it's something that can be fixed with 1 line of code.
- techthroway443 10y ago
  This seems like the most sensible solution and would easily weed out 99% of these fake paid for reviews. Is there a way to filter ratings by verified purchasers? Why don't they do this by default?
  - wangarific 10y ago
    They can do this but then companies will ask fake reviewers to buy the product through Amazon and then reimburse. The seller is only out the commission + price of product - it would create a small hurdle but wouldn't solve the problem.
  - yellowapple 10y ago
    1) It's not necessarily effective if the seller reimburses shills for purchased products (as already mentioned) 2) It marginalizes legitimate reviewers who bought the product somewhere other than Amazon Regardless, I agree that it's a reasonable and sensible default.
  - tombrossman 10y ago
    This isn't automatically a good thing. Let me give you an example. I had a very persistent Amazon Marketplace seller who kept deleting and re-posting a listing for a specific mobile phone dock I was trying to find. They were selling a fake phone dock using the image and details of a hard to find one I really wanted. I ordered it several times and they shipped a completely different product - different look, color, brand, it was the cheapest garbage ever. Amazon refunded all my costs each time, and because the seller was a punk and refused to pay return shipping I threw them all away. No money out of my pocket. The reason they would keep deleting and re-listing the item is because I would leave bad (but factually correct) reviews when I kept trying to find the phone dock and seeing their new listing in Amazon's search results. Their re-listing action caused my reviews to disappear because it was a 'new' product listing with their same fake photo every time. I flagged this repeatedly to Amazon as fraud via chat, email, and telephone and they never took any action. This went on for months, and Amazon never addressed it. So my point is that by allowing anyone to post a review, you give consumers one more tool to warn each other about fraud and unethical sellers. Yes there are a lot of fake reviews, but there are also legit buyers out there too and we are willing to pester fake sellers for months and cost them a fair amount of losses (postage, abandoned fakes because they don't want them back). Sellers know they can delete & re-list fakes all day long to disassociate negative feedback for an item , and they know Amazon will never ban them.
double0jimb0 10y ago
Amazon sellers could stand to look at their collective bargaining power.
KKKKkkkk1 10y ago
My problem with Amazon is not that it sells cheap low-quality stuff, it's that the cheap products are not really cheap. I buy off-brand Chinese stuff on AliExpress and could not be more happy with them; the prices on Amazon can easily reach 10x those of Ali.
- awqrre 10y ago
  But there is more bad sellers on aliexpress... so you have to make sure that you check sellers reviews...
novaleaf 10y ago
Ironic anicdote: I order a cheap ($50) generic waterproof jacket from Amazon and got what was obviously a counterfit Northface (with branding and everything). Thankfully they sold and priced it as a generic so I knew what I was getting. Overall a reasonable coat but the detail elements (velcro and straps) were of poor quality.
- dfc 10y ago
  You ordered a cheap jacket and the quality of the jacket you received was commensurate with the price and met your expectations. What is the irony?
  - novaleaf 10y ago
    the irony is that I ordered a cheap generic jacket and got a cheap counterfeit jacket. meaning I was OK with generic Chinese merchandise, but it is more convenient for them to supply counterfeits than to produce something actually white-labeled.
    - dfc 10y ago
      Why would it be cheaper to design, make and sell two different jackets versus one?
      - oldbuzzard 10y ago
        Well Yes. That's the irony. If you had even minimal trademark enforcement, the risk ratio would encourage you to manufacture and sell white label and counterfeit jackets as separate firewalled vendors. So one could be shut down without effecting the other. Here the risk is clearly so low they don't even bother... or maybe they have firewalled vendors and the cost of setting up a generic vendor is so low that its less than the dual manufacturing pipeline... either way that's the irony.
        dfc 10y ago
        Irony != Counter intuitive
etrautmann 10y ago
A coworker just spent three days debugging a new server build, and it turned out to be a fake Xeon processor purchased from Amazon. Absolutely unbelievably executed fake, but the machine wouldn't even POST.
dharmon 10y ago
The book The Everything Store talks about how Amazon uses counterfeit goods to sort-of blackmail high-end goods to letting them sell. I think the book gave the example of a high-end kitchen knife brand, maybe Wüsthof, that would not allow Amazon to sell their knives. Before you know it, cheap knockoffs appeared claiming to be Wüsthof knives. When they let Amazon sell the real deal, suddenly the knockoffs disappeared from the store. I have a feeling the same thing is happening with the high-end perfumeries, like Creed. Everything sold on Amazon is a knockoff because the company doesn't sell there. I bet if they did, the fake stuff would magically disappear...
- cstejerean 10y ago
  I don't think it's blackmail. I wonder if brands like Wüsthof got exclusive agreements as part of selling on Amazon so that nobody else is allowed to list their product, therefore eliminating the knockoffs. But without an official listing then Amazon would have to sort through every reseller to see if they are selling legitimate products or not, and what incentive would Amazon have to do that?
  - tehwebguy 10y ago
    Amazon does make deals like that. GoPro, Sony, Samsung, Nest and tons of other brands are (for the most part, at least) locked down.
jgalt212 10y ago
I bought a new "Sony" universal remote from Amazon. It came wrapped in a clear plastic baggie with no box or instructions. It worked and looks legit, so more likely this item was stolen or sold as new when it wasn't more so than a fake from China. But maybe it was a fake, just a very good one probably made at the same factory that makes the "real" Sony remotes. As Brexit has shown us, there are plenty of downsides to Globalization. Amazon needs to get better at KYC, but Jeff's growth at any cost mantra just won't embrace that and his lieutenants will find it's hard to argue with results. Until this sort of stuff makes a dent in Amazon's top line, I believe they won't really crack down on this.
kev6168 10y ago
My anecdote: more than a few times I was asked by small Chinese sellers on Amazon and Ebay (introduced by mutual acquaintances) to help them write emails to press unhappy customers to remove their negative reviews left on Amazon or Ebay, in exchange for freebies and credit. The sellers would ask me to write all sorts of fake sad stories like some poor girl would lose her job or the company had to shut down if the negative review was not turned into a positive one. I was really disgusted and turned them down each time. The moral: in most cases don't believe those fake stories. The review system needs to be protected for everyone's benefit.
vorotato 10y ago
It sounds like what the real issue is, is a lack of designers. Counterfeiting is what you do when you are great at making things, but don't know how to make something that people want to use. A good designer (and a little marketing) could fix this.
amazonshit 10y ago
I bought a HDD from Amazon.de, cost around 150 Euros, but it is a fake one. https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0152T3NFM/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_0 https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0152T3NFM/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_so... It is a German seller instead of Chinese seller, so it is a widespread problem. Amazon should take care of such problem. I will try to sue them.
amazonshit 10y ago
I bought a HDD from Amazon.de, cost around 150 Euros, but it is a fake one. https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0152T3NFM/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_0 https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0152T3NFM/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_so... It is a German seller instead of Chinese seller, so it is a widespread problem. Amazon should take care of such problem. I will try to sue them.

146 points by dforrestwilson 10y ago

Chinese counterfeit Magic cards are a disruptor. Wizards of the Coast, Magic's parent company, maintains a reversed list of historic cards. Listed cards can never be reprinted to protect their prices on the secondary market for collectors. Many players complain this is a bad for the game. As the counterfeits are getting better, more players buy them, pressuring Wizard to act. Maybe Wizards will abolish the reserved list. Reserved list: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/official-reprint-policy-2010-03-10 http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/official-reprin... More links: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27693_Counterfeit-Cards.html http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27693_Counterfeit-Cards... http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/how-to-dismantle-the-reserved-list/ http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/how-to-dismantle-the...

stephengillie 10y ago
The argument could be made that players are simply trying to play with cards they can't normally obtain. Obvious counterfeits have often been allowed in unofficial games "by proxy" - allowing players to construct more powerful decks than they could afford. It would then come down to how much the counterfeit is worth to the player. So long as these aren't being passed off as legitimate cards, I don't see an issue.
- epimetheus 10y ago
  Do most places allow this proxy card without owning the actual card these days? Back when I played in 93-97 you could use proxy cards, but it was usually a land card marked with an indicator of the real card, and the person had to pull out their real card (usually in a plastic case) to show they actually had it (and show the stats). I had a friend with a color printer that tried to make counterfeit cards to use as proxies (not to try and sell, the printer he had back then was not very good), he got caught at a game night at a shop (unofficial tournament) and was actually banned from there.
  - bpicolo 10y ago
    Sometimes a store will hold proxy tournaments for certain formats, but not for the standard format, and they can't be officially sanctioned events. There was a big deal about it recently with relation to counterfeiting. http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/proxies-policy-and-communication-2016-01-14 http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/proxies-po...
    - seanp2k2 10y ago
      I don't play any card games, but what's honestly the big deal? Is the game about card-collecting skills, or deck-building and play strategy? It's hard to argue the latter and ban people for not having an original version of a card. I guess I don't really "get it", or I had way too much fun playing ridiculous mods (where it was fair because everyone had equally ridiculous stuff) for games (Mr. Pants Excessive Overkill for Quake 3 comes to mind). IMO it'd be fun to play some Magic tournament with all fake cards, so everyone could build their dream decks, then see who was better at building the best deck and better with play strategy.
      - CamperBob2 10y ago
        This. In addition to card games that intentionally reward skilled counterfeiters, there should be MMO games designed to reward the best hackers and botmakers. Also, there should be an "unlimited" category in real-life events like the Olympics and Tour de France, where the team with the best drug lab wins. I think we'll start to see more and more games like this emerge over the next few years/decades, as the possibilities of traditional sports and games (and the humans who play them) are exhausted.
      - tabio 10y ago
        Pay to Win is the evil. Magic the Gathering is good. Because.
- mcphage 10y ago
  How long before people won't be able to tell the difference (at least without tests that are prohibitively expensive or would destroy the card)?
brownbat 10y ago
> to protect their prices on the secondary market for collectors A lot of Wizards' approach to tournaments and playable cards is designed so that the secondary market's influence on the game is minimized.[0] They saw beanie babies and comics implode in value after waves of speculation, so they set up a schedule where they churn out new cards and retire old ones on a predictable schedule. All this means the company has to think as little about the secondary market as possible. You're right that counterfeits are a disruptor, but I think that's more a threat for current cards, not because people will print a bunch of black lotuses and moxes. [0] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/04/16/400140583/how-success-almost-killed-a-game-and-how-its-creators-saved-it http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/04/16/400140583/how-s...
sliverstorm 10y ago
Wizards needs old sets to become rare & obsolete, for many reasons. It helps them sell more cards, and it also gives them far more creative leverage with new cards. They don't have to play test & ensure balanced play across the entire catalog (some stupid good cross-decade combos have showed up on accident over the years) and they have more ability to avoid rampant power creep, which according to some has been a big part of why the game has lasted.

berntb 10y ago

The product I've seen crash and burn in quality on Amazon UK is Koss PortaPro headphones. Loved those for many years, but the last few broke inside weeks. I am wondering if I should try to buy a last pair directly from the manufacturer. I am quite happy with my new Sennheiser, but they don't feel right... Anyone in the US with recent experience?

kawsper 10y ago
I bought a small "SanDisk" branded USB-storage device, I plugged it in, and started transferring files to it while I went to lunch. When I came back, the transfer was complete, I unplugged the device, and I burned my fingers! So now I have a broken USB-port in my Macbook, because I trusted Amazon to not sell me a fake product. I wrote a review, and rated it poorly, but they are still selling it[0], and most reviews are positive. They even write "by Sandisk", and "Dispatched from and sold by Amazon". https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005FYNSZA/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005FYNSZA/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
gaza3g 10y ago
I bought a portapro during a Black Friday sale a few years and my experience was kinda like yours: it broke after a few months of use.
diyorgasms 10y ago
I bought mine 18 months ago and I am extremely satisfied with the quality (both build and sound) for what I paid. They absolutely live up to the reputation PortaPros have.

macNchz 10y ago

This has become a frustrating part of shopping on Amazon, to the point that I typically filter to only show things sold by Amazon themselves. Too many of the marketplace items are fake crap with paid-for reviews. Since they're mixed in together by default, the effort in trying to discern good from bad makes for a pretty crummy experience overall.

syshum 10y ago
This will not always save you. If a company uses the "Fulfilled by Amazon" service they ship their stuff to amazon and it is co mingled with all of the other SKU's purporting to be the same item, including Amazons own stock
- epimetheus 10y ago
  Co-mingling isn't set by default (or wasn't last I was selling a couple months ago), you have to select it, and it can be bad news for a seller (one seller got banned from amazon and had to pay to destroy or ship home 50k products because one of the items in the stack that got sold "by him" was counterfeit)
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    I assume you're referencing https://startupnation.com/start-your-business/plan-your-business/amazon-fba-program/ https://startupnation.com/start-your-business/plan-your-busi..., which I've seen referenced a couple times as an Amazon seller. There are a couple of problems with his story. First, Amazon denied it was due to comingling: "I’m just calling to inform you that there were no other sellers of that item that were in the co-mingling program" Second, he apparently didn't show up to the lawsuit and had a judgement by default. Never a good sign. Third, he was moving hundreds of thousands of items, but couldn't afford a lawyer? Fourth, he cites as evidence that his items were comingled the fact that his returns came from a different warehouse than he sent them to. As someone who regularly sends items to FBA warehouses, this is bullshit. Amazon sends your own inventory between their warehouses, and you can track this in reports. Often I send to warehouse A, and it immediately goes to my reserved inventory, and then it goes to another warehouse a few days later. Anyone who doesn't know this didn't invest enough time to learn about Amazon policies, and you should doubt their story.

iandanforth 10y ago

I get the feeling that Chinese businesses (who are making the real products as well) are shouting to the American consumer "you are getting ripped off, here's how much these products cost without a huge profit margin." There are plenty of low quality fakes, but as Jack Ma said, some are better than the licenced versions.

kazinator 10y ago
Some system of clamps and shock cords for holding down a fitted bed sheets can hardly be fake. Anyone's implementation is likely as good as anyone else's. Though Whalley has a patent on it, the article claims, prior art for the basic idea can be seen on any truck that has a tarp tied down over a bunch of cargo.
- eli 10y ago
  The knockoff razor blades, however, are not nearly as sharp as the real ones.
  - copperx 10y ago
    Whose knockoffs? There are some quality ones.
    - berntb 10y ago
      ... and how do you know which one is of high quality when you buy? Since the products are copies -- how would you know you don't get ripped off next week, when Amazon sell some other copies? The packaging etc look the same, by definition... It is just not realistic to keep up with the exact details and doing a complete quality check whenever you buy anything, from toilet paper to cars. Every time. I predict that this is just a short phase. If the quality of products at Amazon will be a total dice throw, the consumer reaction will be to buy directly from the producers' web sites. That is not in Amazon's interests, so they will soon be more transparent. Or become irrelevant.

kazinator 10y ago

And of course Jamie Whalley has nothing Made in China in her home. Just "real" stuff. > Her patented product called BedBand consists of a set of shock cords, clamps and locks designed to keep fitted bed sheets in place. All these parts made in USA?

xienze 10y ago
People are downvoting, but if her product is manufactured in China that's pretty much the reason her product was copied in such short order.
- WillPostForFood 10y ago
  It isn't manufactured in China, that's one of their main selling points.

kakuri 10y ago

It's infuriatingly difficult to buy anything of quality on Amazon. I really hope they improve the situation.

grendelt 10y ago
The books and digital videos I get have been great quality.
- awqrre 10y ago
  Do they let you download the videos or do you have to stream them?
blantonl 10y ago
Their EC2 servers are pretty good quality.
- carterehsmith 10y ago
  This reminds of something I read - apparently, for whatever reason, not all EC2 instances of the same class perform the same. So, some large AWS customers (like Netflix) keep spawning instance, run some benchmarks on them, then if the instance is in top X% as far as performance goes, they keep it; otherwise they drop it. Which means that, what a regular customer gets, is an instance that someone (or multiple someones) found not good enough and dropped ;]
  - superuser2 10y ago
    Do we have reason to believe low performance is an enduring property of the instance, or could it just be that instance performance varies over time (i.e. when neighbors are hungrier)?
  - fludlight 10y ago
    Regular customers can run benchmarks and drop sluggish servers, too.

jeffdavis 10y ago

This can be solved by requiring higher-risk merchants to put money in escrow for a while (maybe an initial amount plus some fraction of revenue). If they turn out to be selling counterfeits, amazon could use the money to set things right. Otherwise the merchant gets the money.

stordoff 10y ago
Don't Amazon already do this? IIRC from the few things I have sold on Amazon, I had to wait 2-4 weeks after an order for the money to be paid into my bank account.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  Yes. For the first six months after you start selling there's a two week reserve (plus the standard settlement wait). Every time you have a significant increase in sales they'll apply a reserve and monitor your metrics before removing it.
joelthelion 10y ago
I think the main problem is that Amazon is making no real effort to fight it,not that solutions don't exist.

hobaak 10y ago

AliExpress is increasing serving more US customers for looking for bargain price. I guess that Amazon is aware of that so they take blind eye for the low priced counterfeits.

shostack 10y ago

For some categories where Amazon sells its own brand (which keeps growing), I wonder if this benefits Amazon.

davidf18 10y ago

Firms should start using serial numbers for their products that can be verifiable on the web and in fact could be registered with the manufacturer. A totally different and important problem is counterfeit drugs. There are ways to battle counterfeit drugs.

ikeboy 10y ago
Most items aren't expensive enough to be worth it.

dmritard96 10y ago

Its interesting how much sympathy is expected for these people who make a silly little product and have foreign competition, but would a reaction be similar if it was an Amazon Basics product?

dmritard96 10y ago
Not sure I understand the downvoting here but fine. perhaps clarifying my question would help. Today: Brand 1 makes product and sells on Amazon. Files IP to try and prevent others from copying their idea. Brand 2 (Chinese company) makes similar product and sells through amazon - results in headlines like - Amazon has a Chinese problem. Brand 3 (Amazon Basics) - makes similar products and has Chinese supplier add logo to their generic product. Even though brand 1 has the same problem (arguably worse), because Amazon does it instead of a Chinese company it is seen as less problematic.
- detaro 10y ago
  Are there Amazon Basics products where IP is an issue? I only know them from USB chargers, cables, rechargeable batteries, …, stuff where there is little innovation.
  - dmritard96 10y ago
    http://www.geek.com/news/amazonbasics-is-copying-all-the-best-products-on-amazon-and-selling-them-for-less-1652879/ http://www.geek.com/news/amazonbasics-is-copying-all-the-bes... They had a design patent (basically meaningless) and amazon just modded and started owning them.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

Udo_Schmitz 10y ago

Every time I see counterfeit power adapters/chargers on Amazon I wonder why the original maker–e.g. Apple–doesn’t lean on Amazon to stop the sale of those. Additionally, if someone dies or a house burns down[0], couldn’t that open Amazon to lawsuits? [0] 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...

imaginenore 10y ago
Because there's no easy way of telling if they are fake. What if they bought a bunch at the Apple store and are selling them at a lower price to get rid of the inventory?
- Udo_Schmitz 10y ago
  Sometimes it is very easy to tell but Amazon will ship it to customers anyway. Imagine you are looking for a "85W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter" for a MacBook Pro at Amazon.com. First link after search for "apple power adapter for macbook pro" goes to: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MagSafe-Adapter-MacBook-Display/dp/B008ALAAV0/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1468194829&sr=1-2&keywords=apple+power+adapter+for+macbook+pro https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MagSafe-Adapter-MacBook-Display... Now read this review (verified purchase): https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RNA9AYHGA5JG0/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B008ALAAV0 https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RNA9AYHGA5JG0/ref...

discardorama 10y ago

The biggest problem with Amazon reviews is that they'll let you post a review of something you never bought! Sure, they do add the "verified purchase" tag for things you bought; but for calculating the aggregate stats, etc. Amazon will cleverly ignore the fact that you could just be talking out your ass (or selling reviews). I find this very dirty on their part, and it's something that can be fixed with 1 line of code.

techthroway443 10y ago
This seems like the most sensible solution and would easily weed out 99% of these fake paid for reviews. Is there a way to filter ratings by verified purchasers? Why don't they do this by default?
- wangarific 10y ago
  They can do this but then companies will ask fake reviewers to buy the product through Amazon and then reimburse. The seller is only out the commission + price of product - it would create a small hurdle but wouldn't solve the problem.
- yellowapple 10y ago
  1) It's not necessarily effective if the seller reimburses shills for purchased products (as already mentioned) 2) It marginalizes legitimate reviewers who bought the product somewhere other than Amazon Regardless, I agree that it's a reasonable and sensible default.
- tombrossman 10y ago
  This isn't automatically a good thing. Let me give you an example. I had a very persistent Amazon Marketplace seller who kept deleting and re-posting a listing for a specific mobile phone dock I was trying to find. They were selling a fake phone dock using the image and details of a hard to find one I really wanted. I ordered it several times and they shipped a completely different product - different look, color, brand, it was the cheapest garbage ever. Amazon refunded all my costs each time, and because the seller was a punk and refused to pay return shipping I threw them all away. No money out of my pocket. The reason they would keep deleting and re-listing the item is because I would leave bad (but factually correct) reviews when I kept trying to find the phone dock and seeing their new listing in Amazon's search results. Their re-listing action caused my reviews to disappear because it was a 'new' product listing with their same fake photo every time. I flagged this repeatedly to Amazon as fraud via chat, email, and telephone and they never took any action. This went on for months, and Amazon never addressed it. So my point is that by allowing anyone to post a review, you give consumers one more tool to warn each other about fraud and unethical sellers. Yes there are a lot of fake reviews, but there are also legit buyers out there too and we are willing to pester fake sellers for months and cost them a fair amount of losses (postage, abandoned fakes because they don't want them back). Sellers know they can delete & re-list fakes all day long to disassociate negative feedback for an item , and they know Amazon will never ban them.

double0jimb0 10y ago

Amazon sellers could stand to look at their collective bargaining power.

KKKKkkkk1 10y ago

My problem with Amazon is not that it sells cheap low-quality stuff, it's that the cheap products are not really cheap. I buy off-brand Chinese stuff on AliExpress and could not be more happy with them; the prices on Amazon can easily reach 10x those of Ali.

awqrre 10y ago
But there is more bad sellers on aliexpress... so you have to make sure that you check sellers reviews...

novaleaf 10y ago

Ironic anicdote: I order a cheap ($50) generic waterproof jacket from Amazon and got what was obviously a counterfit Northface (with branding and everything). Thankfully they sold and priced it as a generic so I knew what I was getting. Overall a reasonable coat but the detail elements (velcro and straps) were of poor quality.

dfc 10y ago
You ordered a cheap jacket and the quality of the jacket you received was commensurate with the price and met your expectations. What is the irony?
- novaleaf 10y ago
  the irony is that I ordered a cheap generic jacket and got a cheap counterfeit jacket. meaning I was OK with generic Chinese merchandise, but it is more convenient for them to supply counterfeits than to produce something actually white-labeled.
  - dfc 10y ago
    Why would it be cheaper to design, make and sell two different jackets versus one?
    - oldbuzzard 10y ago
      Well Yes. That's the irony. If you had even minimal trademark enforcement, the risk ratio would encourage you to manufacture and sell white label and counterfeit jackets as separate firewalled vendors. So one could be shut down without effecting the other. Here the risk is clearly so low they don't even bother... or maybe they have firewalled vendors and the cost of setting up a generic vendor is so low that its less than the dual manufacturing pipeline... either way that's the irony.
      - dfc 10y ago
        Irony != Counter intuitive

etrautmann 10y ago

A coworker just spent three days debugging a new server build, and it turned out to be a fake Xeon processor purchased from Amazon. Absolutely unbelievably executed fake, but the machine wouldn't even POST.

dharmon 10y ago

The book The Everything Store talks about how Amazon uses counterfeit goods to sort-of blackmail high-end goods to letting them sell. I think the book gave the example of a high-end kitchen knife brand, maybe Wüsthof, that would not allow Amazon to sell their knives. Before you know it, cheap knockoffs appeared claiming to be Wüsthof knives. When they let Amazon sell the real deal, suddenly the knockoffs disappeared from the store. I have a feeling the same thing is happening with the high-end perfumeries, like Creed. Everything sold on Amazon is a knockoff because the company doesn't sell there. I bet if they did, the fake stuff would magically disappear...

cstejerean 10y ago
I don't think it's blackmail. I wonder if brands like Wüsthof got exclusive agreements as part of selling on Amazon so that nobody else is allowed to list their product, therefore eliminating the knockoffs. But without an official listing then Amazon would have to sort through every reseller to see if they are selling legitimate products or not, and what incentive would Amazon have to do that?
- tehwebguy 10y ago
  Amazon does make deals like that. GoPro, Sony, Samsung, Nest and tons of other brands are (for the most part, at least) locked down.

jgalt212 10y ago

I bought a new "Sony" universal remote from Amazon. It came wrapped in a clear plastic baggie with no box or instructions. It worked and looks legit, so more likely this item was stolen or sold as new when it wasn't more so than a fake from China. But maybe it was a fake, just a very good one probably made at the same factory that makes the "real" Sony remotes. As Brexit has shown us, there are plenty of downsides to Globalization. Amazon needs to get better at KYC, but Jeff's growth at any cost mantra just won't embrace that and his lieutenants will find it's hard to argue with results. Until this sort of stuff makes a dent in Amazon's top line, I believe they won't really crack down on this.

kev6168 10y ago

My anecdote: more than a few times I was asked by small Chinese sellers on Amazon and Ebay (introduced by mutual acquaintances) to help them write emails to press unhappy customers to remove their negative reviews left on Amazon or Ebay, in exchange for freebies and credit. The sellers would ask me to write all sorts of fake sad stories like some poor girl would lose her job or the company had to shut down if the negative review was not turned into a positive one. I was really disgusted and turned them down each time. The moral: in most cases don't believe those fake stories. The review system needs to be protected for everyone's benefit.

vorotato 10y ago

It sounds like what the real issue is, is a lack of designers. Counterfeiting is what you do when you are great at making things, but don't know how to make something that people want to use. A good designer (and a little marketing) could fix this.

amazonshit 10y ago

I bought a HDD from Amazon.de, cost around 150 Euros, but it is a fake one. https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0152T3NFM/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_0 https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0152T3NFM/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_so... It is a German seller instead of Chinese seller, so it is a widespread problem. Amazon should take care of such problem. I will try to sue them.

amazonshit 10y ago