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Counterfeits in comingled inventory has become pretty common on Amazon these days. "Fulfillment by amazon" has led them to comingle inventories on common produ

Counterfeits in comingled inventory has become pretty common on Amazon these days. "Fulfillment by amazon" has led them to comingle inventories on common products, meaning every seller's product gets jumbled together. I've gotten counterfeit huggies diapers from amazon (invalid serial number for huggies 'points' and different build quality), Mach 3 razor blades, GE MWF Water filters, even a counterfeit baby bath. The baby bath counterfeit was obvious I got a box with only chinese characters on the box: Here is there response: " We had a recent issue with an Amazon seller selling “knock-off” Blooming Baths on our Amazon account. We have since had this seller removed entirely from Amazon, as these are counterfeit items and NOT the Blooming Bath. The product you have received is not ours, I suggest returning it and ordering again from Amazon or from www.bloomingbath.com. Just make sure the seller you buy from is “Blooming Bath” if you buy from Amazon. Very sorry for this inconvenience. " I no longer trust amazon for anything health related - it just seems too easy to get counterfeit products into their system.

bdrool 10y ago
I've stopped using Amazon for: - Anything eaten - Anything that consumes or stores power (too much fire risk) - Anything worn on the body (even socks) And now, based on this article, it appears I'll have to stop using them for books, as how can I be sure it's word-for-word the same? What's left?
- blobbers 10y ago
  'fire risk': oh noes. . . I bought my searzall and fire extinguisher off amazon.
  - miles 10y ago
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=1EBfxjSFAxQ&t=0m57s https://youtube.com/watch?v=1EBfxjSFAxQ&t=0m57s
  - wnevets 10y ago
    > fire extinguisher off amazon. I literally just had mine delivered yesterday from amazon. Now I'm a little woried
- freyr 10y ago
  I can't believe they let this go on while trying to market groceries. There's no way I'd ever consider buying anything edible from them. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't even realize they're being sold counterfeit goods.
  - blobbers 10y ago
    Doesn't look like they commingle things with expiration dates.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- diminoten 10y ago
  I use Amazon for all of these things on a regular basis and have experienced zero problems, to provide a counterpoint to your anecdote.
  - bdrool 10y ago
    You may not have had a problem (or at least not realized it), but plenty of other people commenting on this article have, and there is now a new article at the top of HN that shows how big the fake / counterfeit problem is getting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13955981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13955981 Amazon is due for a reckoning. They've let this get completely out of control.
- quanticle 10y ago
  - Anything that consumes or stores power (too much fire risk) So, where do you get, for example, external batteries for phones from? Amazon, eBay and Alibaba are pretty much the only online sources for these things, and I trust eBay and Alibaba even less than I trust Amazon.
mmagin 10y ago
Whoa. So when I individually choose to get a product from a particular FBA seller on Amazon, it is not necessarily the one that originated from that seller?
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  It depends on the seller. Sellers can opt-out of commingled inventory, but it incurs additional labeling/packaging costs for them. If they've done this, then you're getting the physical item they've sent in to FBA. If they haven't, then you may get the physical item they sent in, or you may get some other item that someone else sent in under the same identifier. As far as I know, there is no way to know whether an FBA seller uses commingled inventory before purchase. The only option is to ask and hope they're telling the truth.
  - dalfonso 10y ago
    It's not 100% guaranteed, but if you receive a product and the barcode has been covered with a sticker with a code starting with X e.g. X123456879, then it's most likely from that specific seller.
- blobbers 10y ago
  Yep: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200243180 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
cookiecaper 10y ago
Amazon offers the option to NOT commingle inventory, but the FBA seller has to opt-in. Somewhat counterintuitively, if you know that the third-party seller has done this, you're safer buying from the trusted FBA seller rather than Amazon.com. Amazon.com will ship you anything that an FBA seller has submitted under the same product identifier. Amazon is getting very strict re: counterfeit and knockoff products, as they've absolutely flooded the marketplace, and they're starting to take the reputation hit from it.
- ticviking 10y ago
  I will believe that when we see a solid policy designed to actually address this.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    I don't think Amazon is going to make a lot of noise about this, because users who are unaware of this issue (which are still the vast majority) would then start to worry. They've sent out some light PR around it in business-oriented press outlets like Forbes. Ask any FBA seller, especially those who do product arbitrage, and they'll tell you that Amazon is getting very aggressive with account suspensions and requiring a lot of documentation that the seller's original supplier is either the brand owner themselves or an authorized distributor. I know a guy who did arbitrage with imports (authentic products, but "not authorized" because they were factory overruns). He made some good money for 2-3 months, but almost all of his products got removed for lack of verifiable paper trail and he ended up in a pretty bad spot.
    - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
      >authentic products, but "not authorized" because they were factory overruns These are counterfeit products. When you contract with a factory to make 10K units with your brand on them, they aren't allowed to use your brand to sell any number of "overruns" past that.
      - 10y ago
s917 10y ago
Wouldn't this be the perfect time to do a chargeback?
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  Just make sure you don't have any Kindle books or AWS resources tied to the same Amazon account, in case Amazon cancels your account over the chargeback.
  - ticviking 10y ago
    Ugh... there's a bit of stallman is right in the thought of avoiding seeking legal recourse because someone can take your ebooks away. (I know they "weren't mine")
    - db48x 10y ago
      Just strip the DRM from your ebooks when you buy them; then nobody can take them away from you.
- notatoad 10y ago
  Not as long as amazon is perfectly willing to do a refund when you receive a product that wasn't as-advertised. And i haven't seen any evidence that amazon is unwilling to give a refund. Not only will doing a chargeback destroy your amazon account, issuing a chargeback without first asking for a refund is probably against your credit card's ToS. A chargeback should be a measure of last resort, not the first solution you jump to.
a3n 10y ago
Crap, "fulfilled by Amazon" was my last line of defense against crap products, variable shipping, unacceptable state at arrival, etc etc. Even at that, I recently bought two books, both arrived damaged. Returned them (I really don't want to have to do that, and I thought "fulfilled by" would reduce that likelihood), and the replacements were damaged. I gave up.
- kogepathic 10y ago
  I bought a pair of dress shoes from Amazon on Cyber Monday. The first pair arrived in a plan white box, and were damaged (not due to the courier). I returned them to Amazon for replacement, and the pair I got back were in a fully branded box, with a lot more accessories than the first pair (storage bag, shape retainers). So I'm left thinking that even though these were "Fulfilled by Amazon" there must have been some counterfeit mixed in with legit inventory. Otherwise I can't explain how the first pair seemed so... illegitimate in light of what I received as a replacement.
- SantiagoDraco 10y ago
  Fulfilled by amazon is and always has been the red flag. If you thought it was a line of defense you were mistaken unfortunately. Shipped and Sold by Amazon is your last line of defense and I'm still convinced it's a trustworthy way to buy. What Amazon better do is assure that it remains that way AND give us an option to filter out EVERYTHING else.
  - a3n 10y ago
    Hmm. I wonder if I meant shipped and sold by. Those damaged books I mentioned were from December, and I haven't shopped there since; I might not be remembering correctly. Regardless, it was a bad experience.
- jrs235 10y ago
  While "fulfilled by Amazon" can no longer guarantee something isn't counterfeit, they still do and process the return and will get you your money back at least (and the issue/loss will absolutely land in the sellers lap). At least they are still providing that safety net at the moment. But once they start pushing back on Prime members and this process things will nose dive at Amazon. I'm certain their are people scamming Amazon and seller's abusing that process too. It's only a matter of time until something changes...
themagician 10y ago
I've been running into his problem personally. About 25% of our business now is done via Amazon. We sell to Amazon retail directly and also use Amazon FBA internationally. The problem is that "other sellers" keep beating us to the buy box for certain SKUs. Amazon keeps asking us to sell to them for a lower price. The funny thing is, Amazon already gets the lowest price, by far, compared to all other distributors. I know, we are the manufacturer. Some of the SKUs we don't even sell to anyone else anymore but Amazon, yet still these random businesses seem to be selling our products. Some are fake, some are watered down. Some are… I don't even know. I have a lot of trouble figuring out who these people are and how they are getting our products or look-a-likes at prices low enough to resell, since we don't sell them to anyone at these prices! Amazon needs to double down on the vetting they do for new sellers. Starting in 2018 I'm going to re-SKU/UPC every product we sell to Amazon and start closing the listings on old corrupt ones. It's going to be a pain in the ass, but I see no other choice. We have about 300 SKUs and trying to manage them all and fend off all these shitty sellers is becoming a huge burden on me and our brand. And ideally, actually, I'd like Amazon to offer a feature that essentially "bans" third parties from listing a SKU at the manufacturers request. I'd gladly pay to few thousand a year to ensure that the only one that can sell our products is Amazon themselves.
- exolymph 10y ago
  Hey, you don't have contact info on your profile, so I'm trying this. Any chance you have time to talk about your experience, tomorrow? My email is smann@inc.com (If the answer is no, you don't want to talk about it or don't have time, that's obviously totally okay!)
- ikeboy 10y ago
  They do a lot of brand gating, but not on demand like you'd want. I don't think you'll gain much from re-skuing products. You'll lose all your reviews and ranking, and at best will get a few months until the counterfeiters find the new listings. Also, you can't fully close the old ones, so people will still sell on them, there will be multiple search results, bad customer experience, etc. The better approach is to go after the sellers through Amazon, send infringement notices, etc. Might take some time, but once done they'll be gone forever. If you'd be interested in having a conversation with me about these issues, we can set something up, email's in my profile. I'm heading back from the ASD show right now and I'll be swamped for a few days but email and we can work something out.
jasode 10y ago
>"Fulfillment by amazon" has led them to comingle inventories The key phrase I look for that I haven't seen discussed in this thread explicitly is: "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com." (That is the current status shown for the No Starch book prompting the thread.)[1] Based on some youtube videos[2] showing FBA stocking bins at the warehouse, I can see where multiple 3rd-party seller using FBA Fulfillment by Amazon have comingled inventories. Is there also evidence that 3rd-party sellers have contaminated Amazon's internal inventory? The short tweets from No Starch doesn't make it clear that you get counterfeit books when even when you choose "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com." [1] https://www.amazon.com/Python-Kids-Playful-Introduction-Programming/dp/1593274076 https://www.amazon.com/Python-Kids-Playful-Introduction-Prog... (If the amazon product page returns 404, this is the screenshot of what it looked like: http://imgur.com/a/gzrxF http://imgur.com/a/gzrxF) [2] https://youtu.be/dAXdeqcHBp4?t=4m21s https://youtu.be/dAXdeqcHBp4?t=4m21s
- pmorici 10y ago
  Yeah, I do that too. You used to be able to filter by seller and only view items sold by Amazon I was exceptionally irritated when they removed that ability.
  - SantiagoDraco 10y ago
    You can do it but only by filtering down to a specific department. Once you do that you can choose Amazon.com as the seller filter.
hristov 10y ago
I got a counterfeit laptop power adapter. The thing had the brand name on it, and also the model number. But the counterfeiters decided to be clever and put in several model numbers on the same device. These numbers corresponded to completely different adapters listed on the actual manufacturer's site. I guess amazon has a new brilliant business plan where thy make money from returns. Or Bezos has given up on AMZN and decided to buy UPS stock.
kbart 10y ago
After having received several counterfeit items (cheap electronics, chef's knife, household stuff) I avoid Amazon altogether. Funny thing, nowadays I trust Aliexpress or Gearbest (Chinese markets) more than Amazon or eBay -- at least I know what I pay for, what to expect and as a bonus, free shipping.
SantiagoDraco 10y ago
Inventories are not "commingled" they are completely separate in the warehouses. Just because multiple vendors sell the same product and use the "fulfilled by Amazon" service to fool you doesn't mean Amazon is accidentally sending you an item from the wrong seller. If you purchase from Amazon and don't check that it's "shipped and sold by Amazon" then you are asking for trouble. The biggest issue is that Amazon has allowed, because of corporate greed, Amazon to become the new Chinese Ebay. The crap you have to wade through to find trusted sources is ridiculous. Amazon has lost a huge amount of trust because of this. That said if you take the time to verify who the seller is you WILL get items from that seller and NOT from some other random seller. They are not just tossed into inventory together.
- philfrasty 10y ago
  „...That said if you take the time to verify who the seller is you WILL get items from that seller and NOT from some other random seller...“ Wrong. Source: Amazon seller
- jtbayly 10y ago
  Mostly wrong. Amazon does not put all the inventory together into one bin, but they explicitly tell FBA sellers that they will ship a different seller's product with the same SKU if it is in a warehouse closer to the buyer, for example. Then, they make up for this by taking one of your product and putting it in the other seller's inventory. Thus inventory is commingled, both at shipment time and then in the inventory to make up for any commingling that happened at shipment time.
- scorpion_farmer 10y ago
  This is 100% untrue. What is your basis for this post? If a seller chooses commingled inventory when setting up their account, they have no obligation to re-label the product, as amazon uses the existing barcode on the product. If you order a pack of pencils from XYZ_Pencilmart and they are using commingled inventory, amazon will just grab any old item from all the commingled sellers, then deduct an imaginary unit from XYZ_Pencilmart's account. This is why commingled inventory is a nightmare for resellers - it's your reputation on the line, but someone else's inventory.
jrs235 10y ago
We recently ordered 6 iPad mini's fulfilled by amazon. They were shrink wrapped and we use them as promo contest swag. After we had sent one out to a customer/prospect they called us and told us they received a piece of plastic that looked looked an ipad mini. Like a prop piece. We immediately opened the remaining 5 we had in our office and they were all fakes. We can no longer trust fulfilled by Amazon which greatly reduces the value of their Prime membership and "free" shipping. The good thing is that we were allowed to return them and get full credit. The down side is we will have to rip the shrink wrap and physically check these out from now on, regardless of who we buy them from before sending them out... which kind of sucks because now the box is opened. If the items were co-mingled who knows how/where they got in the supply. If the seller wasn't doing co-mingled and was doing drop shipping and wasn't actually intentionally trying to screw people... well they got screwed by someone.
- fencepost 10y ago
  While this may not be a perfect solution for you, you may be able to purchase locally and price match - I know I've use Best Buy's price matching policy on multiple occasions. You might also find it worthwhile to simply find other providers who may be slightly more expensive but with better reliability - places like B&H Photo Video come to mind.
- hnaparst 10y ago
  If Amazon is knowingly selling fake items, that is a criminal offense, and the company should be prosecuted and put out of business.

bdrool 10y ago

I've stopped using Amazon for: - Anything eaten - Anything that consumes or stores power (too much fire risk) - Anything worn on the body (even socks) And now, based on this article, it appears I'll have to stop using them for books, as how can I be sure it's word-for-word the same? What's left?

blobbers 10y ago
'fire risk': oh noes. . . I bought my searzall and fire extinguisher off amazon.
- miles 10y ago
  https://youtube.com/watch?v=1EBfxjSFAxQ&t=0m57s https://youtube.com/watch?v=1EBfxjSFAxQ&t=0m57s
- wnevets 10y ago
  > fire extinguisher off amazon. I literally just had mine delivered yesterday from amazon. Now I'm a little woried
freyr 10y ago
I can't believe they let this go on while trying to market groceries. There's no way I'd ever consider buying anything edible from them. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't even realize they're being sold counterfeit goods.
- blobbers 10y ago
  Doesn't look like they commingle things with expiration dates.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
diminoten 10y ago
I use Amazon for all of these things on a regular basis and have experienced zero problems, to provide a counterpoint to your anecdote.
- bdrool 10y ago
  You may not have had a problem (or at least not realized it), but plenty of other people commenting on this article have, and there is now a new article at the top of HN that shows how big the fake / counterfeit problem is getting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13955981 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13955981 Amazon is due for a reckoning. They've let this get completely out of control.
quanticle 10y ago
- Anything that consumes or stores power (too much fire risk) So, where do you get, for example, external batteries for phones from? Amazon, eBay and Alibaba are pretty much the only online sources for these things, and I trust eBay and Alibaba even less than I trust Amazon.

mmagin 10y ago

Whoa. So when I individually choose to get a product from a particular FBA seller on Amazon, it is not necessarily the one that originated from that seller?

cookiecaper 10y ago
It depends on the seller. Sellers can opt-out of commingled inventory, but it incurs additional labeling/packaging costs for them. If they've done this, then you're getting the physical item they've sent in to FBA. If they haven't, then you may get the physical item they sent in, or you may get some other item that someone else sent in under the same identifier. As far as I know, there is no way to know whether an FBA seller uses commingled inventory before purchase. The only option is to ask and hope they're telling the truth.
- dalfonso 10y ago
  It's not 100% guaranteed, but if you receive a product and the barcode has been covered with a sticker with a code starting with X e.g. X123456879, then it's most likely from that specific seller.
blobbers 10y ago
Yep: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200243180 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

cookiecaper 10y ago

Amazon offers the option to NOT commingle inventory, but the FBA seller has to opt-in. Somewhat counterintuitively, if you know that the third-party seller has done this, you're safer buying from the trusted FBA seller rather than Amazon.com. Amazon.com will ship you anything that an FBA seller has submitted under the same product identifier. Amazon is getting very strict re: counterfeit and knockoff products, as they've absolutely flooded the marketplace, and they're starting to take the reputation hit from it.

ticviking 10y ago
I will believe that when we see a solid policy designed to actually address this.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  I don't think Amazon is going to make a lot of noise about this, because users who are unaware of this issue (which are still the vast majority) would then start to worry. They've sent out some light PR around it in business-oriented press outlets like Forbes. Ask any FBA seller, especially those who do product arbitrage, and they'll tell you that Amazon is getting very aggressive with account suspensions and requiring a lot of documentation that the seller's original supplier is either the brand owner themselves or an authorized distributor. I know a guy who did arbitrage with imports (authentic products, but "not authorized" because they were factory overruns). He made some good money for 2-3 months, but almost all of his products got removed for lack of verifiable paper trail and he ended up in a pretty bad spot.
  - ThrustVectoring 10y ago
    >authentic products, but "not authorized" because they were factory overruns These are counterfeit products. When you contract with a factory to make 10K units with your brand on them, they aren't allowed to use your brand to sell any number of "overruns" past that.
    - 10y ago

s917 10y ago

Wouldn't this be the perfect time to do a chargeback?

ceejayoz 10y ago
Just make sure you don't have any Kindle books or AWS resources tied to the same Amazon account, in case Amazon cancels your account over the chargeback.
- ticviking 10y ago
  Ugh... there's a bit of stallman is right in the thought of avoiding seeking legal recourse because someone can take your ebooks away. (I know they "weren't mine")
  - db48x 10y ago
    Just strip the DRM from your ebooks when you buy them; then nobody can take them away from you.
notatoad 10y ago
Not as long as amazon is perfectly willing to do a refund when you receive a product that wasn't as-advertised. And i haven't seen any evidence that amazon is unwilling to give a refund. Not only will doing a chargeback destroy your amazon account, issuing a chargeback without first asking for a refund is probably against your credit card's ToS. A chargeback should be a measure of last resort, not the first solution you jump to.

a3n 10y ago

Crap, "fulfilled by Amazon" was my last line of defense against crap products, variable shipping, unacceptable state at arrival, etc etc. Even at that, I recently bought two books, both arrived damaged. Returned them (I really don't want to have to do that, and I thought "fulfilled by" would reduce that likelihood), and the replacements were damaged. I gave up.

kogepathic 10y ago
I bought a pair of dress shoes from Amazon on Cyber Monday. The first pair arrived in a plan white box, and were damaged (not due to the courier). I returned them to Amazon for replacement, and the pair I got back were in a fully branded box, with a lot more accessories than the first pair (storage bag, shape retainers). So I'm left thinking that even though these were "Fulfilled by Amazon" there must have been some counterfeit mixed in with legit inventory. Otherwise I can't explain how the first pair seemed so... illegitimate in light of what I received as a replacement.
SantiagoDraco 10y ago
Fulfilled by amazon is and always has been the red flag. If you thought it was a line of defense you were mistaken unfortunately. Shipped and Sold by Amazon is your last line of defense and I'm still convinced it's a trustworthy way to buy. What Amazon better do is assure that it remains that way AND give us an option to filter out EVERYTHING else.
- a3n 10y ago
  Hmm. I wonder if I meant shipped and sold by. Those damaged books I mentioned were from December, and I haven't shopped there since; I might not be remembering correctly. Regardless, it was a bad experience.
jrs235 10y ago
While "fulfilled by Amazon" can no longer guarantee something isn't counterfeit, they still do and process the return and will get you your money back at least (and the issue/loss will absolutely land in the sellers lap). At least they are still providing that safety net at the moment. But once they start pushing back on Prime members and this process things will nose dive at Amazon. I'm certain their are people scamming Amazon and seller's abusing that process too. It's only a matter of time until something changes...

themagician 10y ago

I've been running into his problem personally. About 25% of our business now is done via Amazon. We sell to Amazon retail directly and also use Amazon FBA internationally. The problem is that "other sellers" keep beating us to the buy box for certain SKUs. Amazon keeps asking us to sell to them for a lower price. The funny thing is, Amazon already gets the lowest price, by far, compared to all other distributors. I know, we are the manufacturer. Some of the SKUs we don't even sell to anyone else anymore but Amazon, yet still these random businesses seem to be selling our products. Some are fake, some are watered down. Some are… I don't even know. I have a lot of trouble figuring out who these people are and how they are getting our products or look-a-likes at prices low enough to resell, since we don't sell them to anyone at these prices! Amazon needs to double down on the vetting they do for new sellers. Starting in 2018 I'm going to re-SKU/UPC every product we sell to Amazon and start closing the listings on old corrupt ones. It's going to be a pain in the ass, but I see no other choice. We have about 300 SKUs and trying to manage them all and fend off all these shitty sellers is becoming a huge burden on me and our brand. And ideally, actually, I'd like Amazon to offer a feature that essentially "bans" third parties from listing a SKU at the manufacturers request. I'd gladly pay to few thousand a year to ensure that the only one that can sell our products is Amazon themselves.

exolymph 10y ago
Hey, you don't have contact info on your profile, so I'm trying this. Any chance you have time to talk about your experience, tomorrow? My email is smann@inc.com (If the answer is no, you don't want to talk about it or don't have time, that's obviously totally okay!)
ikeboy 10y ago
They do a lot of brand gating, but not on demand like you'd want. I don't think you'll gain much from re-skuing products. You'll lose all your reviews and ranking, and at best will get a few months until the counterfeiters find the new listings. Also, you can't fully close the old ones, so people will still sell on them, there will be multiple search results, bad customer experience, etc. The better approach is to go after the sellers through Amazon, send infringement notices, etc. Might take some time, but once done they'll be gone forever. If you'd be interested in having a conversation with me about these issues, we can set something up, email's in my profile. I'm heading back from the ASD show right now and I'll be swamped for a few days but email and we can work something out.

jasode 10y ago

>"Fulfillment by amazon" has led them to comingle inventories The key phrase I look for that I haven't seen discussed in this thread explicitly is: "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com." (That is the current status shown for the No Starch book prompting the thread.)[1] Based on some youtube videos[2] showing FBA stocking bins at the warehouse, I can see where multiple 3rd-party seller using FBA Fulfillment by Amazon have comingled inventories. Is there also evidence that 3rd-party sellers have contaminated Amazon's internal inventory? The short tweets from No Starch doesn't make it clear that you get counterfeit books when even when you choose "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com." [1] https://www.amazon.com/Python-Kids-Playful-Introduction-Programming/dp/1593274076 https://www.amazon.com/Python-Kids-Playful-Introduction-Prog... (If the amazon product page returns 404, this is the screenshot of what it looked like: http://imgur.com/a/gzrxF http://imgur.com/a/gzrxF) [2] https://youtu.be/dAXdeqcHBp4?t=4m21s https://youtu.be/dAXdeqcHBp4?t=4m21s

pmorici 10y ago
Yeah, I do that too. You used to be able to filter by seller and only view items sold by Amazon I was exceptionally irritated when they removed that ability.
- SantiagoDraco 10y ago
  You can do it but only by filtering down to a specific department. Once you do that you can choose Amazon.com as the seller filter.

hristov 10y ago

I got a counterfeit laptop power adapter. The thing had the brand name on it, and also the model number. But the counterfeiters decided to be clever and put in several model numbers on the same device. These numbers corresponded to completely different adapters listed on the actual manufacturer's site. I guess amazon has a new brilliant business plan where thy make money from returns. Or Bezos has given up on AMZN and decided to buy UPS stock.

kbart 10y ago

After having received several counterfeit items (cheap electronics, chef's knife, household stuff) I avoid Amazon altogether. Funny thing, nowadays I trust Aliexpress or Gearbest (Chinese markets) more than Amazon or eBay -- at least I know what I pay for, what to expect and as a bonus, free shipping.

SantiagoDraco 10y ago

Inventories are not "commingled" they are completely separate in the warehouses. Just because multiple vendors sell the same product and use the "fulfilled by Amazon" service to fool you doesn't mean Amazon is accidentally sending you an item from the wrong seller. If you purchase from Amazon and don't check that it's "shipped and sold by Amazon" then you are asking for trouble. The biggest issue is that Amazon has allowed, because of corporate greed, Amazon to become the new Chinese Ebay. The crap you have to wade through to find trusted sources is ridiculous. Amazon has lost a huge amount of trust because of this. That said if you take the time to verify who the seller is you WILL get items from that seller and NOT from some other random seller. They are not just tossed into inventory together.

philfrasty 10y ago
„...That said if you take the time to verify who the seller is you WILL get items from that seller and NOT from some other random seller...“ Wrong. Source: Amazon seller
jtbayly 10y ago
Mostly wrong. Amazon does not put all the inventory together into one bin, but they explicitly tell FBA sellers that they will ship a different seller's product with the same SKU if it is in a warehouse closer to the buyer, for example. Then, they make up for this by taking one of your product and putting it in the other seller's inventory. Thus inventory is commingled, both at shipment time and then in the inventory to make up for any commingling that happened at shipment time.
scorpion_farmer 10y ago
This is 100% untrue. What is your basis for this post? If a seller chooses commingled inventory when setting up their account, they have no obligation to re-label the product, as amazon uses the existing barcode on the product. If you order a pack of pencils from XYZ_Pencilmart and they are using commingled inventory, amazon will just grab any old item from all the commingled sellers, then deduct an imaginary unit from XYZ_Pencilmart's account. This is why commingled inventory is a nightmare for resellers - it's your reputation on the line, but someone else's inventory.

jrs235 10y ago

We recently ordered 6 iPad mini's fulfilled by amazon. They were shrink wrapped and we use them as promo contest swag. After we had sent one out to a customer/prospect they called us and told us they received a piece of plastic that looked looked an ipad mini. Like a prop piece. We immediately opened the remaining 5 we had in our office and they were all fakes. We can no longer trust fulfilled by Amazon which greatly reduces the value of their Prime membership and "free" shipping. The good thing is that we were allowed to return them and get full credit. The down side is we will have to rip the shrink wrap and physically check these out from now on, regardless of who we buy them from before sending them out... which kind of sucks because now the box is opened. If the items were co-mingled who knows how/where they got in the supply. If the seller wasn't doing co-mingled and was doing drop shipping and wasn't actually intentionally trying to screw people... well they got screwed by someone.

fencepost 10y ago
While this may not be a perfect solution for you, you may be able to purchase locally and price match - I know I've use Best Buy's price matching policy on multiple occasions. You might also find it worthwhile to simply find other providers who may be slightly more expensive but with better reliability - places like B&H Photo Video come to mind.
hnaparst 10y ago
If Amazon is knowingly selling fake items, that is a criminal offense, and the company should be prosecuted and put out of business.