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Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

669 points by exolymph 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tyingq 10y ago
The article makes a good point that aside from enforcement issues, Amazon leaves the seller of the genuine item in a bad spot. Like one-star reviews of the product (due to fakes) staying for months. The whole product listing being taken down instead of just the seller with fakes being shut down. The lack of real communication with the seller of the genuine product, and so on. Edit: Perhaps some additional manual effort to protect good sellers would stem the bad PR tide. The news stories all seem to start with a frustrated seller.
- briffle 10y ago
  Our seller was pretty ticked when we kept getting copies of 'Where's Wally' instead of 'Where's Waldo' for a friend's birthday this fall. The former is sold outside the us. someone was finding them cheap, and damaged, and dumping them. We were trying to purchase from legit seller, and returned 3 times and then ran out of time....
  - tyingq 10y ago
    Ah, so not a fake, but a bad substitution. Does show, though, that sellers can't get attention when it is needed.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      Grey market imports can be a serious problem, and they're definitely more toward the counterfeit end.
      - emodendroket 10y ago
        Despite publisher attempts to stop it courts have ruled that it's legal to import cheaper foreign editions of books and I personally have done so intentionally to buy textbooks. Certainly a problem if they are not labeled though.
- kveykva 10y ago
  Amazon already has some serious issues on the side of returns and issues like this. They accept basically anything - return fraud was another huge issue that came up earlier this year. Scammer would buy something like an iPhone, take out the phone, fill the box with clay or something, send it back to Amazon. Amazon just accepts the huge majority of returns and the seller is who gets hurt. (Obviously matters much more to companies not the size of Apple)
  - phil21 10y ago
    This has been the norm far more than a year - sellers I know have had to deal with things like high-end GPUs replaced with a 10 year old model and/or brick and returned as "broken" for 3-4 years now. Pretty much any marketplace (including banks and credit merchant accounts) puts the vendor 100% at risk for consumer fraud.
Lasher 10y ago
I purchased Quickbooks Pro 2017 (PC) on Amazon last week, said it was "sold by Intuit" so wasn't even supposed to be an FBA (fulfilled by Amazon). Figured if it costs no more I might as well get the physical disk. What showed up was a DVD case with a very clearly photocopied cover for a Mac version with a Verbatim CDR inside and a hacked version of the software. Amazon processed the refund just fine but didn't seem particularly interested or concerned that they had just sold me pirated software. Not a big deal for Quickbooks, I can just buy the download version. I also want to buy a new Ipod Touch and, for the first time ever, don't feel like I can buy it on Amazon. Long term Amazon customer since 1999, Prime since the first year, this counterfeit issue is a real problem that's going to cost them seriously if they don't get a handle on it.
- dmix 10y ago
  Can't the review system help deal with this problem? I always check reviews of the product and vendor to make sure it's legit. Only a few could get burned before the vendor is flagged as a counterfeiter which would stop further purchases. That should reduce the amount of money you could make scamming people and make it a less viable criminal business. Amazon also seems diligent in refunding people as well. So the solution might be that Amazon should invest more in shutting these accounts down faster but I'm curious if reviews are an immediate stop gap solution here until they get around to regulating each bad seller.
  - Lasher 10y ago
    You get to review the product but when the sourcing is all thrown together all you're really doing is dragging down the rating for the overall product (Quickbooks 2017 in this case) and not the source of the specific item you were shipped. My issue had nothing to do with the product itself although I suppose if enough 1 star reviews start to build up then Intuit and other larger publishers that might actually have some leverage with Amazon will start to take notice.
    - justinpombrio 10y ago
      > My issue had nothing to do with the product itself You sound hesitant, but I don't think you should be. Your issue has to do with the product you received after clicking "buy" on an amazon product page. That page may say Quickbooks 2017 from Intuit, but there's no necessary relationship between what the page says and what you're buying, and when they're different you should rate what you were sold.
danjayh 10y ago
Amazon is a cluster all-around. They can't keep counterfeits off (I just recently got a 'samsung' battery that would only charge to 80%), and they can't police legit products correctly either. I've seen tons of horror stories from owners of FBA private labels who'v had their products pulled by Amazon for being 'counterfeit' because one of their competitors reported them in an attempt to reduce competition. Takes weeks or months to get your listing restored. And don't even get me started on their review system. I used to review certain subsets of items prolifically, without accepting freebies, but I gave it up. Amazon would regularly pull down my reviews for things they didn't like. For instance, I've had several battery reviews pulled for including a measured capacity (mAh) divided by cost 'value' graph because it implicitly includes pricing information. Give me a break. Know what replaced my well-thought out & researched review? A review from a 5-star shill that shot from 0 helpful to over +1000 overnight (to those of you that have never reviewed on Amazon ... that does NOT happen unless you're cheating). Amazon's reviews are crap. Amazon's inventory control is crap. Amazon's seller support is crap. The only things they have going for them are good customer service and a near monopoly on online sales. Walmart, however, also has great customer service, has brick-and-mortar stores that will help you deal with problems, and now has free 2-day shipping. I've been making a conscious effort to do more online shopping there lately, because Amazon needs to feel like they have a little competition.
- jmcdiesel 10y ago
  If the rules are to not include pricing information and you include pricing information, how do you possibly get upset over it being taken down? Reviews are long-lived, that pricing info is probably out of date in a few months, but the review will live on for a while, and lead to confusion (Especially since, I assume your reviews were well written, giving them more credibility, and thus leading to more confusion) There is also the problem of confusion over price of a product and its legal implications... if you go to a store that relies on box stickers for pricing, and the stickers only have a price, and there isa box there with a wrong (lower) price on it, the store has to sell it at that price in most states... im sure the law wouldnt kick in over a comment, but you cant blame amazon for guarding against the swarm of people who's sole purpose in life seems to be to get one over on other people
bnycum 10y ago
I received my first counterfeit item from Amazon two years ago this summer. It really has put a damper on ordering from Amazon as it's happened multiple times since. There doesn't seem to be a way to stop it as the seller will just open a new shop and continue the process.
trapperkeeper79 10y ago
I bought some Pokemon bracelets (yeah .. I know) for some family members. I have a big suspicion that they are counterfeit. The boxes had asian writing on them, and it did not seem Nintendo-like. The device itself has horrible connectivity with the game and phones - almost unusable. I'm pretty ticked off. As a consumer, I had no good way to verify that the device is not counterfeit. For similar situations, I actually started to go to my local best buy to ensure I am not getting fake stuff.
- deelowe 10y ago
  Nothing wrong with buying pokemon bracelets. This is the sort of thing Amazon should excel at. Where else would you get that product? Instead, you're left with a frustrating experience simply because there's no reliable mechanism for checking the authenticity of the product and/or the reputation of the seller prior to purchase.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Character stuff is rife with counterfeits. You have to be really careful before you buy on Amazon, or be content with cheap-o knockoffs that break/degrade easily (which, to be honest, are sometimes acceptable for a big discount).
- Grue3 10y ago
  It's 100% counterfeit. Never buy Japanese game/anime merchandise on Amazon.com (Amazon.co.jp is probably ok) or Ebay. There are specialized Japan-based stores like AmiAmi which never sell counterfeits.
rebootthesystem 10y ago
It's worst than that. As someone already pointed out, buying software on Amazon is down-right dangerous. And Amazon does not care. Yet, beyond that, counterfeits and scams are rampant on the platform. Scammers take advantage of genuine seller's good rank, insert themselves at lower prices, destroy the genuine seller's revenue stream and deliver cheap knock-offs or even dangerous products to unsuspecting buyers. And past that, Amazon does something really crazy. They allow anyone to leave reviews on any product, whether they purchased the product or not. All you need is an Amazon account. You don't even need to have ever purchased anything at all. You don't even need to have a verified credit card on file. And so, what happens is that there are scammers using fake bad reviews as weapons of war to knock good sellers down in ranking and capture what would have been their sales. And, again, Amazon does not care. On Amazon's advertising platform there's a similar issue. They will charge sellers for any click on ads. This means you don't even need to be a verified active Amazon user to click on ads and burn seller's advertising budget with zero ROI. Amazon does not qualify any click on their ads. Logic would say a seller is only interested in genuine Amazon users. A simple definition of this might be someone who has had an Amazon account for N months, has purchased an average of N items per year/month, has a credit card on file and has had product successfully delivered to their address. Seller's are not interested on clicks from someone in China hired to burn through their ad budget. Again, Amazon does not care. Not sure where this mess is headed but these issues need to be addressed or it will get really ugly.
- Neliquat 10y ago
  They penalize and hide non verified reviews mostly now unless super helpful.
  - scurvy 10y ago
    "Helpful" is easy to game with enough fraudulent upvotes.
    - jrnichols 10y ago
      but lousy broken English still (fortunately) gives away these reviews as false. As bad as it sounds, I dismiss most reviews unless the punctuation and grammar is correct.
bbrazil 10y ago
I've had new several hard drives turn out to be in fact refurbished (and in one case quickly failed). I got refunds but nothing beyond that, even with in one case offering evidence that this looked like deliberate fraud due to half-cleared SMART stats.
- rlanday 10y ago
  God, I had a Seagate drive that failed a few years ago, they lost track of how long the warranty was supposed to be (5 years) and I had to fight with them to get them to replace it, then they sent me a refurb that had bad sectors, then they sent me a second refurb with more bad sectors after I asked for a brand new drive…
emu 10y ago
It's trivially easy to run into counterfeit products on Amazon. Here's an example I pulled up in 2 minutes of searching: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-A1385-Adapter-Charger-iPhone/dp/B06WLQW8LY/ref=sr_1_3?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1490456486&sr=1-3&keywords=apple+iphone+charger https://www.amazon.com/Apple-A1385-Adapter-Charger-iPhone/dp... I see two sellers offering an iPhone charger, ostensibly genuine and new, as low as USD 3.19. Compare with the Apple listing for the same item for USD 19: http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD810LL/A/apple-5w-usb-power-adapter http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD810LL/A/apple-5w-usb-pow... There is no way you can be selling the genuine product at that price and be making a profit. I don't know what Apple's wholesale price for chargers is, but it is presumably more than USD 3.19. Amazon has lost at least two orders from me recently because I had no confidence that I would receive a genuine product.
- Jb611 10y ago
  This is actually a different scam that's been going on recently. These "just launched" sellers show up for about 1/10th the actual price and when you buy from them they just won't ever send anything. Their strategy is to delay as long as possible and hope Amazon gives them their first payment before they finally get shut down. I sell on Amazon via FBA and the counterfeiting and scamming is unbelievable. I'm glad to see these stories come out to raise some awareness because Amazon has done nothing to fix the problem.
  - rwmj 10y ago
    Even better than that, some of them offer products at the normal price and then don't send anything, while dragging out the complaints process as long as possible. Had two of them in the past 3 months ...
  - emu 10y ago
    If you look, the same listing has 5 fulfilled-by-amazon shippers as well :-)
  - timdorr 10y ago
    Yeah, this is practically an epidemic with Amazon's hotter items. For instance, check out this seller page for Nintendo Switch, which is comprised almost entirely of "just launched" sellers: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B01LTHP2ZK/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B01LTHP2ZK/ref=dp_ol...
johansch 10y ago
I feel like there's so much idiocy going on with Amazon sites. How can such a successful company make something so idiotic such as the current Amazon.com? It's beyond belief. People visiting Amazon.com intending to buy various items: a) want the shipment and customer care to be handled by Amazon. (Since they have showed that they area really good at that kind of thing) b) want to have the goods vetted for basic safety etc etc. Basically, Amazon needs to rewind/rebrand/remove its second-supplier Bazaar style listings from its main index. Maybe the could display a two column search result page? Most people have wide screens now. Amazon-handled to the left, rest of the world to the right.
- danjayh 10y ago
  A lot of the bazaar style stuff is handled by Amazon through the Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) program. For instance, this rather nice ratcheting wrench set: https://smile.amazon.com/GearWrench-Metric-Flex-Head-Combination-Ratcheting/dp/B0002U2ODE/ https://smile.amazon.com/GearWrench-Metric-Flex-Head-Combina... is fulfilled by Amazon.com, but sold by tooldeals. Tooldeals ships the product to an Amazon warehouse, and Amazon handles all of the selling and logistics. If Amazon were to eliminate the FBA program, their vast product selection would be greatly curtailed.
  - dawnerd 10y ago
    They'd have to convince amazon to sell it like they would with a traditional store.
  - evilduck 10y ago
    But is a vast product selection valuable if everything is assumed to be counterfeit junk?
- ajmurmann 10y ago
  I wanted to make the same comment, but for some reason assumed I was an outlier. I badly want to see only Prime and only sold by Amazon directly. Fulfilled by Amazon might be a OK alternative if I have a hard time finding something. Otherwise I am happy to pay extra to get it from Amazon itself. To me the "market place" aspect has just been undermining their brand and has been a nuisance. First because you hadn't been able to get Prime shipping for many of those products and it was inconvenient to constantly have to filter by that and now this stuff. To me this is just as annoying as airline alliances. If I buy from Amazon, I want to buy from Amazon, not some place I've never heard of. If I book Lufthansa I want to fly Lufthansa and not Delta or American. To me this is good brands allowing themselves to be undermined by crappy or even non-existent once.
dang 10y ago
We invited exolymph to repost this since it's new reporting based on a recent HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13924546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13924546.
ymerej 10y ago
Four or five times in a row, I bought what were supposed to be genuine Samsung batteries for my SGS4, and every single one was a counterfeit. Each time I had a chat conversation with Amazon, explaining the situation and each time I was told "an investigation" would be done. Ex: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1OV6G6YE4TXFZ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm https://www.amazon.com/review/R1OV6G6YE4TXFZ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_p...
- shawn-furyan 10y ago
  Similar story, but with 3 consecutive large capacity HGST hdds that were sold as new (SMART told a different story), switching sellers each time. Ultimately just went to Newegg.
  - webster23 10y ago
    The problem with the fake replacement batteries isn't new. In 2015 the german computer magazine ct bought 12 "samsung" batteries at amazon and all were fake. https://www.heise.de/ct/ausgabe/2015-10-Amazon-verkauft-nachgebaute-Akkus-als-Originalware-2604617.html https://www.heise.de/ct/ausgabe/2015-10-Amazon-verkauft-nach...
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    Yep, I buy from Aria in the UK, the prices are always in the ballpark of Amazon's give or take (and occasionally a lot cheaper), they have genuinely knowledgeable about computer gear staff and I've never had an issue with a single aspect of them as a company (bar a postcode problem with a shipping address which wasn't their fault and they did get sorted). It's not an entirely fair comparison since aria specialises in technology but when they do that and match price then Amazon has no competitive edge.
losteverything 10y ago
Although not the point of the article, I find it upsetting that someone could link my HN comments to an article, as was done here to another HNer.
- justinpombrio 10y ago
  Really? They're pretty clearly public. Would you be upset if someone (who didn't know you personally) linked a friend of theirs to your comment? How about a radio broadcaster announcing "I saw a comment on Hacker News yesterday... here, let me read it to you..."? (Trying to pin down exactly what bothers you.) Or is it that news articles seem official, while HN comments are off-the-cuff? It does seem strange to me that journalists treat internet comments and tweets as worthy of publication, but it seems to be a well established practice now...
  - losteverything 10y ago
    The latter. I don't post on FB because it's me. But I am not cautious on HN and write more freely. I always knew it could get in the public but once I saw this article I knew it could - did - happen.
JohnTHaller 10y ago
I was looking at a Dohm sound generator on Amazon and most of the top reviews are 1 star reviews stating that the item shipped and sold by Amazon (not fulfilled by, sold by) was showing up as a cheap counterfeit. Made in China (instead of the US), fan rattling within a few days, fake UL approved sticker, etc. Amazon refunded their money but didn't appear to care about the issue, likely due to the inventory mixing between fake sellers and Amazon that seems rampant these days. I decided to buy it from the manufacturer's own site directly and cancelled the order I had just placed for vitamins to buy elsewhere.
- cgriswald 10y ago
  It's not just fakes. I bought a new, high-end, fulfilled-by-amazon kitchen aid mixer for my ex-girlfriend. It looked legitimate, but it had clearly been re-boxed at some point, was missing parts, and had grease all over it. IIRC, it wasn't sealed in a normal way either. Amazon accepted our return, and like you I just went straight to the manufacturer to make the purchase again.
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    What is Amazon thinking? They're slowly destroying their brand.
    - shawn-furyan 10y ago
      Not even all that slowly. Their reputation has been significantly tarnished by this in about a year.
    - coldpie 10y ago
      I pretty much don't buy anything expensive from Amazon anymore. I've been slowly going back to B&M or ordering direct from manufacturers. Even if you do get the correct item, I've had enough things damaged during shipping that I'd rather just buy the thing from a store and drive it home myself. I still buy from Amazon, but only cheap and non-fragile things.
  - 10y ago
hprotagonist 10y ago
not just sellers. i purchased clearly counterfeit bicycle brakes whose bolts were mystery metal. that's a legitimate safety issue; having a bolt shear off under braking load is very possible, and the results are pretty catastrophic. amazon didn't especially care.
- Scoundreller 10y ago
  Chinesium or Shitanium?
new299 10y ago
Counterfeit products seem to becoming a near universal problem. It's not just amazon, but other marketplaces (eBay, taobao etc). Even seems like major electronic component suppliers fall foul of this sometimes (digikey). I can really only see three solutions: 1. We just buy everything direct from the supplier. Companies like amazon manage distribution. 2. We provide tools to allow the consumer to track the supply chain process. Products shipped with unique QR code, printed at the of manufacture? Users able to verify that this product was actually manufactured by the stated supplier. Could be an interesting startup idea? 3. Consumers get better at evaluating products on their own merits. Verifying battery capacity, performance etc. 3 is basically what you have to do if you purchase anything in Shenzhen markets. You can't just trust a particular supplier, or even that one batch has the same performance characteristics as the last.
- bambax 10y ago
  > 2. We provide tools to allow the consumer to track the supply chain process. Products shipped with unique QR code, printed at the of manufacture? Users able to verify that this product was actually manufactured by the stated supplier. Could be an interesting startup idea? Yes, it does sound like a fantastic opportunity! How would it work though? Every single instance of product would have to have its own id that would "expire" as soon as it's verified by an end-user, to prevent counterfeiters from copying a number and running with it? Even then, it would be possible to copy numbers from products not yet delivered, and use them on counterfeits. Or you have to have a destructive process to reveal the number (like a scratch-off). There would still be many ways to cheat: opening the boxes and replacing the genuine product with a fake, or the used market, etc. Still, an interesting problem!
  - jdietrich 10y ago
    The method you describe is already in widespread use by Chinese manufacturers.
  - new299 10y ago
    I would say a peel off tab covering the code might work so you know it's been tampered with. A few thing could be used to prevent copying. Users could be allowed to register a name on the verification page. If you try and register a product and it's already registered you know it's fake. I don't think it would work in every instance. But it would increase costs to the counterfeiter. Hopefully to the point that it becomes economically unsustainable.
dforrestwilson 10y ago
Amazon itself copies its sellers and customers with imitation products constantly. The irony should not be lost here.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  That's an absurd comparison. Amazon clearly brands theirs as AmazonBasics. They don't go claiming it's an Apple charger.
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    And a some of them are even just rebranded OEM products - e.g. their long-life rechargeable NiMHs are actual eneloops with different labels.
cauterized 10y ago
Solution: take your money elsewhere. It's not even that difficult or inconvenient.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Yep. While Amazon is certainly the 800-pound gorilla in online retail, they, unlike Google, have massive, serious brick-and-mortar competitors who are capable and very jealous of the online retail market (Walmart especially). Many of these are now offering free 2-day shipping, which was what really gave Amazon a huge edge vs. all other online retailers. As usual in retail, there are a lot of resourceful people gunning for Amazon. I'm optimistic that we won't have another Google-like situation for the long-term here.
aisofteng 10y ago
You know those electronics stores littered around Manhattan that sell flip cell phones for like $10, calling cards, and $15 digital cameras that nobody shops at because it's so obvious what you're getting? Why does it seem like people lose their sense online? If you're not buying from the manufacturer or a seller you're familiar with, do some research. And don't buy from anywhere outside the Western world. The rest of the world is rife with liars and counterfeiters. There are still some here, but they are much fewer and are almost always trivial to distinguish.
- p49k 10y ago
  I was under the impression that items "Sold and shipped by Amazon" were actually purchased by Amazon as well, which would imply quality control (for example, I don't expect Amazon to buy Apple products from anyone other than Apple). I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation, yet I learned from this thread that it's not the case.
faragon 10y ago
I guess Amazon has a software problem: when sorting by price instead of "relevance", both off-topic items and scammer/counterfeit stuff appear. Hint: filter novel sellers selling below market price.
godzulu 10y ago
When Bezos gets the same treatment or worse than Kim dotcom, I'll be interested...until then, beware.
empath75 10y ago
This kind of thing is why I won't buy amazon stock even though I think aws is going to take over the world. I want to own stock in a cloud platform not a scam machine.
- bamboozled 10y ago
  I'd probably put my money on GCE in the long run ;)
mtreis86 10y ago
Counterfeiting is an old problem. Straight razors were being counterfeited in the 1800's. They had a number of interesting patterns to counter it. Stamping of the company logo could be changed regularly. Certain groups were the only ones allowed to sell under specific companies. Some razors (GW Pipes for instance) were so well made that counterfeits were fairly obvious. But, some counterfeits were just about as well made as the real product. This is still an issue with those razors, as so many thousands of counterfeits were produced, that determining the authenticity is quite a process. To link this back in to the original comment, I bought what was clearly a counterfeited Spyderco directly from amazon. They didn't seem to care, but did refund me. (The knife sharpened extremely easily - VG10 is a tough stringy steel that takes more than normal effort to hone) I won't buy new knives from anyone but the manufacturer anymore. Edit for clarity: Most fakes were unstamped or generic Solingen/Sheffield stamps. Most branded razors pre1900 are authentic. Only a percent or two of those produced were fake. Still makes authentication difficult. And to make it even weirder, some fakes were actually better made than the brand they were being sold as!
jacquesm 10y ago
So here is my short version of this: I got burned like this (twice!) and have stopped ordering on Amazon completely even though I got refunded both times. Amazon excels in short term thinking on this subject, I wonder how long it will take them before the coin drops.
mnm1 10y ago
Then Amazon closes your account for trying to return this garbage they illegally sold. Short of million dollar fines for every incident, this will never change. I doubt Amazon is even trying to fix this. It's so much easier to shut down the people that complain.
- ticviking 10y ago
  This is why I've largely stopped buying physical stuff from them.
home_boi 10y ago
Have you found any alternative to online shopping? I generally just roll the dice with Amazon on anything that is not food or electronics. The convenience trumps the money wasted on buying a bad product. For electronics, I've looked at Walmart and Jet.com which have shady 3rd party sellers that are worse than Amazon sellers. I believe BestBuy gets all its inventory from authorized sellers so I trust them, although they have limited selection. I haven't found a solution for food (mainly specific branded supplements like magnesium/vitamin C/etc. that can't be found in regular grocery stores) The ideal situation would be if Amazon didn't conmingle its "Sold by Amazon.com" inventory with 3rd party sellers and charged a premium for it (to make it economically feasible for them). Right now the current incentives aren't pointing in that direction. Most customers don't know about the conmingling. If we could spread awareness of conmingling, the economic incentives could lean in that direction.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  Food is not commingled, or anything with expiration dates. Buy from a seller with good feedback and you'll be fine.
  - rexf 10y ago
    That's great to hear, but source? I've bought food from Amazon, but I'm really hesitant to do so anymore
    - ikeboy 10y ago
      https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200243180 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
ikeboy 10y ago
One quibble: anyone can sign up for vendor express and sell to Amazon directly, even if they aren't the manufacturer.
Chathamization 10y ago
This is unsettling. Not only are many counterfeit goods being sold through Amazon, but Amazon's policies (co-mingling inventory, lack of ability to signal counterfeit goods in complaint, lack of ability to review a counterfeit seller of a good instead of the good itself) are directly encouraging this situation. And Amazon's response seems to be a collective shrug. The news media's response is probably just as much to blame - they're more interested in writing fluff pieces about Amazon's hypothetical drone delivery than in informing the public about the current major threat to consumers posed by Amazon's policies. I'm willing to bet a lot of customers have received faulty counterfeit goods and don't even realize it. This also underscores one of the problems with quasi-monopolies - once they feel they have a captive audience, they're only more than happy to screw over their customers in order to make a bit more money. If everyone gravitates towards one company, we end up in a very precarious situation when the company invariably decides that we have no where else to go and then can do whatever they want to us.
0xcde4c3db 10y ago
Is this a big opportunity for a class-action lawsuit by sellers whose reputations were damaged by Amazon fulfilling their orders with counterfeit goods, or is there some kind of genuinely binding "shit happens" clause in the FBA contract?
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Cant, Amazon has forced arbitration with their sellers.
senior_james 10y ago
It's a real problem. I have been buying and selling used products from Amazon to other marketplaces for the last 8 years. I used to get counterfeits once a month. Now, I get them 3 or 4 times a week. Even when I bring it to Amazon's attention, I only get my money back half the time. When I tried to file a claim with my credit card company, my buying account was temporarily banned until I paid back the money (for counterfeit goods that I actually got inspected by the manufacturer and had the paperwork to prove it). The big problem is that Amazon will only give you your money back if you can prove it. It can sometimes take 5 months to get it actually inspected (if you are lucky) and by that time, you are well past the time to return it. The worst part is that it nearly destroyed my business. I got two cease-and-desists in 8 months because I wasn't able to catch all of the counterfeits in time. Myself and my staff are well versed in catching these counterfeits, but it's still a very difficult task. I had to hire an attorney, and I sent all of the sellers' info to the attorney of the manufacturer. I was lucky it ended here. To this day, I still can't sign up with an Amazon seller account because 5 years ago, a single customer complained about an item I sold them. I returned their money promptly and even paid for a return shipping label. Amazon support didn't care. My account was closed, and I was out $500, because the buyer never sent it back to me. They no longer will even talk to me about it (all emails go into a black hole as if I never sent them) and I can't even manage another person/companies account without getting it permanently banned. This is why it's so dangerous to allow a few companies to control so much of the Internet. They can potentially ban you from even making a living and there is really no appeals process. At the time, they had a few automated prompts that claim it's an 'appeals process', but I could tell it was just a bot. I still don't understand how so many of these sellers can sell counterfeits, which is illegal in the US, and make multiple accounts, with almost no issues. It has to be some sort of collusion with employees. It really doesn't make any other sense.
almog 10y ago
Somewhat related - I use amazon price alerting services (camelcamelcamel.com and keepa.com) for some items that are on my wish list. In the past few months I received much more price drops alerts than ever before. Most of these are by new stores that have no reviews. Knowing that I'll be covered by Amazon, and tempted to give what I guessed would be a scum a chance, I ordered two items from different stores and as I expected I never got the items. Eventually got a refund from Amazon. I'm not sure why Amazon isn't putting more effort to prevent these stores from popping up. Most of them I've noticed publish dozens if not hundreds of items for ridiculous prices. Even a simple capping mechanism for new stores would have made this much more difficult than it is to set up this scum. While Ebay does not excel in that regard either, it does cap new sellers sales volume as well as allows buyers to report suspicious activity. Ebay's algorithm isn't especially smart - I often notice stores that were inactive for years yet retain good feedback record, pop up back to life with new low priced supplies and eventually turn out to be a scum (most likely hacked accounts).
- inimino 10y ago
  You mean scam, not scum.
  - almog 10y ago
    Yes, too late for editing now.
crazygringo 10y ago
Is there anyone here who can shed some light as to why? It's impossible for me to believe that it's part of Amazon's strategy to encourage, or even allow, counterfeits -- it might be fine for a smaller company, but it appears to be doing real brand damage at this point. Yet Amazon shows no signs of stopping it -- this has been going on for years. Is it just a really hard problem for some reason that isn't obvious? (Like you catch one seller, and they'll immediately re-register under a different name? Or false counterfeit claims outweigh real ones?) I mean, I still can't wrap my head around why Amazon would comingle FBA merchandise with merchandise Amazon bought directly from the manufacturer, and thus unknowingly sell counterfeits directly. People say this happens, that buying "Ships from and sold by Amazon" can still be counterfeit -- does that happen really? People certainly say it does... is it really something common? It's hard to believe Amazon could be so dumb to do that... why on earth would they? I feel like this just doesn't make sense. Amazon isn't Uber. Shady practices don't seem like their thing at all. So why is this still happening?
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  Amazon is likely stats blinded: their internal metrics say "all good", so they ignore the stories people are telling as anecdotes without ever doing the analysis on how often those "anecdotes" happen. Further, that their stats are ungrounded (not tied to any hard-to-attack real world tests) and fail to capture data which would demonstrate the issue. I believe the FBA and FMA teams are a fundamental blunder opposed to Amazon's core values (and the business model they espouse), and that while the people on them are clever, they're not very prudent. I think that the idea could be salvaged with some genuine mea culpa and revamping of FBA/FMA systems. I just don't think anyone at Amazon with the political capital to do so understands or acknowledges the issue. Honestly, Amazon should just send someone on the team out with $50,000 in $50 giftcards to one of the shopping centers in downtown Seattle and hand them out to anyone who orders something on Amazon for them (on Amazon's dime; shipped to Amazon HQ). Will you get a disproportionately high number of bad purchases? Yep. But that's sort of the point: isn't it a problem if a large fraction of 1,000 people know how to get bad purchases out of regular items, but you still operate your store that way?
  - 10y ago
jaleel28 10y ago
As an aside, there is a Chrome extension that can filter out scammy sellers plaguing the site lately - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amazon-shop-safe/gbgkdkbafkopcojbipbkidgihakcopce https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amazon-shop-safe/g...
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Won't that basically just cause amazon.com to look like a blank page?
cmrdporcupine 10y ago
Quality control in their catalog has gone down generally. It used to be if you searched for something Amazon was almost always the best deal. Now it's a wild west of people just throwing prices against the wall and seeing what sticks. The worst is it's actually getting harder to filter things to make it return only things that are actually sold by Amazon itself to avoid scammers. At least in Canada it seems they've removed options to filter it down to Amazon as the seller. Basically have to guess-work it by filtering it to "prime" or "free shipping."
Steeeve 10y ago
Interesting as this article is trending, so is the fact that they will be collecting sales tax nationwide starting 4/1. I wonder if this is going to start a bit of a resurgence of specialty sites.
animex 10y ago
Not a surprising response from a company who itself participates in knocking off it's own customer's bestsellers.
97s 10y ago
We canceled prime for this very problem.
- lotsofpulp 10y ago
  I also canceled my prime due to this and them intentionally making it hard to purchase only ships and sold by Amazon.com items. That and commingling their inventory means I have more to worry about, and I'd rather just use Costco/Target/Walmart/Apple for whatever I need, or just go straight to manufacturer's website.
  - 97s 10y ago
    Yep. Yesterday my wife asked me to order something off amazon for her. I ordered it off Target. Amazon is going to eventually have to fix this issue.
    - Arizhel 10y ago
      No, they really don't have to fix this issue at all. Has Sears fixed their issues? Has Yahoo! fixed their issues? Did Circuit City fix their issues? Is h.h.gregg going to fix their issues?
      - 97s 10y ago
        I like this reply.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
qj4714 10y ago
Why can't Amazon withhold payment from these sellers? They should have all the leverage
greenwalls 10y ago
The scary part of this problem is buying medications or things you ingest. I no longer buy any kind of food or health products on Amazon because I worry they may be fake. Buying fake food and health products is dangerous. I don't buy pet food from Amazon either for the same reason.
sitkack 10y ago
I bough a counterfeit copy of Horowitz and Hill's, "The Art Of Electronics". I didn't realize a) I bought from a 3rd party b) that it was counterfeit until outside of the 30 day window? I called Amazon about it, asking for a refund and they were pretty flat about the "No, we won't take it back, you have to talk to the seller."
- Finnucane 10y ago
  A counterfeit Horowitz and Hill? Is nothing sacred? But srsly, I was just eyeing the new third edition. Thanks for the warning!
  - sitkack 10y ago
    Huge warning on their homepage now, http://artofelectronics.net/ http://artofelectronics.net/ I saved $20 and got a totally poop copy. Amazon even shows that I purchased this version, https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266 https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521... for this price, but mine was sloppy copy.
justinclift 10y ago
There used to be plenty of counterfeit Intel network cards on Amazon.co.uk (and .com). Unsure about other Amazon subdomains. After receiving a chinese knock off card instead of the real thing, I complained to Amazon. Even after rounds of communication with them, trying to alert them to the problem all they did was tell me to contact "Trading Standards" (the uk body). I've barely bought from Amazon since then, and I used to buy a lot from through them. Instead I reached out to Intel Legal, who looked over things, then opened an investigation. Now (some months later) it seems like there are almost no counterfeit Intel cards on Amazon. So at least some places do seem to have enough clout.
- justinclift 10y ago
  In case it's interesting, this is what the counterfeit card looked like: https://justinclift.fedorapeople.org/Counterfeit%20Intel%20card/DSCN0174.JPG https://justinclift.fedorapeople.org/Counterfeit%20Intel%20c... Obviously using Intel branding (there are other photo's in the same directory, mostly just other angles though). Amazon didn't care.
jakasto 10y ago
I used to regularly buy from Amazon but stopped a while back. The final straw was some razor blades that were noticeably duller and inferior to previous units of the same product.
grandalf 10y ago
Amazon makes massive profit from counterfeits. I've been the unwitting purchaser of several counterfeit products and it's rarely worth the hassle of returning them. I just realized the other day that some wifi cameras I purchased in 2010 are knock offs!
- Neliquat 10y ago
  Its worth the hassle if you care about the next guy.
throwawaylalala 10y ago
I private label. Amazon's respose process for this is completely broken. Right now we are having several entities jump on; as part of our process for getting counterfieters off of our listibgs we make test buys; probably 10 buyers have sent exactly the same email, including a weird space between a word and a comma. Want to know how truly bad it is? Look at this listing: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00DVKJXFE/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00DVKJXFE/ref=dp_ol...
- Pyxl101 10y ago
  What conclusion should be drawn from that listing?
  - throwaway049 10y ago
    I'm not the OP, but I am suspicious of most of the sellers being 'just launched' or having very few instances of feedback. Also the seller names don't look like anything I would pick it I wanted to name my business.
    - zaroth 10y ago
      What, you mean "Cockers in Larsworld" with two 5-star reviews isn't your first choice retailer to buy this $50 pillow from for $2.78? If that's not your style, you could always shop with "HOLE'S HUMAN ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGISTS" and pay $8.07. Wow, seriously that is insane.
      - bambax 10y ago
        Wow, I hadn't noticed the sellers' names, thanks for the laugh. Amazon's crazy to let that happen with zero oversight.
        throwawaylalala 10y ago
        The bigger issue is that a large swath of this could be fixed easily. Many of these fake sellers are jumping on with 97,000+ items for sale immediately. Putting a gate in place (something similar to eBays process) could at least increase the effort (and cost) required to scam at this level.
syphilis2 10y ago
Not necessarily counterfeit, but I purchased paints off of Amazon within the last year and the paints that arrived were expired. Amazon had no problem giving me a refund, but I suspect many people just buy the product and don't care, which is fine for them but makes it difficult for me to buy quality items from Amazon.
rleigh 10y ago
I've been uneasy at the whole "FBA" concept for a while, and I've certainly used Amazon much less as a result. I'm not sure what they are thinking here, to be honest. I don't want to use another eBay; I stopped using it entirely due to scammers and paypal. I previously had some trust that Amazon was buying and reselling genuine products, and I no longer do. If FBA was restricted to original manufacturers who provide their own inventory, I'd have little to complain about. But thousands of unknown vendors acting as yet another middle man and pushing cheap counterfeit crap add no value at all, in my opinion. They do nothing but tarnish Amazon's reputation.
Sephr 10y ago
I was recently trying to buy AKG K712 headphones on Amazon last week and many of the units sold as "New" and fulfilled by Amazon were actually used or refurbished. I literally went through 4 different units from different FBA merchants before I gave up and bought it on the official Harmon audio store instead. One-day delivery is nice, but I'd rather wait a couple weeks and pay extra if it means getting an authentic unit.
throaway2137582 10y ago
Throwaway for various reasons. Amazon seller / vendor here with over $5MM in annual sales. We sell to both Amazon directly and fulfill via FBA when PO's are delayed due to their archaic purchasing system. Let me tell you guys what the real problem is, you ready for it? CHINA When Bezos opened up the platform to Chinese sellers in 2015, they FLOODED the market with not only counterfeit items but straight illegal business practices (the notion of piggybacking on listings and selling an item for 50-90% less than normal and never actually shipping a product until they get banned. Rinse and repeat). The other side of the problem is the American consumer: I want it fast and for as cheap as possible. Some of the worst customers are in the US; they "rent" products and return them used and incomplete before the 30-day return window. Even worse, during Q4 when Amazon gives them 90-days to rent something for free. The American consumer is a big part of the problem and Bezos and friends simply know how to take advantage of this and bump up their bottom line for shareholders. Amazon DOES NOT CARE because they take fees on each purchase sold by the Chinese trolls. And like someone previously stated, before a major tier-1 brand gets burned hard, nothing will change. Apple doesn't sell to Amazon, they don't need to. They have their own channels which are incredibly successful. The small brands suffer and they suffer simply and purely because of the Chinese. Most (>95%) Chinese sellers are cancer to the platform. But the consumer is seldom damaged because of Amazon's (still great) customer service. Get rid of the Chinese and most of this will be resolved. Joe Blow isn't counterfeiting products and selling them on Amazon. At least 9/10 times. The solution is two-fold: 1) Severely limit anyone without a legitimate US-based company (registered entity, taxed, EIN, etc) to sell on Amazon. Further, require bonds, throttle traffic, limit the number of ASINs "new sellers" can list on, initiate tariffs for non-US sellers (government can only do this). 2. Consumers simply need education that buying on Amazon today is a different game. Their risk is high and the reward low. PR and articles like this help but more consumers need to educate themselves on what is happening. But this is not easy - when you want the cheapest possible price, you're going to the new Amazon Bazaar. So the mindset of the American consumer is flawed and Amazon plays into this beautifully. They're not stupid and they know exactly what's going on. There are many technical comments here and they are all righteous. But the problem is a very top-level problem. It is simply the Chinese. Period. Limit the Chinese and Amazon will be the Amazon of old. Chinese (or any non-US) sellers should absolutely NOT be allowed to sell anything on Amazon.com. They don't pay income tax and this is simply another loophole Amazon has found in their domination of cheap e-commerce. This doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. If you sell a product in Europe, you're on the hook for VAT, import taxes, etc. Not the case in the US of A. Big systemwide changes are needed. As an aside: Shit will definitely hit the fan soon and Amazon will start to feel it. But it will take time. Their brand is already suffering due to this counterfeiting mess and it's not getting any better. As someone who used to buy everything on Amazon, I don't buy much anymore. I'd rather go to the brand's site and purchase directly or a brick and mortar.
hackuser 10y ago
The author of the article in a prior HN discussion on this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928322
woodandsteel 10y ago
I am guessing one reason for the FBA program is it allows them to scale up their logistics operation larger than it would otherwise be, and that helps them lower the cost per item and out-compete other companies. Remember, Amazon's long-term goal is to take over the world, and it needs to do all sorts of things to get there.
Pxtl 10y ago
Amazon is now just AliExpress but with faster shipping and higher prices.
lexalizer 10y ago
This is starting to be a big problem for me. The time I lose figuring out if a seller is listing counterfeit products or not(not always possible), is costing me too much. I don't think Amazon Prime is worth it anymore. The risk of paying for a fake, then having to spend time returning, for every single product that I buy is just too much.
xmichael99 10y ago
If I get one more bullshit Apple magsafe charger I am cancelling my amazon account.
- Neliquat 10y ago
  Good luck, apple doent even sell thru amazon.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  I doubt you'll be able to find an authentic one on Amazon. Order directly from Apple.
intrasight 10y ago
At their growth rate, they can afford to have a small fraction of counterfeit items. The costs to Amazon are minuscule. However, they could and should do more to prevent it.
dkarapetyan 10y ago
Isn't the obvious solution to have some kind of registration process? Or am I missing something? If I'm publishing a book then anyone else that wants to sell that book in large quantities must register with me and get my sign-off. Large quantities being somewhat vaguely defined.
rsync 10y ago
As you can imagine, we (rsync.net) buy a lot of hard drives. We use SAS drives so, unfortunately, we can't do the "buy the cheapest external USB drives from Frys and strip them" trick. However, it is very, very hard to buy a new hard drive on Amazon if it is more than a year out of introduction. After a year or so, all of the "new" drives on Amazon have widely varying SMART statistics and lifetime gauges. We very, very regularly get entire batches of "new" drives with thousands of hours of use on them. I would really like to name and shame specific sellers but I am traveling now and can't dive into old email threads. I keep meaning to do a blog post, etc. In egregious cases, we return/refund. Other times, if we get a big batch with sub-10k hours on them and they all pass our very strict burn-in process, we use them. It's actually quite difficult to buy a genuinely new 4TB enterprise drive right now and in 6 months that will begin to be the case with 6-8TB drives, etc.
- detaro 10y ago
  Is this problem Amazon specific, or does the supply chain for other large sellers have the same issue?
- tdurden 10y ago
  I didn't realize how bad things were until reading this.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  This may be a really ignorant question but can I ask why you continue to use Amazon to source hard drives then? Is there really no other place to buy hard drives? If you are a bulk buyer I would think you'd be able to buy directly from the manufacturer or something.
  - rsync 10y ago
    We continue to buy drives on amazon because of extremely fast and easy sourcing, checkout, and return policy. Basically the same reason everyone uses amazon, for everything. If we get a really wacko batch, the return is very, very simple. The practice of selling "new pulls" (supposedly new drives that are removed from new servers by end users that wanted different drives installed all along) is rampant everywhere - not just at Amazon. The problem is that a lot of "pulls that are not new at all and are actually just used drives" drift into that channel. And, of course, all of them are sold as "brand new".
rdudek 10y ago
Is this all based on chance at this point? Im looking to buy a set of headphones, Beyerdynamics DT-990. How should I buy them to make sure they're not counterfeit?
nkrisc 10y ago
I've been considering a $100 dashcam on Amazon. I think I'll just buy it somewhere else now. I have no idea what the actual risk is of receiving a fake but I'd rather not find out.
norea-armozel 10y ago
More often than not I'm trying to buy things not on Amazon anymore. Like my most recent (and expense) purchase was a telescope from Orion. I just don't trust Amazon to vet their sellers. If they can't be bothered to make sure what's sold is the real thing then I'm not going to buy from them. It might cost me a bit more in the retail price but at least when I buy from decent online stores or reputable bricks and mortars I know I'm getting what I expected to buy (even if it's not top of the line).
jinushaun 10y ago
I've pretty much learned to buy nothing of value from Amazon any more. Got burned too many times. Read the reviews! This problem is endemic! People are buying new items and either getting used or wrong items. The site has gone to shit since they moved to rely heavily on affiliates. I now buy direct from manufacturer or brick and mortar.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  >I now buy direct from manufacturer or brick and mortar. Is this really necessary though? Lots of manufacturers don't sell directly to the public anyway, and more importantly, Amazon is not the only internet retailer out there. There's tons of them. It seems like it's really better, in fact, if Amazon goes belly-up and we get more competition and more strong internet retailers to choose from, instead of having one giant one dominating everything. Just one anecdote: my (now-ex) wife really liked some kind of sea salt from Sardinia. (Yeah, I know, how different is sea salt from Sardinia from sea salt from any place else?) Anyway, she uses a lot of salt, relatively, and we had moved so she couldn't buy it from her regular little Italian market, so I looked online. Amazon had it, but it was rather expensive per jar, and that was from some 3rd party seller. (This was probably around 3 years ago, before Amazon really went down the tubes.) So I did some Googling and Froogling, and found a website that sold nothing but imported Italian foods, and a lot of it. I bought a couple cases of this salt (both fine and coarse grain) for dirt-cheap prices, less than half the price on Amazon, and much cheaper than she used to get it for locally. She also added in a bunch of other items that were also very cheap because this retailer was the importer and was cutting out middlemen and not having to pay for an expensive storefront. To me, this exemplifies what internet shopping should be like: specialty retailers that cut out unnecessary middlemen, have excellent selection, and don't have all the problems that B&M stores have (location, limited hours, having to travel there, high rents, etc.), and are able to pass these savings to end-users. Amazon, by contrast, seems to exemplify the worst of capitalism: one single company able to take advantage of efficiencies of scale and brand-name recognition in order to capture the majority of the market, not specializing in anything, and providing a mediocre-to-bad experience overall, but no one else being able to compete because the barrier to entry is too high.

669 points by exolymph 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

The article makes a good point that aside from enforcement issues, Amazon leaves the seller of the genuine item in a bad spot. Like one-star reviews of the product (due to fakes) staying for months. The whole product listing being taken down instead of just the seller with fakes being shut down. The lack of real communication with the seller of the genuine product, and so on. Edit: Perhaps some additional manual effort to protect good sellers would stem the bad PR tide. The news stories all seem to start with a frustrated seller.

briffle 10y ago
Our seller was pretty ticked when we kept getting copies of 'Where's Wally' instead of 'Where's Waldo' for a friend's birthday this fall. The former is sold outside the us. someone was finding them cheap, and damaged, and dumping them. We were trying to purchase from legit seller, and returned 3 times and then ran out of time....
- tyingq 10y ago
  Ah, so not a fake, but a bad substitution. Does show, though, that sellers can't get attention when it is needed.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    Grey market imports can be a serious problem, and they're definitely more toward the counterfeit end.
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      Despite publisher attempts to stop it courts have ruled that it's legal to import cheaper foreign editions of books and I personally have done so intentionally to buy textbooks. Certainly a problem if they are not labeled though.
kveykva 10y ago
Amazon already has some serious issues on the side of returns and issues like this. They accept basically anything - return fraud was another huge issue that came up earlier this year. Scammer would buy something like an iPhone, take out the phone, fill the box with clay or something, send it back to Amazon. Amazon just accepts the huge majority of returns and the seller is who gets hurt. (Obviously matters much more to companies not the size of Apple)
- phil21 10y ago
  This has been the norm far more than a year - sellers I know have had to deal with things like high-end GPUs replaced with a 10 year old model and/or brick and returned as "broken" for 3-4 years now. Pretty much any marketplace (including banks and credit merchant accounts) puts the vendor 100% at risk for consumer fraud.

Lasher 10y ago

I purchased Quickbooks Pro 2017 (PC) on Amazon last week, said it was "sold by Intuit" so wasn't even supposed to be an FBA (fulfilled by Amazon). Figured if it costs no more I might as well get the physical disk. What showed up was a DVD case with a very clearly photocopied cover for a Mac version with a Verbatim CDR inside and a hacked version of the software. Amazon processed the refund just fine but didn't seem particularly interested or concerned that they had just sold me pirated software. Not a big deal for Quickbooks, I can just buy the download version. I also want to buy a new Ipod Touch and, for the first time ever, don't feel like I can buy it on Amazon. Long term Amazon customer since 1999, Prime since the first year, this counterfeit issue is a real problem that's going to cost them seriously if they don't get a handle on it.

dmix 10y ago
Can't the review system help deal with this problem? I always check reviews of the product and vendor to make sure it's legit. Only a few could get burned before the vendor is flagged as a counterfeiter which would stop further purchases. That should reduce the amount of money you could make scamming people and make it a less viable criminal business. Amazon also seems diligent in refunding people as well. So the solution might be that Amazon should invest more in shutting these accounts down faster but I'm curious if reviews are an immediate stop gap solution here until they get around to regulating each bad seller.
- Lasher 10y ago
  You get to review the product but when the sourcing is all thrown together all you're really doing is dragging down the rating for the overall product (Quickbooks 2017 in this case) and not the source of the specific item you were shipped. My issue had nothing to do with the product itself although I suppose if enough 1 star reviews start to build up then Intuit and other larger publishers that might actually have some leverage with Amazon will start to take notice.
  - justinpombrio 10y ago
    > My issue had nothing to do with the product itself You sound hesitant, but I don't think you should be. Your issue has to do with the product you received after clicking "buy" on an amazon product page. That page may say Quickbooks 2017 from Intuit, but there's no necessary relationship between what the page says and what you're buying, and when they're different you should rate what you were sold.

danjayh 10y ago

Amazon is a cluster all-around. They can't keep counterfeits off (I just recently got a 'samsung' battery that would only charge to 80%), and they can't police legit products correctly either. I've seen tons of horror stories from owners of FBA private labels who'v had their products pulled by Amazon for being 'counterfeit' because one of their competitors reported them in an attempt to reduce competition. Takes weeks or months to get your listing restored. And don't even get me started on their review system. I used to review certain subsets of items prolifically, without accepting freebies, but I gave it up. Amazon would regularly pull down my reviews for things they didn't like. For instance, I've had several battery reviews pulled for including a measured capacity (mAh) divided by cost 'value' graph because it implicitly includes pricing information. Give me a break. Know what replaced my well-thought out & researched review? A review from a 5-star shill that shot from 0 helpful to over +1000 overnight (to those of you that have never reviewed on Amazon ... that does NOT happen unless you're cheating). Amazon's reviews are crap. Amazon's inventory control is crap. Amazon's seller support is crap. The only things they have going for them are good customer service and a near monopoly on online sales. Walmart, however, also has great customer service, has brick-and-mortar stores that will help you deal with problems, and now has free 2-day shipping. I've been making a conscious effort to do more online shopping there lately, because Amazon needs to feel like they have a little competition.

jmcdiesel 10y ago
If the rules are to not include pricing information and you include pricing information, how do you possibly get upset over it being taken down? Reviews are long-lived, that pricing info is probably out of date in a few months, but the review will live on for a while, and lead to confusion (Especially since, I assume your reviews were well written, giving them more credibility, and thus leading to more confusion) There is also the problem of confusion over price of a product and its legal implications... if you go to a store that relies on box stickers for pricing, and the stickers only have a price, and there isa box there with a wrong (lower) price on it, the store has to sell it at that price in most states... im sure the law wouldnt kick in over a comment, but you cant blame amazon for guarding against the swarm of people who's sole purpose in life seems to be to get one over on other people

bnycum 10y ago

I received my first counterfeit item from Amazon two years ago this summer. It really has put a damper on ordering from Amazon as it's happened multiple times since. There doesn't seem to be a way to stop it as the seller will just open a new shop and continue the process.

trapperkeeper79 10y ago

I bought some Pokemon bracelets (yeah .. I know) for some family members. I have a big suspicion that they are counterfeit. The boxes had asian writing on them, and it did not seem Nintendo-like. The device itself has horrible connectivity with the game and phones - almost unusable. I'm pretty ticked off. As a consumer, I had no good way to verify that the device is not counterfeit. For similar situations, I actually started to go to my local best buy to ensure I am not getting fake stuff.

deelowe 10y ago
Nothing wrong with buying pokemon bracelets. This is the sort of thing Amazon should excel at. Where else would you get that product? Instead, you're left with a frustrating experience simply because there's no reliable mechanism for checking the authenticity of the product and/or the reputation of the seller prior to purchase.
cookiecaper 10y ago
Character stuff is rife with counterfeits. You have to be really careful before you buy on Amazon, or be content with cheap-o knockoffs that break/degrade easily (which, to be honest, are sometimes acceptable for a big discount).
Grue3 10y ago
It's 100% counterfeit. Never buy Japanese game/anime merchandise on Amazon.com (Amazon.co.jp is probably ok) or Ebay. There are specialized Japan-based stores like AmiAmi which never sell counterfeits.

rebootthesystem 10y ago

It's worst than that. As someone already pointed out, buying software on Amazon is down-right dangerous. And Amazon does not care. Yet, beyond that, counterfeits and scams are rampant on the platform. Scammers take advantage of genuine seller's good rank, insert themselves at lower prices, destroy the genuine seller's revenue stream and deliver cheap knock-offs or even dangerous products to unsuspecting buyers. And past that, Amazon does something really crazy. They allow anyone to leave reviews on any product, whether they purchased the product or not. All you need is an Amazon account. You don't even need to have ever purchased anything at all. You don't even need to have a verified credit card on file. And so, what happens is that there are scammers using fake bad reviews as weapons of war to knock good sellers down in ranking and capture what would have been their sales. And, again, Amazon does not care. On Amazon's advertising platform there's a similar issue. They will charge sellers for any click on ads. This means you don't even need to be a verified active Amazon user to click on ads and burn seller's advertising budget with zero ROI. Amazon does not qualify any click on their ads. Logic would say a seller is only interested in genuine Amazon users. A simple definition of this might be someone who has had an Amazon account for N months, has purchased an average of N items per year/month, has a credit card on file and has had product successfully delivered to their address. Seller's are not interested on clicks from someone in China hired to burn through their ad budget. Again, Amazon does not care. Not sure where this mess is headed but these issues need to be addressed or it will get really ugly.

Neliquat 10y ago
They penalize and hide non verified reviews mostly now unless super helpful.
- scurvy 10y ago
  "Helpful" is easy to game with enough fraudulent upvotes.
  - jrnichols 10y ago
    but lousy broken English still (fortunately) gives away these reviews as false. As bad as it sounds, I dismiss most reviews unless the punctuation and grammar is correct.

bbrazil 10y ago

I've had new several hard drives turn out to be in fact refurbished (and in one case quickly failed). I got refunds but nothing beyond that, even with in one case offering evidence that this looked like deliberate fraud due to half-cleared SMART stats.

rlanday 10y ago
God, I had a Seagate drive that failed a few years ago, they lost track of how long the warranty was supposed to be (5 years) and I had to fight with them to get them to replace it, then they sent me a refurb that had bad sectors, then they sent me a second refurb with more bad sectors after I asked for a brand new drive…

emu 10y ago

It's trivially easy to run into counterfeit products on Amazon. Here's an example I pulled up in 2 minutes of searching: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-A1385-Adapter-Charger-iPhone/dp/B06WLQW8LY/ref=sr_1_3?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1490456486&sr=1-3&keywords=apple+iphone+charger https://www.amazon.com/Apple-A1385-Adapter-Charger-iPhone/dp... I see two sellers offering an iPhone charger, ostensibly genuine and new, as low as USD 3.19. Compare with the Apple listing for the same item for USD 19: http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD810LL/A/apple-5w-usb-power-adapter http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD810LL/A/apple-5w-usb-pow... There is no way you can be selling the genuine product at that price and be making a profit. I don't know what Apple's wholesale price for chargers is, but it is presumably more than USD 3.19. Amazon has lost at least two orders from me recently because I had no confidence that I would receive a genuine product.

Jb611 10y ago
This is actually a different scam that's been going on recently. These "just launched" sellers show up for about 1/10th the actual price and when you buy from them they just won't ever send anything. Their strategy is to delay as long as possible and hope Amazon gives them their first payment before they finally get shut down. I sell on Amazon via FBA and the counterfeiting and scamming is unbelievable. I'm glad to see these stories come out to raise some awareness because Amazon has done nothing to fix the problem.
- rwmj 10y ago
  Even better than that, some of them offer products at the normal price and then don't send anything, while dragging out the complaints process as long as possible. Had two of them in the past 3 months ...
- emu 10y ago
  If you look, the same listing has 5 fulfilled-by-amazon shippers as well :-)
- timdorr 10y ago
  Yeah, this is practically an epidemic with Amazon's hotter items. For instance, check out this seller page for Nintendo Switch, which is comprised almost entirely of "just launched" sellers: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B01LTHP2ZK/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B01LTHP2ZK/ref=dp_ol...

johansch 10y ago

I feel like there's so much idiocy going on with Amazon sites. How can such a successful company make something so idiotic such as the current Amazon.com? It's beyond belief. People visiting Amazon.com intending to buy various items: a) want the shipment and customer care to be handled by Amazon. (Since they have showed that they area really good at that kind of thing) b) want to have the goods vetted for basic safety etc etc. Basically, Amazon needs to rewind/rebrand/remove its second-supplier Bazaar style listings from its main index. Maybe the could display a two column search result page? Most people have wide screens now. Amazon-handled to the left, rest of the world to the right.

danjayh 10y ago
A lot of the bazaar style stuff is handled by Amazon through the Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) program. For instance, this rather nice ratcheting wrench set: https://smile.amazon.com/GearWrench-Metric-Flex-Head-Combination-Ratcheting/dp/B0002U2ODE/ https://smile.amazon.com/GearWrench-Metric-Flex-Head-Combina... is fulfilled by Amazon.com, but sold by tooldeals. Tooldeals ships the product to an Amazon warehouse, and Amazon handles all of the selling and logistics. If Amazon were to eliminate the FBA program, their vast product selection would be greatly curtailed.
- dawnerd 10y ago
  They'd have to convince amazon to sell it like they would with a traditional store.
- evilduck 10y ago
  But is a vast product selection valuable if everything is assumed to be counterfeit junk?
ajmurmann 10y ago
I wanted to make the same comment, but for some reason assumed I was an outlier. I badly want to see only Prime and only sold by Amazon directly. Fulfilled by Amazon might be a OK alternative if I have a hard time finding something. Otherwise I am happy to pay extra to get it from Amazon itself. To me the "market place" aspect has just been undermining their brand and has been a nuisance. First because you hadn't been able to get Prime shipping for many of those products and it was inconvenient to constantly have to filter by that and now this stuff. To me this is just as annoying as airline alliances. If I buy from Amazon, I want to buy from Amazon, not some place I've never heard of. If I book Lufthansa I want to fly Lufthansa and not Delta or American. To me this is good brands allowing themselves to be undermined by crappy or even non-existent once.

dang 10y ago

We invited exolymph to repost this since it's new reporting based on a recent HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13924546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13924546.

ymerej 10y ago

Four or five times in a row, I bought what were supposed to be genuine Samsung batteries for my SGS4, and every single one was a counterfeit. Each time I had a chat conversation with Amazon, explaining the situation and each time I was told "an investigation" would be done. Ex: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1OV6G6YE4TXFZ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm https://www.amazon.com/review/R1OV6G6YE4TXFZ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_p...

shawn-furyan 10y ago
Similar story, but with 3 consecutive large capacity HGST hdds that were sold as new (SMART told a different story), switching sellers each time. Ultimately just went to Newegg.
- webster23 10y ago
  The problem with the fake replacement batteries isn't new. In 2015 the german computer magazine ct bought 12 "samsung" batteries at amazon and all were fake. https://www.heise.de/ct/ausgabe/2015-10-Amazon-verkauft-nachgebaute-Akkus-als-Originalware-2604617.html https://www.heise.de/ct/ausgabe/2015-10-Amazon-verkauft-nach...
- noir_lord 10y ago
  Yep, I buy from Aria in the UK, the prices are always in the ballpark of Amazon's give or take (and occasionally a lot cheaper), they have genuinely knowledgeable about computer gear staff and I've never had an issue with a single aspect of them as a company (bar a postcode problem with a shipping address which wasn't their fault and they did get sorted). It's not an entirely fair comparison since aria specialises in technology but when they do that and match price then Amazon has no competitive edge.

losteverything 10y ago

Although not the point of the article, I find it upsetting that someone could link my HN comments to an article, as was done here to another HNer.

justinpombrio 10y ago
Really? They're pretty clearly public. Would you be upset if someone (who didn't know you personally) linked a friend of theirs to your comment? How about a radio broadcaster announcing "I saw a comment on Hacker News yesterday... here, let me read it to you..."? (Trying to pin down exactly what bothers you.) Or is it that news articles seem official, while HN comments are off-the-cuff? It does seem strange to me that journalists treat internet comments and tweets as worthy of publication, but it seems to be a well established practice now...
- losteverything 10y ago
  The latter. I don't post on FB because it's me. But I am not cautious on HN and write more freely. I always knew it could get in the public but once I saw this article I knew it could - did - happen.

JohnTHaller 10y ago

I was looking at a Dohm sound generator on Amazon and most of the top reviews are 1 star reviews stating that the item shipped and sold by Amazon (not fulfilled by, sold by) was showing up as a cheap counterfeit. Made in China (instead of the US), fan rattling within a few days, fake UL approved sticker, etc. Amazon refunded their money but didn't appear to care about the issue, likely due to the inventory mixing between fake sellers and Amazon that seems rampant these days. I decided to buy it from the manufacturer's own site directly and cancelled the order I had just placed for vitamins to buy elsewhere.

cgriswald 10y ago
It's not just fakes. I bought a new, high-end, fulfilled-by-amazon kitchen aid mixer for my ex-girlfriend. It looked legitimate, but it had clearly been re-boxed at some point, was missing parts, and had grease all over it. IIRC, it wasn't sealed in a normal way either. Amazon accepted our return, and like you I just went straight to the manufacturer to make the purchase again.
- brazzledazzle 10y ago
  What is Amazon thinking? They're slowly destroying their brand.
  - shawn-furyan 10y ago
    Not even all that slowly. Their reputation has been significantly tarnished by this in about a year.
  - coldpie 10y ago
    I pretty much don't buy anything expensive from Amazon anymore. I've been slowly going back to B&M or ordering direct from manufacturers. Even if you do get the correct item, I've had enough things damaged during shipping that I'd rather just buy the thing from a store and drive it home myself. I still buy from Amazon, but only cheap and non-fragile things.
- 10y ago

hprotagonist 10y ago

not just sellers. i purchased clearly counterfeit bicycle brakes whose bolts were mystery metal. that's a legitimate safety issue; having a bolt shear off under braking load is very possible, and the results are pretty catastrophic. amazon didn't especially care.

Scoundreller 10y ago
Chinesium or Shitanium?

new299 10y ago

Counterfeit products seem to becoming a near universal problem. It's not just amazon, but other marketplaces (eBay, taobao etc). Even seems like major electronic component suppliers fall foul of this sometimes (digikey). I can really only see three solutions: 1. We just buy everything direct from the supplier. Companies like amazon manage distribution. 2. We provide tools to allow the consumer to track the supply chain process. Products shipped with unique QR code, printed at the of manufacture? Users able to verify that this product was actually manufactured by the stated supplier. Could be an interesting startup idea? 3. Consumers get better at evaluating products on their own merits. Verifying battery capacity, performance etc. 3 is basically what you have to do if you purchase anything in Shenzhen markets. You can't just trust a particular supplier, or even that one batch has the same performance characteristics as the last.

bambax 10y ago
> 2. We provide tools to allow the consumer to track the supply chain process. Products shipped with unique QR code, printed at the of manufacture? Users able to verify that this product was actually manufactured by the stated supplier. Could be an interesting startup idea? Yes, it does sound like a fantastic opportunity! How would it work though? Every single instance of product would have to have its own id that would "expire" as soon as it's verified by an end-user, to prevent counterfeiters from copying a number and running with it? Even then, it would be possible to copy numbers from products not yet delivered, and use them on counterfeits. Or you have to have a destructive process to reveal the number (like a scratch-off). There would still be many ways to cheat: opening the boxes and replacing the genuine product with a fake, or the used market, etc. Still, an interesting problem!
- jdietrich 10y ago
  The method you describe is already in widespread use by Chinese manufacturers.
- new299 10y ago
  I would say a peel off tab covering the code might work so you know it's been tampered with. A few thing could be used to prevent copying. Users could be allowed to register a name on the verification page. If you try and register a product and it's already registered you know it's fake. I don't think it would work in every instance. But it would increase costs to the counterfeiter. Hopefully to the point that it becomes economically unsustainable.

dforrestwilson 10y ago

Amazon itself copies its sellers and customers with imitation products constantly. The irony should not be lost here.

ceejayoz 10y ago
That's an absurd comparison. Amazon clearly brands theirs as AmazonBasics. They don't go claiming it's an Apple charger.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  And a some of them are even just rebranded OEM products - e.g. their long-life rechargeable NiMHs are actual eneloops with different labels.

cauterized 10y ago

Solution: take your money elsewhere. It's not even that difficult or inconvenient.

cookiecaper 10y ago
Yep. While Amazon is certainly the 800-pound gorilla in online retail, they, unlike Google, have massive, serious brick-and-mortar competitors who are capable and very jealous of the online retail market (Walmart especially). Many of these are now offering free 2-day shipping, which was what really gave Amazon a huge edge vs. all other online retailers. As usual in retail, there are a lot of resourceful people gunning for Amazon. I'm optimistic that we won't have another Google-like situation for the long-term here.

aisofteng 10y ago

You know those electronics stores littered around Manhattan that sell flip cell phones for like $10, calling cards, and $15 digital cameras that nobody shops at because it's so obvious what you're getting? Why does it seem like people lose their sense online? If you're not buying from the manufacturer or a seller you're familiar with, do some research. And don't buy from anywhere outside the Western world. The rest of the world is rife with liars and counterfeiters. There are still some here, but they are much fewer and are almost always trivial to distinguish.

p49k 10y ago
I was under the impression that items "Sold and shipped by Amazon" were actually purchased by Amazon as well, which would imply quality control (for example, I don't expect Amazon to buy Apple products from anyone other than Apple). I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation, yet I learned from this thread that it's not the case.

faragon 10y ago

I guess Amazon has a software problem: when sorting by price instead of "relevance", both off-topic items and scammer/counterfeit stuff appear. Hint: filter novel sellers selling below market price.

godzulu 10y ago

When Bezos gets the same treatment or worse than Kim dotcom, I'll be interested...until then, beware.

empath75 10y ago

This kind of thing is why I won't buy amazon stock even though I think aws is going to take over the world. I want to own stock in a cloud platform not a scam machine.

bamboozled 10y ago
I'd probably put my money on GCE in the long run ;)

mtreis86 10y ago

Counterfeiting is an old problem. Straight razors were being counterfeited in the 1800's. They had a number of interesting patterns to counter it. Stamping of the company logo could be changed regularly. Certain groups were the only ones allowed to sell under specific companies. Some razors (GW Pipes for instance) were so well made that counterfeits were fairly obvious. But, some counterfeits were just about as well made as the real product. This is still an issue with those razors, as so many thousands of counterfeits were produced, that determining the authenticity is quite a process. To link this back in to the original comment, I bought what was clearly a counterfeited Spyderco directly from amazon. They didn't seem to care, but did refund me. (The knife sharpened extremely easily - VG10 is a tough stringy steel that takes more than normal effort to hone) I won't buy new knives from anyone but the manufacturer anymore. Edit for clarity: Most fakes were unstamped or generic Solingen/Sheffield stamps. Most branded razors pre1900 are authentic. Only a percent or two of those produced were fake. Still makes authentication difficult. And to make it even weirder, some fakes were actually better made than the brand they were being sold as!

jacquesm 10y ago

So here is my short version of this: I got burned like this (twice!) and have stopped ordering on Amazon completely even though I got refunded both times. Amazon excels in short term thinking on this subject, I wonder how long it will take them before the coin drops.

mnm1 10y ago

Then Amazon closes your account for trying to return this garbage they illegally sold. Short of million dollar fines for every incident, this will never change. I doubt Amazon is even trying to fix this. It's so much easier to shut down the people that complain.

ticviking 10y ago
This is why I've largely stopped buying physical stuff from them.

home_boi 10y ago

Have you found any alternative to online shopping? I generally just roll the dice with Amazon on anything that is not food or electronics. The convenience trumps the money wasted on buying a bad product. For electronics, I've looked at Walmart and Jet.com which have shady 3rd party sellers that are worse than Amazon sellers. I believe BestBuy gets all its inventory from authorized sellers so I trust them, although they have limited selection. I haven't found a solution for food (mainly specific branded supplements like magnesium/vitamin C/etc. that can't be found in regular grocery stores) The ideal situation would be if Amazon didn't conmingle its "Sold by Amazon.com" inventory with 3rd party sellers and charged a premium for it (to make it economically feasible for them). Right now the current incentives aren't pointing in that direction. Most customers don't know about the conmingling. If we could spread awareness of conmingling, the economic incentives could lean in that direction.

ikeboy 10y ago
Food is not commingled, or anything with expiration dates. Buy from a seller with good feedback and you'll be fine.
- rexf 10y ago
  That's great to hear, but source? I've bought food from Amazon, but I'm really hesitant to do so anymore
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200243180 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

ikeboy 10y ago

One quibble: anyone can sign up for vendor express and sell to Amazon directly, even if they aren't the manufacturer.

Chathamization 10y ago

This is unsettling. Not only are many counterfeit goods being sold through Amazon, but Amazon's policies (co-mingling inventory, lack of ability to signal counterfeit goods in complaint, lack of ability to review a counterfeit seller of a good instead of the good itself) are directly encouraging this situation. And Amazon's response seems to be a collective shrug. The news media's response is probably just as much to blame - they're more interested in writing fluff pieces about Amazon's hypothetical drone delivery than in informing the public about the current major threat to consumers posed by Amazon's policies. I'm willing to bet a lot of customers have received faulty counterfeit goods and don't even realize it. This also underscores one of the problems with quasi-monopolies - once they feel they have a captive audience, they're only more than happy to screw over their customers in order to make a bit more money. If everyone gravitates towards one company, we end up in a very precarious situation when the company invariably decides that we have no where else to go and then can do whatever they want to us.

0xcde4c3db 10y ago

Is this a big opportunity for a class-action lawsuit by sellers whose reputations were damaged by Amazon fulfilling their orders with counterfeit goods, or is there some kind of genuinely binding "shit happens" clause in the FBA contract?

nommm-nommm 10y ago
Cant, Amazon has forced arbitration with their sellers.

senior_james 10y ago

It's a real problem. I have been buying and selling used products from Amazon to other marketplaces for the last 8 years. I used to get counterfeits once a month. Now, I get them 3 or 4 times a week. Even when I bring it to Amazon's attention, I only get my money back half the time. When I tried to file a claim with my credit card company, my buying account was temporarily banned until I paid back the money (for counterfeit goods that I actually got inspected by the manufacturer and had the paperwork to prove it). The big problem is that Amazon will only give you your money back if you can prove it. It can sometimes take 5 months to get it actually inspected (if you are lucky) and by that time, you are well past the time to return it. The worst part is that it nearly destroyed my business. I got two cease-and-desists in 8 months because I wasn't able to catch all of the counterfeits in time. Myself and my staff are well versed in catching these counterfeits, but it's still a very difficult task. I had to hire an attorney, and I sent all of the sellers' info to the attorney of the manufacturer. I was lucky it ended here. To this day, I still can't sign up with an Amazon seller account because 5 years ago, a single customer complained about an item I sold them. I returned their money promptly and even paid for a return shipping label. Amazon support didn't care. My account was closed, and I was out $500, because the buyer never sent it back to me. They no longer will even talk to me about it (all emails go into a black hole as if I never sent them) and I can't even manage another person/companies account without getting it permanently banned. This is why it's so dangerous to allow a few companies to control so much of the Internet. They can potentially ban you from even making a living and there is really no appeals process. At the time, they had a few automated prompts that claim it's an 'appeals process', but I could tell it was just a bot. I still don't understand how so many of these sellers can sell counterfeits, which is illegal in the US, and make multiple accounts, with almost no issues. It has to be some sort of collusion with employees. It really doesn't make any other sense.

almog 10y ago

Somewhat related - I use amazon price alerting services (camelcamelcamel.com and keepa.com) for some items that are on my wish list. In the past few months I received much more price drops alerts than ever before. Most of these are by new stores that have no reviews. Knowing that I'll be covered by Amazon, and tempted to give what I guessed would be a scum a chance, I ordered two items from different stores and as I expected I never got the items. Eventually got a refund from Amazon. I'm not sure why Amazon isn't putting more effort to prevent these stores from popping up. Most of them I've noticed publish dozens if not hundreds of items for ridiculous prices. Even a simple capping mechanism for new stores would have made this much more difficult than it is to set up this scum. While Ebay does not excel in that regard either, it does cap new sellers sales volume as well as allows buyers to report suspicious activity. Ebay's algorithm isn't especially smart - I often notice stores that were inactive for years yet retain good feedback record, pop up back to life with new low priced supplies and eventually turn out to be a scum (most likely hacked accounts).

inimino 10y ago
You mean scam, not scum.
- almog 10y ago
  Yes, too late for editing now.

crazygringo 10y ago

Is there anyone here who can shed some light as to why? It's impossible for me to believe that it's part of Amazon's strategy to encourage, or even allow, counterfeits -- it might be fine for a smaller company, but it appears to be doing real brand damage at this point. Yet Amazon shows no signs of stopping it -- this has been going on for years. Is it just a really hard problem for some reason that isn't obvious? (Like you catch one seller, and they'll immediately re-register under a different name? Or false counterfeit claims outweigh real ones?) I mean, I still can't wrap my head around why Amazon would comingle FBA merchandise with merchandise Amazon bought directly from the manufacturer, and thus unknowingly sell counterfeits directly. People say this happens, that buying "Ships from and sold by Amazon" can still be counterfeit -- does that happen really? People certainly say it does... is it really something common? It's hard to believe Amazon could be so dumb to do that... why on earth would they? I feel like this just doesn't make sense. Amazon isn't Uber. Shady practices don't seem like their thing at all. So why is this still happening?

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
Amazon is likely stats blinded: their internal metrics say "all good", so they ignore the stories people are telling as anecdotes without ever doing the analysis on how often those "anecdotes" happen. Further, that their stats are ungrounded (not tied to any hard-to-attack real world tests) and fail to capture data which would demonstrate the issue. I believe the FBA and FMA teams are a fundamental blunder opposed to Amazon's core values (and the business model they espouse), and that while the people on them are clever, they're not very prudent. I think that the idea could be salvaged with some genuine mea culpa and revamping of FBA/FMA systems. I just don't think anyone at Amazon with the political capital to do so understands or acknowledges the issue. Honestly, Amazon should just send someone on the team out with $50,000 in $50 giftcards to one of the shopping centers in downtown Seattle and hand them out to anyone who orders something on Amazon for them (on Amazon's dime; shipped to Amazon HQ). Will you get a disproportionately high number of bad purchases? Yep. But that's sort of the point: isn't it a problem if a large fraction of 1,000 people know how to get bad purchases out of regular items, but you still operate your store that way?
- 10y ago

jaleel28 10y ago

As an aside, there is a Chrome extension that can filter out scammy sellers plaguing the site lately - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amazon-shop-safe/gbgkdkbafkopcojbipbkidgihakcopce https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amazon-shop-safe/g...

Arizhel 10y ago
Won't that basically just cause amazon.com to look like a blank page?

cmrdporcupine 10y ago

Quality control in their catalog has gone down generally. It used to be if you searched for something Amazon was almost always the best deal. Now it's a wild west of people just throwing prices against the wall and seeing what sticks. The worst is it's actually getting harder to filter things to make it return only things that are actually sold by Amazon itself to avoid scammers. At least in Canada it seems they've removed options to filter it down to Amazon as the seller. Basically have to guess-work it by filtering it to "prime" or "free shipping."

Steeeve 10y ago

Interesting as this article is trending, so is the fact that they will be collecting sales tax nationwide starting 4/1. I wonder if this is going to start a bit of a resurgence of specialty sites.

animex 10y ago

Not a surprising response from a company who itself participates in knocking off it's own customer's bestsellers.

97s 10y ago

We canceled prime for this very problem.

lotsofpulp 10y ago
I also canceled my prime due to this and them intentionally making it hard to purchase only ships and sold by Amazon.com items. That and commingling their inventory means I have more to worry about, and I'd rather just use Costco/Target/Walmart/Apple for whatever I need, or just go straight to manufacturer's website.
- 97s 10y ago
  Yep. Yesterday my wife asked me to order something off amazon for her. I ordered it off Target. Amazon is going to eventually have to fix this issue.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    No, they really don't have to fix this issue at all. Has Sears fixed their issues? Has Yahoo! fixed their issues? Did Circuit City fix their issues? Is h.h.gregg going to fix their issues?
    - 97s 10y ago
      I like this reply.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

qj4714 10y ago

Why can't Amazon withhold payment from these sellers? They should have all the leverage

greenwalls 10y ago

The scary part of this problem is buying medications or things you ingest. I no longer buy any kind of food or health products on Amazon because I worry they may be fake. Buying fake food and health products is dangerous. I don't buy pet food from Amazon either for the same reason.

sitkack 10y ago

I bough a counterfeit copy of Horowitz and Hill's, "The Art Of Electronics". I didn't realize a) I bought from a 3rd party b) that it was counterfeit until outside of the 30 day window? I called Amazon about it, asking for a refund and they were pretty flat about the "No, we won't take it back, you have to talk to the seller."

Finnucane 10y ago
A counterfeit Horowitz and Hill? Is nothing sacred? But srsly, I was just eyeing the new third edition. Thanks for the warning!
- sitkack 10y ago
  Huge warning on their homepage now, http://artofelectronics.net/ http://artofelectronics.net/ I saved $20 and got a totally poop copy. Amazon even shows that I purchased this version, https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266 https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521... for this price, but mine was sloppy copy.

justinclift 10y ago

There used to be plenty of counterfeit Intel network cards on Amazon.co.uk (and .com). Unsure about other Amazon subdomains. After receiving a chinese knock off card instead of the real thing, I complained to Amazon. Even after rounds of communication with them, trying to alert them to the problem all they did was tell me to contact "Trading Standards" (the uk body). I've barely bought from Amazon since then, and I used to buy a lot from through them. Instead I reached out to Intel Legal, who looked over things, then opened an investigation. Now (some months later) it seems like there are almost no counterfeit Intel cards on Amazon. So at least some places do seem to have enough clout.

justinclift 10y ago
In case it's interesting, this is what the counterfeit card looked like: https://justinclift.fedorapeople.org/Counterfeit%20Intel%20card/DSCN0174.JPG https://justinclift.fedorapeople.org/Counterfeit%20Intel%20c... Obviously using Intel branding (there are other photo's in the same directory, mostly just other angles though). Amazon didn't care.

jakasto 10y ago

I used to regularly buy from Amazon but stopped a while back. The final straw was some razor blades that were noticeably duller and inferior to previous units of the same product.

grandalf 10y ago

Amazon makes massive profit from counterfeits. I've been the unwitting purchaser of several counterfeit products and it's rarely worth the hassle of returning them. I just realized the other day that some wifi cameras I purchased in 2010 are knock offs!

Neliquat 10y ago
Its worth the hassle if you care about the next guy.

throwawaylalala 10y ago

I private label. Amazon's respose process for this is completely broken. Right now we are having several entities jump on; as part of our process for getting counterfieters off of our listibgs we make test buys; probably 10 buyers have sent exactly the same email, including a weird space between a word and a comma. Want to know how truly bad it is? Look at this listing: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00DVKJXFE/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00DVKJXFE/ref=dp_ol...

Pyxl101 10y ago
What conclusion should be drawn from that listing?
- throwaway049 10y ago
  I'm not the OP, but I am suspicious of most of the sellers being 'just launched' or having very few instances of feedback. Also the seller names don't look like anything I would pick it I wanted to name my business.
  - zaroth 10y ago
    What, you mean "Cockers in Larsworld" with two 5-star reviews isn't your first choice retailer to buy this $50 pillow from for $2.78? If that's not your style, you could always shop with "HOLE'S HUMAN ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGISTS" and pay $8.07. Wow, seriously that is insane.
    - bambax 10y ago
      Wow, I hadn't noticed the sellers' names, thanks for the laugh. Amazon's crazy to let that happen with zero oversight.
      - throwawaylalala 10y ago
        The bigger issue is that a large swath of this could be fixed easily. Many of these fake sellers are jumping on with 97,000+ items for sale immediately. Putting a gate in place (something similar to eBays process) could at least increase the effort (and cost) required to scam at this level.

syphilis2 10y ago

Not necessarily counterfeit, but I purchased paints off of Amazon within the last year and the paints that arrived were expired. Amazon had no problem giving me a refund, but I suspect many people just buy the product and don't care, which is fine for them but makes it difficult for me to buy quality items from Amazon.

rleigh 10y ago

I've been uneasy at the whole "FBA" concept for a while, and I've certainly used Amazon much less as a result. I'm not sure what they are thinking here, to be honest. I don't want to use another eBay; I stopped using it entirely due to scammers and paypal. I previously had some trust that Amazon was buying and reselling genuine products, and I no longer do. If FBA was restricted to original manufacturers who provide their own inventory, I'd have little to complain about. But thousands of unknown vendors acting as yet another middle man and pushing cheap counterfeit crap add no value at all, in my opinion. They do nothing but tarnish Amazon's reputation.

Sephr 10y ago

I was recently trying to buy AKG K712 headphones on Amazon last week and many of the units sold as "New" and fulfilled by Amazon were actually used or refurbished. I literally went through 4 different units from different FBA merchants before I gave up and bought it on the official Harmon audio store instead. One-day delivery is nice, but I'd rather wait a couple weeks and pay extra if it means getting an authentic unit.

throaway2137582 10y ago

Throwaway for various reasons. Amazon seller / vendor here with over $5MM in annual sales. We sell to both Amazon directly and fulfill via FBA when PO's are delayed due to their archaic purchasing system. Let me tell you guys what the real problem is, you ready for it? CHINA When Bezos opened up the platform to Chinese sellers in 2015, they FLOODED the market with not only counterfeit items but straight illegal business practices (the notion of piggybacking on listings and selling an item for 50-90% less than normal and never actually shipping a product until they get banned. Rinse and repeat). The other side of the problem is the American consumer: I want it fast and for as cheap as possible. Some of the worst customers are in the US; they "rent" products and return them used and incomplete before the 30-day return window. Even worse, during Q4 when Amazon gives them 90-days to rent something for free. The American consumer is a big part of the problem and Bezos and friends simply know how to take advantage of this and bump up their bottom line for shareholders. Amazon DOES NOT CARE because they take fees on each purchase sold by the Chinese trolls. And like someone previously stated, before a major tier-1 brand gets burned hard, nothing will change. Apple doesn't sell to Amazon, they don't need to. They have their own channels which are incredibly successful. The small brands suffer and they suffer simply and purely because of the Chinese. Most (>95%) Chinese sellers are cancer to the platform. But the consumer is seldom damaged because of Amazon's (still great) customer service. Get rid of the Chinese and most of this will be resolved. Joe Blow isn't counterfeiting products and selling them on Amazon. At least 9/10 times. The solution is two-fold: 1) Severely limit anyone without a legitimate US-based company (registered entity, taxed, EIN, etc) to sell on Amazon. Further, require bonds, throttle traffic, limit the number of ASINs "new sellers" can list on, initiate tariffs for non-US sellers (government can only do this). 2. Consumers simply need education that buying on Amazon today is a different game. Their risk is high and the reward low. PR and articles like this help but more consumers need to educate themselves on what is happening. But this is not easy - when you want the cheapest possible price, you're going to the new Amazon Bazaar. So the mindset of the American consumer is flawed and Amazon plays into this beautifully. They're not stupid and they know exactly what's going on. There are many technical comments here and they are all righteous. But the problem is a very top-level problem. It is simply the Chinese. Period. Limit the Chinese and Amazon will be the Amazon of old. Chinese (or any non-US) sellers should absolutely NOT be allowed to sell anything on Amazon.com. They don't pay income tax and this is simply another loophole Amazon has found in their domination of cheap e-commerce. This doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. If you sell a product in Europe, you're on the hook for VAT, import taxes, etc. Not the case in the US of A. Big systemwide changes are needed. As an aside: Shit will definitely hit the fan soon and Amazon will start to feel it. But it will take time. Their brand is already suffering due to this counterfeiting mess and it's not getting any better. As someone who used to buy everything on Amazon, I don't buy much anymore. I'd rather go to the brand's site and purchase directly or a brick and mortar.

hackuser 10y ago

The author of the article in a prior HN discussion on this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928322

woodandsteel 10y ago

I am guessing one reason for the FBA program is it allows them to scale up their logistics operation larger than it would otherwise be, and that helps them lower the cost per item and out-compete other companies. Remember, Amazon's long-term goal is to take over the world, and it needs to do all sorts of things to get there.

Pxtl 10y ago

Amazon is now just AliExpress but with faster shipping and higher prices.

lexalizer 10y ago

This is starting to be a big problem for me. The time I lose figuring out if a seller is listing counterfeit products or not(not always possible), is costing me too much. I don't think Amazon Prime is worth it anymore. The risk of paying for a fake, then having to spend time returning, for every single product that I buy is just too much.

xmichael99 10y ago

If I get one more bullshit Apple magsafe charger I am cancelling my amazon account.

Neliquat 10y ago
Good luck, apple doent even sell thru amazon.
nommm-nommm 10y ago
I doubt you'll be able to find an authentic one on Amazon. Order directly from Apple.

intrasight 10y ago

At their growth rate, they can afford to have a small fraction of counterfeit items. The costs to Amazon are minuscule. However, they could and should do more to prevent it.

dkarapetyan 10y ago

Isn't the obvious solution to have some kind of registration process? Or am I missing something? If I'm publishing a book then anyone else that wants to sell that book in large quantities must register with me and get my sign-off. Large quantities being somewhat vaguely defined.

rsync 10y ago

As you can imagine, we (rsync.net) buy a lot of hard drives. We use SAS drives so, unfortunately, we can't do the "buy the cheapest external USB drives from Frys and strip them" trick. However, it is very, very hard to buy a new hard drive on Amazon if it is more than a year out of introduction. After a year or so, all of the "new" drives on Amazon have widely varying SMART statistics and lifetime gauges. We very, very regularly get entire batches of "new" drives with thousands of hours of use on them. I would really like to name and shame specific sellers but I am traveling now and can't dive into old email threads. I keep meaning to do a blog post, etc. In egregious cases, we return/refund. Other times, if we get a big batch with sub-10k hours on them and they all pass our very strict burn-in process, we use them. It's actually quite difficult to buy a genuinely new 4TB enterprise drive right now and in 6 months that will begin to be the case with 6-8TB drives, etc.

detaro 10y ago
Is this problem Amazon specific, or does the supply chain for other large sellers have the same issue?
tdurden 10y ago
I didn't realize how bad things were until reading this.
nommm-nommm 10y ago
This may be a really ignorant question but can I ask why you continue to use Amazon to source hard drives then? Is there really no other place to buy hard drives? If you are a bulk buyer I would think you'd be able to buy directly from the manufacturer or something.
- rsync 10y ago
  We continue to buy drives on amazon because of extremely fast and easy sourcing, checkout, and return policy. Basically the same reason everyone uses amazon, for everything. If we get a really wacko batch, the return is very, very simple. The practice of selling "new pulls" (supposedly new drives that are removed from new servers by end users that wanted different drives installed all along) is rampant everywhere - not just at Amazon. The problem is that a lot of "pulls that are not new at all and are actually just used drives" drift into that channel. And, of course, all of them are sold as "brand new".

rdudek 10y ago

Is this all based on chance at this point? Im looking to buy a set of headphones, Beyerdynamics DT-990. How should I buy them to make sure they're not counterfeit?

nkrisc 10y ago

I've been considering a $100 dashcam on Amazon. I think I'll just buy it somewhere else now. I have no idea what the actual risk is of receiving a fake but I'd rather not find out.

norea-armozel 10y ago

More often than not I'm trying to buy things not on Amazon anymore. Like my most recent (and expense) purchase was a telescope from Orion. I just don't trust Amazon to vet their sellers. If they can't be bothered to make sure what's sold is the real thing then I'm not going to buy from them. It might cost me a bit more in the retail price but at least when I buy from decent online stores or reputable bricks and mortars I know I'm getting what I expected to buy (even if it's not top of the line).

jinushaun 10y ago

I've pretty much learned to buy nothing of value from Amazon any more. Got burned too many times. Read the reviews! This problem is endemic! People are buying new items and either getting used or wrong items. The site has gone to shit since they moved to rely heavily on affiliates. I now buy direct from manufacturer or brick and mortar.

Arizhel 10y ago
>I now buy direct from manufacturer or brick and mortar. Is this really necessary though? Lots of manufacturers don't sell directly to the public anyway, and more importantly, Amazon is not the only internet retailer out there. There's tons of them. It seems like it's really better, in fact, if Amazon goes belly-up and we get more competition and more strong internet retailers to choose from, instead of having one giant one dominating everything. Just one anecdote: my (now-ex) wife really liked some kind of sea salt from Sardinia. (Yeah, I know, how different is sea salt from Sardinia from sea salt from any place else?) Anyway, she uses a lot of salt, relatively, and we had moved so she couldn't buy it from her regular little Italian market, so I looked online. Amazon had it, but it was rather expensive per jar, and that was from some 3rd party seller. (This was probably around 3 years ago, before Amazon really went down the tubes.) So I did some Googling and Froogling, and found a website that sold nothing but imported Italian foods, and a lot of it. I bought a couple cases of this salt (both fine and coarse grain) for dirt-cheap prices, less than half the price on Amazon, and much cheaper than she used to get it for locally. She also added in a bunch of other items that were also very cheap because this retailer was the importer and was cutting out middlemen and not having to pay for an expensive storefront. To me, this exemplifies what internet shopping should be like: specialty retailers that cut out unnecessary middlemen, have excellent selection, and don't have all the problems that B&M stores have (location, limited hours, having to travel there, high rents, etc.), and are able to pass these savings to end-users. Amazon, by contrast, seems to exemplify the worst of capitalism: one single company able to take advantage of efficiencies of scale and brand-name recognition in order to capture the majority of the market, not specializing in anything, and providing a mediocre-to-bad experience overall, but no one else being able to compete because the barrier to entry is too high.