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This a major problem for amazon. I bought a baby product off amazon. I noticed a few weird things about my product, so I emailed the inventor. They told me that

This a major problem for amazon. I bought a baby product off amazon. I noticed a few weird things about my product, so I emailed the inventor. They told me that some Chinese company had stolen their product design and was seeling fakes with the same name on amazon. I refuse anything from amazon for my baby. Hell, amazon even sent me an opened package of similac formula

martin-adams 9y ago
I had a fake blender from Amazon and they first were helpful then suddenly wanted me to return it to the reseller allowing them to sell it to someone else. I only discovered it after a BBC report of fake ones catching fire. No way would I let that end up in someone else’s house. Got my refund in the end, but Amazon were clueless really.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  You are starting to freak me out. I have bought a few brand name items from Amazon over last years where the quality was surprisingly bad. Now I wonder if they were fake. This just shouldn't happen. It's one thing to find out that something is fake but often you don't know what to expect and end up thinking that the product is just bad. I guess I will reduce my Amazon shopping when more. I already dropped prime but I will probably start avoid Amazon as much as I can from now on. eBay feels almost more honest now.
  - swozey 9y ago
    Are you buying GOOD brand names? BIFL stuff? I could name a ton of brand name items I've bought off Amazon that were just bad that I replaced multiple times. A big problem with that is not seeing it in person to see what comes with it, etc. Example, I've owned just about every brand of electric shaver and hated something about nearly all of them. I finally dropped the $70 on a Wahl that has a third of the features but it's a beast. Couldn't even tell you how many kitchen appliances I have bought and thought were awful. Or bathroom mats, towels, patio mats, etc. Personally I think a lot of consumer products just suck and Amazon is pretty much the equivalent of Walmart now when it comes to filtering through cheap crap. Products are half-assed most of the time and companies spend more money on marketing than making a good product (or the best they can for the price). Or they focus on one really big feature and skimp out on the rest. I'm trying to buy a lot LESS but very high quality stuff nowadays. I've had to stop using Amazon as my "buy-all" place. Almost felt like I was being gaslit by 5 star reviewers of shitty towels/etc when I finally discovered Frontage products and went "wow, lux Hotel quality towels DO exist." I don't want to use Amazon for cheap Walmart quality junk, I want it for its fast shipping and options. edit: Frontgate not Frontage.. they make killer towels, I'm a changed man
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - martin-adams 9y ago
      Sadly it's not just about the brand name. This blender was a near perefect replica of the official NutriBullet product. It took me buying it from a retail store to compare them side by side when I noticed the imperfections. But I couldn't tell without having one to compare with. Worst part is I paid MORE on the fake, so it's not even about price. I used to have this problem buying brand razor blades from eBay a few years back. They were counterfeit because they actually hurt to shave with, yet the supermarket version (same brand), were perfect. Long story short, when it comes spare power adapters (e.g. Macbook), I only buy from Apple direct. I do fear getting a knockoff which is unsafe.
      - jtbayly 9y ago
        I had that same problem with buying razor blades online. It was impossible to tell them apart until you put them to your skin. Then it was obvious.
      - balls187 9y ago
        Are you sure it was a fake Nutribullet? They are sold on TV via infomercial, made by Magic Bullet. They're pretty much junk manufactured by lowest bidder factories with quality problems. If you paid slightly above retail, it seems even less likely it was fake, and probably just shoddy QC.
        martin-adams 9y ago
        I was hoping to find out 100% and Amazon originally said NutriBullet would get in touch, but nothing happened. When I got back to them they had no idea what to do or what I was previously told. So disappointed in them. As for the higher price, when I brought it was out of stock everywhere which limited my options to an Amazon seller. It was the run up to Christmas and after buying, other places got stock. I did as much research as I could to spot it, even buying a new on from a trusted retailer. But when the consequence could be fire[1] it wasn’t worth the risk and I couldn’t face passing that risk to someone else by returning it. I wanted a proper investigation. That didn’t happen. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-35075642/fake-nutribullet-explodes-in-safety-test-after-four-seconds http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-35075642/fake-nutribul...
  - eastendguy 9y ago
    Some brands like Birkenstock shoes stopped selling on Amazon for this reason: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/20/birkenstock-quits-amazon-in-us-after-counterfeit-surge.html https://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/20/birkenstock-quits-amazon-in-...
    - chopin 9y ago
      But how will this affect selling of counterfeits? The article points only out that Birkenstock will tell its customers it doesn't sell on Amazon, but unaware customers can still be fooled, imho.
- twothamendment 9y ago
  My wife was shopping for a fan and noticed that Amazon and Costco both had the same one. Costco was about $1.50 more. We buy a ton of stuff from Amazon, but given the chance to get it from someone who is less likely to have a fake and will take it back without an argument - Costco won this time.
  - swozey 9y ago
    Yeah, I'm the WORST at returning things, especially if it involves shipping. Thankfully I've been lucky with TVs, etc. Or have low standards.
- dahdum 9y ago
  I just received a fake usb c hub from Amazon, sold by them, but clearly commingled with counterfeits. Seems like these problems are just getting worse over time.
shkkmo 9y ago
Can manufacturers not sue Amazon for selling counterfeit goods?
- jtbayly 9y ago
  They can and have, but they lose. Technically Amazon isn’t the seller, but simply the marketplace, according to courts so far. There was a discussion of this on HN recently because a car company (Mercedes I think it was) caught Amazon itself selling fakes of their products.
  - yitchelle 9y ago
    What was the outcome of the fake Mercedes thing?
    - jtbayly 9y ago
      I believe it’s still in litigation, but people are saying that it’s the first time Amazon might lose.
  - Dibbles 9y ago
    Yet if I post a magnet link for a torrent, I'm distributing pirated software.
    - coldacid 9y ago
      Make a lot of money and buy a newspaper. It won't be piracy for you after that.
    - candiodari 9y ago
      No there is a huge difference. What Jeff Bezos is doing is SELLING pirated non-software. That's highly illegal and punishable, in most places, with jail time. But man this is an insightful comment. Of course, that's what the outsourcing wave will lead to. Pirated real products. From toothpaste to electronics. Lower quality ... and even higher quality products. Man how could I have missed this ?
nkrisc 9y ago
My son is five months old and we won't buy anything off Amazon for him. If we receive a gift for him and it comes in an Amazon box we quietly dispose of it. We're going to spend A LOT of money on him as he grows up and Amazon will see none of it for exactly the reason you mentioned. I hardly buy anything for myself off Amazon anymore because I don't want counterfeit stuff either. Since I stopped buying from them I also canceled my Prime account. Curious to see if this problem hurts them in the long run. I also tell my friends and family that they should reconsider buying anything from Amazon anymore.
- swozey 9y ago
  I buy nearly everything on Amazon but they have a serious counterfeit problem with stuff like hair supplies, cologne, batteries, etc. I'll only buy that sort of stuff from a vendor I know (if its third party Amazon). 99% of the stuff I buy off Amazon is completely fine, though.
  - pm24601 9y ago
    That's not as good as you might think. If Amazon is handling the fulfillment, Amazon commingles the goods provided by the vendor with any other vendor selling the same product. Amazon figures 1 package of gillette razor blades is the same as every other package claiming to be Gillette Razor Blades ( picking a random brand I can remember at the moment) See this for more explanation: https://www1.avalara.com/trustfile/en/blog/commingle-not-commingle-fulfillment-amazon.html https://www1.avalara.com/trustfile/en/blog/commingle-not-com...
    - Jemmeh 9y ago
      As a seller you can opt out of commingling and still have Amazon fulfill it, and a lot of sellers do specifically because of these quality issues. But yeah, some people do it and it's a big part of the counterfeit problem. As a seller you have to have to weigh dealing with counterfeits vs shipping logistics. "Your products take an extra week to get to me? Forget it, I'll buy from that guy." I don't think there's a way for a buyer to know without messaging the seller.
paulcole 9y ago
> This a major problem for amazon I hear this over and over but where's the evidence that this is true on a significant scale? Sellers have been counterfeiting and selling knock-off garbage on Amazon since the 3rd-party marketplaces launched. 3P sellers are a NECESSITY for Amazon. They source and stock the hundreds of millions of long tail items that Amazon themselves can't/won't. For Amazon the benefits of 3P sellers far outweigh the costs. Edit: Who's downvoting this and why?
- majormajor 9y ago
  There are large categories of things I don't buy anymore from them now (namely: expensive stuff not manufactured by Amazon themselves) that I know about co-mingling inventory. It's still in the early days of awareness about this, but if they don't change anything, I'm not likely to go back - odds are that it gets worse before it gets better. I'd be fine with 3rd party sellers if I could simply ignore them. When I can't trust stuff "sold by Amazon" if third parties also sell it, though...
- LukaAl 9y ago
  I agree with your comment. Amazon has a problem of 1) how to police all this long-tail product, 2) how to onboard the number of sellers that needs to fulfill the demand for long-tail products. I'm pretty sure that if someone were to sell a counterfeited copy of a best seller, his store would be shut down in a matter of hours and his account closed forever. But a small store selling stuff difficult to find? They are doing them a service, almost. Like everything else, there are rules against counterfeiting, but the enforcement should strike a balance for the overall wellbeing of the marketplace...
- SiVal 9y ago
  I'm not downvoting, but I'll speculate why others might. You express skepticism that this really is a significant problem. Okay. Which you back up with arguments that the problem is: longstanding (has been a "feature" since 3P mtk launched years ago with no sign of a solution), and it's potentially vast (3P mkt stocks "hundreds of millions of items"), and probably unsolvable ("3P sellers are a NECESSITY for Amazon".) So I'll guess that the downvoting had something to do with your thesis sentence.
joqje09309 9y ago
Call mom and dad and thank them for enabling a corporate and political culture that allows this. Then email your state AG. Doing nothing but shopping elsewhere is just gonna send a signal it's cool, and retail everywhere will be having to compete. It perpetuates the race to the bottom. Hold em accountable.
rdlecler1 9y ago
Amazon is not doing enough to address this issue. At some point someone will die from something that is counterfeit and Bezos will be in DC like Zuckerberg is today. Why they’re not being more proactive is beyond me.
alanfranzoni 9y ago
Is counterfeiting an US problem? I buy a lot, lot of things from Amazon, I never, never got a counterfeit - or, at least, I never got a counterfeit that I could spot :-)
- bb88 9y ago
  Counterfeiting has been a problem in China for years. Companies like Walmart have in the past used Chinese companies fairly responsibly, e.g. forcing them to use new brands that are no one else's, or selling under Walmart's brands. When Amazon moved to compete along the lines of ebay say, they didn't really care that much if it sold counterfeit goods. It's the brand's fault for not flagging Amazon's products.
- lev99 9y ago
  I suspect many buyers in the United States are not skilled at determining counterfeits. Sometimes this is obvious, but other times the symptoms are masked as something else. When an electronic item is defective, when an item you buy reoccurringly degrades in quality over multiple purchases, or when something stops working before it should those are all warning signs of a counterfeit. I highly suspect 0.5% of my Amazon packages have been counterfeit. I've had hundreds of orders over the last 3 years.
  - smt88 9y ago
    > When an electronic item is defective, when an item you buy reoccurringly degrades in quality over multiple purchases, or when something stops working before it should those are all warning signs of a counterfeit. Yeah, those things all happen to genuine products, too. It doesn't tell you much.
  - dahdum 9y ago
    The problem is growing, so past purchases arenot really indicative of the current experience. I’m now getting fakes sold and shipped by Amazon.com, any small electronics and accessories are a big crap shoot now.
- GordonS 9y ago
fludlight 9y ago
Counterfeiting isn't even the worst thing on Amazon. Low-tech, low-skill, low-capital entrepreneur forums like /r/flipping have recurring posts about people dumpster diving outside retailers, some of which have yet to lock their garbage cans. They look for discarded consumer goods, primarily cosmetics, toiletries, and electronics, but sometimes even packaged food. The posters go on to brag about their profits selling this stuff on Amazon or eBay. Their rationale is that these items are perfectly good and were discarded due to slow sales or being discontinued. That's objectively false: most was discarded because it is either expired or defective. The "good" stuff is sold to Marshall's, Ross, NewEgg, or the rest of the multi-billion dollar "off-price" ecosystem. But people don't want to hear that and any attempt to caution them is downvoted to oblivion. To be fair, Amazon has taken steps to ameliorate this. Certain categories are now restricted to large volume sellers, which weeds out the dumpster divers. ...until they find a different category or a different website, or a way to lie or cheat their way back into the old one. If all else fails, they go on /r/DIY and learn how to make children's furniture out of poison soaked pallets they can steal from their local hardware store.
- ramblenode 9y ago
  > Their rationale is that these items are perfectly good and were discarded due to slow sales or being discontinued. That's objectively false: most was discarded because it is either expired or defective. What does party A's rationale for discarding something have to do with party B's utility of the thing? It's possible a merchant may not want to stock an item that someone else wants, perhaps because the merchant can't sell it at a profit or they want to protect their brand. Something about trash and treasure. For food at least, the expiration date is usually the manufacturer's "best by" date, meaning when they no longer back the product with their brand, not whether the food is still good to consume. This, among other practices, leads to a mind blowing amount of retailer food waste in the US. I'm all for scavengers being able to profit from what would otherwise be wasted as long as they're honest.
  - fludlight 9y ago
    There are four parties here, not two. A is the company whose products the dumpster diver B took. C is the marketplace where B lied and said the goods were as advertised by A. The aggrieved party is D, the end consumer, who thought they were buying the quality advertised by A or implied by relevant laws and regulations. IMHO, most of the blame lies with B, but experience has shown that C will almost always turn a blind eye in the name of growth. > For food at least, the expiration date is usually the manufacturer's "best by" date, meaning when they no longer back the product with their brand, not whether the food is still good to consume. This, among other practices, leads to a mind blowing amount of retailer food waste in the US. I'm all for scavengers being able to profit from what would otherwise be wasted as long as they're honest. There are legitimate ways to reduce food waste, but this is not one of them. The main problem is that dumpster divers don't advertise their wares as "scavenged from a dumpster" or "expired" or "recalled" because that would result in lower profits.
neeleshs 9y ago
It looks like there is a sizable market for curated brands, even for routine items like toilet paper, razors, baby formula etc.
- Can_Not 9y ago
  You misunderstood the problem, you can follow a curated guide on legit non-counterfeit products, then click their link to Amazon, purchase, and still have a counterfeit arrive in the mail.
  - neeleshs 9y ago
    No. I meant a non-amazon marketplace, not a curated guide that takes you back to Amazon for actual purchase

martin-adams 9y ago

I had a fake blender from Amazon and they first were helpful then suddenly wanted me to return it to the reseller allowing them to sell it to someone else. I only discovered it after a BBC report of fake ones catching fire. No way would I let that end up in someone else’s house. Got my refund in the end, but Amazon were clueless really.

maxxxxx 9y ago
You are starting to freak me out. I have bought a few brand name items from Amazon over last years where the quality was surprisingly bad. Now I wonder if they were fake. This just shouldn't happen. It's one thing to find out that something is fake but often you don't know what to expect and end up thinking that the product is just bad. I guess I will reduce my Amazon shopping when more. I already dropped prime but I will probably start avoid Amazon as much as I can from now on. eBay feels almost more honest now.
- swozey 9y ago
  Are you buying GOOD brand names? BIFL stuff? I could name a ton of brand name items I've bought off Amazon that were just bad that I replaced multiple times. A big problem with that is not seeing it in person to see what comes with it, etc. Example, I've owned just about every brand of electric shaver and hated something about nearly all of them. I finally dropped the $70 on a Wahl that has a third of the features but it's a beast. Couldn't even tell you how many kitchen appliances I have bought and thought were awful. Or bathroom mats, towels, patio mats, etc. Personally I think a lot of consumer products just suck and Amazon is pretty much the equivalent of Walmart now when it comes to filtering through cheap crap. Products are half-assed most of the time and companies spend more money on marketing than making a good product (or the best they can for the price). Or they focus on one really big feature and skimp out on the rest. I'm trying to buy a lot LESS but very high quality stuff nowadays. I've had to stop using Amazon as my "buy-all" place. Almost felt like I was being gaslit by 5 star reviewers of shitty towels/etc when I finally discovered Frontage products and went "wow, lux Hotel quality towels DO exist." I don't want to use Amazon for cheap Walmart quality junk, I want it for its fast shipping and options. edit: Frontgate not Frontage.. they make killer towels, I'm a changed man
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - martin-adams 9y ago
    Sadly it's not just about the brand name. This blender was a near perefect replica of the official NutriBullet product. It took me buying it from a retail store to compare them side by side when I noticed the imperfections. But I couldn't tell without having one to compare with. Worst part is I paid MORE on the fake, so it's not even about price. I used to have this problem buying brand razor blades from eBay a few years back. They were counterfeit because they actually hurt to shave with, yet the supermarket version (same brand), were perfect. Long story short, when it comes spare power adapters (e.g. Macbook), I only buy from Apple direct. I do fear getting a knockoff which is unsafe.
    - jtbayly 9y ago
      I had that same problem with buying razor blades online. It was impossible to tell them apart until you put them to your skin. Then it was obvious.
    - balls187 9y ago
      Are you sure it was a fake Nutribullet? They are sold on TV via infomercial, made by Magic Bullet. They're pretty much junk manufactured by lowest bidder factories with quality problems. If you paid slightly above retail, it seems even less likely it was fake, and probably just shoddy QC.
      - martin-adams 9y ago
        I was hoping to find out 100% and Amazon originally said NutriBullet would get in touch, but nothing happened. When I got back to them they had no idea what to do or what I was previously told. So disappointed in them. As for the higher price, when I brought it was out of stock everywhere which limited my options to an Amazon seller. It was the run up to Christmas and after buying, other places got stock. I did as much research as I could to spot it, even buying a new on from a trusted retailer. But when the consequence could be fire[1] it wasn’t worth the risk and I couldn’t face passing that risk to someone else by returning it. I wanted a proper investigation. That didn’t happen. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-35075642/fake-nutribullet-explodes-in-safety-test-after-four-seconds http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-35075642/fake-nutribul...
- eastendguy 9y ago
  Some brands like Birkenstock shoes stopped selling on Amazon for this reason: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/20/birkenstock-quits-amazon-in-us-after-counterfeit-surge.html https://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/20/birkenstock-quits-amazon-in-...
  - chopin 9y ago
    But how will this affect selling of counterfeits? The article points only out that Birkenstock will tell its customers it doesn't sell on Amazon, but unaware customers can still be fooled, imho.
twothamendment 9y ago
My wife was shopping for a fan and noticed that Amazon and Costco both had the same one. Costco was about $1.50 more. We buy a ton of stuff from Amazon, but given the chance to get it from someone who is less likely to have a fake and will take it back without an argument - Costco won this time.
- swozey 9y ago
  Yeah, I'm the WORST at returning things, especially if it involves shipping. Thankfully I've been lucky with TVs, etc. Or have low standards.
dahdum 9y ago
I just received a fake usb c hub from Amazon, sold by them, but clearly commingled with counterfeits. Seems like these problems are just getting worse over time.

shkkmo 9y ago

Can manufacturers not sue Amazon for selling counterfeit goods?

jtbayly 9y ago
They can and have, but they lose. Technically Amazon isn’t the seller, but simply the marketplace, according to courts so far. There was a discussion of this on HN recently because a car company (Mercedes I think it was) caught Amazon itself selling fakes of their products.
- yitchelle 9y ago
  What was the outcome of the fake Mercedes thing?
  - jtbayly 9y ago
    I believe it’s still in litigation, but people are saying that it’s the first time Amazon might lose.
- Dibbles 9y ago
  Yet if I post a magnet link for a torrent, I'm distributing pirated software.
  - coldacid 9y ago
    Make a lot of money and buy a newspaper. It won't be piracy for you after that.
  - candiodari 9y ago
    No there is a huge difference. What Jeff Bezos is doing is SELLING pirated non-software. That's highly illegal and punishable, in most places, with jail time. But man this is an insightful comment. Of course, that's what the outsourcing wave will lead to. Pirated real products. From toothpaste to electronics. Lower quality ... and even higher quality products. Man how could I have missed this ?

nkrisc 9y ago

My son is five months old and we won't buy anything off Amazon for him. If we receive a gift for him and it comes in an Amazon box we quietly dispose of it. We're going to spend A LOT of money on him as he grows up and Amazon will see none of it for exactly the reason you mentioned. I hardly buy anything for myself off Amazon anymore because I don't want counterfeit stuff either. Since I stopped buying from them I also canceled my Prime account. Curious to see if this problem hurts them in the long run. I also tell my friends and family that they should reconsider buying anything from Amazon anymore.

swozey 9y ago
I buy nearly everything on Amazon but they have a serious counterfeit problem with stuff like hair supplies, cologne, batteries, etc. I'll only buy that sort of stuff from a vendor I know (if its third party Amazon). 99% of the stuff I buy off Amazon is completely fine, though.
- pm24601 9y ago
  That's not as good as you might think. If Amazon is handling the fulfillment, Amazon commingles the goods provided by the vendor with any other vendor selling the same product. Amazon figures 1 package of gillette razor blades is the same as every other package claiming to be Gillette Razor Blades ( picking a random brand I can remember at the moment) See this for more explanation: https://www1.avalara.com/trustfile/en/blog/commingle-not-commingle-fulfillment-amazon.html https://www1.avalara.com/trustfile/en/blog/commingle-not-com...
  - Jemmeh 9y ago
    As a seller you can opt out of commingling and still have Amazon fulfill it, and a lot of sellers do specifically because of these quality issues. But yeah, some people do it and it's a big part of the counterfeit problem. As a seller you have to have to weigh dealing with counterfeits vs shipping logistics. "Your products take an extra week to get to me? Forget it, I'll buy from that guy." I don't think there's a way for a buyer to know without messaging the seller.

paulcole 9y ago

> This a major problem for amazon I hear this over and over but where's the evidence that this is true on a significant scale? Sellers have been counterfeiting and selling knock-off garbage on Amazon since the 3rd-party marketplaces launched. 3P sellers are a NECESSITY for Amazon. They source and stock the hundreds of millions of long tail items that Amazon themselves can't/won't. For Amazon the benefits of 3P sellers far outweigh the costs. Edit: Who's downvoting this and why?

majormajor 9y ago
There are large categories of things I don't buy anymore from them now (namely: expensive stuff not manufactured by Amazon themselves) that I know about co-mingling inventory. It's still in the early days of awareness about this, but if they don't change anything, I'm not likely to go back - odds are that it gets worse before it gets better. I'd be fine with 3rd party sellers if I could simply ignore them. When I can't trust stuff "sold by Amazon" if third parties also sell it, though...
LukaAl 9y ago
I agree with your comment. Amazon has a problem of 1) how to police all this long-tail product, 2) how to onboard the number of sellers that needs to fulfill the demand for long-tail products. I'm pretty sure that if someone were to sell a counterfeited copy of a best seller, his store would be shut down in a matter of hours and his account closed forever. But a small store selling stuff difficult to find? They are doing them a service, almost. Like everything else, there are rules against counterfeiting, but the enforcement should strike a balance for the overall wellbeing of the marketplace...
SiVal 9y ago
I'm not downvoting, but I'll speculate why others might. You express skepticism that this really is a significant problem. Okay. Which you back up with arguments that the problem is: longstanding (has been a "feature" since 3P mtk launched years ago with no sign of a solution), and it's potentially vast (3P mkt stocks "hundreds of millions of items"), and probably unsolvable ("3P sellers are a NECESSITY for Amazon".) So I'll guess that the downvoting had something to do with your thesis sentence.

joqje09309 9y ago

Call mom and dad and thank them for enabling a corporate and political culture that allows this. Then email your state AG. Doing nothing but shopping elsewhere is just gonna send a signal it's cool, and retail everywhere will be having to compete. It perpetuates the race to the bottom. Hold em accountable.

rdlecler1 9y ago

Amazon is not doing enough to address this issue. At some point someone will die from something that is counterfeit and Bezos will be in DC like Zuckerberg is today. Why they’re not being more proactive is beyond me.

alanfranzoni 9y ago

Is counterfeiting an US problem? I buy a lot, lot of things from Amazon, I never, never got a counterfeit - or, at least, I never got a counterfeit that I could spot :-)

bb88 9y ago
Counterfeiting has been a problem in China for years. Companies like Walmart have in the past used Chinese companies fairly responsibly, e.g. forcing them to use new brands that are no one else's, or selling under Walmart's brands. When Amazon moved to compete along the lines of ebay say, they didn't really care that much if it sold counterfeit goods. It's the brand's fault for not flagging Amazon's products.
lev99 9y ago
I suspect many buyers in the United States are not skilled at determining counterfeits. Sometimes this is obvious, but other times the symptoms are masked as something else. When an electronic item is defective, when an item you buy reoccurringly degrades in quality over multiple purchases, or when something stops working before it should those are all warning signs of a counterfeit. I highly suspect 0.5% of my Amazon packages have been counterfeit. I've had hundreds of orders over the last 3 years.
- smt88 9y ago
  > When an electronic item is defective, when an item you buy reoccurringly degrades in quality over multiple purchases, or when something stops working before it should those are all warning signs of a counterfeit. Yeah, those things all happen to genuine products, too. It doesn't tell you much.
- dahdum 9y ago
  The problem is growing, so past purchases arenot really indicative of the current experience. I’m now getting fakes sold and shipped by Amazon.com, any small electronics and accessories are a big crap shoot now.
GordonS 9y ago

fludlight 9y ago

Counterfeiting isn't even the worst thing on Amazon. Low-tech, low-skill, low-capital entrepreneur forums like /r/flipping have recurring posts about people dumpster diving outside retailers, some of which have yet to lock their garbage cans. They look for discarded consumer goods, primarily cosmetics, toiletries, and electronics, but sometimes even packaged food. The posters go on to brag about their profits selling this stuff on Amazon or eBay. Their rationale is that these items are perfectly good and were discarded due to slow sales or being discontinued. That's objectively false: most was discarded because it is either expired or defective. The "good" stuff is sold to Marshall's, Ross, NewEgg, or the rest of the multi-billion dollar "off-price" ecosystem. But people don't want to hear that and any attempt to caution them is downvoted to oblivion. To be fair, Amazon has taken steps to ameliorate this. Certain categories are now restricted to large volume sellers, which weeds out the dumpster divers. ...until they find a different category or a different website, or a way to lie or cheat their way back into the old one. If all else fails, they go on /r/DIY and learn how to make children's furniture out of poison soaked pallets they can steal from their local hardware store.

ramblenode 9y ago
> Their rationale is that these items are perfectly good and were discarded due to slow sales or being discontinued. That's objectively false: most was discarded because it is either expired or defective. What does party A's rationale for discarding something have to do with party B's utility of the thing? It's possible a merchant may not want to stock an item that someone else wants, perhaps because the merchant can't sell it at a profit or they want to protect their brand. Something about trash and treasure. For food at least, the expiration date is usually the manufacturer's "best by" date, meaning when they no longer back the product with their brand, not whether the food is still good to consume. This, among other practices, leads to a mind blowing amount of retailer food waste in the US. I'm all for scavengers being able to profit from what would otherwise be wasted as long as they're honest.
- fludlight 9y ago
  There are four parties here, not two. A is the company whose products the dumpster diver B took. C is the marketplace where B lied and said the goods were as advertised by A. The aggrieved party is D, the end consumer, who thought they were buying the quality advertised by A or implied by relevant laws and regulations. IMHO, most of the blame lies with B, but experience has shown that C will almost always turn a blind eye in the name of growth. > For food at least, the expiration date is usually the manufacturer's "best by" date, meaning when they no longer back the product with their brand, not whether the food is still good to consume. This, among other practices, leads to a mind blowing amount of retailer food waste in the US. I'm all for scavengers being able to profit from what would otherwise be wasted as long as they're honest. There are legitimate ways to reduce food waste, but this is not one of them. The main problem is that dumpster divers don't advertise their wares as "scavenged from a dumpster" or "expired" or "recalled" because that would result in lower profits.

neeleshs 9y ago

It looks like there is a sizable market for curated brands, even for routine items like toilet paper, razors, baby formula etc.

Can_Not 9y ago
You misunderstood the problem, you can follow a curated guide on legit non-counterfeit products, then click their link to Amazon, purchase, and still have a counterfeit arrive in the mail.
- neeleshs 9y ago
  No. I meant a non-amazon marketplace, not a curated guide that takes you back to Amazon for actual purchase