6 ms·
When I wanted to buy a Hakko Soldering Iron, I heard that there are counterfeit ones on Amazon. So instead of getting 2 day shipping, I got the nearly 1+ week s
by atonse 8y ago
When I wanted to buy a Hakko Soldering Iron, I heard that there are counterfeit ones on Amazon. So instead of getting 2 day shipping, I got the nearly 1+ week shipping direct from Hakko. But I know it'll be authentic.
Same with Adafruit products, and I'm increasingly noticing that if I want to make sure something absolutely won't be fake, I buy direct from the retailer.
It sucks. You get spoiled by Amazon's amazing "free" shipping especially if you're a prime member.
But it's more important to me that a product is genuine. I'll learn to be a bit more patient.
- liveoneggs 8y agoI was just looking at jansport backpacks for my kids and all of them had "jansport sent this back as not authentic" reviews
- atonse 8y agoThere you go. But if you go to Jansport, I bet you'll have to pay shipping and the cheap option will be 5-10 business days. That's the norm. We've forgotten, mostly thanks to Amazon.
- sbov 8y agoFor a brand like Jansport, this is a false dichotomy: https://www.walmart.com/search/?query=jansport%20backpack&cat_id=0&typeahead=jansport https://www.walmart.com/search/?query=jansport%20backpack&ca...
- jessaustin 8y agoWal-Mart has the same problem, although perhaps not to the same extent.
- pbourke 8y agoDoes Wal-Mart commingle inventory with 3rd party sellers? That’s the root of the problem in Amazon’s case.
- Skunkleton 8y agoI think the implication is that you can just go drive to walmart, or to some other brick and mortar location.
- jessaustin 8y agoYeah I would be much more certain that b&m products were "genuine" than I would be for walmart.com products, which I thought was the topic. I kind of wonder how we've gotten to this point, if we're talking about genuine Wal-Mart products... I'm not saying this out of snobbery... I'm in Wal-Mart about once a week.
- econochoice 8y agoI've encountered a trend of B&M and big retailers carrying counterfeit hair & body care products over the last two years.
- ceejayoz 8y agoIt's really bad with things like SD cards. I've gotten ones that are half their stated capacity, and ones that are supposed to be V90 class (90MB/sec write) that barely make 10MB/sec.
- patrickg_zill 8y agoImagine going on a trip nearly 1000 miles away and finding out after the fact that you got a crappy fake SD card from Amazon that made 90% of your photos unrecoverable. Happened to me. Once.
- res0nat0r 8y agoCan't everyone just pay attention to the seller if they're worried about fake goods? Just make sure you're buying an SD card fulfilled by Amazon sold by Samsung if you're worried, not from 3rd party seller.
- toast0 8y agoIf it's fulfilled by Amazon, it may be commingled with inventory from other sellers, depending on the seller's settings that purchasers can't see.
- res0nat0r 8y agoBut when you're buying an item it always shows who the seller is, just don't purchase the item if it doesn't show the actual brand of company vs. some random seller name. I've never purchased a scam item from Amazon and I've had an account since 1999.
- ribosometronome 8y agoThe problem is that Fulfilled by Amazon items have co-mingled inventory, so items bought from amzn_bob_1985 may actually be coming from stickers_on_alibaba_crap99's comingled inventory. If you do receive fake goods, there's no guarantee that it's actually the fault of the specific seller you purchased from.
- blt 8y agoThere's a lot of counterfeit stuff on Amazon. I ordered a Pulltaps corkscrew and the chrome-plated metal part [1] was instead made of crudely bent sheet metal that didn't look remotely authentic. After that I mainly use Amazon for small household consumables. I also heard stories about counterfeit Mitutoyo calipers [2] so I didn't even consider trying Amazon for those. [1] http://cellarsofwine.com/img/pulltex-pulltaps-double-hinged-waiters-corkscrew-original-made-in-spain-with-pulltaps-logo_2978_500.jpg http://cellarsofwine.com/img/pulltex-pulltaps-double-hinged-... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnDype-j3hk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnDype-j3hk
- cottonseed 8y ago> After that I mainly use Amazon for small household consumables. I got fake Dove soap from Amazon.
- ProAm 8y agoThis weeks episode of Reply All [P] talks about how Amazon counterfeits, how it's easy to do, no recourse and be bundled along with the authentic products for sale. It was very interesting. [P] https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/124 https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/124
- m-localhost 8y agojust wanted to mention that. Indeed a very insightful episode, that explained a lot of comments I've seen lately.
- ehsankia 8y agoShould Amazon add the concept of "Verified" resellers?
- colechristensen 8y agoA big part of the problem is co-mingled inventory. When you buy X from seller Y, you do not necessarily get the X that Y physically shipped to Amazon. You get an X with same SKU from Amazon's collection.
- ehsankia 8y agoRight, hence why "Verified" would be nice. An SKU should allowed to be merged if both are Verified or both are unverified.
- gnopgnip 8y agoThey already have this through "gating". But not every brand takes part in it.
- chaostheory 8y agoNow the problem is starting to get mass attention outside of tech. I understand that this is a hard problem but it's been years now and there's no solution in sight. The practice of mixing the same products from different vendors just needs to end. Key normal person quote from the podcast: "It just feels like this magic store that you guys thought it was, is definitely isn't what it is today. It seems like a place that puts you in touch with some dude selling tongs in Hong Kong, and maybe you'll get a great pair or maybe you'll get ripped off. [Amazon] is just like any other website now" This mixed with their now crippled customer service has almost turned the Amazon experience into ebay.
- m-p-3 8y agoWoupd be nice if they had a "Verified" symbol on the seller's name if it actually comes from that brand, kind of like with Twitter accounts.
- eloff 8y agoThe problem is worse than that. They mix the inventory from all sellers, including themselves, for the same product. So all it takes is one counterfeit seller to poison the whole well.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoI’m surprised there hasn’t been a coordinated effort against Amazon by an attacker using this strategy (poisoning the well at scale). That’d fix their comingling problem straight away.
- callalex 8y agoThat sounds like a quick way to end up in prison for a long time.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoAmazon flagrantly sells counterfeits due to comingling. Repercussions? Zero. As long as you're outside of US jurisdiction, the chances of you being prosecuted are close enough to zero to round down.
- perl4ever 8y agoPosting vast numbers of stories about counterfeits on the internet seems like an easier way to "poison the well", I would assume.
- bunderbunder 8y agoWell, not the whole well. You can avoid "fulfilled by Amazon" products. But that puts a damper on the whole "Prime" thing, so at that point you might as well just shop somewhere else entirely.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- plainOldText 8y agoJust to be clear, you're saying you've encountered counterfeits on Adafruit?
- jack12 8y agoI read it as meaning Adafruit-branded products purchased via Amazon from 3rd parties.
- athenot 8y agoConterfeit items are a problem. But even with legit items, I always check elsewhere: quite often, Amazon is not the cheapest. For items fulfilled by other vendors, I google that vendor's name, see if they have a site. Usually, even with shipping it's cheaper on the vendor's site than on Amazon (I guess that's the fee levied to sell on Amazon, and the rounding involved to do "free shipping"). Amazon excels at convenience, reviews and return policy. Often they are great on pricing. But they are no longer my one-stop shop.
- nightski 8y agoMe too. Ironically the one thing I still buy on Amazon is books. I do try to support local bookstores but we don't have many other than B&N and it's not just a small markup, books can cost twice as much there. It's really hard to justify $60 vs. $30 for the same thing.
- germanier 8y agoI'm not sure about the US situation but you can't be sure even with books: The scientific publisher Springer switched to a print on demand model. This is generally fine but Amazon apparently prints those books themselves after ordering (it says so on the last page) and both printing and binding are of abysmal quality, much worse than what you get elsewhere for the same price.
- srj 8y agoI've heard that books also have a high counterfeiting rate on Amazon. Over lunch with Paul Horowitz a couple of years ago he mentioned that he's had to fight to get counterfeits of "The Art of Electronics" taken down. I read on here a while back about FBA inventory getting comingled, but I'm unclear on whether Amazon's own inventory gets comingled as well. Anecdotally I haven't received a counterfeit of anything shipped and sold by Amazon.
- econochoice 8y agoI just skip the middlemen and use Aliexpress. There, you'll see 95% of the electronics, tools and small appliances you'd see on Amazon. The pictures are usually the same, too.
- ryanmercer 8y agoHeh because it's people buying on Alibaba then having it shipped straight to Amazon for FBA. I see and file the Customs paperwork on the shipments daily at work.
- econochoice 8y agoYep. Same thing with Ebay. A good portion of electronics and other small items are straight from Alibaba.
- jack12 8y agoLithium ion batteries are another example of this. Used batteries 're-wrapped' in counterfeit labeling to look like some particular brand/model are probably more common than genuine products on Amazon. More often than not, buying batteries through Amazon is literally paying someone to ship their e-waste to you.
- ggg9990 8y agoThe messed up thing is that I ordered a product SOLD AND SHIPPED BY AMAZON.COM and it was counterfeit. That's the day I stopped buying stuff for my kid on Amazon. Now I drive to Target and waste an hour each time but it's better than using some counterfeit product on her.
- ggg9990 8y agoI just realized for the first time, typing this comment, that I could order online from Target, and I've never tried it. Shows you how dominant of a position in e-commerce Amazon has. I'll have to try it.
- hagope 8y agoTarget order online and pickup in store is not bad. The pickup experience is a little slow, but one thing I've noticed is the online prices are cheaper than in-store (in california at least).
- philbot1008 8y agoYou can also get a debit-based target RED card (no credit app required) and get the same 5% discount and other benefits as the credit-based version. Note: At the time it was required to bring a voided cheque to complete the process.
- astura 8y agoWhy not shop at Target.com? I've always gotten very good service there and you can "link" gift cards to your online account so if you get a Target gift card you can't lose it or forget to use it.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> The messed up thing is that I ordered a product SOLD AND SHIPPED BY AMAZON.COM and it was counterfeit. Sold and shipped by Amazon is exactly as dangerous as Fulfilled By Amazon that hasn't opted out of commingling, because it is commingled with FBA. > Now I drive to Target and waste an hour each time but it's better than using some counterfeit product on her. Why not online at Target.com or Google Express (which has Target as one of its stores?)
- dboreham 8y agoSame. Filters for our well system. Comments that they were not genuine, so ordered from Home Depot.
- Alex3917 8y agoThe worst thing is that even if you report the products as counterfeit, Amazon won’t take them down or refund the purchases.
- b1daly 8y agoIs that really the case? I’ve returned things to amazon for other reasons...
- walrus01 8y agoWhile on the subject of high quality electronics stuff, I cannot endorse this brand highly enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiha_Tools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiha_Tools https://www.mouser.com/wiha/product-line/ https://www.mouser.com/wiha/product-line/ To the extent that for DC power work, as things wear out I am not buying Klein anymore.