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This happened to me the first time this Christmas. Bought a $25 electric doodad that was "sold by Amazon" for a family member and it was obviously a fake. It ca

by ng12 7y ago

This happened to me the first time this Christmas. Bought a $25 electric doodad that was "sold by Amazon" for a family member and it was obviously a fake. It came in a very generic white box with the company logo stamped on it, inside was a product that looked completely different and was non-functional. Not only that, but the product was difficult to return (I had to contact support) which makes me suspect Amazon knew it was a fishy product. It has completely shaken my faith in Amazon. This is probably my last year as a Prime subscriber.

clairity 7y ago
at the risk of upping the amazon paranoia (which i think is valid but blown out of proportion), i also had a little fake product issue recently with amazon. i had bought two glass (kitchen) storage jars a year ago and decided in november to order one more. the new one was about 10% smaller with slightly different markings, just similar enough that it wasn't noticeable on first glance, but was obvious when placed next to the other two jars. initially, i assumed it was a warehouse mix-up, so i requested a replacement. the replacement was exactly the same smaller jar and not the original. mind you, the original was already a chinese-made & branded item. the replacement was a cheaper knockoff of what was probably already a ridiculously marked-up import. luckily it was only a minor hassle to return both and get a refund. i'm not a big amazon shopper and avoid their own electronics like kindles and echos (don't need more plutocratic surveillance in my life), but for anything of (at least moderate) value, i'll sometimes double-check against photos on amazon and manufacturer's sites. fakes have generally not been a significant problem for me.
wombat-man 7y ago
They'll actually pro-rate refund for your remaining time with prime if you cancel. At least they did for me.
- Marsymars 7y ago
  Can you actually cancel? When I did, they had an obnoxious dark pattern where there was no visible option to disable auto-renewal, but going through the cancellation flow just disabled auto-renewal.
- asdff 7y ago
  Then every time you try to make a purchase as a former prime user you will hit failed captcha after failed captcha, and a mandatory "would you like to try prime" window with a 'no thanks' click through in size 8 font. Sometimes I have to use a different browser if I fail the captcha too many times and amazon crudely attempts to lock me out.
californical 7y ago
I bought a monitor once on amazon a couple of years ago. It seemed legit -- packaging looked authentic. Monitor looked authentic. But the power cable was really weird and clunky. It had no branding on it, and everything was written in Chinese. It barely fit into the monitor, and the monitor would only turn on if the cable was in exactly the right position. This was an LG monitor, and not a cheap one, so I contacted amazon and they accepted the return and sent a replacement. Well, the replacement was even worse. Same thing where the power cable seemed incredibly cheap, but the monitor itself seemed fine, but I couldn't even get it to turn on unless I was actively holding the power cable into the monitor. Ended up just returning it again, but thought it was a fluke. I still used amazon for a while, but this type of thing has become so common that I don't use them anymore at all.
hnick 7y ago
If it's sold by Amazon, they should be 100% liable for selling counterfeit goods, just like anyone else.

by ng12 7y ago

clairity 7y ago

at the risk of upping the amazon paranoia (which i think is valid but blown out of proportion), i also had a little fake product issue recently with amazon. i had bought two glass (kitchen) storage jars a year ago and decided in november to order one more. the new one was about 10% smaller with slightly different markings, just similar enough that it wasn't noticeable on first glance, but was obvious when placed next to the other two jars. initially, i assumed it was a warehouse mix-up, so i requested a replacement. the replacement was exactly the same smaller jar and not the original. mind you, the original was already a chinese-made & branded item. the replacement was a cheaper knockoff of what was probably already a ridiculously marked-up import. luckily it was only a minor hassle to return both and get a refund. i'm not a big amazon shopper and avoid their own electronics like kindles and echos (don't need more plutocratic surveillance in my life), but for anything of (at least moderate) value, i'll sometimes double-check against photos on amazon and manufacturer's sites. fakes have generally not been a significant problem for me.

wombat-man 7y ago

They'll actually pro-rate refund for your remaining time with prime if you cancel. At least they did for me.

Marsymars 7y ago
Can you actually cancel? When I did, they had an obnoxious dark pattern where there was no visible option to disable auto-renewal, but going through the cancellation flow just disabled auto-renewal.
asdff 7y ago
Then every time you try to make a purchase as a former prime user you will hit failed captcha after failed captcha, and a mandatory "would you like to try prime" window with a 'no thanks' click through in size 8 font. Sometimes I have to use a different browser if I fail the captcha too many times and amazon crudely attempts to lock me out.

californical 7y ago

I bought a monitor once on amazon a couple of years ago. It seemed legit -- packaging looked authentic. Monitor looked authentic. But the power cable was really weird and clunky. It had no branding on it, and everything was written in Chinese. It barely fit into the monitor, and the monitor would only turn on if the cable was in exactly the right position. This was an LG monitor, and not a cheap one, so I contacted amazon and they accepted the return and sent a replacement. Well, the replacement was even worse. Same thing where the power cable seemed incredibly cheap, but the monitor itself seemed fine, but I couldn't even get it to turn on unless I was actively holding the power cable into the monitor. Ended up just returning it again, but thought it was a fluke. I still used amazon for a while, but this type of thing has become so common that I don't use them anymore at all.

hnick 7y ago

If it's sold by Amazon, they should be 100% liable for selling counterfeit goods, just like anyone else.