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Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

716 points by hirundo 6y ago

jcims 6y ago
How did eBay avoid this?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- supercanuck 6y ago
  FTA: > The Appellate Court didn’t agree with Amazon’s stance, noting that the product had been listed on Amazon, was stored in an Amazon warehouse, had facilitated payment, and shipped it out in Amazon packaging, proving it to have a hand in getting it to Bolger and thus being liable under California law.
  - vmception 6y ago
    The solution being to make FBA marketers buy stakes in the warehouse until a bunch of dropshipping bloggers own them all.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      Or amazon just makes it more clear when you’re buying from a non-Amazon party that uses FBA.
      - thoughtstheseus 6y ago
        Physical stores should do this too. Gets rid of the liability for what you sell.
        ashtonkem 6y ago
        Physical stores don’t really have anything analogous to what’s going on here with Amazon. No random small business can sign up and get their products shelf space in Target or WalMart next to what Target buys and resells. Literally everything physically in a Target is something they bought, warehoused, and are reselling themselves.
        Hokusai 6y ago
        > Physical stores should do this too. Gets rid of the liability for what you sell. That is the only way to compete with Amazon. It is a race-to-the-bottom of quality and safety for the consumers. Amazon takes what are common rules with their customers and their retailers and has broken all of them. Amazon competes directly with its retailers using the information that got from them. Amazon brands 3rd party retailers products as if server-by-Amazon but it takes no responsibility on delivery or quality. Or Amazon is forced into compliance or we are going to go back to the middle-ages experience where everything is a flea market and weights and measures are never correct.
        smsm42 6y ago
        I'm pretty sure if I went to Target and was told "this toaster was made by NoName Super-Quality Manufacturing in China and if you have any problem you'd have to take it with them, whoever and whereever they are, and we accept no responsibility for anything but processing the payment" I'd not buy it.
- Fej 6y ago
  > The Appellate Court didn’t agree with Amazon’s stance, noting that the product had been listed on Amazon, was stored in an Amazon warehouse, had facilitated payment, and shipped it out in Amazon packaging, proving it to have a hand in getting it to Bolger and thus being liable under California law. eBay does not meet the second qualifier and rarely meets the last. Additionally, it is more obviously a marketplace - the seller of a given item is highlighted and their credibility made known in the form of their star ratings. Amazon de-emphasizes the seller name for non-Amazon sellers and completely hides their rating on the product page. Of course, the only way to know for sure is if eBay's liability is litigated.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    You skipped the big point where Amazon makes no promise that you will receive your purchase from the seller you bought from, if you FBA.
    - cameldrv 6y ago
      Even if you buy from Amazon.com you can get FBA comingled inventory that is counterfeit.
      - kylecordes 6y ago
        Big fan of Amazon here... I’ve been using Amazon since 1990-something… yet the co-mingling counterfeit items has caused me to stop using it for many items I formally purchased there. Amazon make inefficient use of truck rolls for delivery, often sending many trucks through my small residential subdivision every day, needlessly delivering one non-urgent item at a time. This is probably the key competitive challenge facing Amazon today: somehow keep up with the rapid growing overall demand while simultaneously improving execution fast enough to not leave the door open too long for someone else.
        Wowfunhappy 6y ago
        I keep seeing these complaints on HN... Is co-mingling a bigger problem in some regions, or have I just gotten consistently lucky? Or maybe I'm a sheep and haven't noticed? In all honesty, I would appreciate an excuse to stop using Amazon, because the amount that I buy from them compared to any other store makes me uncomfortable. But the co-mingling thing just hasn't come up for me...
mrtweetyhack 6y ago
"it did not distribute, manufacture, or sell that product". Yes you did Amazon. You took and processed the money.
jarym 6y ago
Common sense. Amazon want to ‘own’ the customer relationship and go to great lengths to that end then it follows they will have to ‘own’ any liability too. Imagine you went into a retail store with a faulty product and they were to try fob you off saying you need to go to their supplier/wholesaler/manufacturer. It mostly doesn’t work that way thanks to most consumer protection laws in place.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  More specifically, the responsibility for chasing down the manufacturer for a refund is shifted onto the retailer, not the consumer.
  - briandear 6y ago
    And the retailer has leverage the consumer does not. “Fix this or we don’t sell your stuff.”
  - an_opabinia 6y ago
    Has Amazon systemically refuses refunds for people who try to return counterfeit goods? It definitely doesn’t care if you don’t even notice. But they do the returns if you ask. The former is what needs to change.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      I actually had them refuse a return on a blatantly counterfeit set of coffee filters (they were 1/4 size and didn’t even fit the brand they were marked for). Given that it was about $12, I didn’t fight them about it.
    - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
      Only within their refund period. I have had so many products break down after their return window. Most recent example: Expensive chargers which stopped work within a few months. The seller’s page was gone. Customer support was of no use. This seems to be a common pattern. Fly by night sellers whose pages disappear within a few days.
atum47 6y ago
bought some wireless earphones from them a while back, the store sold me a knock off. open up a dispute and the owner told me their delivery guy was swaping fake ones for the real ones. took forever to send me new ones. after all that I went to post a review saying that this happened and guess what? my review never saw the light of day
- Hokusai 6y ago
  > the owner told me their delivery guy was swaping fake ones for the real ones That seems a scam scheme. They send fakes and for the people that complains they send the real deal. > my review never saw the light of day Amazon does not want to give a good service, Amazon wants to sell products. Your review could have negatively impacted Amazon sells. I doubt that, currently, there is any law that forces Amazon or any other website to publish all reviews. They can pick and choose to float or sink any store.
  - atum47 6y ago
    there were other sellers offering the same product, I wanted to tell others "hey, don't buy from this store" and I couldn't seems like Amazon was trying to hide the fact that this kind of stuff could happen on their platform
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Actually in my experience Amazon has always provided prompt and satisfactory customer service. I'm not talking about the sort of issue in this article of course, but just the normal things: Returns, billing problems, charging me for home pickup on two different returns I'm making at the same time instead of just once... I've never had one of these common place customer service issues that wasn't solved quickly & to my satisfaction. Sometimes they'll even go beyond what I was expecting and add a credit. Of course none of that means they don't rig the review system, although the presence of products with near universally bad reviews would indicate that, if they do rig reviews, it's not a general practice. No, in my experience, while Amazon is bad in plenty of other ways, good service isn't one of them.
elasticventures 6y ago
eBay is not same-same, it's much more marketplace-esque. eBay does not use a consolidated product listing, much more like a bulletin board each sellers products being sold under it's own URL. Amazon consolidates the listing for all sellers into a single product and uses their own ranking algorithms to determine which seller is in the "buy box" (which accounts for 97% of the items sales velocity). Amazon treats the entire experience as their transaction, they anonymize the emails and don't allow sellers to send follow-messages to clients or market other products to them (package inserts). The cart-checkout process isn't broken down by seller either, it's a unified payment and "1 click" checkout. I don't feel bad for Amazon at all - they've had it coming! FWIW .. I was the first person (as a 3rd party) to develop an integration with Amazon's marketplace. I also personally won eBays' star developer award. I recall the year the Internet Retailer show was in San Diego and Amazon didn't have an employee there. It was against Amazon corporate rules to allow employees to spend the night in CA in fear it would create sales tax nexus. Amazon employees would need to fly back to Seattle and then fly back to San Diego if they came down for a friday meeting and wanted to spend the weekend on personal time! Amazon has gamed the rules, they compete directly with their clients (sellers) using the sales data to decide what product to source. They ran their warehouses as 3rd party entities to avoid nexus and begrudging accepted 3rd party (non-Amazon owned) sellers when the courts ruled that wholly owned entities would create sales-tax nexus. I feel no pity for them.
- shuckles 6y ago
  Do you have a source for all these policies? I would love to hear more.
- judge2020 6y ago
  > eBay does not use a consolidated product listing, much more like a bulletin board each sellers products being sold under it's own URL. Try searching for a product on ebay right now and it's the exact same experience as Amazon. Both Amazon and Ebay's algorithms determine which usb drives show up first when searching for "usb stick", which is where 99% of their commerce is coming from.
  - 6y ago
greggyb 6y ago
In what world does this not just become a contractually required insurance policy covering Amazon, paid for by the third party. Granted, whoever pays in name, the cost will be passed on to consumers.
- kshacker 6y ago
  Well, maybe, maybe not. At least, it incentivizes Amazon to chase the culprits. The question is whether that incentive is big enough for them to fix / improve things.
  - bloaf 6y ago
    If Amazon can get sued every time someone burns themselves with a knockoff product, I would think their incentives would shift from: "Pay as little as possible for quality assurance, down to a floor of $0" to "Pay as little as possible for quality assurance, down to a floor of $whatever number would convince a court that we made a good faith effort to prevent knockoffs."
    - pm24601 6y ago
      Strict liability means that Amazon is liable for any defective product no matter how "hard" they tried
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  On the upside, specialized insurance companies tend to be pretty thorough in managing their risk of paying out. Meaning that third parties will probably have a hard time operating a counterfeit scam on any scale, once an insurer pays out all the others will find out and refuse to underwrite. Insurers would likely also require a proactive anti-counterfeit program for their larger clients.
- justapassenger 6y ago
  Amazon wants to have all the benefits but no responsibility of being one of the largest commerce businesses in the world. As Amazon customer, who had its fair share of bad experiences with items in recent years, I'm ok with prices going up. I've never used Amazon because of the prices, but because of comfort and safety. I'm willing to pay extra to get this back.
known 6y ago
Isn't it obvious ?
smsm42 6y ago
Amazon has been trying to play a parallel game for a while - from one side, they are a brand name store, with their own brands (Amazon Basics), they own loyalty club (Prime), and so on - they even own physical stores and a grocery chain now. On the other hand, they pretend to be a neutral marketplace that has no responsibility for any goods that are sold there and just renting out the space to independent sellers. It is a smart game, as they can resell all the reputational benefits of the established store brand to the tiny sellers who would never enjoy the same reputation, without actually spending the time to vet the suppliers and take responsibility for the goods being sold, as the brand name store would have to. However, looks like the courts are not buying this game. Which makes sense because Amazon not only does not separate the marketplace from the brand name store - they actually make as much effort as possible to mix both up, making distinguishing between goods sold by Amazon and goods for which Amazon bears zero responsibility quite hard to distinguish.
- dd36 6y ago
  Yes, the same distribution centers and boxes is a huge distinction vs a say Ebay.
- wiredone 6y ago
  I’ve not experienced the neural marketplace element myself. They still have the A-to-Z guarantee and still have the best return and customer support policies in the game. I spend 10s off thousands of dollars a year and return anything I don’t like. Never had an issue with feeling like they had my back.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    That'll enthusiasm will last right up until the few picoseconds before you realised you've been royally rolled. What makes you think you're immune to the Arbitrary Hand of Amazon?
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  > Amazon bears zero responsibility Wants to bear zero responsibility.
jpollock 6y ago
This will have interesting impacts on all marketplaces. Ebay, Walmart, NewEgg, all the app stores on every platform - if a game is malware (or trashes your machine with a bug), is that Steam's responsibility? It's delivered from their servers with their packaging.
- nomercy400 6y ago
  Depends on how much effort is shown to have been made by these app stores to prevent malware. For example, if Steam shows significant cases where malware games have been removed, and can prove they actively work to remove these cases, then it won't be much of a problem for Steam. They are doin their best.
  - nucleardog 6y ago
    That’s not how strict liability works. Strict liability means even if they do all of those things they are still liable.
- scarlac 6y ago
  Yes, steam is responsible for refunding. In EU there is protections like this so you are allowed 14 days (if I recall correctly) to return an item bought online because you had no way to review it "in person". If you consider this law sans Internet it still makes 100% sense. It applies to phone-ordering from TV shopping channels, or mail-ordering as well. It keeps merchants honest for at least 14 days of products use, forcing them not to (re)sell items that will quickly disappoint. It overall makes it much easier to be a consumer which should be in everyone's interest.
siruncledrew 6y ago
Long-term, it would be good business sense for Amazon to address the counterfeit issue to remove the bad actors from their platform to stay in good standing with consumers so people continue to use their platform and purchase items without worry about getting scammed. Short-term, at least one idea to fix this is to implement more stringent checks/QA with their FBA policies. Do more stringent verification of imported items going into Amazon FBA warehouses. Or at least add a mark to branded items received from other third-party sources. Simply adding "Shipped by: X, Sold by: X" text on the product page doesn't really help. There's probably other/better ideas out there. This has been a recurring problem that has kinda gotten swept under the rug so far, but at some point is going to need to be reckoned with. If Amazon wants to be the best customer experience, then it has to position itself in such a way that it does not devolve into one big flea market + Aliexpress + dropshipping junk bin.
- dd36 6y ago
  *scammed or injured
- bitcoinbutter 6y ago
  It's crazy to me that if I want to buy Ray Ban sunglasses off Amazon, I am routed by default to random third party sellers. I have purchased these once before and I'm almost positive that I received a fake product. How can I know for sure though? How does Amazon know for sure? Since that experience I have looked at Amazon in a different light, and I've realized how difficult it is to source name brand products with confidence. This is as good a time for blockchain as any. Register genuine products on a blockchain and have them scanned once they hit the Amazon warehouse to ensure they are authentic.
  - Tarragon 6y ago
    > How does Amazon know for sure? Since that experience I have looked at Amazon in a different light, and I've realized how difficult it is to source name brand products with confidence. You buy them wholesale from the manufacturer?
  - chaostheory 6y ago
Animats 6y ago
OK, a California decision on this. I thought the dog-collar case in Pennsylvania was going to be the one that turned this around. Amazon is re-appealing that one.[1] [1] https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/07/08/531347.htm https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/07/08/53...
xoxoy 6y ago
Shopping on Amazon has become unbearable for like 95% of categories these days. The experience is like rummaging through some shady tourist market with a dozen stall owners trying to scam you. The pricing is all whack with lots of counterfeits that have gamed the ranking and review systems. It’s just not worth trying to filter and find things that are actually competitively priced and sold directly by Amazon. Have no idea how they are so dominant still when they seem to not care at all about these things.
- tedfernau 6y ago
  I could hardly disagree more. It takes some effort to find the good stuff, but Amazon is the superior way to shop online for most things.
  - Exuma 6y ago
    As someone with 2200 purchase on amazon over the last several years, you're definitely wrong. I have to use every trick up my sleeve to not get pure hot alibaba trash. It USED to be that amazon best seller items were good at least, and now those are an absolute trash garbage fest as well too. Go try to buy a strainer, charger, literally any appliance, anything, and tell me you get good results.
    - onion2k 6y ago
      If you've bought 2200 things despite it being so awful why would Amazon be inclined to fix it? Your orders show them it's working for you.
      - Exuma 6y ago
        I didnt mention anything about amazon's inclination to fix it. I said that it's pure garbage on amazon and it takes an astronomical amount of work to find NOT trash, and even after this many orders I still get fooled when using all the fake review spot apps, etc.
    - fxtentacle 6y ago
ComputerGuru 6y ago
I’ve finally figured out how to buy non-counterfeit items on Amazon: try selling it yourself and see if Amazon says 3rd party listings are allowed. In the very few cases where you’re not allowed to proceed to create a listing, it is safe to purchase.
- wnevets 6y ago
  Sounds like a great idea for a chrome add-on
- r00fus 6y ago
  Man this is genius.
- icebergwarrior 6y ago
  I see this type of comment all the time, but I've never purchased anything but legitimate items off of Amazon. What are you buying that you consistently run into fakes / knockoffs?
  - Karunamon 6y ago
    Memory cards / thumbdrives are the canonical example here, I think. The fakes are plentiful, and comingling ensures that you are playing roulette every single time you purchase one, and the fakes are good enough that they'll stand up to visual scrutiny unless you know exactly what you're looking for, and sometimes not even then.
    - TakerofVita 6y ago
      I remember for a brief period where there were 256 GB micro SD card listings on Amazon...before there were any real ones released by anyone.
  - yummypaint 6y ago
    I would never buy any discreet component of any kind from online marketplaces in general. It's gotten so bad that sometimes you just get packaging with no silicon inside. For some components the prevalence of fraud is nearly 100%. Supply chain integrity is a majorly underappreciated value of traditional vendors. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23815839 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23815839
monadic2 6y ago
Suck it bitch
monadic2 6y ago
Amazon wants to own the revenues of the market but not the liabilities :)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ChuckMcM 6y ago
Wow, here is the actual decision : https://cases.justia.com/california/court-of-appeal/2020-d075738.pdf?ts=1597343456 https://cases.justia.com/california/court-of-appeal/2020-d07... It definitely looks like Amazon is going to have to accept strict liability in California. That will make it interesting to see what they do. Do they leave California? (their biggest US market) or do they clean up their FBA act? I'm hoping for the latter, as the justices argue in the decision that is exactly the intent of California's strict liability.
- manigandham 6y ago
  Why would they leave CA? They would just remove 3rd-party sellers and implement higher standards if/when they allow them again. FBA sellers don't get to sell anything they want, you have to get ungated first per category.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Cool, who's making the comparison website that shows which products are the same price in California, vs all the others that Amazon knows are mixed in with counterfeits and low-grade and defective items.
- Merrill 6y ago
  Perhaps Amazon would require third-party sellers to have liability insurance or post an adequate bond to cover claims for goods shipped to California. Sellers then might need to increase prices for goods shipped to California. Alternatively, they could be "not eligible for shipment to California".
- virtue3 6y ago
  This will most likely carry on with other states.
- jdashg 6y ago
  California's one of the top economies in the world, they aren't leaving. California has a ton of power. Do auto makers even make "49 state" cars anymore?
gigatexal 6y ago
Hmm.. this is like if section 230 was written in an opposite way such that sites that hosted content were liable for the things posted by 3rd parties aka you and me.
joe_momma 6y ago
I only buy books from Amazon, who knew they were still only good at one thing.
- young_unixer 6y ago
  They sell counterfeit books too. There was a thread about it a couple of years ago.
- wl 6y ago
  They're not even good at that. They seem to have forgotten how to package books so they won't get damaged in transit. Ordering books from Amazon is a last resort for me these days.
ratiolat 6y ago
So, I'm currently living in mainland Europe. Amazon UK (native English) will be out of EU in the near future. Given this article and also shady 'is this real thing or not - order and find out' - what would be a not shady general kind of store in the EU with native english? I'm ordering mostly books, but sometimes electronics. There's tons of e-shops. Telling apart which one is shady and which one is not is really difficult. Amazon used to be trustworthy in my eyes and that feeling has faded.
- ss64 6y ago
  In the UK John Lewis
- jurip 6y ago
  This doesn't really answer your question, but Amazon DE offers an English UI option.
  - xxs 6y ago
    amazon.de is fine and the personal does speak English. More also it's the EU, hence free returns and no questions asked (by law) for 2 weeks. plus 2y warranty. I can't say bad words about the EU version of amazon when it comes to customer service. Yes the counterfeit stuff is there but the free returns mitigate that. To the grandparent poster: you wont be able to order e-books off the uk version... and would have to use .com one.
    - dingo454 6y ago
      Note that when ordering outside the country you still have to pay for the shipping fee of the return yourself _to_ the amazon store of origin you selected, making this a lot less flexible (and slower) than you'd think. As a frequent traveler across the EU, this bit me both on amazon.de/fr. I'm not sure if there are exceptions to these rules, but free returns are frequently only free if within the same country and it's not unique to amazon.
      - 6y ago
Schnitz 6y ago
That's good, one less "we are just a market place" scam.
pauljurczak 6y ago
Amazon 3rd party store is a flea market full of complete garbage. It's a high time to force Amazon to clean it up.
manigandham 6y ago
I've had nothing but good experience with Amazon over the past 10 years. Very few problems but when there is, it's a few minutes to get a replacement or refund immediately, including complicated scenarios like promos, out of date returns, and warranty claims. I must not be the only one with good experiences if they're doing so well. Then again I also check to make sure I'm buying direct from Amazon and reading the most recent verified purchaser reviews for any expensive items. However this ruling needs clarity since Ebay would also qualify, especially since they also handle payments now instead of using Paypal, and potentially Shopify as well. EDIT: what are people disagreeing with?
- quesera 6y ago
  Agree with the experience: Amazon has never done me wrong. Disagree with the context: You're making the mistake of saying that you do things the proper way and if others would follow your lead, they might have better experiences also. People who have been wronged don't like to hear that other people think it's kind of their fault. Not saying you think, or said, this: but there's a bit of victim-blaming going on. This should not be something Amazon customers need to worry about. And for the record, I am less careful than you. But it's possible that the products I purchase are less attractive to counterfeiters... Disagree on the comment about eBay. They do not warehouse or ship. It is very clear that the seller is responsible for product description and delivery. Did not downvote. :)
  - manigandham 6y ago
    That's helpful, I should've been more clear. Most products I don't really check and have been fine. What I was trying to convey was that expensive, specialized or esoteric items have more scam potential which should require more review before buying (not that Amazon isn't still at fault). However people are claiming here that 95% of orders are bad and that's just hard to believe. The business would collapse tomorrow if that were the case for any serious number of people, and why would a person keep buying if that's all they were getting?
gambiting 6y ago
Wait, so....previously in the US Amazon wasn't responsible for the products it was selling?? Lol, what? So who was responsible then??
- marcrosoft 6y ago
  Obviously, it should be the manufacturer. You know, the people that made the product??
  - gambiting 6y ago
    Uhm, no? Obviously, as a consumer, I couldn't care less about who is the manufacturer - I have no business relationship with them. The person who sold me the item is responsible for it because they are the ones I entered into a purchase contract with. That's how it works in all of EU already - the seller is responsible for sold items, because....it just makes more sense?
    - Ekaros 6y ago
      And if seller fails, the official importer is often responsible. Ofc, in some cases contacting manufacturer directly is a decent option.
    - marcrosoft 6y ago
      Ok, and if you sell or even give away your used item to me and I deem it harms me in some way? When does the litigation pain chain stop?
      - gambiting 6y ago
        The legislation treats used items differently. Unless the seller purposefully hid something from you then you accept used items as-is with no further responsibility accepted by the seller. So the chain ends on the first sale on a new item. There are exceptions to this for certain items(say cars). But if you buy a second hand phone and it explodes a month later then whoever sold you the item is not responsible.
cletus 6y ago
The next logical step here is that Amazon is also liable for the counterfeit products they sell and seemingly do absolutely nothing to police. Consumers currently get blamed for this (eg [1]), sometimes through absolutely no fault of their own. Imagine walking into into Best Buy or Macys, buying something, and then getting in trouble for buying counterfeit goods. Just watch how quickly that problem gets solved once Amazon is liable. These companies really want the best of both worlds. Amazon wants to own the customer relationship but have none of the responsibilities ("we're a third party marketplace"). Uber wants to control what drivers do (as in, not drive for Lyft at the same time) but not have them as employees. Airbnb wants to run (illegal) hotels by arguing they aren't running hotels and it's really the hosts who are responsible. It's all kind of ridiculous. [1]: https://www.racked.com/2018/1/8/16849298/amazon-counterfeits-global-entry-customs https://www.racked.com/2018/1/8/16849298/amazon-counterfeits...
sinatra 6y ago
This is a good place to ask this question: Lately, we’re trying to buy products on Amazon only if it says, “Sold by Amazon.com.” Is that a good way to ensure that the product is not counterfeit? The assumption is that if Amazon is selling something directly, it would be getting it directly from the real manufacturer.
- ss64 6y ago
  Your assumption is wrong - FBA means that 'Sold by Amazon' will often be supplied by a third party, so you have to dig through all the offers to see if any are FBA.
- ciabattabread 6y ago
  Unfortunately, Amazon commingles their own items with the third-party sellers.
- cherioo 6y ago
  Amazon has yet to confirm or deny if all, or any, "Sold by Amazon" product is commingled with 3rd party FBA product. In that sense, they are not 100% safe. I really wish Amazon would take a stance here. On the other hand, the vast majority of report of counterfeit anecdote I have seen indicated they bought from 3rd party but with FBA. So me personally I still place trust on Sold By Amazon product. More recently I have seen product where that explicitly points out that Sold By Amazon is "authentic", which is kind of funny and sad. (energizer battery)
maurys 6y ago
I hear a lot of complaints about counterfeits in Amazon in the US. But not as many back here in India. I've bought electronics, chairs, phones and appliances without too much hassle. Always with fulfilled by Amazon though. I'm curious if the problem is more prevalent in different locations.
- katbyte 6y ago
  In Canada and haven’t had too much an issue, thou im carful with what I order and look for red flags
bsanr2 6y ago
I'm currently dealing with a situation as an Amazon seller where I think the buyer is trying to scam me (claiming I sent the product wrong/late, hoping they can manipulate the return process to both get a refund and keep the product because of Amazon's notoriously customer-biased policies). I wonder how this plays in.
djsumdog 6y ago
How does this apply to eBay or Newegg? I've written about how we've lost a lot of smaller independent websites and everyone has to have a store on Amazon/eBay/Newegg/Reverb these days: https://battlepenguin.com/tech/the-death-of-the-mom-and-pop-e-store/ https://battlepenguin.com/tech/the-death-of-the-mom-and-pop-... I imagine this wouldn't affect eBay since it's clearly a site where you are buying from a seller. eBay is more of a newspaper listening. But what about Newegg or Reverb which try to create these tight models just like Amazon so you're not always sure who exactly you're buying from? Newegg even does the "sold and shipped" by newegg (it's not clear if these are actual products from newegg inventory or if they are leasing warehouse/inventory pipeline like Amazon).
- bb611 6y ago
  The decision (linked above) makes the distinction based on Amazon placing itself in the supply chain between distributor and customer. eBay seems safe from this one, Newegg will have liability for those 3rd party products they actually ship.
annoyingnoob 6y ago
The real issue is that Amazon has turned into Alibaba/Aliexpress and is filled with low quality products. Amazon will sell anything as long as its cheap. I think this will only hurt Amazon where there is some injury beyond a defective product. Amazon already uses its contracts and terms of service to push the cost of returns and such to the third party supplier. Amazon will do its best to deflect most or all of the pain through better contracts.
firebaze 6y ago
I'm not so sure this will hurt Amazon. I'd imagine if this decision holds (for more regions), Amazon will decide to stop acting as a platform for individual smaller businesses and focus on its own assortment. And since this decision is most probably not limited to Amazon itself, competitors would face the same problem.
tempsy 6y ago
I find it perplexing that Amazon is still so dominant in e-commerce despite being an all around strange and confusing experience with weird pricing and no name brands that's more like an eBay than a Walmart these days. I just go to Costco and Walmart now for 99% of the things I used to buy on Amazon.
crazygringo 6y ago
Honestly, I'm confused as to why Amazon -- or any retailer -- is responsible for injury from defects in the products they sell in the first place. Why is it the retailer's responsibility, rather than the manufacturer's responsibility? No store has the expertise to independently conduct safety testing of every item they sell. That would be ludicrous, whether you're a mom & pop store with 1,000's of items or Amazon itself with 1,000,000's of items. Plus it would be incredibly redundant. What is the justification for this law at all? (And if you say it's for international products, then the onus should be on the importer who takes responsibility on behalf of the manufacturer.) EDIT: virtually every comment that has replied so far is talking about defects, warranty, etc. But that's not with this article is about -- it's about liability for INJURY which is a very different thing. It makes total sense that if a product doesn't work, you return it to the store and not the manufacturer. But if a product is dangerous I still fail to see how it makes any sense to make retailers liable rather than manufacturers. If you get a batch of improperly made baby formula that makes your baby sick... shouldn't the onus be 100% on the manufacturer? In what universe is a retailer expected to be liable for that? How would they ever know? If Nestle makes a bad batch... what good is it to go around suing Amazon, FreshDirect and 1,000 other local supermarkets? Shouldn't there just be a class-action suit against Nestle?
- ath92 6y ago
  If the store is liable, the consumer benefits in multiple ways: - They know who to talk to in case a product is defective. In most cases, it's easy to find out who was the original manufacturer (e.g. when their name is written on the box), but in other cases it can be quite difficult to find out who to go to if your product breaks. - If the store is liable, it is in their best interest to not sell you products that are likely to break quickly. Alternatively, if the store still decides to sell those products, they will want to take the risk of breakage into account when setting the price. That means the price of the product is a more accurate representation of the value of the product.
- Jolter 6y ago
  In many cases, Amazon is the importer. For stuff that’s shipped straight from China to the consumer, whom do you propose should be liable when a product catches fire? I think that’s the situation in this case - the court has ruled that Amazon is responsible.
Schnitz 6y ago
If you ever happen to run into a seller that's motivated to fight your claim, you'll actually realize that Amazon is the new eBay. They now play the exact same game where they sit in the middle, giving each party time to respond, etc. and it just bounces back and forth forever. In my case I had ordered a print on white background and it arrived on a yellowish background and the seller kept fighting. It took 2 weeks and several escalations after which Amazon finally issued me a refund. Noteworthy as well that it was a "goodwill" refund, ie they didn't rule against the seller despite having ample proof in the form of screenshots of the listing and pictures.
Haleabus 6y ago
Amazon is responsible for covering the globe in Chinese garbage.
Trias11 6y ago
We need more rulings like that. Want to peddle chinese crap? Be responsible.
physicsguy 6y ago
This is the norm here in the UK and the EU
EricE 6y ago
Good. The amount of counterfeit crap on Amazon is getting out of control. Indeed they are no longer the first place I think of for electronics.

716 points by hirundo 6y ago

jcims 6y ago

How did eBay avoid this?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
supercanuck 6y ago
FTA: > The Appellate Court didn’t agree with Amazon’s stance, noting that the product had been listed on Amazon, was stored in an Amazon warehouse, had facilitated payment, and shipped it out in Amazon packaging, proving it to have a hand in getting it to Bolger and thus being liable under California law.
- vmception 6y ago
  The solution being to make FBA marketers buy stakes in the warehouse until a bunch of dropshipping bloggers own them all.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Or amazon just makes it more clear when you’re buying from a non-Amazon party that uses FBA.
    - thoughtstheseus 6y ago
      Physical stores should do this too. Gets rid of the liability for what you sell.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        Physical stores don’t really have anything analogous to what’s going on here with Amazon. No random small business can sign up and get their products shelf space in Target or WalMart next to what Target buys and resells. Literally everything physically in a Target is something they bought, warehoused, and are reselling themselves.
      - Hokusai 6y ago
        > Physical stores should do this too. Gets rid of the liability for what you sell. That is the only way to compete with Amazon. It is a race-to-the-bottom of quality and safety for the consumers. Amazon takes what are common rules with their customers and their retailers and has broken all of them. Amazon competes directly with its retailers using the information that got from them. Amazon brands 3rd party retailers products as if server-by-Amazon but it takes no responsibility on delivery or quality. Or Amazon is forced into compliance or we are going to go back to the middle-ages experience where everything is a flea market and weights and measures are never correct.
      - smsm42 6y ago
        I'm pretty sure if I went to Target and was told "this toaster was made by NoName Super-Quality Manufacturing in China and if you have any problem you'd have to take it with them, whoever and whereever they are, and we accept no responsibility for anything but processing the payment" I'd not buy it.
Fej 6y ago
> The Appellate Court didn’t agree with Amazon’s stance, noting that the product had been listed on Amazon, was stored in an Amazon warehouse, had facilitated payment, and shipped it out in Amazon packaging, proving it to have a hand in getting it to Bolger and thus being liable under California law. eBay does not meet the second qualifier and rarely meets the last. Additionally, it is more obviously a marketplace - the seller of a given item is highlighted and their credibility made known in the form of their star ratings. Amazon de-emphasizes the seller name for non-Amazon sellers and completely hides their rating on the product page. Of course, the only way to know for sure is if eBay's liability is litigated.
- sukilot 6y ago
  You skipped the big point where Amazon makes no promise that you will receive your purchase from the seller you bought from, if you FBA.
  - cameldrv 6y ago
    Even if you buy from Amazon.com you can get FBA comingled inventory that is counterfeit.
    - kylecordes 6y ago
      Big fan of Amazon here... I’ve been using Amazon since 1990-something… yet the co-mingling counterfeit items has caused me to stop using it for many items I formally purchased there. Amazon make inefficient use of truck rolls for delivery, often sending many trucks through my small residential subdivision every day, needlessly delivering one non-urgent item at a time. This is probably the key competitive challenge facing Amazon today: somehow keep up with the rapid growing overall demand while simultaneously improving execution fast enough to not leave the door open too long for someone else.
      - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
        I keep seeing these complaints on HN... Is co-mingling a bigger problem in some regions, or have I just gotten consistently lucky? Or maybe I'm a sheep and haven't noticed? In all honesty, I would appreciate an excuse to stop using Amazon, because the amount that I buy from them compared to any other store makes me uncomfortable. But the co-mingling thing just hasn't come up for me...

mrtweetyhack 6y ago

"it did not distribute, manufacture, or sell that product". Yes you did Amazon. You took and processed the money.

jarym 6y ago

Common sense. Amazon want to ‘own’ the customer relationship and go to great lengths to that end then it follows they will have to ‘own’ any liability too. Imagine you went into a retail store with a faulty product and they were to try fob you off saying you need to go to their supplier/wholesaler/manufacturer. It mostly doesn’t work that way thanks to most consumer protection laws in place.

ashtonkem 6y ago
More specifically, the responsibility for chasing down the manufacturer for a refund is shifted onto the retailer, not the consumer.
- briandear 6y ago
  And the retailer has leverage the consumer does not. “Fix this or we don’t sell your stuff.”
- an_opabinia 6y ago
  Has Amazon systemically refuses refunds for people who try to return counterfeit goods? It definitely doesn’t care if you don’t even notice. But they do the returns if you ask. The former is what needs to change.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    I actually had them refuse a return on a blatantly counterfeit set of coffee filters (they were 1/4 size and didn’t even fit the brand they were marked for). Given that it was about $12, I didn’t fight them about it.
  - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
    Only within their refund period. I have had so many products break down after their return window. Most recent example: Expensive chargers which stopped work within a few months. The seller’s page was gone. Customer support was of no use. This seems to be a common pattern. Fly by night sellers whose pages disappear within a few days.

atum47 6y ago

bought some wireless earphones from them a while back, the store sold me a knock off. open up a dispute and the owner told me their delivery guy was swaping fake ones for the real ones. took forever to send me new ones. after all that I went to post a review saying that this happened and guess what? my review never saw the light of day

Hokusai 6y ago
> the owner told me their delivery guy was swaping fake ones for the real ones That seems a scam scheme. They send fakes and for the people that complains they send the real deal. > my review never saw the light of day Amazon does not want to give a good service, Amazon wants to sell products. Your review could have negatively impacted Amazon sells. I doubt that, currently, there is any law that forces Amazon or any other website to publish all reviews. They can pick and choose to float or sink any store.
- atum47 6y ago
  there were other sellers offering the same product, I wanted to tell others "hey, don't buy from this store" and I couldn't seems like Amazon was trying to hide the fact that this kind of stuff could happen on their platform
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Actually in my experience Amazon has always provided prompt and satisfactory customer service. I'm not talking about the sort of issue in this article of course, but just the normal things: Returns, billing problems, charging me for home pickup on two different returns I'm making at the same time instead of just once... I've never had one of these common place customer service issues that wasn't solved quickly & to my satisfaction. Sometimes they'll even go beyond what I was expecting and add a credit. Of course none of that means they don't rig the review system, although the presence of products with near universally bad reviews would indicate that, if they do rig reviews, it's not a general practice. No, in my experience, while Amazon is bad in plenty of other ways, good service isn't one of them.

elasticventures 6y ago

eBay is not same-same, it's much more marketplace-esque. eBay does not use a consolidated product listing, much more like a bulletin board each sellers products being sold under it's own URL. Amazon consolidates the listing for all sellers into a single product and uses their own ranking algorithms to determine which seller is in the "buy box" (which accounts for 97% of the items sales velocity). Amazon treats the entire experience as their transaction, they anonymize the emails and don't allow sellers to send follow-messages to clients or market other products to them (package inserts). The cart-checkout process isn't broken down by seller either, it's a unified payment and "1 click" checkout. I don't feel bad for Amazon at all - they've had it coming! FWIW .. I was the first person (as a 3rd party) to develop an integration with Amazon's marketplace. I also personally won eBays' star developer award. I recall the year the Internet Retailer show was in San Diego and Amazon didn't have an employee there. It was against Amazon corporate rules to allow employees to spend the night in CA in fear it would create sales tax nexus. Amazon employees would need to fly back to Seattle and then fly back to San Diego if they came down for a friday meeting and wanted to spend the weekend on personal time! Amazon has gamed the rules, they compete directly with their clients (sellers) using the sales data to decide what product to source. They ran their warehouses as 3rd party entities to avoid nexus and begrudging accepted 3rd party (non-Amazon owned) sellers when the courts ruled that wholly owned entities would create sales-tax nexus. I feel no pity for them.

shuckles 6y ago
Do you have a source for all these policies? I would love to hear more.
judge2020 6y ago
> eBay does not use a consolidated product listing, much more like a bulletin board each sellers products being sold under it's own URL. Try searching for a product on ebay right now and it's the exact same experience as Amazon. Both Amazon and Ebay's algorithms determine which usb drives show up first when searching for "usb stick", which is where 99% of their commerce is coming from.
- 6y ago

greggyb 6y ago

In what world does this not just become a contractually required insurance policy covering Amazon, paid for by the third party. Granted, whoever pays in name, the cost will be passed on to consumers.

kshacker 6y ago
Well, maybe, maybe not. At least, it incentivizes Amazon to chase the culprits. The question is whether that incentive is big enough for them to fix / improve things.
- bloaf 6y ago
  If Amazon can get sued every time someone burns themselves with a knockoff product, I would think their incentives would shift from: "Pay as little as possible for quality assurance, down to a floor of $0" to "Pay as little as possible for quality assurance, down to a floor of $whatever number would convince a court that we made a good faith effort to prevent knockoffs."
  - pm24601 6y ago
    Strict liability means that Amazon is liable for any defective product no matter how "hard" they tried
jcrawfordor 6y ago
On the upside, specialized insurance companies tend to be pretty thorough in managing their risk of paying out. Meaning that third parties will probably have a hard time operating a counterfeit scam on any scale, once an insurer pays out all the others will find out and refuse to underwrite. Insurers would likely also require a proactive anti-counterfeit program for their larger clients.
justapassenger 6y ago
Amazon wants to have all the benefits but no responsibility of being one of the largest commerce businesses in the world. As Amazon customer, who had its fair share of bad experiences with items in recent years, I'm ok with prices going up. I've never used Amazon because of the prices, but because of comfort and safety. I'm willing to pay extra to get this back.

known 6y ago

Isn't it obvious ?

smsm42 6y ago

Amazon has been trying to play a parallel game for a while - from one side, they are a brand name store, with their own brands (Amazon Basics), they own loyalty club (Prime), and so on - they even own physical stores and a grocery chain now. On the other hand, they pretend to be a neutral marketplace that has no responsibility for any goods that are sold there and just renting out the space to independent sellers. It is a smart game, as they can resell all the reputational benefits of the established store brand to the tiny sellers who would never enjoy the same reputation, without actually spending the time to vet the suppliers and take responsibility for the goods being sold, as the brand name store would have to. However, looks like the courts are not buying this game. Which makes sense because Amazon not only does not separate the marketplace from the brand name store - they actually make as much effort as possible to mix both up, making distinguishing between goods sold by Amazon and goods for which Amazon bears zero responsibility quite hard to distinguish.

dd36 6y ago
Yes, the same distribution centers and boxes is a huge distinction vs a say Ebay.
wiredone 6y ago
I’ve not experienced the neural marketplace element myself. They still have the A-to-Z guarantee and still have the best return and customer support policies in the game. I spend 10s off thousands of dollars a year and return anything I don’t like. Never had an issue with feeling like they had my back.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  That'll enthusiasm will last right up until the few picoseconds before you realised you've been royally rolled. What makes you think you're immune to the Arbitrary Hand of Amazon?
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
> Amazon bears zero responsibility Wants to bear zero responsibility.

jpollock 6y ago

This will have interesting impacts on all marketplaces. Ebay, Walmart, NewEgg, all the app stores on every platform - if a game is malware (or trashes your machine with a bug), is that Steam's responsibility? It's delivered from their servers with their packaging.

nomercy400 6y ago
Depends on how much effort is shown to have been made by these app stores to prevent malware. For example, if Steam shows significant cases where malware games have been removed, and can prove they actively work to remove these cases, then it won't be much of a problem for Steam. They are doin their best.
- nucleardog 6y ago
  That’s not how strict liability works. Strict liability means even if they do all of those things they are still liable.
scarlac 6y ago
Yes, steam is responsible for refunding. In EU there is protections like this so you are allowed 14 days (if I recall correctly) to return an item bought online because you had no way to review it "in person". If you consider this law sans Internet it still makes 100% sense. It applies to phone-ordering from TV shopping channels, or mail-ordering as well. It keeps merchants honest for at least 14 days of products use, forcing them not to (re)sell items that will quickly disappoint. It overall makes it much easier to be a consumer which should be in everyone's interest.

siruncledrew 6y ago

Long-term, it would be good business sense for Amazon to address the counterfeit issue to remove the bad actors from their platform to stay in good standing with consumers so people continue to use their platform and purchase items without worry about getting scammed. Short-term, at least one idea to fix this is to implement more stringent checks/QA with their FBA policies. Do more stringent verification of imported items going into Amazon FBA warehouses. Or at least add a mark to branded items received from other third-party sources. Simply adding "Shipped by: X, Sold by: X" text on the product page doesn't really help. There's probably other/better ideas out there. This has been a recurring problem that has kinda gotten swept under the rug so far, but at some point is going to need to be reckoned with. If Amazon wants to be the best customer experience, then it has to position itself in such a way that it does not devolve into one big flea market + Aliexpress + dropshipping junk bin.

dd36 6y ago
*scammed or injured
bitcoinbutter 6y ago
It's crazy to me that if I want to buy Ray Ban sunglasses off Amazon, I am routed by default to random third party sellers. I have purchased these once before and I'm almost positive that I received a fake product. How can I know for sure though? How does Amazon know for sure? Since that experience I have looked at Amazon in a different light, and I've realized how difficult it is to source name brand products with confidence. This is as good a time for blockchain as any. Register genuine products on a blockchain and have them scanned once they hit the Amazon warehouse to ensure they are authentic.
- Tarragon 6y ago
  > How does Amazon know for sure? Since that experience I have looked at Amazon in a different light, and I've realized how difficult it is to source name brand products with confidence. You buy them wholesale from the manufacturer?
- chaostheory 6y ago

Animats 6y ago

OK, a California decision on this. I thought the dog-collar case in Pennsylvania was going to be the one that turned this around. Amazon is re-appealing that one.[1] [1] https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/07/08/531347.htm https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/07/08/53...

xoxoy 6y ago

Shopping on Amazon has become unbearable for like 95% of categories these days. The experience is like rummaging through some shady tourist market with a dozen stall owners trying to scam you. The pricing is all whack with lots of counterfeits that have gamed the ranking and review systems. It’s just not worth trying to filter and find things that are actually competitively priced and sold directly by Amazon. Have no idea how they are so dominant still when they seem to not care at all about these things.

tedfernau 6y ago
I could hardly disagree more. It takes some effort to find the good stuff, but Amazon is the superior way to shop online for most things.
- Exuma 6y ago
  As someone with 2200 purchase on amazon over the last several years, you're definitely wrong. I have to use every trick up my sleeve to not get pure hot alibaba trash. It USED to be that amazon best seller items were good at least, and now those are an absolute trash garbage fest as well too. Go try to buy a strainer, charger, literally any appliance, anything, and tell me you get good results.
  - onion2k 6y ago
    If you've bought 2200 things despite it being so awful why would Amazon be inclined to fix it? Your orders show them it's working for you.
    - Exuma 6y ago
      I didnt mention anything about amazon's inclination to fix it. I said that it's pure garbage on amazon and it takes an astronomical amount of work to find NOT trash, and even after this many orders I still get fooled when using all the fake review spot apps, etc.
  - fxtentacle 6y ago

ComputerGuru 6y ago

I’ve finally figured out how to buy non-counterfeit items on Amazon: try selling it yourself and see if Amazon says 3rd party listings are allowed. In the very few cases where you’re not allowed to proceed to create a listing, it is safe to purchase.

wnevets 6y ago
Sounds like a great idea for a chrome add-on
r00fus 6y ago
Man this is genius.
icebergwarrior 6y ago
I see this type of comment all the time, but I've never purchased anything but legitimate items off of Amazon. What are you buying that you consistently run into fakes / knockoffs?
- Karunamon 6y ago
  Memory cards / thumbdrives are the canonical example here, I think. The fakes are plentiful, and comingling ensures that you are playing roulette every single time you purchase one, and the fakes are good enough that they'll stand up to visual scrutiny unless you know exactly what you're looking for, and sometimes not even then.
  - TakerofVita 6y ago
    I remember for a brief period where there were 256 GB micro SD card listings on Amazon...before there were any real ones released by anyone.
- yummypaint 6y ago
  I would never buy any discreet component of any kind from online marketplaces in general. It's gotten so bad that sometimes you just get packaging with no silicon inside. For some components the prevalence of fraud is nearly 100%. Supply chain integrity is a majorly underappreciated value of traditional vendors. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23815839 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23815839

monadic2 6y ago

Suck it bitch

monadic2 6y ago

Amazon wants to own the revenues of the market but not the liabilities :)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ChuckMcM 6y ago

Wow, here is the actual decision : https://cases.justia.com/california/court-of-appeal/2020-d075738.pdf?ts=1597343456 https://cases.justia.com/california/court-of-appeal/2020-d07... It definitely looks like Amazon is going to have to accept strict liability in California. That will make it interesting to see what they do. Do they leave California? (their biggest US market) or do they clean up their FBA act? I'm hoping for the latter, as the justices argue in the decision that is exactly the intent of California's strict liability.

manigandham 6y ago
Why would they leave CA? They would just remove 3rd-party sellers and implement higher standards if/when they allow them again. FBA sellers don't get to sell anything they want, you have to get ungated first per category.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Cool, who's making the comparison website that shows which products are the same price in California, vs all the others that Amazon knows are mixed in with counterfeits and low-grade and defective items.
Merrill 6y ago
Perhaps Amazon would require third-party sellers to have liability insurance or post an adequate bond to cover claims for goods shipped to California. Sellers then might need to increase prices for goods shipped to California. Alternatively, they could be "not eligible for shipment to California".
virtue3 6y ago
This will most likely carry on with other states.
jdashg 6y ago
California's one of the top economies in the world, they aren't leaving. California has a ton of power. Do auto makers even make "49 state" cars anymore?

gigatexal 6y ago

Hmm.. this is like if section 230 was written in an opposite way such that sites that hosted content were liable for the things posted by 3rd parties aka you and me.

joe_momma 6y ago

I only buy books from Amazon, who knew they were still only good at one thing.

young_unixer 6y ago
They sell counterfeit books too. There was a thread about it a couple of years ago.
wl 6y ago
They're not even good at that. They seem to have forgotten how to package books so they won't get damaged in transit. Ordering books from Amazon is a last resort for me these days.

ratiolat 6y ago

So, I'm currently living in mainland Europe. Amazon UK (native English) will be out of EU in the near future. Given this article and also shady 'is this real thing or not - order and find out' - what would be a not shady general kind of store in the EU with native english? I'm ordering mostly books, but sometimes electronics. There's tons of e-shops. Telling apart which one is shady and which one is not is really difficult. Amazon used to be trustworthy in my eyes and that feeling has faded.

ss64 6y ago
In the UK John Lewis
jurip 6y ago
This doesn't really answer your question, but Amazon DE offers an English UI option.
- xxs 6y ago
  amazon.de is fine and the personal does speak English. More also it's the EU, hence free returns and no questions asked (by law) for 2 weeks. plus 2y warranty. I can't say bad words about the EU version of amazon when it comes to customer service. Yes the counterfeit stuff is there but the free returns mitigate that. To the grandparent poster: you wont be able to order e-books off the uk version... and would have to use .com one.
  - dingo454 6y ago
    Note that when ordering outside the country you still have to pay for the shipping fee of the return yourself _to_ the amazon store of origin you selected, making this a lot less flexible (and slower) than you'd think. As a frequent traveler across the EU, this bit me both on amazon.de/fr. I'm not sure if there are exceptions to these rules, but free returns are frequently only free if within the same country and it's not unique to amazon.
    - 6y ago

Schnitz 6y ago

That's good, one less "we are just a market place" scam.

pauljurczak 6y ago

Amazon 3rd party store is a flea market full of complete garbage. It's a high time to force Amazon to clean it up.

manigandham 6y ago

I've had nothing but good experience with Amazon over the past 10 years. Very few problems but when there is, it's a few minutes to get a replacement or refund immediately, including complicated scenarios like promos, out of date returns, and warranty claims. I must not be the only one with good experiences if they're doing so well. Then again I also check to make sure I'm buying direct from Amazon and reading the most recent verified purchaser reviews for any expensive items. However this ruling needs clarity since Ebay would also qualify, especially since they also handle payments now instead of using Paypal, and potentially Shopify as well. EDIT: what are people disagreeing with?

quesera 6y ago
Agree with the experience: Amazon has never done me wrong. Disagree with the context: You're making the mistake of saying that you do things the proper way and if others would follow your lead, they might have better experiences also. People who have been wronged don't like to hear that other people think it's kind of their fault. Not saying you think, or said, this: but there's a bit of victim-blaming going on. This should not be something Amazon customers need to worry about. And for the record, I am less careful than you. But it's possible that the products I purchase are less attractive to counterfeiters... Disagree on the comment about eBay. They do not warehouse or ship. It is very clear that the seller is responsible for product description and delivery. Did not downvote. :)
- manigandham 6y ago
  That's helpful, I should've been more clear. Most products I don't really check and have been fine. What I was trying to convey was that expensive, specialized or esoteric items have more scam potential which should require more review before buying (not that Amazon isn't still at fault). However people are claiming here that 95% of orders are bad and that's just hard to believe. The business would collapse tomorrow if that were the case for any serious number of people, and why would a person keep buying if that's all they were getting?

gambiting 6y ago

Wait, so....previously in the US Amazon wasn't responsible for the products it was selling?? Lol, what? So who was responsible then??

marcrosoft 6y ago
Obviously, it should be the manufacturer. You know, the people that made the product??
- gambiting 6y ago
  Uhm, no? Obviously, as a consumer, I couldn't care less about who is the manufacturer - I have no business relationship with them. The person who sold me the item is responsible for it because they are the ones I entered into a purchase contract with. That's how it works in all of EU already - the seller is responsible for sold items, because....it just makes more sense?
  - Ekaros 6y ago
    And if seller fails, the official importer is often responsible. Ofc, in some cases contacting manufacturer directly is a decent option.
  - marcrosoft 6y ago
    Ok, and if you sell or even give away your used item to me and I deem it harms me in some way? When does the litigation pain chain stop?
    - gambiting 6y ago
      The legislation treats used items differently. Unless the seller purposefully hid something from you then you accept used items as-is with no further responsibility accepted by the seller. So the chain ends on the first sale on a new item. There are exceptions to this for certain items(say cars). But if you buy a second hand phone and it explodes a month later then whoever sold you the item is not responsible.

cletus 6y ago

The next logical step here is that Amazon is also liable for the counterfeit products they sell and seemingly do absolutely nothing to police. Consumers currently get blamed for this (eg [1]), sometimes through absolutely no fault of their own. Imagine walking into into Best Buy or Macys, buying something, and then getting in trouble for buying counterfeit goods. Just watch how quickly that problem gets solved once Amazon is liable. These companies really want the best of both worlds. Amazon wants to own the customer relationship but have none of the responsibilities ("we're a third party marketplace"). Uber wants to control what drivers do (as in, not drive for Lyft at the same time) but not have them as employees. Airbnb wants to run (illegal) hotels by arguing they aren't running hotels and it's really the hosts who are responsible. It's all kind of ridiculous. [1]: https://www.racked.com/2018/1/8/16849298/amazon-counterfeits-global-entry-customs https://www.racked.com/2018/1/8/16849298/amazon-counterfeits...

sinatra 6y ago

This is a good place to ask this question: Lately, we’re trying to buy products on Amazon only if it says, “Sold by Amazon.com.” Is that a good way to ensure that the product is not counterfeit? The assumption is that if Amazon is selling something directly, it would be getting it directly from the real manufacturer.

ss64 6y ago
Your assumption is wrong - FBA means that 'Sold by Amazon' will often be supplied by a third party, so you have to dig through all the offers to see if any are FBA.
ciabattabread 6y ago
Unfortunately, Amazon commingles their own items with the third-party sellers.
cherioo 6y ago
Amazon has yet to confirm or deny if all, or any, "Sold by Amazon" product is commingled with 3rd party FBA product. In that sense, they are not 100% safe. I really wish Amazon would take a stance here. On the other hand, the vast majority of report of counterfeit anecdote I have seen indicated they bought from 3rd party but with FBA. So me personally I still place trust on Sold By Amazon product. More recently I have seen product where that explicitly points out that Sold By Amazon is "authentic", which is kind of funny and sad. (energizer battery)

maurys 6y ago

I hear a lot of complaints about counterfeits in Amazon in the US. But not as many back here in India. I've bought electronics, chairs, phones and appliances without too much hassle. Always with fulfilled by Amazon though. I'm curious if the problem is more prevalent in different locations.

katbyte 6y ago
In Canada and haven’t had too much an issue, thou im carful with what I order and look for red flags

bsanr2 6y ago

I'm currently dealing with a situation as an Amazon seller where I think the buyer is trying to scam me (claiming I sent the product wrong/late, hoping they can manipulate the return process to both get a refund and keep the product because of Amazon's notoriously customer-biased policies). I wonder how this plays in.

djsumdog 6y ago

How does this apply to eBay or Newegg? I've written about how we've lost a lot of smaller independent websites and everyone has to have a store on Amazon/eBay/Newegg/Reverb these days: https://battlepenguin.com/tech/the-death-of-the-mom-and-pop-e-store/ https://battlepenguin.com/tech/the-death-of-the-mom-and-pop-... I imagine this wouldn't affect eBay since it's clearly a site where you are buying from a seller. eBay is more of a newspaper listening. But what about Newegg or Reverb which try to create these tight models just like Amazon so you're not always sure who exactly you're buying from? Newegg even does the "sold and shipped" by newegg (it's not clear if these are actual products from newegg inventory or if they are leasing warehouse/inventory pipeline like Amazon).

bb611 6y ago
The decision (linked above) makes the distinction based on Amazon placing itself in the supply chain between distributor and customer. eBay seems safe from this one, Newegg will have liability for those 3rd party products they actually ship.

annoyingnoob 6y ago

The real issue is that Amazon has turned into Alibaba/Aliexpress and is filled with low quality products. Amazon will sell anything as long as its cheap. I think this will only hurt Amazon where there is some injury beyond a defective product. Amazon already uses its contracts and terms of service to push the cost of returns and such to the third party supplier. Amazon will do its best to deflect most or all of the pain through better contracts.

firebaze 6y ago

I'm not so sure this will hurt Amazon. I'd imagine if this decision holds (for more regions), Amazon will decide to stop acting as a platform for individual smaller businesses and focus on its own assortment. And since this decision is most probably not limited to Amazon itself, competitors would face the same problem.

tempsy 6y ago

I find it perplexing that Amazon is still so dominant in e-commerce despite being an all around strange and confusing experience with weird pricing and no name brands that's more like an eBay than a Walmart these days. I just go to Costco and Walmart now for 99% of the things I used to buy on Amazon.

crazygringo 6y ago

Honestly, I'm confused as to why Amazon -- or any retailer -- is responsible for injury from defects in the products they sell in the first place. Why is it the retailer's responsibility, rather than the manufacturer's responsibility? No store has the expertise to independently conduct safety testing of every item they sell. That would be ludicrous, whether you're a mom & pop store with 1,000's of items or Amazon itself with 1,000,000's of items. Plus it would be incredibly redundant. What is the justification for this law at all? (And if you say it's for international products, then the onus should be on the importer who takes responsibility on behalf of the manufacturer.) EDIT: virtually every comment that has replied so far is talking about defects, warranty, etc. But that's not with this article is about -- it's about liability for INJURY which is a very different thing. It makes total sense that if a product doesn't work, you return it to the store and not the manufacturer. But if a product is dangerous I still fail to see how it makes any sense to make retailers liable rather than manufacturers. If you get a batch of improperly made baby formula that makes your baby sick... shouldn't the onus be 100% on the manufacturer? In what universe is a retailer expected to be liable for that? How would they ever know? If Nestle makes a bad batch... what good is it to go around suing Amazon, FreshDirect and 1,000 other local supermarkets? Shouldn't there just be a class-action suit against Nestle?

ath92 6y ago
If the store is liable, the consumer benefits in multiple ways: - They know who to talk to in case a product is defective. In most cases, it's easy to find out who was the original manufacturer (e.g. when their name is written on the box), but in other cases it can be quite difficult to find out who to go to if your product breaks. - If the store is liable, it is in their best interest to not sell you products that are likely to break quickly. Alternatively, if the store still decides to sell those products, they will want to take the risk of breakage into account when setting the price. That means the price of the product is a more accurate representation of the value of the product.
Jolter 6y ago
In many cases, Amazon is the importer. For stuff that’s shipped straight from China to the consumer, whom do you propose should be liable when a product catches fire? I think that’s the situation in this case - the court has ruled that Amazon is responsible.

Schnitz 6y ago

If you ever happen to run into a seller that's motivated to fight your claim, you'll actually realize that Amazon is the new eBay. They now play the exact same game where they sit in the middle, giving each party time to respond, etc. and it just bounces back and forth forever. In my case I had ordered a print on white background and it arrived on a yellowish background and the seller kept fighting. It took 2 weeks and several escalations after which Amazon finally issued me a refund. Noteworthy as well that it was a "goodwill" refund, ie they didn't rule against the seller despite having ample proof in the form of screenshots of the listing and pictures.

Haleabus 6y ago

Amazon is responsible for covering the globe in Chinese garbage.

Trias11 6y ago

We need more rulings like that. Want to peddle chinese crap? Be responsible.

physicsguy 6y ago

This is the norm here in the UK and the EU

EricE 6y ago

Good. The amount of counterfeit crap on Amazon is getting out of control. Indeed they are no longer the first place I think of for electronics.