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Fake 2TB USBs on Bezos shopping site

20 points by frogger8 5y ago

cashapplimit 5y ago
viro 5y ago
So they should force 3rd party sellers to use the "fulfillment by amazon" so they can validate the product?
- cmatthias 5y ago
  No, the sellers of these fraudulent products (at least the first 5 on the search results page the OP linked to in the twitter thread) are already using FBA. Amazon clearly doesn't care. Maybe a prosecutor bringing legal action against Amazon would be the best way to make them care.
  - viro 5y ago
    Why Amazon and not the people committing the fraud? I don't know why so many people think private companies should be doing the job of the government. Unless you want Amazon to completely get rid of 3rd party sellers.
    - cmatthias 5y ago
      I never said "not the people committing the fraud". Why not both? Amazon is the entity warehousing and shipping the products in the United States (or wherever the buyer happens to be), and is and is the party enabling the fraudulent products to be sold to the buyer. I'm not a lawyer, but I'd have to think there are consumer protection laws being violated here, as well as mail fraud, assuming at least some of these products are shipped via the postal service. I support legal action against the companies selling the products too, but they tend to disappear and reappear under different names, and are likely all located in China, which I assume makes prosecution more difficult. Responding to your edit: this is not "private companies doing the job of the government." If there are fraud and/or consumer protection laws on the books, then companies need to follow them, and they need to face legal consequences when they don't.
    - mdni007 5y ago
      The real issue is that Amazon is not doing anything about their fake review problem for products that they list on their website. Whether or not that has any legal consequence is up for debate.
kup0 5y ago
Yeah there are "external SATA" style USB solid state drives that are fake too. A colleague discovered this after someone we knew purchased a few and all of them failed within 10 minutes, and were extremely slow. Opening one up explained it all- it was a cheap "USB flash drive" PCB/internals hooked to a USB A 2.0 to USB-C conversion board (so that it looked faster/better than it is). Amusingly, they used masking tape to hold some pieces together inside the drive. Just, completely made for fraudulent purposes. The brand is made up, the "storefront" name changes periodically (was VHSGUUDS CO. and now CSGARH CO.,LT), and the listings are super generic.
- rasz 5y ago
  oldie but goodie https://cdn3.geckoandfly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fake-usb-ssd.jpg https://cdn3.geckoandfly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fake...

20 points by frogger8 5y ago

cashapplimit 5y ago

viro 5y ago

So they should force 3rd party sellers to use the "fulfillment by amazon" so they can validate the product?

cmatthias 5y ago
No, the sellers of these fraudulent products (at least the first 5 on the search results page the OP linked to in the twitter thread) are already using FBA. Amazon clearly doesn't care. Maybe a prosecutor bringing legal action against Amazon would be the best way to make them care.
- viro 5y ago
  Why Amazon and not the people committing the fraud? I don't know why so many people think private companies should be doing the job of the government. Unless you want Amazon to completely get rid of 3rd party sellers.
  - cmatthias 5y ago
    I never said "not the people committing the fraud". Why not both? Amazon is the entity warehousing and shipping the products in the United States (or wherever the buyer happens to be), and is and is the party enabling the fraudulent products to be sold to the buyer. I'm not a lawyer, but I'd have to think there are consumer protection laws being violated here, as well as mail fraud, assuming at least some of these products are shipped via the postal service. I support legal action against the companies selling the products too, but they tend to disappear and reappear under different names, and are likely all located in China, which I assume makes prosecution more difficult. Responding to your edit: this is not "private companies doing the job of the government." If there are fraud and/or consumer protection laws on the books, then companies need to follow them, and they need to face legal consequences when they don't.
  - mdni007 5y ago
    The real issue is that Amazon is not doing anything about their fake review problem for products that they list on their website. Whether or not that has any legal consequence is up for debate.

kup0 5y ago

Yeah there are "external SATA" style USB solid state drives that are fake too. A colleague discovered this after someone we knew purchased a few and all of them failed within 10 minutes, and were extremely slow. Opening one up explained it all- it was a cheap "USB flash drive" PCB/internals hooked to a USB A 2.0 to USB-C conversion board (so that it looked faster/better than it is). Amusingly, they used masking tape to hold some pieces together inside the drive. Just, completely made for fraudulent purposes. The brand is made up, the "storefront" name changes periodically (was VHSGUUDS CO. and now CSGARH CO.,LT), and the listings are super generic.

rasz 5y ago
oldie but goodie https://cdn3.geckoandfly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fake-usb-ssd.jpg https://cdn3.geckoandfly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fake...