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Why is Amazon selling fake 16TB portable SSD drives?

146 points by blowski 4y ago

p-e-w 4y ago
Because Amazon is an online store that makes money when things are being sold through it. Including fake things. And since Amazon has no real competition and lawmakers are asleep at the wheel (if not outright bought), there is zero incentive for Amazon to do anything about this.
- fxtentacle 4y ago
  John Oliver claims that the 2022 antitrust bills are being blocked by Schumer, whose daughters work as Lobbyists for Amazon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXf04bhcjbg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXf04bhcjbg
- charlieyu1 4y ago
  I’m annoyed that this could be sorted by a simple ordering of positive reviews, yet these scams still pop up all the time
  - p-e-w 4y ago
    That would be true if reviews weren't fake themselves. And just like fake products, Amazon has no incentive to fight fake reviews either. To Amazon, these aren't "scams", they're good business.
  - blowski 4y ago
    Some of them are "sponsored", so Amazon is being paid to list them first.
- Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
  But is that a good long-term strategy to make money? After being bitten by crap products (one of which literally broke in 5 minutes), I don't buy electronics in Amazon anymore. They would get more money from me if they hadn't turned into a flea market of bad products.
  - p-e-w 4y ago
    Amazon is making more money than the entire economy of most countries. Their long term plan, like other tech giants, will be to become a sovereign entity. In some ways, they already are. Then they can effectively outlaw the competition, so outcompeting them won't matter anymore.
    - ciphol 4y ago
      You can't become a sovereign entity without territory on which you can enforce your norms. Amazon doesn't and (for the foreseeable future) won't have sovereign territory.
      - shapefrog 4y ago
        >without territory on which you can enforce your norms They seem to be doing pretty well at enforcing their norms in the good ole United States of Amazon.
        para_parolu 4y ago
        What is United States of Amazon?
      - fmajid 4y ago
        You don't need territory, the Sovereign Order of Malta doesn't have any either. If you are in a locale where you can use the legal system to forestall any action against you, it's pretty much the same thing.
  - flandish 4y ago
    “Long term” is not a problem when one makes so much profit in so little time and controls so much market/labor share that they are a tacit monopoly. Bezos’s primary goal is Bezos. Amazon’s is “shareholders”. Meteoric rise in profit is great and a hedge against “long term”/eventual downfall is easily done when that rise is part of an industry so dependent on amazon’s existence. IE: before amazon “falls” there will be a lot of “community loses x thousand jobs if we don't keep amazon her discussion to serve as the hedge.
- deng 4y ago
  > Because Amazon is an online store that makes money when things are being sold through it. Including fake things. Yep, and it uses this money to pay reviewgeek.com for their affiliate links on this article, and the circle is closed (to be fair, at least they did not post an affiliate link to one of these fake drives).
- herbst 4y ago
  Thing is in all places I know that have competition Amazon is basically irrelevant because it's such a poor choice comparingly. Like all of Asia, Switzerland, Netherlands apparently.
  - Fnoord 4y ago
    Amazon is not irrelevant in The Netherlands. They just are not the dominant #1 because of a previously existing competitor (Bol.com). Which has a large enough company backing it up (Ahold Delhaize) after they got acquired and had a foothold before Amazon had (Bol.com started with books and wasn't profitable for a long time). They're doing the same shit as Amazon (third party sellers, including drop shippers and such), but more fair. See this article about Amazon possibly being accountable for fake articles being sold [1]. Interestingly, the article also describes Bol.com is way more fair about it selling via a third party than Amazon. [1] https://blog.iusmentis.com/2023/01/10/amazon-mogelijk-aansprakelijk-voor-nepproducten-van-verkopers https://blog.iusmentis.com/2023/01/10/amazon-mogelijk-aanspr...
dc3k 4y ago
The majority of listings are cheap rebranded junk from brands with random six letter all caps names. Or in this case, cheap fake junk. Amazon doesn't care. They don't care about the flood of fake reviews They don't care that sellers get a pile of 5-star reviews, then re-use the same listing to sell something completely different They also don't seem to care what the words "free", "two-day", and "guaranteed" mean either, because I am constantly given the option of "FREE two-day shipping" that 1) I am paying for and 2) has a delivery date 9 days in the future. The "guaranteed delivery date" changes between when I order and when the thing ships _every time_ and I complain to support chat and get $5 off my order _every time_ It's garbage all the way down.
- medion 4y ago
  So… stop using it?
  - blowski 4y ago
    I do now get books from a local bookshop, cables direct from Anker, electronics from a UK high street chain, etc. But sometimes, due to Amazon's monopolistic behaviour, there are times when Amazon is the only choice.
- bushbaba 4y ago
  I think the problem is harder than you make out. How do you expect them to combat this while still allowing new sellers to have vast reach.
  - blowski 4y ago
    If I opened a shop on the high street selling fake hard drives I’d be shut down. Why does Amazon get a pass simply because they’re doing it at scale?
    - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
      Where I live in the US there are flea markets with stalls selling fake electronics like they have on Amazon. Neither the stalls nor the flea markets get shut down.
whyenot 4y ago
Because Amazon makes money whether they are fake or not. If they were held liable for the scam products sold on their platform, things would change.
scovetta 4y ago
This is particularly annoying because the "Report incorrect product information" link doesn't work properly, and due to "suspicious activity", only verified customers can submit a review. So you can't tell Amazon about it, and you can't let other prospective customers know about it.
andreagrandi 4y ago
"If It’s Too Good to Be True, Don’t Buy It and Check the Reviews" Ah, good luck with that! I once left a 1 star review for a fake product and Amazon didn't publish it because they said it didn't respect their policy.
- aflag 4y ago
  Did you buy the item?
- hellweaver666 4y ago
  I received a couple of fakes when ordering Lightning cables for my iPhone (which claimed made by "Appel in Califona" on the box which was a dead give away). Left a review to let people know it was fake and also got the review rejected for policy violations. Like this article says, the Marketplace team clearly sees the sellers as their customers and doesn't care about the people actually buying.
- mclightning 4y ago
  same here. the product had a literal design error, not just a faulty individual item.
simongr3dal 4y ago
I guess it's impossible to report this kind of fraud to law enforcement? I just don't see why.
- p-e-w 4y ago
  Of course you can report it. I doubt anyone is going to give a fuck though. But just wait for the next protest march in your city. "Law enforcement" is going to show up by the hundreds for sure.
  - blowski 4y ago
    Your local police officer isn't going to march to Seattle and confront Jeff Bezos or Andy Jassy. But neither is my prime minister going to care at all about a breach of the trades description act. So Amazon operates in this space in the middle with almost zero enforcement. The only real opportunity for recourse we have is to moan on social media, and hope we discourage future sales enough to make a dent in their profits.
- viraptor 4y ago
  It depends on the local regulations. It's not always the LE in the traditional sense either. For example in Australia ACCC would likely be the right body to deal with it.
nikanj 4y ago
Amazon is the new Wish.com
- herbst 4y ago
  Wish.com has the absolutely most weird model for sellers I've ever seen and is nothing like any other platform. You can not choose the price of products even, just a general direction. Wish decides if some sales are at loss because they take an unspecified fee plus make their own prices. They may add a 200% markup to your price if they want, but that doesn't mean you get that much more. They however also have a very strict way with returns. Basically if you receive something without tracking you'll get your money back each time if you want.
Hamuko 4y ago
The last time I saw one of these drives for sale on Amazon.de, I scrolled down to the review section and the review photos section was full of photos of oil paintings. I'm in sort of a need for a microSD card and Amazon.de has some viable brand-name options, but I'm still hesitant to buy any from there since it's so hard to know what on Amazon is real and what isn't.
- FPGAhacker 4y ago
  If something is small and high volume then it’s a fraud risk. I haven’t done the math but I do nearly all of my shopping on Amazon. I do this because I know I won’t have any problems with returns or refunds with Amazon. I tend to avoid the random all caps six letter companies when I can though. I also don’t pay much attention to positive reviews. I’m interested in the people that had bad experiences. So I go to the 1 and 2 star reviews and see if anything looks like a problem I would care about.
  - lnsru 4y ago
    I buy the SD cards elsewhere. For example from office supplies providers. My time is too precious to waste it on fake SD cards. Amazon is brilliant with their return policy and a huge argument for me buying other things there.
- pocketarc 4y ago
  The best thing to do is buy a brand-name option for electronics, as you mentioned. Don’t try to cheap out, and you won’t get burned. microSD? Just buy Sandisk or some other brand with “dispatches from Amazon, sold by Amazon”, and save yourself wasting time worrying about reviews and fake products.
99_00 4y ago
Because the internet is the wild west. Unless you're making powerful politicians look bad. Then, suddenly, shutting you down is a simple matter.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
netfortius 4y ago
Same appearance and outside markings as on Amazon Europe sold products [1] , even larger sizes (!), and much cheaper, are to be found on AliExpress [2]. Amazon is simply becoming a "conduit" of Ali and the likes, apparently. [1] https://amzn.eu/d/iO4oZTJ https://amzn.eu/d/iO4oZTJ [2] https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqikae6 https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqikae6
Symbiote 4y ago
In the UK the government Trading Standards Office is supposed to investigate. However, they fine and imprison small businesses and individuals, but just publish "warnings" when it's Amazon or Ebay. https://www.nationaltradingstandards.uk/news/online-shoppers-buy-80-million-disappointing-items-based-on-rave-reviews/ https://www.nationaltradingstandards.uk/news/online-shoppers... https://www.nationaltradingstandards.uk/news/archive-2022/ https://www.nationaltradingstandards.uk/news/archive-2022/
- est 4y ago
  Those Chinese sellers will DDoS any investigation. It only costs a few bucks to register as a seller, they bulk register thousands of sellers under different names. They will exploit any loophole under environment filter pressure.
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    The legislation should be against Amazon. If Trading Standards raid Tesco and find an illegal product, they take action against Tesco for selling it.
    - danaris 4y ago
      Ah, but you see, that's completely different! Tesco, after all, is very clearly the seller in those cases, while you can clearly see by these 4723 pages of densely-worded legalese that when an item on Amazon is coming from a third-party seller, it is entirely their responsibility, a fact which is absolutely obvious and every reasonable buyer knows!!! (/s, in case it wasn't obvious)
  - ChrisRR 4y ago
    It's not even necessarily chinese sellers. Often it's UK sellers drop shipping aliexpress items as a get rich quick scheme
    - robjan 4y ago
      You'd be surprised how many there are though. It's often quite easy to trace the seller using the Companies House website which now allows free company lookups. The companies are often held by a chain of UK based shell companies and agents ultimately leading to a random virtual office in Hong Kong.
underwater 4y ago
Amazon's very first stated leadership principle is Customer Obsession: Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers. This, and the myriad of other stories about Amazon, leave me scratching my head. They aggressively filter candidates based on questions designed around these principals. Either they're completely failing on a cultural front, or the values and their hiring process are a weird in-joke.
- recuter 4y ago
  Don't scratch your head too hard you'll get a bold spot. It is nothing but a sort of well intentioned sounding yet ultimately meaningless corporate speak instituted a long time ago by Bezos - kind-of sort-of true for a while and then the headcount gets huge. Now it something you might hear at Uncle Enzo's CosaNostra Pizza HQ.
  - tsujamin 4y ago
    Some of those 6 character vendor names do resemble Sumerian…
  - pas 4y ago
    it was important while there was competition... now it gets in the way of profit
  - canadianfella 4y ago
    [dead]
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    Say what you will, they make damn sure you get your pizza
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  Almost like they have collapsed into a cesspool of backstabbing, overwork, turnover, burnout, betrayal, hire-to-fire, stack ranking, inevitable pip, etc. Even if you survive that, they'll fire you right before you vest.
RileyJames 4y ago
Couldn’t this be solved with some vigilantly style justice. (Since Amazon are not dealing with it proactively) If a large group of individuals buy these hard drives (~1-3k) and then all file for refunds on the basis that the product is a scam / not as advertised (providing the evidence from the blog post). Isn’t the result that everyone gets a refund. The seller loses the sales. They get 1-3k bad reviews. And they lose the merchandise (unless they’re sent back, but it seems like lower value products like this don’t require a return). Surely that would quite quickly make this an unprofitable venture for the scammers.
- pyrolistical 4y ago
  Except non techies never get close to the real capacity and never realizes they got scammed
- Tempest1981 4y ago
  I could imagine a subreddit for this, similar to the investor groups. Target 1 fake product each week. Would it make a dent?
- mcv 4y ago
  Expecting a large group of customers to test these things thoroughly enough to discover how fake they are is unreasonable. With blatantly intentional fakes like these, a single one should be enough to indict and imprison the seller and fine Amazon.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  Are you willing to spend several hundred dollars buying hard drives hoping to someday get it back? Then will you spend the time testing them, refunding them, and making a bad review? And how many new scammers can pop up over the time it takes you to ruin one scammers ratings?
- mrweasel 4y ago
  I'd imagine that the sellers have a number of accounts and only sell a small amount of products through each. In cases like these, Amazon should take note that a product is a scam, automatically refund all customers and remove the product and account. The issue is, that would require Amazon to withhold payment to sells for 30 - 60 days, which is going to absolutely suck for small honest sellers. I don't think Amazon really care what happens on their platform, as long as it make a profit... or are they still losing money on the e-commerce side of business?
starbugs 4y ago
This is probably not a smart question, but why isn't Amazon sued or otherwise held accountable if this happens repeatedly?
- andrewinardeer 4y ago
  Who wants to face Amazon lawyers?
  - diffeomorphism 4y ago
    A state agency? It seems quite unreasonable to expect individual customers to face such risk and that is exactly why consumer protection agencies (not sure about the English translation of Verbraucherzentrale) exist. For instance, when the emission scandal by VW happened such an agency sued and won: https://www.vzbv.de/vw-klage https://www.vzbv.de/vw-klage
- ninth_ant 4y ago
  Because you get your money back in full if you ask?
  - starbugs 4y ago
    Not sure if you are joking? I think we all know that the nature of the scam makes it very unlikely for most people to detect that they were defrauded within the 30 days money back guarantee time frame.
    - ninth_ant 4y ago
      I'm not joking. Are there lots of examples of people who were defrauded by a completely fake product like this, called amazon 31 days later, and were denied a refund? I've not seen any discussions of this. My understanding of the scam is that the victims wouldn't notice for a long time, or even fully understand that they were scammed. Given they are buying from a product category that doesn't actually exist, they are not tech-savvy and would just use it in the inferior capacity or throw it away assuming they did something wrong.
mouse_ 4y ago
Why is Amazon doing thing? Cash, of course!
quijoteuniv 4y ago
Because is a money making super mega corporation with no values. Best is to stay away from it and find alternatives. Yes it will cost you more, but not under the expense of someone else. And yes, it is possible have not bought anything there for 5 years or so.
omgwtf1000 4y ago
I buy from Amazon, although much, much less than I used to a couple years ago. Bullshit reviews are mostly easy to spot, and real reviews stand out too. If I get something I don’t like, or is crap quality, whatever, I return it. I return around 25% of purchases. Without that return policy I would never shop at Amazon, not a chance.
flyrain 4y ago
This best seller is a fake one. I wrote a review and called them to invest 6 month ago. It is still there. Amazon doesn't care. https://www.amazon.com/Solar-Charger-Power-Bank-36800mAh-Built-Flashlight-Electronic/dp/B09ZL7JCQD/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2FG9X3TLGG9O7&keywords=power%2Bbank&qid=1673941777&sprefix=power%2Bbank%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-5&th=1 https://www.amazon.com/Solar-Charger-Power-Bank-36800mAh-Bui...
- NavinF 4y ago
  Buy it, measure capacity, and return it. If they don't make you ship it back you get a free power bank.
  - Tempest1981 4y ago
    Just hope it's safe, and doesn't overheat and catch on fire.
    - NavinF 4y ago
      meh it's always handy to have an extra LiPo around even if you don't need the electronics
throwaway378037 4y ago
Don’t buy from Amazon, simples
aaron695 4y ago
[dead]
ps 4y ago
That's funny especially when one is constantly harassed by the Amazon to prove you are not selling counterfeits ("hey, this Nike sneakers tons of others are selling are infringing some IP, fix it!"), dealing with products named "XYZ Winter Life Jacket" which Amazon immediately bans, because they think it is lifejacket and not jacket, filling forms for developers full of absurd questions, impossibility to prove identity of your employees if they do not have recent utility bill with their name (wifes in Europe often don't) etc. And don't even get me started about customers keeping ordered items, claiming they never received them and Amazon ignoring DHL shipment tracking data - one of my clients got account suspended for this and Amazon demanded us to provide plan for preventing these situations...
- mcv 4y ago
  Are you saying amazon punishes legitimate sellers but accommodates scammers?
  - stonogo 4y ago
    Yes. It costs next to nothing to illicitly register hundreds of fake seller accounts. Legitimate sellers who get caught in the bureaucracy stay banned because they are too law-abiding to circumvent, while scammers just play statistics to keep ahead of the lockouts. After a few years of this, what do you imagine the amazon marketplace looks like? I don't think amazon deliberately rewards scammers or punishes legit sellers, but the system they have built has that result.
mcv 4y ago
I notice this article talks a lot about hope, but not about returning the item, getting your money back, or fining the seller or Amazon. Does the US not have any consumer protection laws? This is blatant false advertising. There should be fines for both the seller and for Amazon, and all money paid by customers who bought this, should be paid back. Make it automatic for obvious frauds so the scammers also get punished for their review scam. It's ridiculous that this is allowed to exist. This is exactly why a free market requires some regulation; you've got to know what you're buying.
- MattGaiser 4y ago
  Amazon has the most generous refunds I have ever experienced. I once had a return and complained to customer service that their chosen delivery provider was a bit far, so they just let me keep it.
  - pasc1878 4y ago
    But it still costs tyhe customer. In time which is more precious than anything else.
- NavinF 4y ago
  Dude, Amazon will refund you for any reason including "I no longer need this product" without charging a restocking fee. All large retailers (Costco, Walmart, Target, etc) are like like this in the US. Every wondered why Americans roll their eyes when Europeans brag about consumer protection laws?
  - rwmj 4y ago
    The return policies you've described are guaranteed by law in Europe. I'd rather had the law cover guaranteed minimum return policies across all shops.
    - mcv 4y ago
      But even with return policies, many of the buyers of these things will not even realise they've been scammed, or when they do, might feel returning the item to be too much trouble. So return policies aren't going to fix this. There needs to be actual enforcement of consumer protection laws.
impulser_ 4y ago
I think Walmart is selling the same ones. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Petmoto-M-2-0-Mini-Solid-State-Drive-High-Speed-30TB-USB-3-0-Original-Computer-Portable-External-Drives-SSD-TYPE-C-Mobile-Compatible-PC-Laptop-Mac-50/1227575044 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Petmoto-M-2-0-Mini-Solid-State-Dr... Different branding, but the same exact case. So I'm guessing they are buying them from the same Chinese supplier. Maybe it time for Amazon and Walmart to ban Chinese suppliers.
- mjg59 4y ago
  You can't easily tell because it's out of stock, but other Petmoto branded items on walmart.com are actually being sold by non-Walmart sellers. There's no indication that Walmart are involved other than being a shopfront.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  > Walmart to ban Chinese suppliers That is probably 99% of their products.
herbst 4y ago
Amazon is now AliExpress with a 300% markup. It has been that for a while.
- jbm 4y ago
  This is not an exaggeration, although it is still better than local retail that has a 1000% markup. I went to buy some velcro at a local store and that project got delayed 6 weeks for the shipment to arrive from Aliexpress.
  - herbst 4y ago
    I am also thinking small electronic components the whole thread. Once you see the pricing on Ali compared to whatever local distributor is there it's easy to regularly delay projects for a single $0.2 part. 1000% markup is by far not the worst I've seen.
- npteljes 4y ago
  Etsy too. Lots of stuff from Ali, shipped from China, just orders of magnitudes more expensive.
  - herbst 4y ago
    So true. And Etsy doesn't care at all. Even thought some categories are completely overrun by now.
Diapason 4y ago
Well a couple years ago eBay was full of 2TB usb sticks LOL
chx 4y ago
Some notes: > But the sub $100 brands claim to be M.2 SSD, one of the most expensive and fastest formats out of there. Well, no, M.2 is nothing special, it's a physical format and the SSD can be cheap or fast and speed usually will correlate. Also, when Amazon actually bothered to crack down on some companies which operate with fake reviews then they have thrown out some of the most reliable USB C charger companies and yet left all the fake Chinese crap. Aukey, for example. Dell sells them, Amazon Japan sells them but Amazon USA has banned them, what madness. And to see how customers "benefit" from this: to this day there's no lighter weight 100W charger than the Aukey PA-B5 and it's like three years old.
MattGaiser 4y ago
He misses what (I would guess) is a major source of strong reviews. In numerous products from Amazon, I have received a card offering a refund on the item for a 5* review.
ggm 4y ago
Amazon selling vs Amazon permitting to be sold. If any of these are sold and fulfilled by Amazon, their breach as seller is worse than if they just enable the sell. I believe it's delivery direct from offshore. It's bad but there are degrees of badness and risk to Amazon here. I would personally love to see FDA authority take down an Amazon warehouse if they found e.g. specious drugs, or mislabelling which breaches consumer safety law.
jimrandomh 4y ago
I found a few Amazon listings for fake 16TB SSDs. Here's an example: https://www.amazon.com/WIOTA-External-Hard-Drive-Portable/dp/B0BRTS6YLK https://www.amazon.com/WIOTA-External-Hard-Drive-Portable/dp... (https://web.archive.org/web/20230117092329/https://www.amazon.com/WIOTA-External-Hard-Drive-Portable/dp/B0BRTS6YLK https://web.archive.org/web/20230117092329/https://www.amazo...). It has 46 reviews and an average star rating of 4.8. Here are some of the reviews of this listing, which is definitely supposed to be an SSD: > "These are fantastic slap bracelets. We use them as prizes at our school, and the kiddos love them! I wish there were more “boy” colors/themes, but our youngest students love them all! Great product for a great price!" > "I hung this beautiful portrait in my kitchen. My family and I love looking at it everyday it is made well. Overall great product!" > "This camera is really good and the mic on it works great too. Exactly what I needed. Great price aswell." What happens is that sellers take listings for cheap, low-margin items, and build up reviews for awhile. Then they edit the listing to describe something expensive, and ship fakes. People assume it's legitimate because they see the high star rating. Amazon makes it very difficult to report fake listings like this one, even when it's very obvious that it's fake. They also don't let users see the edit history of listings. I suspect that they're avoiding knowledge, so that if a fake item turns out to be dangerous, they can claim ignorance in court.
- chucksta 4y ago
  I've gone out of my way to report this manipulation before, it amounted to "tough shit"
  - Fnoord 4y ago
    We are lacking accountability here. I wonder if 'tough shit' is gonna hold up in court.
  - abirch 4y ago
    I hate Amazon but they are so convenient. So much like college I find myself doing the walk of shame . Is there something out there that's better?
addandsubtract 4y ago
The author complains about buying products on Amazon, but then has an ad directing people to buy said products on Amazon. Pot, meet kettle.
Merrill 4y ago
If it is not "Ships from amazon.com" and "Sold by amazon.com", I don't usually buy it. Sometimes I'll buy a "Ships from amazon.com" and "Sold by XYZ Corp", but only if I recognize "XYZ Corp" as a reputable firm. Customer ratings and reviews as a crowdsourced reputation mechanism is pretty unreliable. The Q&As are sometimes more informative.
fomine3 4y ago
I wonder is there any Amazon (.uk/.de/whatever) that is superior about banning frauds, maybe thanks to regulation.
- blowski 4y ago
  It's hard to say "UK is equally bad as US" when all I have is anecdotes. But there are plenty of anecdotes that it's pretty bad in the UK.
nipperkinfeet 4y ago
Now that there are so many phony reviews, I've switched to looking at store ratings rather of actual product ratings.

146 points by blowski 4y ago

Because Amazon is an online store that makes money when things are being sold through it. Including fake things. And since Amazon has no real competition and lawmakers are asleep at the wheel (if not outright bought), there is zero incentive for Amazon to do anything about this.

fxtentacle 4y ago
John Oliver claims that the 2022 antitrust bills are being blocked by Schumer, whose daughters work as Lobbyists for Amazon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXf04bhcjbg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXf04bhcjbg
charlieyu1 4y ago
I’m annoyed that this could be sorted by a simple ordering of positive reviews, yet these scams still pop up all the time
- p-e-w 4y ago
  That would be true if reviews weren't fake themselves. And just like fake products, Amazon has no incentive to fight fake reviews either. To Amazon, these aren't "scams", they're good business.
- blowski 4y ago
  Some of them are "sponsored", so Amazon is being paid to list them first.
Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
But is that a good long-term strategy to make money? After being bitten by crap products (one of which literally broke in 5 minutes), I don't buy electronics in Amazon anymore. They would get more money from me if they hadn't turned into a flea market of bad products.
- p-e-w 4y ago
  Amazon is making more money than the entire economy of most countries. Their long term plan, like other tech giants, will be to become a sovereign entity. In some ways, they already are. Then they can effectively outlaw the competition, so outcompeting them won't matter anymore.
  - ciphol 4y ago
    You can't become a sovereign entity without territory on which you can enforce your norms. Amazon doesn't and (for the foreseeable future) won't have sovereign territory.
    - shapefrog 4y ago
      >without territory on which you can enforce your norms They seem to be doing pretty well at enforcing their norms in the good ole United States of Amazon.
      - para_parolu 4y ago
        What is United States of Amazon?
    - fmajid 4y ago
      You don't need territory, the Sovereign Order of Malta doesn't have any either. If you are in a locale where you can use the legal system to forestall any action against you, it's pretty much the same thing.
- flandish 4y ago
  “Long term” is not a problem when one makes so much profit in so little time and controls so much market/labor share that they are a tacit monopoly. Bezos’s primary goal is Bezos. Amazon’s is “shareholders”. Meteoric rise in profit is great and a hedge against “long term”/eventual downfall is easily done when that rise is part of an industry so dependent on amazon’s existence. IE: before amazon “falls” there will be a lot of “community loses x thousand jobs if we don't keep amazon her discussion to serve as the hedge.
deng 4y ago
> Because Amazon is an online store that makes money when things are being sold through it. Including fake things. Yep, and it uses this money to pay reviewgeek.com for their affiliate links on this article, and the circle is closed (to be fair, at least they did not post an affiliate link to one of these fake drives).
herbst 4y ago
Thing is in all places I know that have competition Amazon is basically irrelevant because it's such a poor choice comparingly. Like all of Asia, Switzerland, Netherlands apparently.
- Fnoord 4y ago
  Amazon is not irrelevant in The Netherlands. They just are not the dominant #1 because of a previously existing competitor (Bol.com). Which has a large enough company backing it up (Ahold Delhaize) after they got acquired and had a foothold before Amazon had (Bol.com started with books and wasn't profitable for a long time). They're doing the same shit as Amazon (third party sellers, including drop shippers and such), but more fair. See this article about Amazon possibly being accountable for fake articles being sold [1]. Interestingly, the article also describes Bol.com is way more fair about it selling via a third party than Amazon. [1] https://blog.iusmentis.com/2023/01/10/amazon-mogelijk-aansprakelijk-voor-nepproducten-van-verkopers https://blog.iusmentis.com/2023/01/10/amazon-mogelijk-aanspr...

dc3k 4y ago

The majority of listings are cheap rebranded junk from brands with random six letter all caps names. Or in this case, cheap fake junk. Amazon doesn't care. They don't care about the flood of fake reviews They don't care that sellers get a pile of 5-star reviews, then re-use the same listing to sell something completely different They also don't seem to care what the words "free", "two-day", and "guaranteed" mean either, because I am constantly given the option of "FREE two-day shipping" that 1) I am paying for and 2) has a delivery date 9 days in the future. The "guaranteed delivery date" changes between when I order and when the thing ships _every time_ and I complain to support chat and get $5 off my order _every time_ It's garbage all the way down.

medion 4y ago
So… stop using it?
- blowski 4y ago
  I do now get books from a local bookshop, cables direct from Anker, electronics from a UK high street chain, etc. But sometimes, due to Amazon's monopolistic behaviour, there are times when Amazon is the only choice.
bushbaba 4y ago
I think the problem is harder than you make out. How do you expect them to combat this while still allowing new sellers to have vast reach.
- blowski 4y ago
  If I opened a shop on the high street selling fake hard drives I’d be shut down. Why does Amazon get a pass simply because they’re doing it at scale?
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
    Where I live in the US there are flea markets with stalls selling fake electronics like they have on Amazon. Neither the stalls nor the flea markets get shut down.

whyenot 4y ago

Because Amazon makes money whether they are fake or not. If they were held liable for the scam products sold on their platform, things would change.

scovetta 4y ago

This is particularly annoying because the "Report incorrect product information" link doesn't work properly, and due to "suspicious activity", only verified customers can submit a review. So you can't tell Amazon about it, and you can't let other prospective customers know about it.

andreagrandi 4y ago

"If It’s Too Good to Be True, Don’t Buy It and Check the Reviews" Ah, good luck with that! I once left a 1 star review for a fake product and Amazon didn't publish it because they said it didn't respect their policy.

aflag 4y ago
Did you buy the item?
hellweaver666 4y ago
I received a couple of fakes when ordering Lightning cables for my iPhone (which claimed made by "Appel in Califona" on the box which was a dead give away). Left a review to let people know it was fake and also got the review rejected for policy violations. Like this article says, the Marketplace team clearly sees the sellers as their customers and doesn't care about the people actually buying.
mclightning 4y ago
same here. the product had a literal design error, not just a faulty individual item.

simongr3dal 4y ago

I guess it's impossible to report this kind of fraud to law enforcement? I just don't see why.

p-e-w 4y ago
Of course you can report it. I doubt anyone is going to give a fuck though. But just wait for the next protest march in your city. "Law enforcement" is going to show up by the hundreds for sure.
- blowski 4y ago
  Your local police officer isn't going to march to Seattle and confront Jeff Bezos or Andy Jassy. But neither is my prime minister going to care at all about a breach of the trades description act. So Amazon operates in this space in the middle with almost zero enforcement. The only real opportunity for recourse we have is to moan on social media, and hope we discourage future sales enough to make a dent in their profits.
viraptor 4y ago
It depends on the local regulations. It's not always the LE in the traditional sense either. For example in Australia ACCC would likely be the right body to deal with it.

nikanj 4y ago

Amazon is the new Wish.com

herbst 4y ago
Wish.com has the absolutely most weird model for sellers I've ever seen and is nothing like any other platform. You can not choose the price of products even, just a general direction. Wish decides if some sales are at loss because they take an unspecified fee plus make their own prices. They may add a 200% markup to your price if they want, but that doesn't mean you get that much more. They however also have a very strict way with returns. Basically if you receive something without tracking you'll get your money back each time if you want.

Hamuko 4y ago

The last time I saw one of these drives for sale on Amazon.de, I scrolled down to the review section and the review photos section was full of photos of oil paintings. I'm in sort of a need for a microSD card and Amazon.de has some viable brand-name options, but I'm still hesitant to buy any from there since it's so hard to know what on Amazon is real and what isn't.

FPGAhacker 4y ago
If something is small and high volume then it’s a fraud risk. I haven’t done the math but I do nearly all of my shopping on Amazon. I do this because I know I won’t have any problems with returns or refunds with Amazon. I tend to avoid the random all caps six letter companies when I can though. I also don’t pay much attention to positive reviews. I’m interested in the people that had bad experiences. So I go to the 1 and 2 star reviews and see if anything looks like a problem I would care about.
- lnsru 4y ago
  I buy the SD cards elsewhere. For example from office supplies providers. My time is too precious to waste it on fake SD cards. Amazon is brilliant with their return policy and a huge argument for me buying other things there.
pocketarc 4y ago
The best thing to do is buy a brand-name option for electronics, as you mentioned. Don’t try to cheap out, and you won’t get burned. microSD? Just buy Sandisk or some other brand with “dispatches from Amazon, sold by Amazon”, and save yourself wasting time worrying about reviews and fake products.

99_00 4y ago

Because the internet is the wild west. Unless you're making powerful politicians look bad. Then, suddenly, shutting you down is a simple matter.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

netfortius 4y ago

Same appearance and outside markings as on Amazon Europe sold products [1] , even larger sizes (!), and much cheaper, are to be found on AliExpress [2]. Amazon is simply becoming a "conduit" of Ali and the likes, apparently. [1] https://amzn.eu/d/iO4oZTJ https://amzn.eu/d/iO4oZTJ [2] https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqikae6 https://a.aliexpress.com/_mqikae6

Symbiote 4y ago

In the UK the government Trading Standards Office is supposed to investigate. However, they fine and imprison small businesses and individuals, but just publish "warnings" when it's Amazon or Ebay. https://www.nationaltradingstandards.uk/news/online-shoppers-buy-80-million-disappointing-items-based-on-rave-reviews/ https://www.nationaltradingstandards.uk/news/online-shoppers... https://www.nationaltradingstandards.uk/news/archive-2022/ https://www.nationaltradingstandards.uk/news/archive-2022/

est 4y ago
Those Chinese sellers will DDoS any investigation. It only costs a few bucks to register as a seller, they bulk register thousands of sellers under different names. They will exploit any loophole under environment filter pressure.
- Symbiote 4y ago
  The legislation should be against Amazon. If Trading Standards raid Tesco and find an illegal product, they take action against Tesco for selling it.
  - danaris 4y ago
    Ah, but you see, that's completely different! Tesco, after all, is very clearly the seller in those cases, while you can clearly see by these 4723 pages of densely-worded legalese that when an item on Amazon is coming from a third-party seller, it is entirely their responsibility, a fact which is absolutely obvious and every reasonable buyer knows!!! (/s, in case it wasn't obvious)
- ChrisRR 4y ago
  It's not even necessarily chinese sellers. Often it's UK sellers drop shipping aliexpress items as a get rich quick scheme
  - robjan 4y ago
    You'd be surprised how many there are though. It's often quite easy to trace the seller using the Companies House website which now allows free company lookups. The companies are often held by a chain of UK based shell companies and agents ultimately leading to a random virtual office in Hong Kong.

underwater 4y ago

Amazon's very first stated leadership principle is Customer Obsession: Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers. This, and the myriad of other stories about Amazon, leave me scratching my head. They aggressively filter candidates based on questions designed around these principals. Either they're completely failing on a cultural front, or the values and their hiring process are a weird in-joke.

recuter 4y ago
Don't scratch your head too hard you'll get a bold spot. It is nothing but a sort of well intentioned sounding yet ultimately meaningless corporate speak instituted a long time ago by Bezos - kind-of sort-of true for a while and then the headcount gets huge. Now it something you might hear at Uncle Enzo's CosaNostra Pizza HQ.
- tsujamin 4y ago
  Some of those 6 character vendor names do resemble Sumerian…
- pas 4y ago
  it was important while there was competition... now it gets in the way of profit
- canadianfella 4y ago
  [dead]
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  Say what you will, they make damn sure you get your pizza
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Almost like they have collapsed into a cesspool of backstabbing, overwork, turnover, burnout, betrayal, hire-to-fire, stack ranking, inevitable pip, etc. Even if you survive that, they'll fire you right before you vest.

RileyJames 4y ago

Couldn’t this be solved with some vigilantly style justice. (Since Amazon are not dealing with it proactively) If a large group of individuals buy these hard drives (~1-3k) and then all file for refunds on the basis that the product is a scam / not as advertised (providing the evidence from the blog post). Isn’t the result that everyone gets a refund. The seller loses the sales. They get 1-3k bad reviews. And they lose the merchandise (unless they’re sent back, but it seems like lower value products like this don’t require a return). Surely that would quite quickly make this an unprofitable venture for the scammers.

pyrolistical 4y ago
Except non techies never get close to the real capacity and never realizes they got scammed
Tempest1981 4y ago
I could imagine a subreddit for this, similar to the investor groups. Target 1 fake product each week. Would it make a dent?
mcv 4y ago
Expecting a large group of customers to test these things thoroughly enough to discover how fake they are is unreasonable. With blatantly intentional fakes like these, a single one should be enough to indict and imprison the seller and fine Amazon.
boomboomsubban 4y ago
Are you willing to spend several hundred dollars buying hard drives hoping to someday get it back? Then will you spend the time testing them, refunding them, and making a bad review? And how many new scammers can pop up over the time it takes you to ruin one scammers ratings?
mrweasel 4y ago
I'd imagine that the sellers have a number of accounts and only sell a small amount of products through each. In cases like these, Amazon should take note that a product is a scam, automatically refund all customers and remove the product and account. The issue is, that would require Amazon to withhold payment to sells for 30 - 60 days, which is going to absolutely suck for small honest sellers. I don't think Amazon really care what happens on their platform, as long as it make a profit... or are they still losing money on the e-commerce side of business?

starbugs 4y ago

This is probably not a smart question, but why isn't Amazon sued or otherwise held accountable if this happens repeatedly?

andrewinardeer 4y ago
Who wants to face Amazon lawyers?
- diffeomorphism 4y ago
  A state agency? It seems quite unreasonable to expect individual customers to face such risk and that is exactly why consumer protection agencies (not sure about the English translation of Verbraucherzentrale) exist. For instance, when the emission scandal by VW happened such an agency sued and won: https://www.vzbv.de/vw-klage https://www.vzbv.de/vw-klage
ninth_ant 4y ago
Because you get your money back in full if you ask?
- starbugs 4y ago
  Not sure if you are joking? I think we all know that the nature of the scam makes it very unlikely for most people to detect that they were defrauded within the 30 days money back guarantee time frame.
  - ninth_ant 4y ago
    I'm not joking. Are there lots of examples of people who were defrauded by a completely fake product like this, called amazon 31 days later, and were denied a refund? I've not seen any discussions of this. My understanding of the scam is that the victims wouldn't notice for a long time, or even fully understand that they were scammed. Given they are buying from a product category that doesn't actually exist, they are not tech-savvy and would just use it in the inferior capacity or throw it away assuming they did something wrong.

mouse_ 4y ago

Why is Amazon doing thing? Cash, of course!

quijoteuniv 4y ago

Because is a money making super mega corporation with no values. Best is to stay away from it and find alternatives. Yes it will cost you more, but not under the expense of someone else. And yes, it is possible have not bought anything there for 5 years or so.

omgwtf1000 4y ago

I buy from Amazon, although much, much less than I used to a couple years ago. Bullshit reviews are mostly easy to spot, and real reviews stand out too. If I get something I don’t like, or is crap quality, whatever, I return it. I return around 25% of purchases. Without that return policy I would never shop at Amazon, not a chance.

flyrain 4y ago

This best seller is a fake one. I wrote a review and called them to invest 6 month ago. It is still there. Amazon doesn't care. https://www.amazon.com/Solar-Charger-Power-Bank-36800mAh-Built-Flashlight-Electronic/dp/B09ZL7JCQD/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2FG9X3TLGG9O7&keywords=power%2Bbank&qid=1673941777&sprefix=power%2Bbank%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-5&th=1 https://www.amazon.com/Solar-Charger-Power-Bank-36800mAh-Bui...

NavinF 4y ago
Buy it, measure capacity, and return it. If they don't make you ship it back you get a free power bank.
- Tempest1981 4y ago
  Just hope it's safe, and doesn't overheat and catch on fire.
  - NavinF 4y ago
    meh it's always handy to have an extra LiPo around even if you don't need the electronics

throwaway378037 4y ago

Don’t buy from Amazon, simples

aaron695 4y ago

[dead]

ps 4y ago

That's funny especially when one is constantly harassed by the Amazon to prove you are not selling counterfeits ("hey, this Nike sneakers tons of others are selling are infringing some IP, fix it!"), dealing with products named "XYZ Winter Life Jacket" which Amazon immediately bans, because they think it is lifejacket and not jacket, filling forms for developers full of absurd questions, impossibility to prove identity of your employees if they do not have recent utility bill with their name (wifes in Europe often don't) etc. And don't even get me started about customers keeping ordered items, claiming they never received them and Amazon ignoring DHL shipment tracking data - one of my clients got account suspended for this and Amazon demanded us to provide plan for preventing these situations...

mcv 4y ago
Are you saying amazon punishes legitimate sellers but accommodates scammers?
- stonogo 4y ago
  Yes. It costs next to nothing to illicitly register hundreds of fake seller accounts. Legitimate sellers who get caught in the bureaucracy stay banned because they are too law-abiding to circumvent, while scammers just play statistics to keep ahead of the lockouts. After a few years of this, what do you imagine the amazon marketplace looks like? I don't think amazon deliberately rewards scammers or punishes legit sellers, but the system they have built has that result.

mcv 4y ago

I notice this article talks a lot about hope, but not about returning the item, getting your money back, or fining the seller or Amazon. Does the US not have any consumer protection laws? This is blatant false advertising. There should be fines for both the seller and for Amazon, and all money paid by customers who bought this, should be paid back. Make it automatic for obvious frauds so the scammers also get punished for their review scam. It's ridiculous that this is allowed to exist. This is exactly why a free market requires some regulation; you've got to know what you're buying.

MattGaiser 4y ago
Amazon has the most generous refunds I have ever experienced. I once had a return and complained to customer service that their chosen delivery provider was a bit far, so they just let me keep it.
- pasc1878 4y ago
  But it still costs tyhe customer. In time which is more precious than anything else.
NavinF 4y ago
Dude, Amazon will refund you for any reason including "I no longer need this product" without charging a restocking fee. All large retailers (Costco, Walmart, Target, etc) are like like this in the US. Every wondered why Americans roll their eyes when Europeans brag about consumer protection laws?
- rwmj 4y ago
  The return policies you've described are guaranteed by law in Europe. I'd rather had the law cover guaranteed minimum return policies across all shops.
  - mcv 4y ago
    But even with return policies, many of the buyers of these things will not even realise they've been scammed, or when they do, might feel returning the item to be too much trouble. So return policies aren't going to fix this. There needs to be actual enforcement of consumer protection laws.

impulser_ 4y ago

I think Walmart is selling the same ones. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Petmoto-M-2-0-Mini-Solid-State-Drive-High-Speed-30TB-USB-3-0-Original-Computer-Portable-External-Drives-SSD-TYPE-C-Mobile-Compatible-PC-Laptop-Mac-50/1227575044 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Petmoto-M-2-0-Mini-Solid-State-Dr... Different branding, but the same exact case. So I'm guessing they are buying them from the same Chinese supplier. Maybe it time for Amazon and Walmart to ban Chinese suppliers.

mjg59 4y ago
You can't easily tell because it's out of stock, but other Petmoto branded items on walmart.com are actually being sold by non-Walmart sellers. There's no indication that Walmart are involved other than being a shopfront.
shapefrog 4y ago
> Walmart to ban Chinese suppliers That is probably 99% of their products.

herbst 4y ago

Amazon is now AliExpress with a 300% markup. It has been that for a while.

jbm 4y ago
This is not an exaggeration, although it is still better than local retail that has a 1000% markup. I went to buy some velcro at a local store and that project got delayed 6 weeks for the shipment to arrive from Aliexpress.
- herbst 4y ago
  I am also thinking small electronic components the whole thread. Once you see the pricing on Ali compared to whatever local distributor is there it's easy to regularly delay projects for a single $0.2 part. 1000% markup is by far not the worst I've seen.
npteljes 4y ago
Etsy too. Lots of stuff from Ali, shipped from China, just orders of magnitudes more expensive.
- herbst 4y ago
  So true. And Etsy doesn't care at all. Even thought some categories are completely overrun by now.

Diapason 4y ago

Well a couple years ago eBay was full of 2TB usb sticks LOL

chx 4y ago

Some notes: > But the sub $100 brands claim to be M.2 SSD, one of the most expensive and fastest formats out of there. Well, no, M.2 is nothing special, it's a physical format and the SSD can be cheap or fast and speed usually will correlate. Also, when Amazon actually bothered to crack down on some companies which operate with fake reviews then they have thrown out some of the most reliable USB C charger companies and yet left all the fake Chinese crap. Aukey, for example. Dell sells them, Amazon Japan sells them but Amazon USA has banned them, what madness. And to see how customers "benefit" from this: to this day there's no lighter weight 100W charger than the Aukey PA-B5 and it's like three years old.

MattGaiser 4y ago

He misses what (I would guess) is a major source of strong reviews. In numerous products from Amazon, I have received a card offering a refund on the item for a 5* review.

ggm 4y ago

Amazon selling vs Amazon permitting to be sold. If any of these are sold and fulfilled by Amazon, their breach as seller is worse than if they just enable the sell. I believe it's delivery direct from offshore. It's bad but there are degrees of badness and risk to Amazon here. I would personally love to see FDA authority take down an Amazon warehouse if they found e.g. specious drugs, or mislabelling which breaches consumer safety law.

jimrandomh 4y ago

I found a few Amazon listings for fake 16TB SSDs. Here's an example: https://www.amazon.com/WIOTA-External-Hard-Drive-Portable/dp/B0BRTS6YLK https://www.amazon.com/WIOTA-External-Hard-Drive-Portable/dp... (https://web.archive.org/web/20230117092329/https://www.amazon.com/WIOTA-External-Hard-Drive-Portable/dp/B0BRTS6YLK https://web.archive.org/web/20230117092329/https://www.amazo...). It has 46 reviews and an average star rating of 4.8. Here are some of the reviews of this listing, which is definitely supposed to be an SSD: > "These are fantastic slap bracelets. We use them as prizes at our school, and the kiddos love them! I wish there were more “boy” colors/themes, but our youngest students love them all! Great product for a great price!" > "I hung this beautiful portrait in my kitchen. My family and I love looking at it everyday it is made well. Overall great product!" > "This camera is really good and the mic on it works great too. Exactly what I needed. Great price aswell." What happens is that sellers take listings for cheap, low-margin items, and build up reviews for awhile. Then they edit the listing to describe something expensive, and ship fakes. People assume it's legitimate because they see the high star rating. Amazon makes it very difficult to report fake listings like this one, even when it's very obvious that it's fake. They also don't let users see the edit history of listings. I suspect that they're avoiding knowledge, so that if a fake item turns out to be dangerous, they can claim ignorance in court.

chucksta 4y ago
I've gone out of my way to report this manipulation before, it amounted to "tough shit"
- Fnoord 4y ago
  We are lacking accountability here. I wonder if 'tough shit' is gonna hold up in court.
- abirch 4y ago
  I hate Amazon but they are so convenient. So much like college I find myself doing the walk of shame . Is there something out there that's better?

addandsubtract 4y ago

The author complains about buying products on Amazon, but then has an ad directing people to buy said products on Amazon. Pot, meet kettle.

Merrill 4y ago

If it is not "Ships from amazon.com" and "Sold by amazon.com", I don't usually buy it. Sometimes I'll buy a "Ships from amazon.com" and "Sold by XYZ Corp", but only if I recognize "XYZ Corp" as a reputable firm. Customer ratings and reviews as a crowdsourced reputation mechanism is pretty unreliable. The Q&As are sometimes more informative.

fomine3 4y ago

I wonder is there any Amazon (.uk/.de/whatever) that is superior about banning frauds, maybe thanks to regulation.

blowski 4y ago
It's hard to say "UK is equally bad as US" when all I have is anecdotes. But there are plenty of anecdotes that it's pretty bad in the UK.

nipperkinfeet 4y ago

Now that there are so many phony reviews, I've switched to looking at store ratings rather of actual product ratings.