The categories of things that I've received counterfeit versions of on Amazon have been truly mind-blowing. It's been replacement HEPA filters, cat toys, even breakfast cereal. It's not just earphones/mics, batteries, usb cables, flash drives, extension cords, and other electronics.
Who counterfeits breakfast cereal??? I've had this issue with both Quaker Oats and Raisin Bran. The scale of fraud is magnificent. And it really gaslights consumers; it took me forever to actually accept that I was eating an off-brand imitation of my favorite cereals.
I do still buy from Amazon. The ease of returns still gives me confidence that I can decide after receiving an item whether the price:quality ratio is worth it.
But not if I absolutely need it to conform to certain standards and I don't have the skills/tools to validate the performance myself (like HEPA filters). Then I tend to buy from somewhere with a more curated supply chain (Home Depot, direct from manufacturers website, etc).
Here is one (plus the story of a defective product lawsuit behind it).
A water slide. The type that bolts down into concrete for use with pools. If the first thing in your mind is...isn’t that something from the 70’s/80’s...yes it is.
So the counterfeiter must have molded the entire slide (complete with the company logo that was embossed into the slide itself) thing is that company was dissolved back in the 80’s.
So purchaser’s kid cuts their leg open on the slide and they sue for defective product. Of course the investigation leads to suing this Dissolved manufacturer. As I recall the dissolved entity actually defended (sort of rare from a dissolved Corp that dissolved so long ago) and it was only during expensive phase of discovery they learned they didn’t manufacture the slide In question, and that it was completely counterfeited.
One day Amazon is going to get smacked with such a lawsuit resulting in billions in punitive damages, then and only then will you see real effort on their part to curb this behavior.
I don't order food from Amazon at all because I don't trust them not to send something counterfeit or expired. It's just not worth the risk/hassle, and a lot of the time they're not the best price anyway.
I'm also extremely cautious about electronics, but there are still certain categories (such as memory cards) that I won't even consider. Usually the only benefit from Amazon vs anywhere else is shipping, and saving $shipping is simply not worth the risk of using a fake card.
This is a step in the right direction to fixing the problem, but I'm not sure I'd trust anything -- even stuff sold by Amazon itself -- so long as they co-mingle inventory.
The issue is so simple to solve and they don't have to have a crimes unit to do it. Simply segment reviews and ratings based on seller. All you have to do is have each seller put a scannable sticker on each product based each batch going through intake. You can even still colocate. Then all the returns and bad reviews go to the right person and they can just get banned. This is not rocket surgery.
I've got a hard rule of not ordering anything from Amazon that goes in/on my body. Too many counterfeits and too much risk. I'll stick with trusted retailers for that (ordering from Target is just about as easy these days, maybe slightly slower shipping but can pick it up in-store if I need it fast).
Even Walmart is getting hard to shop online and filter out products that are sold by "marketplace" sellers.
> I do still buy from Amazon. The ease of returns still gives me confidence that I can decide after receiving an item whether the price:quality ratio is worth it.
The time and labor spent refunding is well worth spending an extra few dollars at a competing vendor where I don’t have to worry about commingling nonsense.
If you told me 12 years ago that I would be choosing to patronize Best Buy over Amazon, I would have told you Best Buy will be out of business. Lo and behold, I now pay Best Buy (or manufacturer website) whatever they want since I can’t trust Amazon to not send me some AliExpress garbage.
They pretend to “fight counterfeit” occasionally but the “rampant” counterfeits on Amazon is structural and strategic. Marketplace seller competition is a race to the bottom against all of global online shopping so genuine examples can’t possibly survive.
This comment demonstrates just how far Amazon has gone to shift the Overton Window[1] toward accepting counterfeits and outright fraud.
People will actually go out of their way to say things like "I don't mind being defrauded, I don't mind having my time wasted, I don't being fucking GASTLIGHTED, because I can just return the item(s) with ease."
The irony is that eliminating couterfeits would enable product quality for legit goods to actually be different for Amazon stock and brick and mortar grocery stock. It's already normal for brands to have Walmart-specific product releases; often cutting features and quality to meet a cost target (Levis "signature" line, for example).
How long until we see Amazon Edition Fruit Loops, specially engineered to deliver consistent taste and texture under extreme and long term storage conditions, at a price that can't be beat?
Amazon seller here, we sell in grocery and have seen a buncha things in this space:
There's a nontrivial possibility this is a transportation and/or storage issue. Most food items have some sort of temperature threshhold during transit and storage. We've had food products incorrectly commingled during shipment and storage over the years which ruined thousands of saleable products. Amazon's gotten a lot better about this by placing better ship/store standards from a subcategory level but it's a known issue.
This is one of the reasons I don't buy a lot of stuff from amazon anymore. I don't have a printer to make return labels and easy returns are cold comfort. At the end of the day I just prefer to go in person to a store or order from a big box store. As long as you stay away from their weird 3rd party sellers, I feel pretty sure I'm getting real cereal or whatever.
Can anyone clarify how they found out their purchases were counterfeit (e.g. if I buy a Bose product "Sold By" Bose, it could be a counterfeit?)?
As someone who purchases things from Amazon and only care about if they work or not, I haven't had much an issue. If I've been loading up on counterfeits, it doesn't seem to have been a problem.
Reading these comments, it feels a bit strange that I have never gotten a counterfeit product from Amazon, and I bought a dozen items from Amazon within last two months: RAM, electric kettle, wall clock, books, phone case, humidifier, ramen and fresh groceries (like fruits and cheese). The only problem I had was a few books were dented in corner of spines a bit. Is this phenomenon country specific? Or is it because I order only amazon prime items? Perhaps my luck will run out one day :)
Honestly reading all this, I'd treat Amazon like AliExpress - use it to buy cheap low quality shit you don't really need, go to the shops for everything else. Shops have actual quality control in place, and shops can be held liable if their products are defective or counterfeit.
> Who counterfeits breakfast cereal??? I've had this issue with both Quaker Oats and Raisin Bran. The scale of fraud is magnificent. And it really gaslights consumers; it took me forever to actually accept that I was eating an off-brand imitation of my favorite cereals.
Take a look on what is going in China for a fast forward look into the future.
What you see in China now is exactly that. Pro counterfeiters mostly make money on rarely contested, or completely uncontested, hard to trace, abandoned, or obscure niches. Nobody nowadays buys into Abibas, but quite a few seekers of highly hyped boutique stuff often buy into exotic goods fakes.
And on the other end of the spectrum, there are fake foods, and fake daily use goods, things few people would even mind being fake, or bothering to check for that.
Are fake listings a problem? Absolutely. But is it the primary issue? I'm not so sure. It seems like Amazon is doing all sorts of things but not actually addressing the root -- inventory co-mingling + sketchy 3rd party sellers that can come back overnight.
Simply ending inventory co-mingling would likely handle a substantial portion of counterfeits since Amazon is sourcing their stock through standard channels.
Amazon knows this. There's probably cost models somewhere in HQ. But ending this would mean: slower delivery times, and Amazon would have to carry the inventory on their books. I'd gladly wait an extra day or two if I know the item I get is legit (just like pre FBA/3rd party days). Instead, Amazon is burning goodwill and cash on efforts like this one.
If anything, Covid-19 has forced other retailers to up their online game. Its accelerated my spending shift away from Amazon as I'm tired of fraud. Fraudulent items can injure, poison, or even kill people. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll wait another day for that delivery.
>Amazon is sourcing their stock through standard channels.
This just isn't true. There's been plenty of lawsuits alleging that Amazon themselves sourced counterfeit product. Their supply chain for many products is not necessarily better than third party sellers.
I ordered a well-known baby-bottom cream. The product gave her never-expanding rashes for a few days. Then I realized the color slightly differs from the same cream bought at the local pharmacy, and that many 1 star reviews also report knockoffs version of the cream. In some cases review pictures show that the packaging itself is clearly fake.
I write a 1-star review explaining the above, and saying that the anxious parents are now in an unbearable situation after applied a fake, potentially harmful and untraceable product to their newborn bottom.
The review does not respect community guidelines and won't be published.
I've said this before: they should look at how the finance industry deals / has been dealing with bad actors for decades before they engage in a business relationship with a client.
Assign every vendor some risk category based on their profile, for example: projected annual revenue, country of incorporation, products sold.
A mom-and-pop store located somewhere in Iowa selling pillow cases would probably be low-risk, there's not much you need to do.
A vendor selling USB cables out of China is probably very-high-risk. These need deep vetting. As in: show up in an office, bring along your lawyer, show us documentation on the working conditions in your factory, sign an agreement to let us audit your factory, etc.
Now, banks don't do this (at least, as far as I'm aware), but to play the devil's advocate: just imagine if Amazon asked very-high-risk vendors to post collateral before selling. If they get caught, the collateral is used to compensate victims.
That would take out the incentive to sell counterfeits in the first place.
I have yet to have an issue with a counterfeit - my main problem are the pages and pages of crappy listings. I was trying to find a child's bike helmet the other day, and it's hundreds of brands I have never heard of, with no safety information, and all look virtually indistinguishable from each other except for weird logos plastered on them. (Kamugo? Galf? LERUJIFL? Turboske? OUWOER? LANOVAGEAR?)
I ended up driving to Wal-Mart for a Bell helmet that cost the same.
I have never had counterfeit issues on amazon and always find these threads bewildering. I buy almost everything I can't get from my local grocery store from them. I can't tell whether I'm improbably lucky or if I'm part of a silent majority. Claims of things like counterfeit cereal (come on, really want to see some actual proof here) tilt me towards the latter, though.
I bought a "Lenovo" USB hub that was a shitty knockoff, the manufacturer claimed they had licensed the Lenovo brand. The listing never mentioned that it wasn't an authentic Lenovo device, but the packaging did. The device was poorly made and just flat out didn't work.
I think electronics and luxury items have a higher chance of being counterfeit. Obviously most people are getting legitimate goods, otherwise Amazon wouldn't exist.
I read reviews before I purchase anything expensive though, if I see several people claiming the same product from the same vendor is a counterfeit, I find another vendor or another item.
I was reselling Monster energy drinks in my office. I tried ordering some from Amazon, since the bigger packs are more readily available, and for lower prices, allowing me to sell cans for a cheaper per-unit price.
The very first pack I got was clearly counterfeit. The cans were subtly different both in appearance and etching. A brave volunteer who tried some also reported it tasted off.
If they're counterfeiting energy drinks, I fully believe they're doing cereal too.
I wonder if they will solve the mystery of how executives either didn't know, or didn't do anything about it, for so many years even as it was widely reported. It might have been more appropriate to use a federal investigative body and start with whatever misconduct, or deficit of attention, has been enabling the counterfeiters to thrive on Amazon for years.
Having a chain of ownership list would be a great help with this. Track and report which company owned the item back to it's manufacture and who 'owned' the IP of the run. Even more ideally also the production time, etc.
I started buying clothing from the brand itself (eg shoes directly from adidas, etc). Some appliances also direct. I sometimes buy food from Walmart but only if they are the retailer (they don't seem to commingle inventories). I bought some ssd directly from Samsung site. Another problem with amazon is the sheer quantity of not-counterfeit but cheap unknown knockoffs. It seems more like an expensive AliExpress.
I just bought some gym shorts from Target for $20. Amazon had some for the same price, but numerous reviews with photos showed people were getting fakes. Fuck that. Target of all places seems more curated than Amazon.
I mentally added the word time in the middle of the domain name and chuckled. It would be great if they did that, show that they still have a bit of humanity left over there
I don't really get the attitude of 'I don't care about counterfeits because it's easy to make returns.' I mean, you know what's even easier than that? Ordering from a more trustworthy vendor and not having to make returns. Getting the right thing the first time! If I have to go to the post office to send a thing back, I might as well just go to an actual store and buy the thing myself.
You can’t just add anti-fraud sprinkles on top. The rampant fraud is built into Amazon.com’s business model. Monitoring product quality is hard. All the little shopkeepers and buying managers were actually doing work, work that isn’t easily automated. Amazon’s recreating the problems of central planning that the USSR had in product quality.
And absolutely nothing will change. In fact the volume of counterfeit goods, fake reviews and scams on Amazon and other marketplaces will only increase. Its honestly not even really Amazon's problem at this point, its more that there is an entire Chinese industry devoted to counterfeiting and scamming, with literally hundreds of thousands of intelligent, capable people spending their lives looking for ways to make a dishonest buck. Amazon is essentially putting a band-aid on a leaking damn at this point. Until China actually puts strong IP protections in place (They never will) there's really not much western companies can do about it beyond paying lip service to a problem they know they can't actually solve.
[+] [-] rckoepke|5 years ago|reply
Who counterfeits breakfast cereal??? I've had this issue with both Quaker Oats and Raisin Bran. The scale of fraud is magnificent. And it really gaslights consumers; it took me forever to actually accept that I was eating an off-brand imitation of my favorite cereals.
I do still buy from Amazon. The ease of returns still gives me confidence that I can decide after receiving an item whether the price:quality ratio is worth it.
But not if I absolutely need it to conform to certain standards and I don't have the skills/tools to validate the performance myself (like HEPA filters). Then I tend to buy from somewhere with a more curated supply chain (Home Depot, direct from manufacturers website, etc).
[+] [-] throwaway_jobs|5 years ago|reply
A water slide. The type that bolts down into concrete for use with pools. If the first thing in your mind is...isn’t that something from the 70’s/80’s...yes it is.
So the counterfeiter must have molded the entire slide (complete with the company logo that was embossed into the slide itself) thing is that company was dissolved back in the 80’s.
So purchaser’s kid cuts their leg open on the slide and they sue for defective product. Of course the investigation leads to suing this Dissolved manufacturer. As I recall the dissolved entity actually defended (sort of rare from a dissolved Corp that dissolved so long ago) and it was only during expensive phase of discovery they learned they didn’t manufacture the slide In question, and that it was completely counterfeited.
One day Amazon is going to get smacked with such a lawsuit resulting in billions in punitive damages, then and only then will you see real effort on their part to curb this behavior.
[+] [-] gregmac|5 years ago|reply
I'm also extremely cautious about electronics, but there are still certain categories (such as memory cards) that I won't even consider. Usually the only benefit from Amazon vs anywhere else is shipping, and saving $shipping is simply not worth the risk of using a fake card.
This is a step in the right direction to fixing the problem, but I'm not sure I'd trust anything -- even stuff sold by Amazon itself -- so long as they co-mingle inventory.
[+] [-] snarf21|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mfkp|5 years ago|reply
Even Walmart is getting hard to shop online and filter out products that are sold by "marketplace" sellers.
[+] [-] jbay808|5 years ago|reply
On the cover was the book we had ordered, about control theory. The printed pages were a veterinary textbook by a different publisher.
[+] [-] lotsofpulp|5 years ago|reply
The time and labor spent refunding is well worth spending an extra few dollars at a competing vendor where I don’t have to worry about commingling nonsense.
If you told me 12 years ago that I would be choosing to patronize Best Buy over Amazon, I would have told you Best Buy will be out of business. Lo and behold, I now pay Best Buy (or manufacturer website) whatever they want since I can’t trust Amazon to not send me some AliExpress garbage.
[+] [-] numpad0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedberg|5 years ago|reply
Anything else I figure if it's counterfeit but still works it's not the end of the world (although I'm pretty cautious about which electronics I get).
[+] [-] TheSpiceIsLife|5 years ago|reply
People will actually go out of their way to say things like "I don't mind being defrauded, I don't mind having my time wasted, I don't being fucking GASTLIGHTED, because I can just return the item(s) with ease."
Nothing against you personally.
But fuck that!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
[+] [-] nabilhat|5 years ago|reply
How long until we see Amazon Edition Fruit Loops, specially engineered to deliver consistent taste and texture under extreme and long term storage conditions, at a price that can't be beat?
[+] [-] julianozen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 29athrowaway|5 years ago|reply
They reuse product photos from higher quality products to sell you a lower quality product.
[+] [-] pjc50|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] binarysolo|5 years ago|reply
There's a nontrivial possibility this is a transportation and/or storage issue. Most food items have some sort of temperature threshhold during transit and storage. We've had food products incorrectly commingled during shipment and storage over the years which ruined thousands of saleable products. Amazon's gotten a lot better about this by placing better ship/store standards from a subcategory level but it's a known issue.
[+] [-] wombat-man|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexpetralia|5 years ago|reply
As someone who purchases things from Amazon and only care about if they work or not, I haven't had much an issue. If I've been loading up on counterfeits, it doesn't seem to have been a problem.
[+] [-] amelius|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zyl1n|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tintor|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacobwilliamroy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baybal2|5 years ago|reply
Take a look on what is going in China for a fast forward look into the future.
What you see in China now is exactly that. Pro counterfeiters mostly make money on rarely contested, or completely uncontested, hard to trace, abandoned, or obscure niches. Nobody nowadays buys into Abibas, but quite a few seekers of highly hyped boutique stuff often buy into exotic goods fakes.
And on the other end of the spectrum, there are fake foods, and fake daily use goods, things few people would even mind being fake, or bothering to check for that.
[+] [-] tracer4201|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] draw_down|5 years ago|reply
For me it doesn't work to say "who would do that??", I'd rather focus on "Why has Amazon let the problem get this insanely bad?"
[+] [-] gwittel|5 years ago|reply
Simply ending inventory co-mingling would likely handle a substantial portion of counterfeits since Amazon is sourcing their stock through standard channels.
Amazon knows this. There's probably cost models somewhere in HQ. But ending this would mean: slower delivery times, and Amazon would have to carry the inventory on their books. I'd gladly wait an extra day or two if I know the item I get is legit (just like pre FBA/3rd party days). Instead, Amazon is burning goodwill and cash on efforts like this one.
If anything, Covid-19 has forced other retailers to up their online game. Its accelerated my spending shift away from Amazon as I'm tired of fraud. Fraudulent items can injure, poison, or even kill people. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll wait another day for that delivery.
[+] [-] ikeboy|5 years ago|reply
This just isn't true. There's been plenty of lawsuits alleging that Amazon themselves sourced counterfeit product. Their supply chain for many products is not necessarily better than third party sellers.
[+] [-] ComputerGuru|5 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22106305
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19091852
It’s just platitudes so long as their interests are served by pretending the problem doesn’t exist.
[+] [-] ourmandave|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zaheer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawayiionqz|5 years ago|reply
I write a 1-star review explaining the above, and saying that the anxious parents are now in an unbearable situation after applied a fake, potentially harmful and untraceable product to their newborn bottom.
The review does not respect community guidelines and won't be published.
[+] [-] ckastner|5 years ago|reply
Assign every vendor some risk category based on their profile, for example: projected annual revenue, country of incorporation, products sold.
A mom-and-pop store located somewhere in Iowa selling pillow cases would probably be low-risk, there's not much you need to do.
A vendor selling USB cables out of China is probably very-high-risk. These need deep vetting. As in: show up in an office, bring along your lawyer, show us documentation on the working conditions in your factory, sign an agreement to let us audit your factory, etc.
Now, banks don't do this (at least, as far as I'm aware), but to play the devil's advocate: just imagine if Amazon asked very-high-risk vendors to post collateral before selling. If they get caught, the collateral is used to compensate victims.
That would take out the incentive to sell counterfeits in the first place.
[+] [-] olafure|5 years ago|reply
Many years ago their review system was one of their businesses advantages. Many users and fairly honest reviews.
Now it's rife with fake and bought reviews, rendering it useless.
[+] [-] legitster|5 years ago|reply
I ended up driving to Wal-Mart for a Bell helmet that cost the same.
[+] [-] ikeboy|5 years ago|reply
Google started something similar last year when they sued someone who was abusing YouTube's DMCA system. https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/15/20915688/youtube-copyrig...
But despite widespread abuse of Amazon's IP reporting system, to date Amazon has not sued anyone for that as far as I know.
[+] [-] myself248|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bllguo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phaus|5 years ago|reply
I think electronics and luxury items have a higher chance of being counterfeit. Obviously most people are getting legitimate goods, otherwise Amazon wouldn't exist.
I read reviews before I purchase anything expensive though, if I see several people claiming the same product from the same vendor is a counterfeit, I find another vendor or another item.
[+] [-] Amezarak|5 years ago|reply
The very first pack I got was clearly counterfeit. The cans were subtly different both in appearance and etching. A brave volunteer who tried some also reported it tasted off.
If they're counterfeiting energy drinks, I fully believe they're doing cereal too.
[+] [-] Wingman4l7|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benologist|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjevans|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] panitaxx|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradstewart|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] starpilot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Trias11|5 years ago|reply
It's not in Amazon's interests to reduce business by eliminating counterfeit products, fake reviews, etc..
Real solution is for government to hold platform responsible for peddling fakes and fraud to customers.
[+] [-] verdverm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Finnucane|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] viburnum|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rfwhyte|5 years ago|reply