OT (Kinda) Counterfeit Products on Amazon

[BobbyJones]

Since the counterfeit topic comes up here, I thought this article may be an interesting read for some.

Discusses counterfeit products on Amazon: safety, liability, lost revenue and other associated topics, but nothing on Chinarellos


https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/20/tech/...cts/index.html

[mjb266]

Oh man, I just bought some Solomon shoes that I thought were authentic...what a pair of cheap and crappy shoes. I'm buying shoes from trusted vendors from here out.

[torquer]

The New Yorker magazine of October 21 has a highly critical article about Jeff Bezos and Amazon which describes, among their other sins, their refusal to police their "Fulfillment by Amazon" sellers who trade in counterfeits.
The case in point was Birkenstock shoes, whose customer-service department was getting a flood of defective product claims for shoes sold through Amazon.
Business practices which are harmful to German shoemakers or Italian bicycle brands won't get the attention of regulators, though. It'll take a rash of exploding batteries and lead-poisoned kiddies for Bezos to join the Sackler family in product liability and plutocrat-reputation hell.

[Black Dog]

Is the general consensus that bezos is a sociopath?

[zmalwo]

if they don't want to take the responsibility then don't take the 10% commission when something sells. People trust the Amazon as a brand thats why people shop there not Aliexpress or Alibaba.

[Davist]

Originally Posted by zmalwo

if they don't want to take the responsibility then don't take the 10% commission when something sells. People trust the Amazon as a brand thats why people shop there not Aliexpress or Alibaba.

yeah, no.. they never have taken responsibility, like youtube (google), facebook, et al. Tech companies seem to be the new wild west from a self policing/corporate responsibility regard. They do like collecting the $$ I assure you.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Black Dog

Is the general consensus that bezos is a sociopath?

Here we go..I'm sure the Walden family are too...and Mr Kmart and Mrs Target are too...

Popcorn out...

BUT, like ebay and other places that just provide the 'plumbing' without really making anything..think it's a problem that won't go away soon..

Buyer Beware.

[smontanaro]

I think practically speaking, the problem of counterfeits on Amazon is not really much different than the problem of false, misleading, pornographic, racist and misogynistic posts on social media. The scale of the environments makes it impossible to deal with in a straightforward manner. Writing sophisticated order processing software or adding a "like" button is so much easier. To be done correctly, I suspect dealing with these problems should have been baked in from day one. It seems none of the companies cared about these issues at the start and became overwhelmed by them later when they really took off. I mean Facebook didn't start with 2.5 billion users spread all around the globe. Who needed this when it was just restricted to students at Harvard? We never hear from Bezos, so I'm just speculating a bit, but I sorta doubt counterfeits were high on his priority list when he set out to rule the book selling world. Zuck's public statements suggest he's still not dealing with FB's issues properly.

Given the size of these companies' user bases, there is little to no hope that they can address the problem by adding a few in-house humans to keep an eye on things (though it seems they've tried that). The vaunted AI they've developed to automate the solution seems to be ineffective so far. Crowd sourcing might offer some hope, but it comes with its own attendant problems.

[paredown]

+++Duplicate+++

[paredown]

It must be synchronicity, but I started my morning read by watching a short vid on the Washington Post site that discusses Section 230 of the Internet Communications Decency Act--which makes internet platforms NOT publishers for content--and as the article points out, this is Amazon's get out of jail card if the items sold don't have proper safety certifications etc.

I think a change is coming--when you get a letter from three senior Senators, when a court case gets referred to the full panel of Circuit Court judges, and a law professor expresses complete surprise that the law allows Amazon to sidestep liability--I think change is coming.

My lovely wife who works in branding has a friend who has been working with one of the agencies who help companies patrol their brands who has asked the hard question as to why Amazon does not have a pre-certification that requires the submission of testing results--before listing--to show that any item meets all applicable standards that apply to that class of items--something that Wal-Mart (and every other major retailer) does, as a matter of course to limit their liability.

[54ny77]

amazon is becoming the new alibaba in certain respects.

that said, it's still an immensely valuable service.

[unterhausen]

If it's fulfilled by amazon, returns are pretty easy. They probably will tell you to dispose of the item instead of sending it back, because they charge the vendor more than it's worth to take it back. That's an option 3rd party vendors can select when they list something.

I'm pretty careful about what I buy from Amazon. Never gotten a counterfeit. Sometimes it's clear that the item was purchased on the surplus market, but that's okay with me. One thing I will not buy from amazon 3rd party is coin cell batteries. I'm sure there are other things, but I can't think of them offhand.

[bigbill]

I searched Amazon for replacement straps for my Schosche HRM. The actual product from Schosche was at the bottom of the page, the items above were copies of the original product with odd name brands. The flood of copied products is disturbing to me. I'm wary of anything I purchase from Amazon, lately it has been used textbooks for my MA program.

[MikeD]

If it's Amazon Prime, it isn't counterfeit, I wouldn't think.

[ultraman6970]

Well you never know when you buy something from amazon, specially if its something super mass produced and for half the price of a real store.