
Amazon Is Complicit in Online Sales of Counterfeit Goods: Report - vezycash
http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/06/15/amazon-ceo-bezos-knowingly-complicit-online-sales-counterfeit-goods-according-report/
======
dawhizkid
If Amazon ever faces a reckoning or crisis of some kind, it will because their
marketplace product is totally out of control. Sellers have completely gamed
search, ratings, reviews, everything and Amazon, by design, makes it really
hard to tell if you're buying something "shipped and sold by Amazon" vs some
other shady seller whose products are only being fulfilled by Amazon.

I would say I'm more dissatisfied with things I buy from Amazon than almost
any other merchant, and now I only buy things on Amazon if it's 1) either sold
directly by Amazon (which is increasingly hard to find) or 2) really cheap and
where questionable quality is not a concern.

Egregious example: Type in "wireless headphones" and the top results look like
what you'd find on a corner in Chinatown than a legitimate electronics store.

~~~
p49k
Even items “shipped and sold by amazon” can often be counterfeit. Below is one
example, but I’ve also read on HN of someone receiving a dangerous fake Apple
adapter that was “sold and shipped by Amazon”, and I have personally bought
shampoo from Amazon that I’m pretty certain was counterfeit.

[http://www.thefashionlaw.com/home/amazon-is-tricking-
consume...](http://www.thefashionlaw.com/home/amazon-is-tricking-consumers-
with-its-ships-from-and-sold-by-amazon-label-per-new-suit)

~~~
bapbap
I've wondered if Amazon co-locates its own stock with that of Fulfillment By
Amazon stock which would mean you could end up with anything as long as it
looks similar and has the same SKU.

~~~
inapis
This is exactly what happens. Items from different sellers are mixed together
and then randomly dispatched by Amazon under their own name.

~~~
coaxial
This is the reason why I quit buying anything from Amazon anymore if I can
help it. They're not interested in fixing it.

What I can't understand is this: even if they comingle, they must know which
seller owns which item. If they didn't, how would they pay the right seller
once a particular item is sold? And yet, there seems to be no accountability
at all.

~~~
jjeaff
They don't need to know which product belongs to which seller, they only need
to know how many.

If someone clicks your listing and buys a product, they ship it from the
commingled inventory and then pay you your share of the sale and deduct one
from your inventory tally.

Then, if the item they sent ends up being counterfeit, whether from your own
stock, from another seller, or even from Amazon's own stock, they will take it
out on your seller account for selling counterfeits.

~~~
coaxial
So then how do they decide which of the comingled sellers got the sale? Round
Robin? Random?

~~~
bchallenor
The customer still ordered via the listing of a specific vendor, even if
Amazon shipped from co-mingled stock.

~~~
coaxial
Not necessarily, some items have only one listing for all sellers and you
click the buy button that has the prime logo. Who are you buying from in this
case as far as Amazon is concerned for their inventory accounting?

~~~
dual_basis
It's always been clear to me which specific vendor I'm buying from, it lists
it right under the product. I can click on new or used in order to see other
vendors and select one of them if I prefer. Based on my experience, the vendor
defaults to Amazon if they have the product themselves, otherwise it is likely
based on whoever they make the most money on. That is not a straightforward
computation - they might make more profit on a more expensive listing, but
then fewer people would buy it. I'm sure they use some proprietary ML
algorithm to decide which vendor to show, but its always been very clear to me
which vendor I'm purchasing from, both on the item page and also in the cart.

~~~
p49k
Yes, but that’s not I was talking about in my original post, at least. I was
discussing the fact that even if you explicitly choose “Amazon.com” from that
list of vendors, Amazon itself is shipping goods from other vendors and making
it impossible for you to know that, which can lead to receiving counterfeit
goods. There is zero indication, anywhere, that it’s being shipped from anyone
else’s stock in these cases.

------
lph
I really, really want to hear the other side to this.

That there is a serious counterfeiting problem is obvious to anyone who buys
certain categories of products on Amazon. It is certainly obvious to Amazon
itself. BUT Amazon is also a very customer focused company. So how has this
not been solved?

Critics will speculate that Amazon makes more money with this status quo, thus
has little incentive to fix things. But that calculus doesn't make any sense
---maybe in a very narrow balance sheet view, but Amazon has always taken a
long view on these things, and there's no way the long term damage to their
brand is worth whatever they make from sketchy third-party sellers. It doesn't
add up. There must be something else factored in that I'm missing.

~~~
cimmanom
I'm skeptical of your claim that Amazon is a customer-focused company.

They're definitely a _growth_ -focused company. At times in their history, and
for certain aspects of the business, that has made them customer-focused.

In many other regards (like making sure the customer gets the product they
want) they're clearly not at all customer-focused.

They won't address this until it begins to visibly impact their marketplace
dominance.

~~~
lph
Amazon's customer service is legendary. It's why this whole thing is such a
mystery. If Comcast were doing something so bad for customers, nobody would be
surprised.

~~~
dahdum
Legendary? Maybe in the past, but I’ve not seen anything special in the past
few years. I’ve received counterfeits they won’t replace, only refund. USPS
shipping ruins the 2 day guarantee, and ever fewer products seem to be
guaranteed vs expected.

The worst was ordering a Netflix gift card for my mother, email never arrived
with the code, and support said they couldn’t do anything. No resend worked,
they refused to refund because the system said “sent”, and couldn’t give the
code directly because they have no access. Netflix support tried surprisingly
hard to help track down the card from their own system, but Amazon had blocks
of codes and they couldn’t identify.

Escalated the issue twice to no avail, tried emailing the Bezos account and
never heard a peep. My only option left is a chargeback, but then they are
likely to just close my account permanently as a final f-you.

Results of course may vary, but their service is garbage imo.

------
coleifer
I bought some cologne from them and figured it was safe because the seller was
posted as Amazon. Got it and the original barcode had been excised with a
razor and replaced with a sticker. Scent and bottle were fake. When I wrote a
dispassionate and factual review with pics it was removed with no recourse or
explanation. Very sketchy.

~~~
sytse
They tend to remove the original barcode if they sell at a discount because
otherwise the wholesaler/manufacturer will not sell to them again. This is not
illegal. If anything it is an indication the product was real.

~~~
masonic
That is no reason to remove a _UPC_ barcode -- it is common to all instances
of that product/size and doesn't reveal anything about its travels through the
supply chain.

~~~
Symbiote
The contents of the box will differ, even if its only the language of the
manual or the plug.

I've bought slightly cheaper goods from Romania where just above the barcode
it said "Romania and Bulgaria only". I presume the bar code was different than
the rest-of-EU one.

------
jostmey
I bought a baby product from amazon. It gave off an immense smell that made me
noxious (I don't want to know what my baby was thinking). I threw it away and
contacted the company. The company pointed out that the product I had is
slightly different from their product and is a counterfeit. It is a huge
problem. I don't buy baby products from amazon anymore. Once, amazon shipped
me an opened can of any formula

------
kylecordes
I've been an Amazon customer since 1998, and this problem has shifted my
buying away from Amazon, for categories where counterfeiting seems likely.

If they offered an option to simply never see any items with that (idiotic)
co-mingled counterfeit-prone inventory management scheme, I'd happily pay a
bit more to get things which I am confident went directly from the real
manufacture, to Amazon, to me. Which of course is exactly what I do... by not
shopping for such items at Amazon.

Truly the whole thing makes me wonder what kind of thinking could be going on.
They have an amazing juggernaut of success going, all they have to do is not
screw it up by doing anything especially stupid. Like this.

~~~
dahdum
I used to do virtually all my buying on Amazon, their supply chain mess has
moved me to about half. I honestly never thought I’d step foot in a Best Buy
or Frys again, but for branded merchandise it’s far safer to do so.

~~~
walterbell
Have done the same. Price match and same day in-store pickup is faster than
Amazon at the same price.

------
carapace
Buries the lede. If you click through to the press release
[https://thecounterfeitreport.com/press_release_details.php?d...](https://thecounterfeitreport.com/press_release_details.php?date=2018-06-05&id=762)

> In repeated emails from Amazon opening with "Jeff Bezos received your email
> and I am responding on his behalf," The Counterfeit Report, a consumer
> advocate and industry watchdog, has been informed that inarguable
> counterfeit items will not be removed from many of Amazon's various 13
> global websites. Amazon uses a crafty excuse: "Trademarks must be validly
> registered for European countries to take action on European nations" or
> "Your trademark must be in registered status in [each country the item is
> sold in]."

So they will actually let known counterfeits be sold freely in countries where
the brand isn't trademarked.

Further, and worse IMHO, is this:

> For example, the counterfeit items below were repeatedly purchased from the
> same Amazon sellers and shipped to the USA.

> ... Replica current issue U.S. Secret Service, FBI and police badges are
> available on Amazon...

> Notices to Amazon management for of [sic] the alarming practice have been
> ignored. The items remain.

------
xbkingx
Over the past 5 years, Amazon had turned into a veritable minefield and I've
come to treat it like I do when ordering from direct-from-China sites, like dx
and banggood. Every department has their own unique problems riding on top of
the problems that exist across all departments.

Since the start of Amazon carrying non-books, I've been perpetually amazed by
their absolutely terrible product category breakdowns, lack of category
enforcement, and piss poor filtering. They left these problems unchecked so
long that they basically screamed "Game me. Nobody's watching."

I'm surprised that no one had been sent something dangerous because of these
issues. Maybe a concerted community effort to get rat poison listed as the #1
best seller in all the candy categories would be a good wakeup call. And I
wouldn't be surprised at all if it happened.

------
jfoster
"Amazon’s official stance, as outlined by these e-mails, counterfeit products
will continue to be listed on Amazon’s website in countries where the
trademark covering the brand isn’t registered."

So they try to do what the law requires them to. The flaw in this approach is
that consumers could end up with fake stuff in countries where trademarks
aren't registered. Whilst that might be within the law, it's still a shitty
experience for consumers.

~~~
unreal37
You're assuming customers care about the manufacturer of the product at all.

For batteries, cables, earbuds, paper, dog toys, etc etc etc - the customer
does not care who the manufacturer is as long as the item is good quality.

~~~
azernik
And there's the rub: _as long as the item is good quality_.

The main reason for trademarks, economically speaking, is to increase
information flow in the marketplace. If some seller claims they have good
quality products, you have to just trust them; if they have a trademark and
you know that they have a reputation for quality, that trust can be much more
accurate.

Where Amazon messes this up is in the intermingling of reviews and inventory
for genuine and counterfeit trademarked products, so that customers can't tell
whether they're getting Apple-quality or random-Chinese-manufacturer quality
chargers, which will either be super-safe or will blow up their devices.

I'm totally okay with buying a battery from a third party, as long as the real
manufacturer is clearly indicated and I can check up on the reviews of their
build quality.

------
skort
It seems like the only metric Amazon is optimizing for is number of items
sold, and this seems to be the natural progression of a system where that is
the primary goal.

Making a change that decreases the sale of counterfeit products is a change
that reduces the sale of products, and in Amazon's case, also leased warehouse
space (FBA), and who knows what else - all of which are likely negative
metrics.

It's telling, that in the update to the Elevation Lab blog post, it's noted
that Amazon doesn't allow 3rd party sellers to sell Amazon Basics products.

[https://www.elevationlab.com/blogs/news/amazon-is-
complicit-...](https://www.elevationlab.com/blogs/news/amazon-is-complicit-
with-counterfeit-sellers#)

------
mindslight
I generally support grey markets - including works-well-enough brand-imitating
goods, and free trade that undermines unjust cartel/vice laws. Like when it
clicks that the domain ipwatchdog.com isn't about the Internet Protocol, I
just ready myself for the entrenched-interest crybabying.

But I can't figure out why Amazon is undermining their own brand with this co-
mingling scheme! The idea of a trustable supply chain is basically the only
thing a retail brand _is_ in this day and age, and Amazon goes and directly
undermines their own!

I can only surmise the sales on things where it doesn't matter (say fashion)
dwarf the return shrapnel for things that it does. Or perhaps that Amazon's
internal market-service based approach doesn't account for the externality of
arbitraging away their own brand.

I think the only things keeping Amazon so prominent are the sunk cost effect
of Prime, and most people not really understanding how many other easy-to-use
web stores there actually are.

------
CodeWriter23
I was looking on Amazon for a Lightning / 3.5mm splitter so I could
simultaneously charge and listen to my iPhone in the car. I found a listing on
he first SERP that had 800+ 5-star reviews. No reviews whatsoever in the 1-4
star range. A closer look, all 800 of those reviews were dated within a 3 day
period. Obviously fake.

------
Exuma
Time for me to mention [https://www.fakespot.com/](https://www.fakespot.com/)

------
crb002
He also makes it _really_ easy for IP owners to track down counterfeit supply
chains. Free discovery to sue pirates.

------
vernie
Amazon's commingling of items from different sellers is simply insane.

------
adamio
Manufacturers selling on Amazon should include QR coded key that can be
verified as authentic

~~~
archgoon
Sounds like the start of a good idea; but a few implementation issues.

1) Steal one QR code, it can then be duplicated.

2) Works well for the situation where Amazon is not simply connecting you
directly to the seller, but not when the seller ships directly to you.

(2) could be potentially modified to have brands insist that amazon themselves
act as the final shipper (so it would be sent to their warehouses and
verified).

(1) is tough one to crack. A transaction ledger would prevent the duplication
problem; but may have scaling issues since you'd potentially need to verify
the physical objects on receipt. It also doesn't deal with the situation where
the product itself can be decomposed for parts and sold separately (like some
electronics). Then the QR code can be used to sell an inferior replacement
product (an empty box).

Though the QR code + transaction ledger is probably a necessary first step to
dealing with this issue.

~~~
colejohnson66
> A transaction ledger...

Did I hear AmazonCoin? /s

~~~
archgoon
No, why? Why would Amazon issue a coin system? That is only needed when you
need to incentivize people to perform computation on your behalf.

------
bkraz
I've made purchases from Amazon 1-2 times per week for the last few years, and
have never once received an item that I suspected as counterfeit. I've ordered
everything from food to everyday sundries to pretty esoteric lab equipment.
I'm always very surprised by these threads on HN where people say that
everything is counterfeit.

Cheap, no-name electronics are plentiful, of course. Not everyone can afford
to shop at high-end electronics stores that stock only name brands. Sometimes
the knockoffs work better than the original. Often times not. Why do people
think the sky is falling?

~~~
sgwae
There are lots of knock of bose headphone that sell for 300+ real, but 100
fake. The difference of a bose noise canceling, and generic brand is huge
difference. The packaging of fakes is getting really good. Im not taking a
risk from Amazon, when best buy has a lower chance of counterfiet inventory.

A seller can easily submit many fakes into inventory on amazon. But someone
who returns a fake to best buy, but keeping the real device had to risk
getting recorded, and can only do so at a slower rate of one item at a time.

------
untangle
> makes it really hard to tell if you're buying something "shipped and sold by
> Amazon"

Not really, the filters on the left are your friend:

1\. Check ELIGIBLE FOR PRIME 2\. Select Seller=Amazon 3\. If in doubt about
the rating, run the URL through Fakespot [1].

This is not foolproof but I have found it effective. If I need a broader
search I just start relaxing constraints.

[1] [https://www.fakespot.com/](https://www.fakespot.com/)

------
IronWolve
I bought 2 big cube ice trays, same brand, 1 was really bad quality, I thought
it was most likely a cheap knockoff, never even thought it was fake or
counterfeit.

Interesting...

------
ciconia
If those who complain about Amazon would put their money where their mouth is,
and stop buying from them, I'm pretty sure Amazon would have already done
something about it. Regulation, sadly, is not gonna cut it. The only way for
this to change is financial pressure.

------
loco5niner
I've found fakespot.com to be helpful (not foolproof) here. I'm starting to
also use ReviewMeta.com.... Has anyone had good results from them?

------
reilly3000
Smells like an opportunity for anybody that can figure out how to define and
filter on "genuine".

------
brian_herman
Can anyone verify this?

~~~
benologist
Counterfeit stuff on Amazon has been in the news so many times at this point
Bezos being unaware would be like Zuckerburg feigning surprise about privacy
concerns on Facebook.

------
gok
“Your cost of making genuine products is also my opportunity”

------
erik_landerholm
You can’t believe anything this site says. They are constantly championing IP
trolls. They are completely biased.

~~~
azborder
Interesting because the site has multiple references for its statements and
you have none.

------
XalvinX
Well, you know what he will say...the same thing everyone says. The same thing
Google says about the rampant copyright theft their platform allows. The same
thing Facebook says about bullying, fake news, and the like. The same thing
Napster and PirateBay say about their services. The same thing Photoshop would
say about people counterfeiting stuff using that. The same thing Bitcoin
people (or for that matter, the Federal Reserve system) say about people using
their coins for illegal purchases. The same thing the National Park Service
says about people falling off of cliffs.

These are all just platforms, and cannot reasonably be held responsible for
the action of all their users all of the time. And I think any reasonable-
minded person, and most judges, have to see it that way too.

This "complicit" is a misuse of the English language, I think. Bezos is not in
cahoots with the counterfeiters here. That is nonsense.

People have been accultured to expect some kind of protection everywhere, all
the time. Well, guess what? It's a big world and there are a lot of scammers
out there, and nobody can protect you all the time. You have to learn how to
protect yourself.

Amazon's review system is one way to protect yourself. I think it isn't bad at
all. Read what other people have to say about a product and the vendor before
giving up your credit card info.

~~~
inapis
You’ve got a valid point.

The only thing I cannot give Amazon a benefit of doubt for is when an item is
sold under prime shipping but is commingled with the same items from different
sellers and making it pure luck whether you receive a genuine item or a
counterfeit.

I’ve received counterfeit flash drives, headphones, batteries and chargers,
toiletries and some skincare items - all sold by Amazon and shipped/fulfilled
by Amazon.

That’s pretty much textbook fraud.

~~~
Symbiote
After the first, let alone the second counterfeit item, why did you spend
another dollar at Amazon?!?!

~~~
inapis
I did not know that they were counterfeit as they arrived. It first came to my
notice when using a skincare item. People on the interwebs pointed out about
spelling mistakes on the packet which tipped me off.

Every item I have listed above was found to be counterfeit in retrospective. I
got a usb voltmeter to test the charger. Had to use f3 to test the flash
drives (should’ve done them in the first place)

The headphones took the longest to figure out. It was a mid range sennheiser
headphones which passed the authenticity check. It was a gift so I didn’t
really test it immediately after purchase. 18 months later I gave them a try
and they sounded off. Got them replaced by sennheiser and _boom_ \- massive
difference in sound quality. I still wonder if somehow sennheiser was in on
the scam because there product verification process told me that the
headphones were authentic.

I have drastically reduced my purchasing on Amazon ever since I figured out
the scale of counterfeit items being sold. That said there is some stuff which
I can only buy on Amazon so can’t really cut them off.

------
21
I recently bought Windows 10 Pro license from Amazon for $10 (normal price is
$80). It had over 600 ratings, tens of positive reviews along the line "if it
doesn't work immediately, phone Microsoft and they will fix it for you".

It worked immediately for me.

Apparently they are Windows licenses recovered from broken laptops and such,
but anyway.

------
vpribish
there's not much to that article, it's all weasel-words, insinuation, and
qualifiers. Amazon does have an obvious counterfeit problem, and I'd love to
read a real account of just what is being done and why it's so ineffective.

tl;dr : skip it

------
walterbell
BestBuy will price match Amazon, BH and others, for online and in-store
pickup. Can be done in a browser chat session.

------
cornholio
> _There is something extremely simple Amazon could do about [counterfeit
> products]. If you have a registered brand in the Brand Registry and don’t
> sell the product wholesale – there could be one box to check for that. And
> anyone else would have to get approval or high vetting to sell the product,
> especially if they are sending large quantities to FBA. I imagine there are
> some algorithmic solutions that could catch most of it too… Why Amazon
> doesn’t do this is mind-blowing_

Because producers would immediately check any box that needs to be checked in
order to become the single supplier of their brand on Amazon. It's immensely
valuable to control all sales on the largest online store in the world, while
at the same time maintaining a discriminatory pricing structure on various
markets without being undercut online by your own distributors.

Amazon would effectively let brand owners gouge their customers and reduce
Amazon overall competitivity and appeal.

