
Fake Goods Sold by AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Wish - ovis
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-counterfeits-fakes-online-shopping-1.5470639
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preommr
I get that people are outraged about this. And that's one side of it.

But I also feel like people need to know how to use these platforms. If you're
getting a heavy discount, from a sketchy source, then maybe there's a reason
for it. Idk about Wish, but platforms like ebay, aliexpress, etc. are great
even for things like electronics if you know what you're buying like leds,
microchips, etc. Makeup, perfume, power related applications, audio, etc. are
the types of products that I would be very wary of. I think it still might be
possible to find good sources for those things, but it's more of a gamble.

Before we crucify these platforms, and call for more regulations, etc, let's
also remember that they do provide a valuable, cheap service for some.

~~~
FireBeyond
> If you're getting a heavy discount, from a sketchy source, then maybe
> there's a reason for it.

Talk about a perverse incentive. Maybe I should sell fake AirPod Pros for
(MSRP-$3). Enough that the price feels right to make you think it's the real
deal, and as a reward, I'll make more profit!

~~~
preommr
Then it wouldn't work.

They purposefully price it low so that people will go against their better
judgement because they can get a really great deal. It wouldn't really be the
same scam if they priced it higher.

And I am not saying price is the only indicator. Just that low prices are
usually a red flag.

Although, there are studies that show increased sales for products by just
increasing their prices and nothing else. So that incentive exists either way,
scam or not.

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MichaelApproved
> _What 's more, the product was found to contain 751 times the amount of lead
> Health Canada considers acceptable in cosmetics._

How long are we going to let companies hide behind their "platform" bullshit?

They know this happens but, because they're not the actual seller, they get to
offload the liabilities to some fly-by-night company that'll close down and
reopen under a different name.

Lead in products is dangerous and people should be going to jail but nothing
ever happens.

Get caught, close the company, open a new one, pay some fees to open the
reseller account and continue hurting people.

~~~
Spivak
This frustration seems like it's just being directed at the closest entity you
can shake your fist at rather than the actual cause.

Suppose all those fly-by-night companies set up merchant accounts on Shopify
or just bought cheap Wordpress template and hosted it themselves and did the
exact same thing. The world of boutique men's watches is absolutely rampant
with this. Would you be demanding that Shopify or Tim Berners Lee vet all the
products before they're sold. Would you demand that Visa/Mastercard do it?
What about UPS/FedEx?

If you want to require businesses to get licenses and submit themselves to
regular safety audits then just say _that_. Don't try to offload the
responsibility of law and public policy to random corporations.

~~~
dd36
They should have to buy liability insurance and if the insurer won’t insure
them, they can’t list.

~~~
Spivak
Offloading the work of law to insurance companies rather than retailers
doesn't really sound like we're making any progress.

Sidebar: this is super common btw, had more than one law professor go on a
rant about how all the CS people in their courses just want to push everything
to the actuaries and create a de-facto court system within insurance.

~~~
dd36
Insurers already do this... They don’t insure risky companies or they have to
charge such a high premium that constantly failing and restarting is not cost
effective. I think most complaints here are from people trying to buy
legitimate products.

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gsuppy
Why is anyone shocked AliExpress products are fake? I only go there if I want
a knock off version of something (shirts, AirPod cases, etc.). Ebay and Amazon
are also not surprising either, but both retailers often have the "official
merchants" of products that are being sold. As long as you buy through the
official storefronts, then you're good to go.

~~~
MichaelApproved
We shouldn't have to be investigative reporters in order to buy products that
won't harm us.

Even the merchant name is bullshit on Amazon.

Try finding Apple headphones and see how many are sold by merchants named
"Apple".

Amazon has to know that product is not actually being sold by Apple, yet they
allow the counterfeiting to continue.

~~~
shadowgovt
> We shouldn't have to be investigative reporters in order to buy products
> that won't harm us.

There are other marketplaces that offer a much higher quality guarantee than
Amazon. Shop there instead.

~~~
MichaelApproved
Why do you accept that it’s ok to sell harmful products?

Amazon is a $1 trillion dollar company. It’s not some guy selling things out
of the trunk of his car. It should be reasonable for me to assume buying
something there is safe.

~~~
friendly_fren
individual freedom. I hate nanny government regulation. The government's role
isn't to protect people from making bad decisions.

Harmful is subjective. Don't ban my plastic bags or straws.

~~~
FireBeyond
Fire risk batteries being harmful, for but one example, is hardly
"subjective".

Apparently in your world, it's perfectly okay for Joe Johnson to create an
Amazon merchant account called "Apple" and sell me and sell me defective
products under the Apple label.

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karl11
I have basically stopped buying anything from Amazon that I can just buy
direct from the manufacturer. Especially clothes, kids toys, etc. Most online
stores now have shipping that is almost as fast, and 9 times out of 10 an
extra couple of days shipping is not a big deal.

~~~
julianlam
That 1 time in 10 is still a factor, though...

Many retailers still operate on the old expectation that when you order
something, you'll get it in "6-8 weeks", which nowadays, is frankly
ridiculous!

I ordered a crib from a local Canadian retailer, and the thing arrived after
THREE MONTHS, and I had to pick up the box from the warehouse myself!

You have to give Amazon props for their logistics systems, they've gotten it
down to an art. If I were to order the same crib from Amazon, it would've been
at my door in 2 days' time.

Might've been a fake crib, though heh.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Given that a fake crib can actually kill a baby, this is one of those times
where I put aside my convenience and drive to a real brick and mortar store
and buy the crib myself.

~~~
NullPrefix
Your comment implies that a real crib wouldn't be able to do the same.

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mdszy
If you're buying from AliExpress/Wish (aka: direct from china) I don't think
there's much room for being surprised when you get fakes. eBay in many cases
too.

Amazon especially needs to get its shit together, though. I unsubscribed from
Prime and have all but stopped using Amazon because of how it's turned into
basically "eBay with marginally faster shipping" at this point given all the
absolute offbrand crap that's filling the site.

~~~
nkrisc
I have as well, but Amazon isn't bad when what you need is cheap crap (a bag
of 1000 cable ties, for example). Bonus: they keep offering me free trials of
Prime so I just save up a cart of stuff and then buy it when they give me free
shipping.

~~~
quickthrowman
Would you order those cable ties if you were a low-voltage contractor
suspending a bundle of ~100 cables for 200’ above an ACT grid ceiling? Cheap
cable ties may work for bundling cables in your home rig or home stereo setup,
but they may not be sufficient for a more robust load that a commercial
application demands.

~~~
nkrisc
No, I wouldn't. But I'm not a low voltage contractor. To hold two Cat5e cables
running through my basement, though? Sure. Heck I'd use tape if it wasn't a
pain to remove later.

If I was buying for a commercial project I would use a supplier I trusted.

~~~
quickthrowman
That’s fair, the 1000 pack is what contractors generally buy, which is why I
wanted to make the point that counterfeit junk could make its way into
permanent installations in commercial spaces and eventually fail. Not all
contractors use quality materials, though generally the ones that offer
guaranteed work and stand behind it spend the extra money for
Panduit/Legrand/Etc.

~~~
nkrisc
To be fair to you, I probably misstated when I said 1000, it was just an
example. I think what I actually bought was really closer to 200 or something.

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werber
People actively seek out fakes, especially in the luxury space. For every
person who would be glad that their faux product was intercepted, there's just
as many who would be mad they didn't get their Gukki belt, or just not notice.

~~~
dfxm12
_People actively seek out fakes_

Then they should be marketed (and priced) as such.

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34679
I noticed that Wish gives refunds on counterfeits without question, provided
you upload a photo of the item. It got me wondering if that's to avoid any
legal liability. The law states that "trafficking" in illegal goods is a
crime, and clearly these platforms don't want to be charged.

So, assuming they're actually legally required to refund purchases of
counterfeits, I think a reasonable recourse would be to have as many people as
possible order as many counterfeits as possible and then demand refunds. The
platforms' cost per transaction goes up, and the manufacturers/resellers are
out their items plus shipping.

I feel this would work best if the actual manufacturers that are being copied
did the buying, that way they have legal recourse at their disposal and a
literal pile of evidence if the refund is denied. And they can destroy the
counterfeits.

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djohnston
“Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome.”

There are currently few economic incentives for these market places to try
harder to stop counterfeit vendors. The solution seems to be harsher
consequences for the marketplaces.

I'm also kind of surprised by Walmart's inclusion. There are no examples in
the article on their products, and they say that Walmart disputed the
findings, so what's the deal? I wasn't aware that they were using 3rd party
vendors in the same way Amazon does.

~~~
Frost1x
I believe Walmart's online store offers items from third parties but honors
Walmart's return policies and guarantees. In order to compete with selection
of options for online marketplaces like Amazon, I imagine they had to start
sourcing products from third parties that don't typically appeal to the masses
and fit in their store models.

In physical stores, last I checked, counterfeits weren't really applicable in
anyway and seems to be fairly well quality controlled.

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christopherwxyz
And Shopify. It’s probably #2 behind Amazon, if I had to guess. Their one-stop
deploy a drop ship website is far too convenient.

~~~
Spivak
Every online marketplace/platform becomes an opportunity for price arbitrage
via dropshipping.

I felt silly when I bought a few rolls of shelf-liners on Amazon and they
shipped in a Walmart box because I didn't check.

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Geeek
This is all by design, I remember reading this WSJ article last year.

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazons-heavy-recruitment-of-
ch...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazons-heavy-recruitment-of-chinese-
sellers-puts-consumers-at-risk-11573489075) "A new product listing is uploaded
to Amazon from Chaine every 1/50th of a second"

Amazon is heavily invested in getting as much Chinese trash on their US site
and it does not seem to care much about the counterfeit problem.

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jvagner
My experience:

1) I've been a seller on Amazon. 5 figure SKU counts, branded products. I was
constantly being asked to provide invoices to prove that I had the right to
procure and resell the products I was listing. I was also beholden to their
metric standards and got delisted from the Buy Box regularly, until I could
improve my numbers (operational bumps while we refined our processes... the
standards were high enough if we fumbled a little bit, circumstances required
a bit of time and attention to restore SOPs to required levels).

Not sure what these other entities are doing, but within the bounds of what I
interacted with, and the age of my account, I wouldn't have been able to stay
on the platform and keep selling if my fulfillment, returns and customer
service metrics didn't stay within the acceptable thresholds.

2) I buy from Amazon regularly... household items, books, etc. So far, never
had an issue with fakes. Always Prime, usually Fulfilled By Amazon.

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sergiotapia
This is why Costco is worth what it's worth. Why risk buying garbage
elsewhere?

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julianlam
My wife and I purchase a lot of things from Amazon. We're taking a more
critical look at what we buy ever since we had a baby.

We bought our car seat and stroller from Amazon, and we were honestly not sure
whether it was certified for use in Canada. I shouldn't have to doubt any
purchase I make online from a reputable retailer, but it seems Amazon no
longer makes the cut for me.

For what it's worth, the car seat _did_ have the right stickers, but stickers
can be faked too...

~~~
superhuzza
There's an absolute ton of fake climbing gear on Amazon, claiming to be
legitimate brands and certified. Furthermore, goods from different suppliers
are often mixed together in Amazon warehouses. So buying from the brand's own
account doesn't necessarily mean it came from them!

I would strongly advise not getting any safety equipment like a car seat
through Amazon.

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nytesky
So does wal-mart mix SKUs like Amazon, so that even when buying ‘direct’ from
WM, you can get 3rd party supply?

Or is direct from wal-Matt part of their actual controlled store inventory?

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benbojangles
I guess if your marketing team has invested in invidious consumption as your
strategy then you can expect low cost copies, I mean just look at LVMH and
it's owner, that french guy who was for a few hours the world's richest man.
They marketed to Instagram and black culture but did not seem to understand
that low income low paid workers also live in the ghetto and will seek the
bargain item over the unattainable Peng ting.

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pacamara619
In Switzerland, when you buy something for a price that is obviously too low
(like a brand new iPhone for 100$) you lose all protection given to you by law
in this purchasing contract. If it's a knock off, tough tiddies.

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jbverschoor
They don’t care about fixing this. Fake goods are a promotion for their
platform as long as the quality is not super terrible.

~~~
rswskg
Some do, some don't. Depends on the brand.

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Lidador
How to protect dump people from themselves?

