
Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand - dash488
https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844030960333152256
======
blobbers
Counterfeits in comingled inventory has become pretty common on Amazon these
days. "Fulfillment by amazon" has led them to comingle inventories on common
products, meaning every seller's product gets jumbled together.

I've gotten counterfeit huggies diapers from amazon (invalid serial number for
huggies 'points' and different build quality), Mach 3 razor blades, GE MWF
Water filters, even a counterfeit baby bath.

The baby bath counterfeit was obvious I got a box with only chinese characters
on the box:

Here is there response: " We had a recent issue with an Amazon seller selling
“knock-off” Blooming Baths on our Amazon account. We have since had this
seller removed entirely from Amazon, as these are counterfeit items and NOT
the Blooming Bath. The product you have received is not ours, I suggest
returning it and ordering again from Amazon or from www.bloomingbath.com. Just
make sure the seller you buy from is “Blooming Bath” if you buy from Amazon.

Very sorry for this inconvenience. "

I no longer trust amazon for anything health related - it just seems too easy
to get counterfeit products into their system.

~~~
themagician
I've been running into his problem personally. About 25% of our business now
is done via Amazon. We sell to Amazon retail directly and also use Amazon FBA
internationally.

The problem is that "other sellers" keep beating us to the buy box for certain
SKUs. Amazon keeps asking us to sell to them for a lower price. The funny
thing is, Amazon already gets the lowest price, by far, compared to all other
distributors. I know, we are the manufacturer. Some of the SKUs we don't even
sell to anyone else anymore but Amazon, yet still these random businesses seem
to be selling our products. Some are fake, some are watered down. Some are… I
don't even know. I have a lot of trouble figuring out who these people are and
how they are getting our products or look-a-likes at prices low enough to
resell, since we don't sell them to anyone at these prices!

Amazon needs to double down on the vetting they do for new sellers.

Starting in 2018 I'm going to re-SKU/UPC every product we sell to Amazon and
start closing the listings on old corrupt ones. It's going to be a pain in the
ass, but I see no other choice. We have about 300 SKUs and trying to manage
them all and fend off all these shitty sellers is becoming a huge burden on me
and our brand.

And ideally, actually, I'd like Amazon to offer a feature that essentially
"bans" third parties from listing a SKU at the manufacturers request. I'd
gladly pay to few thousand a year to ensure that the only one that can sell
our products is Amazon themselves.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
>And ideally, actually, I'd like Amazon to offer a feature that essentially
"bans" third parties from listing a SKU at the manufacturers request. I'd
gladly pay to few thousand a year to ensure that the only one that can sell
our products is Amazon themselves.

Isn't this what owning a trademark is for? Can people advertise that they have
M&M's for sale without the permission of Mars Candy Inc?

~~~
Twisell
In the OP case copyright laws are sufficient.

So yeah is it to much to ask from amazon to respect trademark and/or
copyright. Specially considering they are the dominant online book sellers.

I think people should start considering that when the DOJ hitted hard on Apple
last year as they proposed an altenative to the near monopoly of Amazon maybe
they hit the wrong target.

~~~
themagician
No. Neither copyright nor trademark prevents someone else from selling or
listing your stuff. It does prevent people from making knock offs, but you
have to PROVE that.

It's a massive burden to hunt these people down. You have to buy product from
them and inspect it. They often hide behind a series of LLCs. You have to work
with the site listing it to get it taken down and prove you are the
manufacturer. It becomes a full time job very quickly.

Rode, the microphone company, has taken an approach I like which is that they
don't sell on Amazon FBA at all. Even still, they have problems. I'd like to
get big enough that we can just eliminate Amazon and go direct, but we aren't
there yet.

------
HoppedUpMenace
Its ridiculous the amount of energy and effort you have to waste in order to
find a product that you don't suspect as being counterfeit on Amazon these
days. The other day, I wanted a super bright flashlight that ran on AAA
batteries and was of decent quality and price. I had to pour over the millions
of listed flashlights, most looking physically identical, with the exception
of the brand name printed on the flashlight itself. Then I read about how
these flashlights are all mass produced by the same manufacturer and re-
branded after distribution, so essentially 100 different flashlight brands are
essentially the same flashlight (sorry, did a google search on this, don't
remember exact link).

Anyways, I used Fakespot on a lot of these listings and it was pretty
interesting to see just how many had questionable and outright blatantly fake
reviews. Found the one I wanted, almost $20 and a couple of hours later. The
flashlight definitely lived up to what it promised but I can't help but wonder
if it would've just been easier to do this at a brick and mortar retail spot,
like Fry's Electronics.

~~~
esMazer
I only buy when is sold directly "by amazon" if the seller is not amazon then
all bets are off.

~~~
nerdy
The thread says repeatedly that Amazon _is_ the seller...

[https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844037804237709314](https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844037804237709314)

[https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844038535388823552](https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844038535388823552)

[https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844274765154205696](https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844274765154205696)

[https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844271713256951808](https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844271713256951808)

------
Animats
There's no way to report a counterfeit on Amazon unless you're claiming a
violation of your own IP rights. I've complained about fake solid state
relays. There are lots of fake "Fotek" solid state relays. UL has noticed.[1]
The fakes are usually marked with much higher amp ratings than they can handle
safely. Look at this "100 amp" fake "Fotek" relay on Amazon.[2] Fotek doesn't
even make a 100 amp relay in that packaging. [3] 100 amps requires bigger
terminals.

These things tend to fail into the ON state, which is not good. Or they melt
down or catch fire under full load.

[1] [http://www.ul.com/newsroom/publicnotices/ul-warns-of-
solid-s...](http://www.ul.com/newsroom/publicnotices/ul-warns-of-solid-state-
relay-with-counterfeit-ul-recognition-mark-release-13pn-52/) [2]
[https://www.amazon.com/Commoon-FOTEK-24V-380V-SSR-100DA-
Modu...](https://www.amazon.com/Commoon-FOTEK-24V-380V-SSR-100DA-
Module/dp/B00PDULXT4/) [3]
[http://www.fotek.com.tw/center1.asp?classNo=4&class2_sn=16](http://www.fotek.com.tw/center1.asp?classNo=4&class2_sn=16)

~~~
tadblarney
"There's no way to report a counterfeit on Amazon unless you're claiming a
violation of your own IP rights"

I feel this is problematic - one would think that AMZN would want to at least
have a 'heads up' with respect to these issues very quickly to look into them,
you know, to protect their brand?

Because if Amazon is selling you 'XYZ' and it's a knock-off - they are part of
the crime.

Rather odd.

~~~
emaste
I ordered a pair of SD cards from a FBA Amazon seller which turned out to be
counterfeit. I used Amazon's contact form to report these, and was told to
just initiate a return.

I think I chose "Item not as described" as the reason in a drop-down, and
entered "Counterfeit" in a comment box, but someone later changed it to some
benign-sounding reason. I got a refund on my credit card, but now have the
impression that Amazon just does not care. That experience and stories like
this here convinced me to first look elsewhere when I need something.

~~~
mattwinslow
If you want to ding the seller further, leave a negative feedback response
(for the seller) on that order.

Mark the reason as "item not as described" and don't add any additional text
that would allow the seller to claim the feedback was "product related / a
product review".

Speaking from experience as an FBA seller for the past seven years, those are
nearly impossible to dispute with Amazon's seller support staff...even when
the buyer is incorrect (ie they contact you via the messaging system and admit
to buying the wrong product or misreading the product description). Enough
negative feedback ratings and the seller's account can go under review and/or
be closed.

~~~
kalleboo
But if the item was commingled, then it wasn't that FBA seller's fault and
you're punishing someone who's innocent...

~~~
dawnerd
Guess the lesson here is, if you're a FBA seller and you don't want that risk,
opt out of comingling.

------
benmorris
Amazon is turning into a mine field for legitimate sellers. I have a customer
I work closely with to integrate their customer products into Amazon. They
have a catalog of 3,000 stock parking signs listed on Amazon. We took
considerable time to buy custom SKUs and get them listed. We discovered in the
last month two separate Chinese sellers utilized the Amazon buy box feature
and listed on our product page for less money than our items. This is
impossible to do since they don't make the same signs at the same specs and
design. In fact how could they have my customer's artwork?

We soon discovered these people were actually hijacking our high resolution
main image and actually using that to make their own signs. Amazon is strict
about watermarking so we went very conservative on the markings on the files.
When they received an order they printed out the high res file of ours and
stuck it to a parking blank. The reviews they were getting it was obvious they
weren't selling good quality, but people were confusing them with US! Almost
worse than any of it Amazon puts so much power into other sellers using the
buy box feature that if you searched for my customer the Chinese sellers would
often default to the preferred seller.

In the end Amazon has banned the two sellers, but moving forward it is
difficult to police 3,000 listings so we have not been expanding what we are
doing on there.

~~~
nas
It's a minefield for buyers as well. I have ordered products from Amazon's web
site for many years, probably more than 15. Recently, I am getting reluctant
to buy because there are so many counterfeit products.

As an example, I wanted to by a genuine Lenovo charger for my X230 laptop. If
you want to share my pain, try finding the real McCoy on Amazon.com. I also
had to replace my keyboard. That was even worse than the chargers. The
products say they are manufactured by Lenovo but they are clearly not. In the
end, I suspect the keyboard and charger I got (which I paid quite a bit more
than the clearly fake items) are still fakes. They have Lenovo's brand marks
on them but they don't look exactly like the originals.

Another good example of counterfeits are cell phone batteries. I tried to buy
a replacement battery for a Nexus phone. I had to give up because wading
through the endless listings of counterfeit products is just too time
consuming.

I don't think Amazon is doing nearly enough to stop this.

~~~
Splines
I would have bought this one: [http://a.co/7XcZoUf](http://a.co/7XcZoUf)

Is that one a fake too? Going by the "Lenovo" seller and the fact that the
seller also sells a ton of other Lenovo branded stuff makes me feel better,
but who knows...

~~~
nas
I bought this one:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006OQJO4C/ref=oh_aui_sear...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006OQJO4C/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

I'm not sure it is a fake or not. I looks a little "off" to me. Maybe real but
intended for a foreign market? Hasn't burnt my house down yet, so that's
something.

~~~
kayfox
Upbright makes cheap PSUs, so I suspect its a fake.

------
6stringmerc
As a "Content Creator" and frequent advocate for U.S. Copyright Reform, this
is one of the few instances where I think the full willful infringement
penalty is absolutely justified. There's only a paper thin "Well they didn't
inspect every book!" defense, which immediately falls apart when Amazon is
making money by way of the transactions and doing market harm to the actual
Copyright holder. It's not "incidental" infringement like photocopying a
chapter from a book and emailing around the office or the Amazon corporate
mailing list. That's more innocent. This is some straight up commercial hustle
we're talking about.

I'm tired of the refrain "It's too much effort / money / investment to check
X, Y, Z on our system" when that system is the only goddamn reason a company
exists in the first place. Want to be a Middle Man? You get the Profits and
Responsibilities of one. Caveat venditor.

~~~
lsaferite
Do you also advocate that eBay should verify every item it sells is not
counterfeit?

~~~
6stringmerc
If you consider my perspective is that eBay / Amazon / et al are acting with
the least amount of policing effort they can legally or financially commit,
then yes, I would like to advocate that a marketplace such as eBay _should
attempt to verify_ every item it sells is not counterfeit.

I'd like to avoid being unrealistic in that I don't think a marketplace can
100% verify every item and grow to scale, but I'm also extremely annoyed at
the "all or nothing" kind of false dichotomy you've presented.

I'm not trying to be insulting or glib with the following, but if you'd like
to peruse several different threads in this discussion it appears Amazon has
more than enough reasonable data to address an issue, but has heretofore
turned a blind-yet-financially-beneficial-in-principle-eye to the situation.
If a bunch of humans sitting around and spit balling can hammer down a half-
dozen examples and concerns out of altruism then I think any attempts of
offloading that 'check and balance' into the Amazon system is quite
significant.

If they get around to it, I'd classify their pragmatic motivation as akin to
"I'm sorry your feelings were hurt" moreso than "What I did hurt you and was
wrong."

~~~
BubbleFett
Totally sympathetic to the author here, and believe that the counterfeit
should be taken down IMMEDIATELY (checking amazon it looks like this is the
case)

If the book was digital then I would say preemptive verification should be
done. However, for a physical paper book how could you verify legitimacy at
scale?

It's a hard problem. I can't think of a way that doesn't involve destroying a
physical copy to OCR, and that's a lot of manual effort.

What would you propose? Not trying to be confrontational, legitimately
curious!

~~~
forgottenpass
_It 's a hard problem. I can't think of a way that doesn't involve destroying
a physical copy to OCR, and that's a lot of manual effort._

I've worked at places with serious quality management systems, the problem
isn't hard. The answer is easy and obvious: incoming inspection.

Unless "scale" means the percentage of product that passes through inspection
is zero. In which case the problem is only hard because the problem isn't how
to do something, the problem is how get the benefit of having done something
without doing it (whether through inspection, not co-mingling, etc...).

In the case of No Starch Press, the build quality issues were noticeable
without scanning the book. And even cutting the spine and covers off of a book
to scan it isn't _that_ much manual effort with the right hardware. One of the
offices at my college had the cutter and bulk scanner, it was so not a big
deal for them to use that they'd digitize a semester's worth of course
textbooks for anyone who asked.

------
ilamont
Amazon does indeed print books through its Createspace print-on-demand
division. It’s been used by hundreds of thousands of self-publishers but also
indie presses seeking to sell additional copies without investing in a big
offset print run.

If the pirate attempted to use an existing ISBN (required to match up the
listings) I am pretty sure Createspace would automatically flag it [ETA: Not
so sure anymore. See
[http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,248831.msg3466774.htm...](http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,248831.msg3466774.html#msg3466774)].
There is no Amazon or Createspace branding applied to the book; the only clue
that it’s POD is a barcode on the last blank page with “Made In USA” (digital
short run and offset do not have to do this).

Another POD service, Ingramspark, also feeds into Amazon via third-party
sellers but there will definitely be a block if an existing ISBN is used.

Another possibility is the pirates are using the POD services and a different
ISBN, then make the Amazon listing using the original ISBN and ship the copy
themselves (that is, not using fulfillment by Amazon). They could sticker over
the bogus ISBN or not; nobody except for victims bothers to check.

Or, perhaps the pirates are using a cheap independent digital short run
service and put whatever they want on the cover (printers don’t care) and then
sell it on Amazon as the real thing.

~~~
leeter
Depends on how amazon's lawyers looked at it. I suspect they assumed that
section 230 of the CDA, and the DMCA would cover them. However because
physical paper copies are being generated that voids both the protections
provided by both laws. Amazon is most likely criminally and civilly liable
here _.

_ I am not a lawyer and nothing here should be considered legal advice merely
personal opinion

~~~
makomk
While I'm not a lawyer either, my understanding is that neither section 230 of
the CDA nor the DMCA safe harbour provide protection for companies that
actually sell copyright-infringing works, regardless of whether they're
digital or physical.

------
Scaevolus
Counterfeiting is a huge problem across Amazon. Since they started commingling
inventory, it's been used by bad actors to launder counterfeit goods.

It's even worse for the Fulfilled by Amazon people-- there have been DVD
resellers selling >$40k/mo legitimately getting banned because pirated items
are being shipped to fulfill the same listings.

I've chosen to buy from smaller sites to be more assured of quality--
especially for commonly faked items like batteries and replacement parts.

~~~
Lockyy
It definitely sucks, I never used to have to doubt the quality of amazon
products, now I'm having to make sure I only buy amazon basics products or run
reviews through some fake review spotter to try and make sure I'm not buying a
lie.

------
wyc
It seems that these large distributors that aggregate from many sellers are
once again having quality issues. However, they'll still get my business
because of their many conveniences. I'm just less likely to use them for
critical things like medicine or heavy equipment.

I just went through something similar with some kitchen equipment purchased
through Soap.com. I tried to claim warranty with the manufacturer, and they
earned a new customer:

    
    
        Hello,
         
        Thank you for your inquiry. Soap.com is not an authorized retailer of our
        items and we have had some problems with counterfeit <REDACTED>
        that are having this type of problem. That being said, we can honor the
        warranty and replace it with the genuine article, however in the future if you
        choose to purchase our items please be sure that you are purchasing from
        someone we have authorized to do business with. Is the address you list below
        your current address to receive the replacement?
         
        Regards,

~~~
nommm-nommm
"if you choose to purchase our items please be sure that you are purchasing
from someone we have authorized to do business with" \- That's funny because,
how do you, Joe Consumer, know what random companies are authorized to do
business with what other random companies?

~~~
rhizome
For a situation like this, I would hope (and assume, given their messaging)
that they have a page on their website listing them.

------
achow
It took me a while to understand that buyers are actually getting pirated
books which has Amazon branding and are poorly produced (uneven binding, poor
printing, missing content.. etc.)! I was incredulous, surely this is not part
of Amazon's business strategy!

Then saw that maybe one of the Twitterati has guessed it right:

@marziah: _Wait, how? Is someone copying the book and using Amazon as the
printer? And they don 't screen their direct prints?_

~~~
danjoc
Google is doing the digital version:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=python+for+kids+pdf](https://www.google.com/search?q=python+for+kids+pdf)

First result. Google docs. Free book.

Edit: Not sure if modded down for pointing out Google is pirating the book in
nearly the same way as Amazon (HN loves Google, it can do no wrong) or if it's
because I linked to Google's pirate link (Oh no! You're bankrupting the
author, dirty commenter!).

~~~
UnfalseDesign
The difference is that Google isn't pirating the book. It is being hosted on
Google Docs. This is no different than if someone put the PDF on Dropbox and
made it public. It isn't Google's pirate link. It is a link to a pirated file
that just happens to be hosted on Google Docs. The difference here is that
Amazon is actually printing the pirated book. Google is just hosting a file
that happens to be made publicly viewable.

~~~
danjoc
>The difference is that Google isn't pirating the book.

Neither is Amazon as I understand it.

>It is being hosted on Google Docs.

Amazon is just printing the book.

>This is no different than if someone put the PDF on Dropbox and made it
public.

This is exactly what's happening on Amazon. Someone uploaded the pirated file,
as their own. Amazon is simply printing the book, and helping you find it via
a search interface. I'm still failing to see a distinction here between what
Google and Amazon are doing, beyond the fact that Google's approach is
digital, and therefore zero cost.

Both Google and Amazon benefit from the piracy. Amazon directly through sale
of product, Google directly through search ad revenue. Both Google and Amazon
provide the platform for the piracy. Both Google and Amazon provide search
discovery for the pirated product.

~~~
__jal
Analogies are dangerous, but perhaps one will help here.

The book on Google Docs is similar to someone's cocaine falling out of their
pocket and hiding in your couch cushions. You didn't know it was there, and
when your partner finds it, you flush it.

The book being printed by Amazon is you finding the bag of coke, cutting it
and selling it, splitting the take with your friend.

I'll note that "benefit from" is a construction that can do a huge amount of
work. I have "benefited from" some truly horrific historic crimes, despite
having nothing to do with them (or even having been born yet). I bet you have,
too.

Using less attenuated language that makes clear what's going on is a lot more
convincing. It also tends to expose differences, like what is going on here.

------
billpollock
We won't stop selling DRM-free but this is the second time we've had a problem
like this with Amazon.

------
jmcgough
I've stopped using amazon for products that are easy to counterfeit. Beauty
products are especially bad. It's really hard to know that a shampoo is real
just by looking at it, and if you can sell a bottle of colored foam for $40,
counterfeiters are immediately drawn to that.

I used to order an expensive conditioner (olaplex) through Amazon but got
burned by this. The company that produces the shampoo started selling direct
through their website (at amazon's price with free shipping) because they were
losing out on sales through fake inventory that was being sold to amazon.

------
strictnein
This sucks, doubly so because it's No Starch Press. They've got some great
stuff and their books have a better feel than a lot of other tech books.
Something about the cover, binding, and the paper they use feels really nice.

~~~
EliRivers
And the smell. I can identify my No Starch books by scent.

~~~
billpollock
I can't but only because I can't really smell much any more. Other than
bourbon.

------
teddyh
So, if this continues to be a problem, what’s the difference between using
Amazon as a go-between and simply using a random web site you found? Wasn’t
the whole _point_ of using Amazon as intermediary to _reduce_ the risk
compared to ordering direct from an unknown web site?

------
anotherthrow2
It is clear that Amazon and its management knows that they have a counterfeit
problem. How about we all band together and file a class action lawsuit? I am
sure there are many millions of people, consumers and businesses, affected by
Amazon's active negligence of policing the authenticity of items in their
marketplace. I would even say there are probably tons of smoking gun emails
between Bezos and staff regarding these issues.

Sometimes the only way to get companies like Amazon to play fair is with the
threat of a billion dollar settlement hanging over them. The free market
doesn't always work.

------
dfc
We recently ordered four or five Oreilly Hadoop books from amazon and the
printing was horrible. The fonts look terrible and simple things like grey
backgrounds are not uniform. The book is still legible but the printing gets
distracting at times. I thought it was an indication that Oreilly had lowered
there standards.

~~~
joshvm
I have a copy of _Programming Robots with ROS_ in front of me which I was on
the verge of sending back to Amazon. The text printing is fuzzy and images
have noticeable banding. You can't read text in the screenshots it's so bad.
It's like the book was printed in draft mode. I bought it a month ago.

Here's an example: [https://imgur.com/X6KwHNm](https://imgur.com/X6KwHNm) and
another: [https://imgur.com/nTflKSL](https://imgur.com/nTflKSL)

I bought it on sale, but this retails at £40. That's not acceptable. I've
bought full colour textbooks with photo quality prints for the same price.

I had a look at a previous purchase, _Fluent Python_ , and it's similar but
not as bad. The animal icons (e.g. the ravens with little facts next to them)
are still quite poorly printed. I bought that about 6 months ago.

Looking further back in time, I've got some pocket guides to Python and C. It
could be a placebo - maybe the paper just feels nicer over time. The printing
also looks better, but there aren't any big ink-dense graphics to give a fair
comparison:

[https://imgur.com/koeIpLO](https://imgur.com/koeIpLO)

The first two I bought from Amazon, the latter I bought from Blackwells, but
that was years ago. The seller was just Amazon, not a 3rd party.

~~~
dfc
I uploaded examples from three of the four books:

[http://imgur.com/a/SKEVT](http://imgur.com/a/SKEVT)

It is sad because this is not how my older Oreilly books are printed.

------
akeck
I knew the shine was off the rose when I made the hike to MicroCenter, in lieu
of two-day shipping, to avoid counterfeits of an item.

------
55555
Be very careful buying translated books on Amazon. I was sent a copy of a Mark
Twain book that was translated into Thai _using Google translate_ and thus
entirely unreadable.

Amazon is a disaster these days. It's impossible to choose what to buy because
there's four dozen identical private label products with nothing but fake
reviews for every possible product niche.

It's like that scene from Hurt Locker but you're in the world's biggest
grocery store aisle. It's a miserable shopping experience.

Edit: I did not get my money back.

------
The_ed17
Yeah, this sort of thing has sadly been a problem for awhile on Amazon. For a
similar problem WRT Wikipedia, see eg
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PrimeHunter/Alphascript_P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:PrimeHunter/Alphascript_Publishing_sells_free_articles_as_expensive_books)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Republishers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Republishers)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1183986](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1183986)

It's technically legal due to Wikipedia's free license, but you're paying for
something you can get for free on the internet.

------
revelation
I have no idea how Amazon keeps getting away with selling counterfeit and
plain unsafe (anything cheap chinese plugged into a socket) products.

No judge would accept that somehow a 3rd party is to blame when 1) I'm paying
Amazon, 2) Amazon delivers the item from an Amazon warehouse and 3) Amazon
takes the return and reimburses me. At no point in this transaction is a 3rd
party involved. Clearly they should be liable here for the junk they sell.

~~~
herojc
Well inventory Amazon retail imports can be commingled with 3rd party
inventory. So just because you bought from Amazon doesn't necessarily mean
that it was inbounded by Amazon. It's not an excuse for Amazon, but
commingling is a double edged sword and the bad part of it is an extremely
difficult problem to solve, yet the benefits are too strong for them to
consider turning it off.

~~~
revelation
I understand how it works. I don't see why this would extend any legal
benefits to Amazon in disclaiming responsibility for the faulty and dangerous
products they sell and deliver.

Commingle all you want, if you are taking the money & shipping the product,
you're legally responsible in ensuring that it is up to code. Any physical
retail shop would have been closed already, why is the government not doing
its job?

------
kwhitefoot
After reading the comments here I think I won't ever buy anything from Amazon.

I think I'm probably better off using Ebay. At least then I don't have the
illusion that there is any kind of central control.

And at least so far Ebay's system has worked well, when goods haven't arrive
within the specified date it has gone like this: they email me asking me to
contact the seller, seller says give me more time, I say ok, extra time runs
out, ebay refunds my money, goods arrive about ten days later. Of course I've
never spent more than about USD50 at a time and I'm not looking for branded
goods anyway.

I get the impression (confirmation bias probably) that the seller's reputation
matters more on Ebay than on Amazon.

------
Sujan
So someone bought the PDF ebook, uploaded it to Amazon to be printed on demand
and to be sold there?

~~~
justboxing
Yep. Looks like it. And from @danjoc's comment, the book in question "Python
for Kids" has been uploaded to google drive by someone and it's out there...

This was (and still is) 1 major factor holding me back from trying to publish
a technical book. They are so easily pirated.

~~~
user5994461
Publish hard paper and sell to entreprise. That's where there is a money.

A company will pay 49$ for a book they want. A dude won't.

~~~
OJFord
> _A company will pay 49$ for a book they want. A dude won 't._

Perhaps you meant to say that you won't.

~~~
user5994461
I meant to say $99 ;)

------
rdl
There are large classes of product I've stopped buying from Amazon due to
counterfeits or bad (expired or badly stored) inventory, even first party
(Amazon.com LLC) things. Batteries and flash memory are high, medications are
another.

------
cjhanks
I guess Amazon's DRM system can't detect off-by-one-page?

~~~
Roodgorf
I don't think this has anything to do with DRM. As Pollock mentions, they
release their books DRM free.

------
strathmeyer
There are certain brands I cannot sell on Amazon because their manufactures
will claim I am not a certified reseller and thus am committing copyright
infringement (Amazon says nothing about needing to be a 'certified reseller')
and they threaten to have my entire store shut down. It's how they keep the
prices of some things artificially high. So it's funny that they can't get
real counterfeit things off their website.

------
backtoyoujim
Don't forget that you can "email Jeff" if you have a problem with Amazon.

gizmodo.com/jeff-bezos-if-you-have-a-problem-with-amazon-email-me-1724561248

------
Chathamization
The problem with quasi-monopolies like Amazon is that they lose any pressure
to behave properly. Issues like this should encourage people to look at Amazon
alternatives. I'd be happy to pay a bit more and wait a bit longer for goods
if I'm able to make sure that I'm buying legitimate products and not
counterfeits.

Are there any promising Amazon alternatives people would recommend?

------
jojohack
Wow, I wonder how long this has been an issue. I recall buying tech books a
few years back and noticing that the book quality was pretty low. At the time,
I thought it was a general manufacturing decision to save money.

~~~
billpollock
Not ours I hope!

------
chx
Not to mention that the sellers can be so blatantly scammers it's not even
funny. [http://i.imgur.com/S4nO45w.png](http://i.imgur.com/S4nO45w.png)

------
garganzol
I received a paperback book sold by Amazon LLC just yesterday. I am hugely
disappointed as it looks like a botched photocopy to the point where it is
hard to read at all. WTF

------
tux1968
I've given up using Amazon, and so have all my family back east. It's just too
hard to know what you're getting or if you're getting scammed. We're just one
small family worth of lost customers who used to use their service a lot, but
how long until they lose a significant fraction of their base?

------
rubicon33
Can someone who understands Amazon's process, please explain how it works?
From the sounds of it, it sounds like I could purchase a Macbook which clearly
says "Sold by Apple" and it theoretically could be a knockoff product, sold be
someone entirely NOT Apple. How is this even legal?

------
nommm-nommm
Large parts of Amazon are just an over-priced Alibaba. Flooded with
counterfeits and private label junk.

------
soyiuz
Let's think of a system where it does not matter who _prints_ or otherwise
distributes the content and where the author (rights holder) can collect
royalties on all copies.

------
_Codemonkeyism
The other thing going on on Amazon is this "Send me an email to before buying"
to rip you off.

These are easy automatically to detect from the listing text.

Amazon does nothing until you tell them.

------
thewhitetulip
Few days back I got a duplicate book from Amazon, sadly, it was a gift for a
friend who didn't realize that it was a duplicate book.

------
awinter-py
I'm assuming used books is a much larger category than fakes and has a larger
drain on sales.

~~~
DanBC
If I buy a used book I'm prepared for poor quality - folded pages, broken
spine, dirty book.

If I buy new and I get a poor quality book my first assumption (until I read
this submission) is "this publisher pushes out poor quality books", and that
influences my choice of publisher in future.

------
armenarmen
Yep. Proud owner of a counterfeit copy of 100 años de Soledad. Quality is
abhorrent

------
glbrew
This happened to me with the same book series, twice.

------
draw_down
What is going on over there? They let people sell the crappiest stuff on their
site these days. Plus at least in my experience they seem to have serious
logistical issues, literally the last 3 or 4 items I've purchased on Amazon
have not actually shipped to me.

~~~
55555
> They let people sell the crappiest stuff on their site these days.

They literally and purposely have almost zero barrier to entry. Heck perhaps
they have a negative barrier to entry as they will literally loan you money to
help cover inventory costs.

------
bitmapbrother
Buying from Amazon is a lot like eBay these days. In addition to what Amazon
sells you also have a bunch of stores, of questionable origin, that are
selling counterfeit and intentionally misrepresented products. I'm not sure
what it adds to their bottom line, but it's destroying their reputation.

------
throwaywgsid
Amazon counterfeits are so common now I would say about half my orders in the
last year have been fakes.

If you don't care about quality just get from AliExpress or eBay, why pay
brand name price for the same knockoffs?

If you do care about quality buy from any online company with a physical
presence. I never get counterfeits from stores with a lot of physical
locations and prices are barely different.

------
danjoc
Ohh, I get it now. HN hates Amazon. I wasn't aware of that. It's not Google
defenders or Python for Kids people clicking down. It's people who have a
visceral hate for Amazon. I knew HN basically hated Apple, but this is news to
me. Thanks for the clarification guys :)

~~~
dang
HN doesn't hate $what_you_like, it just feels that way when you find yourself
in a defensive position for whatever reason. This sort of perception is
largely in the eye of the beholder.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13926022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13926022)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
danjoc
Maybe off topic, but interesting discussion none the less. After I realized
what was going on, I checked out the Amazon grocery thread and saw pretty much
the same attitudes on display. Personally, I'm neutral on Amazon. My highest
up voted submissions were pretty 'anti-Apple' in nature, so that is good
evidence to me that HN hates Apple generally.

I'll keep this in mind when submitting articles in the future. HN wants
"Amazon is bad" articles. Also, don't say anything that might be construed as
defending Amazon, because they're "bad" on HN. Gotta get with the group think
if I want to hang out in the echo chamber (^_^)d

------
subhobroto
What is a counterfeit book?

Who stands to lose the most from a counterfeit book?

Who stands to gain the most from a counterfeit book?

~~~
soyiuz
> What is a counterfeit book?

a book "made in exact imitation of something valuable or important with the
intention to deceive or defraud"

> Who stands to lose the most from a counterfeit book?

The author and/or rights holder

> Who stands to gain the most from a counterfeit book?

The counterfeiter

