
Amazon to ramp up counterfeit reporting to law enforcement - bookofjoe
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-counterfeit/amazon-to-ramp-up-counterfeit-reporting-to-law-enforcement-idUSKBN1ZC25U
======
ckastner
The problem is not that counterfeiting is not being reported to law
enforcement. The problem is that Amazon is doing far too little to allow them
to enter Amazon's marketplace in the first place.

Amazon is making it far too easy for fraudsters to sell their crap, and (from
what I hear) repeatedly: products removed because of counterfeit issues get
re-added the next day under some other (or new) product code, or seller ID.

I work in the banking industry. It's not very unusual to discover that a
client might be doing something that is suspicious enough to notify law
enforcement of it (these notices are mandatory).

But that's the _last_ line of defense. You're supposed to attempt to prevent
these situations from happening in the first place, hence there are strict
AML/KYC procedures.

If a bank were to open a new account for a client they had banned in the past
for other reasons, financial supervisory authorities would bring down the
hammer on them so fast and so hard, they'd regret it a thousand times more
than whatever business they expected to make with that client.

Amazon's claim that they can't do more against counterfeits than they are
already doing now is bullshit. There's an entire industry with decades of
experience in that matter that they could turn to. But why would they.

~~~
cletus
100% this.

Buying counterfeit items unintentionally can create huge problems for the
consumer (eg [1]). Why is the onus on the consumer to look at a listing and
decide if it's counterfeit or not?

Amazon is probably taking the stand they're no different to a search engine
and Google isn't (mostly) responsible for search results. But that analogy is
not apt.

The comparison to banking is far better. Banks can be held responsible is they
fail due diligence with customers. Amazon should be held to the same standard.

Like how drop shipping fraud can even exist on Amazon is amazing. This should
be so easy to detect (ie lots of shipments to one address or cluster of
addresses).

No one should be able to sell branded products on Amazon without being
verified. Period. And Amazon should be wholly responsible for any counterfeit
that occurs as a result.

[1]: [https://www.racked.com/2018/1/8/16849298/amazon-
counterfeits...](https://www.racked.com/2018/1/8/16849298/amazon-counterfeits-
global-entry-customs)

~~~
criddell
If Pirate Bay can be charged with contributory infringement, then Amazon
should be held liable as well.

~~~
rak
This is a really good point.

We could probably even pile on the health risks associated with products like
cosmetics and otc medicine.

------
mikece
Seems to me to be a minimum response meant to satisfy vendor outrage and hold
off law enforcement investigations.

The headline is very misleading and makes me wonder if it came from an Amazon
press release: _any_ crack-down on counterfeiters on Amazon, no matter how
slight, would statistically qualify as a "significant ramp-up" compared to
their previous habit of doing nothing until being threatened with a law suit
by vendors.

~~~
gbrown
It seems like permanently freezing counterfeiters out of the marketplace would
be the obvious thing to do, and if Amazon lacks the technical capacity to do
so or to prevent their return I’d say that’s a pretty fundamental problem.

~~~
spookthesunset
> It seems like permanently freezing counterfeiters out of the marketplace
> would be the obvious thing to do, and if Amazon lacks the technical capacity
> to do so or to prevent their return I’d say that’s a pretty fundamental
> problem.

If it was that easy to "permanently freezing counterfeiters out of the
marketplace", they would have done it already. Blocking somebody, especially
somebody with a strong financial motive, from doing something on the internet
is incredibly challenging. They'll go to great lengths to route around your
block using all kinds of fun exciting methods. Methods might include creating
a new account with a different business & address, taking over the account of
a dormant but reputable seller, and probably a huge list of other things I
can't even think of right now.

But seriously. Blocking or banning people on the internet is almost
impossible. If they have the will, they'll find a way back onto your site.

~~~
gbrown
I reject that entirely - we're talking about giving people access to a selling
platform, not a social website which depends on maximum user growth and
minimal barrier to participation.

Amazon has prioritized growing the number of sellers, but they're in complete
control of who they allow to sell on their platform, and what they require
from sellers prior to beginning. You seem to be accepting, uncritically, the
argument of "platforms" everywhere who don't want to be held responsible for
what their "users" do. I don't agree with that perspective generally, and I
think it's especially silly with respect to a web commerce company like
Amazon.

~~~
spookthesunset
You can reject all you want, but the reality is that it is almost impossible
to block people on the internet. You cannot change this fact no matter how
much you wish it were so.

This is probably why amazon wants to get law enforcement involved. Those folks
_can_ stop the people behind the fraud....

~~~
dasil003
Account verification is orthogonal to communication channel. There's nothing
about the internet that precludes identity and other KYC checks. Your argument
only makes sense if Amazon needs an extremely high throughput and low latency
of new vendors coming online. The status quo has certainly been fantastic for
their business, but I don't see any reason why they can't afford to add a
little friction there.

~~~
bryan_w
So what do you do when someone passes KYC and is still a fraudster?

I would think you would report them to the authorities... which seems like
what they are doing

~~~
kelnos
You ban them from your platform, and since you know them, they'll have a
really hard time getting back on. And yes, report them to the authorities too.

~~~
spookthesunset
If you think it is that simple, clearly you’ve never worked in the field.

~~~
kelnos
I never said anything about it being simple. But what's the alternative? Just
give up, and accept bad behavior?

------
reaperducer
And what exactly is "law enforcement" going to do about this? Not much.

It's not like Mr. FBI Guy is going to knock on the door of a counterfeit
factory in China and say, "Can you pretty please stop making garbage that
looks like quality merchandise? KTHXBAI"

It's my understanding that stopping counterfeits are usually the province of
Customs. But that department is already overwhelmed by dealing with the
existing flow of counterfeit items and only stops a very small percent of them
getting into the country as it is.

This move by Amazon feels like a PR stunt, or offloading its responsibility to
its customers onto the government, and will not actually have a material
impact.

------
zitterbewegung
The cognitive load of trying to figure out which items are possibly
counterfeit is one of the reasons why I closed my Amazon Prime account.

~~~
bookofjoe
I shared your unhappiness re: not knowing if I was unwittingly buying a
counterfeit. However, rather than close my account, I do my research on Amazon
as far as I can take it, then go to the website of the manufacturer (Garmin,
Das Keyboard, Bluelounge, etc.) and buy direct from them. No counterfeits
EVER.

~~~
unlinked_dll
I do the opposite. Amazon browsing is next to impossible unless you already
know what you're looking for. For all the complaints about counterfeits I've
never once received one.

Even stuff I thought would definitely be fake (electrical components) was
legit.

------
mohsen1
I bought a cologne from Amazon that I felt is not genuine. I bought another
one from Amazon and bought the exact same thing from the company online store.
Surprised to see they were very different in packages and product shape. The
scent was different according to many blind tests I did myself and using my
friends help. I posted a review on the listing[1] pointing all of this out.
Called Amazon and they refunded my money immediately and asked me to discard
the product.

This product was SHIPED AND SOLD BY AMAZON.

It's not a 3rd party seller problem. Amazon might be using 3rd party suppliers
too.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-
reviews/R2AHKXNOEL585S/re...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-
reviews/R2AHKXNOEL585S/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl)

~~~
bduerst
I bought a counterfeit hummingbird feeder on Amazon, which leaked sugary water
everywhere.

I didn't even know it was counterfeit until I saw the identical one at Home
Depot. Surprised that HD would sell something so non-functional, I took it
apart and noticed it was assembled entirely differently - excluding the screw
on the bottom that caused the Amazon one to leak. Both were completely
identical on the outside.

Imagine what else we're buying if something as banal as a _hummingbird feeder_
is counterfeited and sold via Amazon.

~~~
randycupertino
Was it this one: [https://www.wpri.com/news/call-12-for-action/counterfeits-
on...](https://www.wpri.com/news/call-12-for-action/counterfeits-on-amazon-
cost-warren-bird-feeder-business-1-5m/)

~~~
bduerst
No, it was a cheap red plastic one, but that's kind of hilarious that there's
more than one counterfeit hummingbird feeder.

~~~
randycupertino
That is not even the only fake birdfeeder I've seen on Amazon! I'm in a couple
bird nerd fandom subreddits and people discuss counterfit birdfeeders and
anti-squirrel feeders on the subs weirdly frequently. Basically Chinese firms
reverse engineer the designs, swap out for bottom barrel components and profit
off the price arbitrage.

At least when you go to the faux-product markets in real life on the streets
of NYC and SF you know you're getting a "Kate Slade" bag not a Kate Spade bag
etc. But on Amazon you're just fish in the barrel and not even getting a good
deal for buying the sketchy or off-label item.

It's a bummer and I wish Amazon would deal with it.

------
throwaway_tech
Seems to be a lot of comments in here supporting Amazon (I never got any
counterfeits) and even victim blaming like you noted (if you got counterfeit,
you should have known; therefore, you wanted it).

Reminds me of the PR attack on lawyers and the plaintiff and the McDonald's
coffee. Sure its easy to spin a case that awarded millions for spilling hot
coffee and victim/lawyer blaming...then come to find out the McDonald's
systematically heated their coffee above safety and industry standards, had
already been warned, and lid was not fasten properly, and the woman had 3rd
degree burns through her jeans on her privates/thighs requiring skin grafts.
The "millions" was punitive for McDonald's willfully disregarding prior
warnings about their coffee and calculated as 1 day of coffee sales (seems
pretty reasonable).

I can't wait until someone sues Amazon and all the documents and
communications leak revealing what Amazon executives knew about the
counterfeits and how they willfully refused to make changes to curb
counterfeits, and rather took actions to facilitate and cover up the source of
counterfeits (co-mingling products).

~~~
janesvilleseo
Unfortunately it probably won’t happen until something happens to someone.

Remember Amazons response to the counterfeit eclipse sunglasses? They knew if
something serious happened then they would be up a creek on it.

But if someone buys a fake purse or SD card, how much damage is going to
happen.

There might be a class action with certain products and I could see damages
from SD cards that were defective.

------
netcan
Can someone explain why (legally) amazon is not itself, "the culprit?" What
are the obligations/liabilities of a retailer?

~~~
astura
They claim they are just a platform for their third party sellers so if a
third party seller send you a fake or dangerous product then they are "the
culprit," not Amazon, Amazon is just a middleman. Of course, most third party
sellers who send counterfeits are Chinese fly-by-night operations that can't
be located to sue when someone gets hurt.

~~~
nkrisc
I wonder how tested in the court is this theory? Is it established precedent?
Because as a consumer, I'm shopping on Amazon.com and I pay Amazon.com and I
receive goods from Amazon.com. Maybe they're legally sound, but it sure looks
like I'm transacting with Amazon.com and not some third-party seller most of
the time.

~~~
qtplatypus
Yes it has been tested in court and amazon has lost. In the case of Oberdorf
v. Amazon.com Inc a woman was able to sue Amazon. However this ruling depended
on the original seller not being available.

~~~
nkrisc
Nice, thanks for the reference case. I'll check it out.

------
LatteLazy
I don't know about other people but I've never had this issue and I use amazon
for everything I can...

~~~
justin66
> I've never had this issue

We're talking about counterfeits. You don't _believe_ you've ever had this
issue, but why would you be certain?

~~~
LatteLazy
At the risk of going all zen... If I receive a counterfeit good and it's so
good I don't notice, was it really counterfeit?

~~~
chrisseaton
I guess there's safety concerns from sub-standard components burning out, or
storage sizes being fraudulent and you only noticing when it's too late, or
good-old lead paint, or more issues.

But yeah, I have never even had a hint of any suspicion that anything I've
bought on Amazon was a fake.

~~~
LatteLazy
I read a really interesting article once about a 128MB sd card having its
firmware flashed so it claimed to be a 512MB. You saved files and when you got
to the "128th" MB it just started writing at the 0th sector again...

I thought that was a very clever fraud. Can't find the article now but I'll
check on desktop later and share if I can...

~~~
fenwick67
This is a very common problem. SD cards have microcontrollers running on-board
that the manufacturers can reprogram to report any size.

------
smugworth
The risk of counterfeits means I will rarely buy anything electronic from
Amazon.

On the other hand, take a category like pet toys. Cheap plastic things where
I'm not concerned with getting the genuine article, like a collapsible dog
bowl. There are dozens of identical "brands" with thrown-together phonetic
names for an entirely identical product with slight price differences. How do
I began to choose? And who's to say any of them are produced with safe
materials?

I'd really like to know how well Amazon's "put anything on the digital shelf"
strategy works over a curated product inventory. Exceedingly well, I suspect,
but it seems like the blowback over poor product will continue increasing.

~~~
citizenkeen
Pet toys and food were the first thing I stopped buying off of Amazon. I have
zero faith in the quality control of the product coming down - in the United
States, at least, pet food and pet toys are actually held to a decent
standard.

~~~
sct202
Even American pet food/treats is riddled with frauds or questionable
companies. There's a treat called No-Hide that people have sent in for DNA
testing and other testing that is suspiciously similar to rawhide despite
being claimed to be starch based The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
did an investigation and this person FOIA'd the documents and the testing
shows a lot of discrepancies even though the government cleared them of
misbranding. [https://truthaboutpetfood.com/is-it-no-hide-or-rawhide-
from-...](https://truthaboutpetfood.com/is-it-no-hide-or-rawhide-from-china/)

------
nacho2sweet
Law enforcement is going to love being inundated with tons of different
requests from Amazon constantly. Counterfeit goods is probably one of their
lowest policing priorities. This is just Amazon passing the buck so they can
point and say "we did something!".

------
QUFB
{Will, Does} Amazon report back to buyers that they've bought counterfeit
merchandise?

~~~
kerkeslager
Currently, no.

I bought a car part on Amazon that, when I opened it, was a chunk of blue clay
in a box that was poorly-printed to look like the box of the correct part. I
never bothered to return it because the cost of shipping and my time would
have been more than the cost of the part.

I'm sure this seller was eventually discovered to be selling obvious
fraudulent goods, but I never received any notification saying as much.

~~~
irrational
Cost of shipping? Time? Returning this kind of stuff is something Amazon if
very good at. It won't cost you anything and they have dozens of ways of
returning things (by mail, from a UPS store, from Kohls, they will come and
pick it up, etc.) Returns are easy and free.

~~~
kerkeslager
My hourly rate after tax is about $50, let's say $60 for easy math. That means
that returning a $7 item has to take less than 7 minutes to be worth it, less
if there's other costs besides time. I'll easily spend that much time in the
car.

In many (most?) cases time=money is a false equivalence because time spent
doing something isn't necessarily always time you would be spending working,
but the local postal services are only open during hours I would be working,
so it's not a false equivalence in my case.

Receiving the item you ordered and paid for is easy and free. Returns are not.

Why are we even having this conversation? They sent me a box of clay when I
ordered a car part. This isn't an ambiguous situation.

~~~
j8014
For the time you spent typing this comment you could have created a return and
had UPS come pick up your package or in my experience, Amazon wouldn't have
even required you to return the item and would have just sent you a
replacement.

Also, I see your rationale and think you are really missing the point. You may
have a small hourly rate of $60 and use that as justification but its complete
garbage. I do better than that and I work with guys who literally make 10's of
millions a year. Taking a preventable loss that only requires a phone call or
a chat is foolish, even if it is $7.00.

~~~
kerkeslager
If we're going to talk about missing the point: Which is the better way to
prevent the loss?

1\. Order item from Amazon, discover item is a block of clay, go through the
Amazon returns process, reorder item, which may be a block of clay again.

2\. Order item from a site that ships me the item I order instead of a block
of clay.

So again, why are we talking about this? We can argue as much as we want about
Amazon's return policies, but the return policy would be irrelevant if they
had sent me the item I ordered instead of a block of clay.

------
Rebelgecko
I've bugged Amazon about counterfeit dust masks (and complained about it on HN
too). Some masks claim to have valid NIOSH certification but don't, some
advertise themselves as NIOSH certified but use a certification number that
was revoked by the CDC 10 years ago, make claims about being N95 without
providing any lab references, etc. All of the listings I've complained about
are still up on Amazon.

~~~
munk-a
Have you tried contacting legitimate manufacturer's? The way America works
it's sort of incumbent on you, the consumer, to try suing Amazon on their
fraudulent listings, but that takes a lot of money - but I bet actual mask
manufacturers would be quite willing to defend their territory.

Especially with dust masks I feel like there might be departments in OSHA or
the FDA that would help out here, but I don't know what they are or if they've
been declawed.

------
macinjosh
I left a negative review on a 4GB USB thumb drive that was being sold as a 1TB
model by a seller on Amazon. The review was rejected by Amazon because my
claims didn't follow their guidelines (no specifics as to how so). Amazon is
___actively_ __engaged in false advertising, counterfeiting, and bait and
switch scams.

Where is the FTC? How is this not the most clear situation where government
action against a corporation (Amazon) is needed? I've been called a
libertarian and even I think this the kind of situation we need government
for.

~~~
AnssiH
> The review was rejected by Amazon because my claims didn't follow their
> guidelines (no specifics as to how so).

Reviews have to be about the product. Amazon likely interpreted your review as
"I received an incorrect product" which is a seller issue and has to be in
seller feedback, not product review (which are shared between multiple
sellers).

------
elldoubleyew
I've had a few instances where I have ordered a product that was listed as
"Ships and sold by Amazon.com" and still received a counterfeit product.

Only to go back to the reviews later and see the "Most Helpful" review reports
that their item was counterfeit as well.

Anyone care to elaborate how this is possible? Surely Amazon is not doing this
intentionally, are they just getting ripped off by their suppliers?

~~~
gruez
AFAIK it's because Amazon mixes their inventory with other fulfilled by amazon
vendors.

------
freepor
Amazon trying to outsource their product quality to the federal government
like they outsource food costs by having their employees on food stamps.

------
p1necone
Wasn't the main problem that Amazon comingles inventory, therefore making the
main way product quality would be signalled to buyers (reviews) useless?

------
pixelpoet
I wonder if this has anything to do with the fake 1TB USB drives John Carmack
bought and wrote about on Twitter.

Edit: well thanks for the downvotes... anyone want to me what I did wrong?

~~~
lorenzhs
If I had to guess, I'd say you're being downvoted because a tweet from John
Carmack is not influential enough (by several orders of magnitude) to cause
policy change at a company the size of Amazon.

~~~
pixelpoet
I figured he has plenty of followers to ignite some kind of larger discussion
about policy, just a few days after tweeting about it. I guess we don't reply
to disagree these days, just downvote.

Serves me right, I'll keep it to myself rather; might as well have made a
troll comment about Trump or something, didn't expect that at HN.

~~~
lorenzhs
It's a tweet with 139 retweets and 1400 likes. If you think that would
influence Amazon, I have a bridge to sell you. And it's not like this was a
previously unknown issue.

~~~
pixelpoet
> If you think that would influence Amazon, I have a bridge to sell you.

You know I didn't even presuppose it, I dared to wonder out loud if it might
be related since I'd seen an example of this Amazon counterfeiting just the
other day from a somewhat well-known guy called John Carmack. Maybe there
would have been some interesting discussion, I dunno; but it looks like no one
is selling any bridges, just downvoting questions.

You're probably right, and I never disagreed with you; thanks for the snark.

------
ykevinator
Is counterfeiting really bad?

~~~
dan-robertson
Is it bad when you carefully try to make sure you are ordering a good quality
product and instead get something shit quality? I think it’s wasteful and bad
for the environment. It’s also a waste of time spent trying to choose the
right thing and a waste of time and thought spent returning it (if one even
bothers).

It is also bad for the company whose product is being counterfeited because
their brand is associated with the poor quality knock off.

This is also the reason I hate print on demand and think the seller should
have to specify how a book was printed.

Maybe you think counterfeits are equal in quality to the genuine articles. In
that case I think the argument is different. But I don’t believe that is the
case.

~~~
jaclaz
The issue - as I see it - can be divided in two.

I mean, if you are really willing to buy an original product, a minimal check
can be the price asked for it.

Any good today is made of materials+manufacturing+marketing, it has some costs
and a corresponding selling price with a given markup.

Once said that a number of branded items can have a selling price that seem
completely disconnected from the relative costs, there are limits.

If you can find an item on the manufacturer site at US$ 100, do you really
believe that you can find the SAME item on Amazon for US$ 10?

If you find it at say US$ 80 or 75 or even US$ 50[1] and it comes out as being
counterfeited, you may have some valid expectations ruined by Amazon, but if
you ordered it for 19.95, free shipping, did you really believe it was
"original"?

[1] it is one of my per peeves, if you look at the price of many electronic
goods, let's say printers or TV on the official site of the manufacturer they
are often double their "street price", either online or at the nearest large
shop chain. I often wonder how many printers Brother (say) sells from their
site.

~~~
hermitdev
20 years ago, I was looking for a SCSI card, direct from the manufacturer and
knew it should be like $250-$300. However, no price was listed. I figured if I
added it to my cart and went to checkout, theyd have to tell the price. It
showed as $0. Proceeded to checkout, paid $7. Thought for sure theyd cancel
the order, but nope, it shipped and arrived in about a week. That card was
awesome.

~~~
jaclaz
I don't understand the relevance, you exploited a bug in the vendor's paying
or ordering/delivering system, what has this to do with counterfeiting?

------
donatj
The only occasions I’ve received counterfeit items the price had been
suspiciously low to the point that I had a pretty good idea what I was in for,
and was OK with potentially receiving knock-offs at a massively reduced price.

Is this not usually the case, are scammers out there charging full price?

For better or worse, I like having the _option_ , as long as I am getting a
discount and know what I am getting into.

~~~
cr0sh
> For better or worse, I like having the option, as long as I am getting a
> discount and know what I am getting into.

I kinda agree with you there - sometimes I want the cheapest thing possible,
and I know I may get junk, but it's my money to spend.

Recently on Ebay I purchased a welder. This welder was supposed to be a multi-
process switch-mode DC mig/tig wire feed welder, somewhat similar to the mid-
range models Harbor Freight sells.

Now - this is the thing - similar welders on Ebay were selling for around
$200.00. But I spotted one listing, that was being drop-shipped out of Hong
Kong, posted for "buy it now, free shipping" for $20.00!

I thought "well, I'm not going to pass this up - let's see what happens" and I
put an order in. I figure it's either going to be rejected by the seller (that
they would see they forgot to enter an extra zero), or it's going to take the
slow-boat well past the return period, and if I'm lucky I'll receive a "DIY"
put it together yourself box-o-junk.

Amazingly, it supposedly "shipped" \- now, I didn't even get a simple China
Post "tracking" number - but it said it cleared customs in Hong Kong and was
on its way. I guess I'll see if and when it gets here.

I'll be shocked, though, if it's a full and working welder. If it looks
anything like an actual welder, I'll probably take it over to my friend's
house (he has a full metal working shop) to try it out and see if it catches
on fire or something.

That's the kind of thing I like to see - sometimes, I get surprised by
sellers; maybe it was counterfeit, or maybe they made a mistake, but they
still honor it. Heck, I've had sellers in the past send me the wrong item,
tell me to keep it, and then send me two of the right item for free. Yeah -
they get a good review for that kind of service.

~~~
tartoran
You can pay with your life or your health if you're willing to take such
gambles. But, yes, i agree that you should be able to risk. However, I think
this should have some sort of flag for whoever isn't aware that they're taking
a risk.

