How Amazon counterfeits put this man's business on brink of collapse

[Fanatical Meat]

^^in regards to batteries, phone batteries are rarely packaged because consumers rarely purchase them. Almost all batteries go the the carriers for warrantee purposes. Also when buying a battery for an old device you are likely getting an old battery since they stop making them when the phone is discontinued. They will take longer to charge at first and the won't likely last as long as the original.

Just a PSA

 

[Imp]

^"Lithium primaries," not lithium-ions. Like CR2 and CR123 that come from Duracell/Energizer.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

^"Lithium primaries," not lithium-ions. Like CR2 and CR123 that come from Duracell/Energizer.

Oops apologies

 

[Newbian]

Where was that thread about buying counterfeit items from amazon and reporting them to get a refund but getting to keep it because they are fake?

Sounds to me like this is something to abuse if amazon doesn't care.

 

[rh71]

All of your solutions could be abused the other way as well..big producers forcing out small competing items of the same thing. Fact is Amazon isn't a fricking yard sale. They should have reputable sellers only. Not every 3rd party they can get their hands on. They are NOT ebay.

Sadly they are more and more like Ebay. Coincidentally I bought a Roomba from ebay today because they were overall cheaper. Compared to this mess that's not unlike ebay: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00PE0Z43O

And I like Amazon in general too. I was going to buy from Amazon because they supposedly have better buyer protection (with returns), but apparently you guys think they only care about sellers... not sure why that is - personal experience?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

but apparently you guys think they only care about sellers... not sure why that is - personal experience?

No, not entirely. I think Amazon cares about commissions. They want the marketplace to keep pumping out money for them and they want to paint a nice rosy picture of things so that it looks safe and legit. To that end, they don't give a shit what their vendors do as long as it makes them money. If you get screwed you'll get taken care of, they still take care of customers. But they take care of customers on the squeaky wheel principle. Have a problem, buy a counterfeit item, notice, complain, get it fixed. But nothing more than that. Amazon won't do anything proactively to protect other customers. The company that tried to rip you off you can go on selling counterfeit items to other customers and generating fees for Amazon. The ones who notice get a refund, the ones who don't get screwed. And with most counterfeit items, most people don't notice. So like 5-10% notice, file a complaint, get a refund. 90-95% keep the counterfeit item without noticing, Amazon keeps the commission and they're happy. They know that the company is selling bogus merchandise, but their intervention only extends to refunds, not to getting rid of the bad vendors.

And yes, personal experience. Amazon goes to great lengths to sweep problems under the rug and to allow shady 3rd party sellers to continue to run scams. They fix the individual complaints only and don't do jack about the source of the complaints.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

This is the reason why if I want a cheap chintzy part for a project, I go to eBay. But if I'm *truly* buying something, I go to the company's website and buy only from the official distributors of the product. If it's on Amazon, I make sure I'm buying the product only from that company's store.

As always, you get what you pay for.

 

[Svnla]

So question for the Amazon experts/heavy buyers. What do you have to do to be sure that you don't buy fake products? I try to get items for sell by Amazon LLC but not sure if other vendors (when Amazon as seller is not available) are legit or not.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Sadly they are more and more like Ebay. Coincidentally I bought a Roomba from ebay today because they were overall cheaper. Compared to this mess that's not unlike ebay: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00PE0Z43O

And I like Amazon in general too. I was going to buy from Amazon because they supposedly have better buyer protection (with returns), but apparently you guys think they only care about sellers... not sure why that is - personal experience?

I tend to buy from everyone else before Amazon just based on price. And now with it taking 1-2 weeks get somethign shipped since they are pushing Prime so much, I don't even bother to look there unless I can't find it anywhere else.

 

[13Gigatons]

I started emailing product makers and asking if the product sold on Amazon was actually theirs, I've gotten more "We don't sell on Amazon" replies recently and some makers are opening their own online stores.

I don't buy very much from Amazon anymore.

 

[Imp]

Of all things, the one that bugged me the most recently was a Shure SM58 mic. And because it has been around for so long, the interwebs said it was a well counterfeited product. Bought one sold by Amazon and that still worried me because there were reviews about people receiving counterfeits -- I was hoping they got theirs from third-party sellers.

 

[VirtualLarry]

But neither problem is "Amazon's fault" as far as I can see, unless Amazon itself "as seller" is selling counterfeit versions of the products.

What about the issue of commingled inventory, of those vendors 'fulfilled by Amazon'??

 

[Newbian]

I started emailing product makers and asking if the product sold on Amazon was actually theirs, I've gotten more "We don't sell on Amazon" replies recently and some makers are opening their own online stores.

I don't buy very much from Amazon anymore.

It's probably their item being resold by others.

 

[Mai72]

I've met a few people when I was in Thailand who sell on Amazon. They all did quite well.

What they do is they'll look on Amazon for the items that are selling. They will then modify that item, contact their supplier from Alibaba, send it to Amazon so they can sell it. So, basically it's the same item that's been modified a little bit so they can sell it on Amazon.

How does a legitimate seller deal with that? Or, what about these people who buy everything in Target/Walmart and resell it back on Amazon for a profit?

Go search YouTube. There are many videos on how people sell $10k a month in merchandise on Amazon. Or, how they make millions selling on Amazon. We now have a glut of people selling crap there. It has gotten ridiculous.

As long as Amazon continues to do business this way and show gains, not much is going to change. People are addicted to cheap.

 

[destrekor]

Also Amazon really needs to tag each review with the seller's name. Time after time reviewers complain and fail to name the seller.

Yes, this! But this may be purposefully not implemented for shady reasons. If not, I really hope they consider adding that in the near future, because it would help so much.

When I see mixed reviews like that, I try to really search through the reviews carefully to try and get a consensus, and then carefully pick a seller. I rarely buy anything that's not sold direct by Amazon, and if I do, I usually stick to the brand holder (usually fulfilled by Amazon). It's very very rare that I buy from a random third party, even more so if it's not fulfilled by Amazon. I can't recall the last time I bought something from a third party that shipped directly and not through Amazon.

 

[edro]

It's a big issue and Amazon needs to fix it.
I am very hesitant to buy important items from Amazon now.
Something like Nike shoes, that can come from 30 different resellers.
I'd rather go to a well known store front (web or local) where I know they are real.

I try to buy only from Amazon LLC, but I'm still not clear on whether that is any more safe than Fulfilled by Amazon.
I assume items are all mixed together at the warehouse.

 

[Elganja]

i only buy from amazon llc, i never roll the dice with 3rd party

when buying from amazon proper, their customer service IMHO, is buyer-centric (with returns, exchanges, questions, etc...)

 

[momeNt]

So the article is about a guy who is upset because he took the Shoulder Dolly system, moved it to a weaker part of your body, which also allows it to basically be made out of a loop sewn into seat belt material, and now HE'S the one whose pissed off because HE'S getting ripped off?

Cry me a river buddy.

 

[Zee]

amazon is almost the opposite of ebay. ebay is pro-buyer. amazon is pro-seller, with good customer service

you can argue, which one is more pro consumer.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Since about 2010 I've been thinking internet vendors get a free pass too often. This article proves it.
Amazon is not the same as buying something at a flea market or from a private seller (individual). Amazon has the assets to prevent this stuff, they have the staff to verify if products are legitimate. They should be accountable.

I may be in the minority, but i strongly feel that amazon should stop the 3rd parties even selling on their site. Every time i have had an issue with something purchased at amazon it was from a third party. I try to make sure that I dont buy from the third parties but sometimes it slips my mind to check. The third parties have partly soured my impression of amazon, if i wanted to buy from the other guy i would have gone to them, but i go to amazon so i want them to be the seller.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

No, not entirely. I think Amazon cares about commissions. They want the marketplace to keep pumping out money for them and they want to paint a nice rosy picture of things so that it looks safe and legit. To that end, they don't give a shit what their vendors do as long as it makes them money. If you get screwed you'll get taken care of, they still take care of customers. But they take care of customers on the squeaky wheel principle. Have a problem, buy a counterfeit item, notice, complain, get it fixed. But nothing more than that. Amazon won't do anything proactively to protect other customers. The company that tried to rip you off you can go on selling counterfeit items to other customers and generating fees for Amazon. The ones who notice get a refund, the ones who don't get screwed. And with most counterfeit items, most people don't notice. So like 5-10% notice, file a complaint, get a refund. 90-95% keep the counterfeit item without noticing, Amazon keeps the commission and they're happy. They know that the company is selling bogus merchandise, but their intervention only extends to refunds, not to getting rid of the bad vendors.

And yes, personal experience. Amazon goes to great lengths to sweep problems under the rug and to allow shady 3rd party sellers to continue to run scams. They fix the individual complaints only and don't do jack about the source of the complaints.

Its not just the fakes that they go to great lengths to protect, sometimes its a legit product that just so happened to get a negative review.

I bought a bunch of cooler master fans, sickle flow and they started failing left and right so i wrote a professional review stating the poor reliability and coolermasters poor customer service under both mine and my wifes account since we both bought them from amazon. They flagged my account and banned me from posting reviews about the product because it was against TOS, I asked them what TOS I broke and they wouldnt say other than some of our information on our accounts were the same, yeah no shit we live in the same house and both bought the danged things from your site and BOTH had poor experiences.

I pretty much got an email when i contested it saying tough shit, case closed. Now I see why these things have decent reviews, they just pull the negative ones...

 

[clamum]

He's doing a good job. I didn't find a counterfeit claiming to be his product until Page3 of the search results.

Same here. The first two pages are full of official "Forearm Forklift" products and there's only a few other others, which weren't even attempting to impersonate FF products that I could see. Maybe it's just the result of FF's hard work, but reading the article I expected to search "forearm forklift" on Amazon and have to wade through counterfeit products.

After searching for "lifting moving straps" you'll see more competing products, but there was only one on the first page that looked like it might be ripping off FF (the pictures they used looked like the ones I saw on FF product pages but I'm not 100% sure): BlayaAdd straps.

Anyway, I totally agree there's a problem with counterfeit stuff. I want to order some CR123 batteries and will probably order name-brand expensive ones so I don't get ripped off.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Now I see why these things have decent reviews, they just pull the negative ones...

Same for companies. Leave a bad review for a 3rd party seller and the seller is allowed to take it down. That's what pissed me off. I bought a counterfeit item, noticed, got a refund and left a review about the seller that they were shipping counterfeit memory cards. Dozens of other people complained and the company was allowed to nuke all those warnings and were allowed to keep doing business with a 100% positive feedback rating. It's a complete scam from top to bottom, the product reviews are faked and the vendor reviews are faked. Amazon just wants the marketplace to look legit so people keep using it and they won't allow anyone to tell the truth about it.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

There is a lot of douchebaggery in Jeff Bezos and the Amazon brand, no doubt about it. Just take a look at how little regard they have for the people working in their warehouses, and one isn't surprised they don't give a sh!t about their sellers. They've basically become Walmart on steroids...a business that's easy to hate, but still shop at because of their prices.

(btw iirc, this article either a rehash, or yet another example.)

Free will. You talk about employee abuse but it was their decision to take the job and their decision to keep the job. No one is putting a gun to the heads of employees, kidnapping them., Get over yourself.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Free will. You talk about employee abuse but it was their decision to take the job and their decision to keep the job. No one is putting a gun to the heads of employees, kidnapping them., Get over yourself.

they do take it a step further like MS used to do where basically the bottom 20% are put on some kind of improvement plan regardless of overall performance. Kind of sucks working at a place like that when revenues are exceeded but 20% could still lose their jobs.
Very similar to how a long time ago some College Professors would set goals for the class, like 10% get a 4.0 and the bottom 10% fail.