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Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

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Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#331

Post by nommm-nommm »

rsync wrote: post #310

As you can imagine, we (rsync.net) buy a lot of hard drives. We use SAS drives so, unfortunately, we can't do the "buy the cheapest external USB drives from Frys and strip them" trick. However, it is very, very hard to buy a new hard drive on Amazon if it is more than a year out of introduction. After a year or so, all of the "new" drives on Amazon have widely varying SMART statistics and lifetime gauges. We very, ve…

This may be a really ignorant question but can I ask why you continue to use Amazon to source hard drives then? Is there really no other place to buy hard drives? If you are a bulk buyer I would think you'd be able to buy directly from the manufacturer or something.

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#332

Post by nommm-nommm »

no_wizard wrote: post #302
new299 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubiuiti products seem really nice. However I've heard many bad things about their management culture. I really don't get how you can get fake product into you own fulfillment chain. But I guess if you sign off on fake invoices that could happen. :)

> Ubiuiti products seem really nice. However I've heard many bad things about their management culture I want to know more about this. I'm not interested in buying from companies that have a tradition of having abusive or exploitative relationship with their employees, whenever it is possible to do so (I rightly acknowledge that its pretty hard to do. Almost every large company has been sued or been reported to have…

It's well known companies have shill Glassdoor ratings.

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#333

Post by nommm-nommm »

cgriswald wrote: post #63
JohnTHaller wrote: post #28

I was looking at a Dohm sound generator on Amazon and most of the top reviews are 1 star reviews stating that the item shipped and sold by Amazon (not fulfilled by, sold by) was showing up as a cheap counterfeit. Made in China (instead of the US), fan rattling within a few days, fake UL approved sticker, etc. Amazon refunded their money but didn't appear to care about the issue, likely due to the inventory mixing bet…

It's not just fakes. I bought a new, high-end, fulfilled-by-amazon kitchen aid mixer for my ex-girlfriend. It looked legitimate, but it had clearly been re-boxed at some point, was missing parts, and had grease all over it. IIRC, it wasn't sealed in a normal way either. Amazon accepted our return, and like you I just went straight to the manufacturer to make the purchase again.

This happens sometimes because of Amazon's stupid practice of vetting returns by random wearhouse staff. Basically a legitimate seller would have a return. It's returned by the customer back to the wearhouse open and used. Some employee says "looks good" and puts it back in the seller's inventory. Next person buys it, sees its used, and complains and returns it again. Seller gets docked with two returns (Amazon charges sellers when their product is returned) and then they get docked a second time for "selling used product as new." Yet they are totally innocent.

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#334

Post by rsync »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #331
rsync wrote: post #310

As you can imagine, we (rsync.net) buy a lot of hard drives. We use SAS drives so, unfortunately, we can't do the "buy the cheapest external USB drives from Frys and strip them" trick. However, it is very, very hard to buy a new hard drive on Amazon if it is more than a year out of introduction. After a year or so, all of the "new" drives on Amazon have widely varying SMART statistics and lifetime gauges. We very, ve…

This may be a really ignorant question but can I ask why you continue to use Amazon to source hard drives then? Is there really no other place to buy hard drives? If you are a bulk buyer I would think you'd be able to buy directly from the manufacturer or something.

We continue to buy drives on amazon because of extremely fast and easy sourcing, checkout, and return policy.

Basically the same reason everyone uses amazon, for everything.

If we get a really wacko batch, the return is very, very simple.

The practice of selling "new pulls" (supposedly new drives that are removed from new servers by end users that wanted different drives installed all along) is rampant everywhere - not just at Amazon. The problem is that a lot of "pulls that are not new at all and are actually just used drives" drift into that channel. And, of course, all of them are sold as "brand new".

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#335

Post by jmcdiesel »

jessriedel wrote: post #212
jmcdiesel wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its one think to differentiate between $40 and $300, of course. Its another to list actual prices of various products side by side in a comparison chart, that data becomes stale real fast and is factually inaccurate at that point. There is a vast difference in saying "For $500 I expected more" and saying "Product a works out to $4 per plumbus and product b works out to $3.50 per plumbus and product c works out to 3.7…

I'd rather have that data than not have it. But of course, it's Amazon's platform.

You would prefer inaccurate information to no information?

Please dont take this as an insult, but you are saying you'd rather be stupid than ignorant...

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#336

Post by Zigurd »

mikeash wrote: post #184
Zigurd wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1,000 full time employees is pretty big these days. The highly touted Carrier deal amounted to maybe 700 jobs. Elizabeth Warren made an announcement about the big new Amazon distribution center in Fall River. It's supposedly Amazon's biggest, and I recall it was about 1,000 jobs. So they are doing more with the same headcount.

1,000 jobs is about what the American economy creates every two hours. Politicians tout these deals because they know that most voters are clueless about the magnitudes involved.

That's true but my point was that jobs are no longer created in fleets of tens of thousands at one throw. Even the largest distribution facility of the world's eighth largest retailer has 1,000 jobs in a facility that probably operates two or three shifts weekdays and weekends. That's a very lean crew on each shift.

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#337

Post by Zigurd »

emodendroket wrote: post #173
Zigurd wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Massachusetts isn't as big a boomtown as some areas, but population grew about 4% in a region better known for losing population. Fall River isn't as much a backwater as it used to be.

Do you mean Fall River? I'm certainly not arguing that Massachusetts, as a whole, is economically depressed.

Fall River may get commuter rail. Then cheap rents will be over there and in New Bedford, which are both on the ocean. To get really economically depressed areas, you have to go to Springfield, which is still our meth lab capital.

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#338

Post by joniT »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #72
Lasher wrote: post #4

I purchased Quickbooks Pro 2017 (PC) on Amazon last week, said it was "sold by Intuit" so wasn't even supposed to be an FBA (fulfilled by Amazon). Figured if it costs no more I might as well get the physical disk. What showed up was a DVD case with a very clearly photocopied cover for a Mac version with a Verbatim CDR inside and a hacked version of the software. Amazon processed the refund just fine but didn't seem p…

Amazon isn't going to take this seriously until a major company gets burned and the FBI gets involved. Then Amazon will experience what every other company does that gets burned for selling counterfeit goods... the FBI will raid their warehouse and hold all the inventory as evidence until they complete their investigation. Like you said, Amazon doesn't seem concerned that they're selling counterfeit goods -- probably…

From my experience working at Amazon, they do take it very seriously. They've got multiple teams working on automated detection of counterfeit using rules, machine learning, etc., and hundreds of investigators looking into cases.

They allow return of counterfeit and will reimburse you fully, and they'll have the item return to them for inspection.

If they know you've frauded before, they try and block you from the platform by fingerprinting you and your accounts.

The issue is that there's too many sellers and too many product, it's a really hard problem to solve. Counterfeit has improved considerably too, sometimes it even comes from the same factory, they call it the "night shift".

And while we try to prevent it, we also have to balance out false positive rates, not to hurt the seller's buisness without real cause.

I'm afraid most websites will suffer from this, if you want to be sure, try to buy straight from the manufacturer, but even then, make sure you double check the website, not all manufacturers sell directly and online, so that could also be fraud.

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#339

Post by danjayh »

jmcdiesel wrote: post #126
jessriedel wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reviews clearly have to take the price into account. You expect different thing from a $40 grill and a $300 one. If Amazon doesn't want explicit price info displayed and they make that clear, fine, but a review can't be accurate under arbitrary price movements.

Its one think to differentiate between $40 and $300, of course. Its another to list actual prices of various products side by side in a comparison chart, that data becomes stale real fast and is factually inaccurate at that point. There is a vast difference in saying "For $500 I expected more" and saying "Product a works out to $4 per plumbus and product b works out to $3.50 per plumbus and product c works out to 3.7…

The actual plubusses were batteries, and the actual data was mAh/$. I have found that the relative mAh/$ for various brands stays fairly stable over time even as the price changes, so the data is valid. I've a plumbus change positions relative to another once over two years since I wrote most of my battery reviews.

Re: Amazon's Tepid Response to Counterfeiters Frustrates Sellers

#340

Post by erichurkman »

bambax wrote: post #267
JangoSteve wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't even buy from any third party sellers, including fulfilled by Amazon, for this reason. Except, according from the information in the article, this doesn't matter: > Shipped and sold by Amazon.com means that the product is shipped and sold by Amazon Retail (via Vendor Central or Vendor Express) directly. Basically, the manufacturer sends product to Amazon.com at a set price through a traditional PO process.…

You're right, but that would be easy to fix for Amazon: don't let new vendors commingle. New vendors should have a probation period of, say, a year, where they can only sell their own inventory (through FBA if they so choose, of course); then the reviews would reflect their real quality. Amazon is extremely strict on vendor identity: you can't have multiple accounts tied to the same business or bank account or credit…

You still run into vendors selling a legit product (or high quality product) during the initial period, only to drop to crap quality after they've gotten plenty of reviews.

I bought a set of wire cooking racks that were highly rated, and the product used by America's Test Kitchen (highly rated there, too). I should have sorted reviews by 'recent', as every recent review was 1 star. The racks completely rusted over after a single use. The manufacturer had changed the metal or stopped coating the racks, presumably to make a cheaper product, and coast by on a 4+ star review from the 100s of prior, but old, ratings.

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