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Amazon Warns Customers: Those Supplements Might Be Fake

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Re: Amazon Warns Customers: Those Supplements Might Be Fake

#111

Post by garmingps »

earthshot wrote: post #92
ck2 wrote: post #81

there's a new trick/scam on amazon I am not sure if anyone else has noticed yet seems designed to trick not only buyers but also sites like fakespot a vendor lists an item for awhile, something cheap and reliable enough to gather plenty of legit 5-star reviews then they leave the listing and ASIN but delete and change out the photos and the title/text with another item, not even similar item in some cases so the rati…

There's an e-mail thread going around Amazon about this, internally. The scam is that the fraudulent seller finds an item that is real but out of stock from all sellers. The seller than sends in their inventory, and updates the listing because they are now the only seller of that item. It really sucks, and I hope we find a way to solve this, soon. It's a terrible customer experience.

Wouldn't one easy way to solve be that a human has to approve all changes to the name of an item? Or that name changes that change more than x% of the title have to be approved by a human? Or that all changes only happen after some waiting period? I would think anything that slows this down/makes it even a little harder will have big knock-on effects.

Re: Amazon Warns Customers: Those Supplements Might Be Fake

#112

Post by nkrisc »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #54
throw20102010 wrote: post #10

Amazon needs to stop with inventory comingling. They know it and refuse to stop, so they are culpable. I'm sure it would hurt their logistics to stop, but it also hurts cigarette companies to not advertise to children and we made that a law. It is ridiculous that you can order a supplement where it says "sold by Proctor and Gamble, fulfilled by Amazon" on the product listing, and then receive a counterfeit product th…

I slightly disagree. The item was sold by Proctor and Gamble. They got the money I paid, and I got a product back. Proctor and Gamble happened to use a third party for fulfillment and as a marketplace for handling the sale, and they are to blame for choosing a fulfillment company which may occasionally send me fake products that Proctor and Gamble didn't make. We should fault the sellers for using Amazon in the first…

If Amazon instead sends a counterfeit product from someone other than P&G when I buy a product that is advertised as sold by P&G, the should be fraud, if it isn't already.

They need to show you who you're buying from if they aren't going to accept liability for selling it.

Re: Amazon Warns Customers: Those Supplements Might Be Fake

#113

Post by asdff »

amluto wrote: post #59
cgriswald wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is busy shooting itself in the foot. The problem is, the gun is small and the foot is huge, so they probably don't feel it right now. Supplements (or really anything I put in my mouth) is one of a growing set of classes of items I won't buy on Amazon anymore. That probably doesn't result in much loss for Amazon right now, but what it does do is: 1. Makes me trust Amazon MUCH less, which means I'm much more lik…

Amazon Logistics is... special. I regularly have packages “delivered”, but they mysteriously show up a day or two after the claimed delivery. I assume this is the logistics “contractors” missing their quota and making up for it later.

The contractors are out of their mind around me trying to hit quota. Last week an amazon van barreled in from the opposite lane, cut off traffic, and parked at a 45* angle facing traffic halfway into a street parking spot. The whole lane was blocked while they struggled to find their apartment on foot.

Re: Amazon Warns Customers: Those Supplements Might Be Fake

#114

Post by nkrisc »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #74
c3534l wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be UPS doing that, not Amazon.

No, there are defiantly people delivering stuff our of cars and cargo vans. I haven't had an amazon order come via UPS or FedEx in a while.

In Chicago they always droce around in rented vans from Enterprise. I wonder if they had some sort of deal to hook up their "contractors" with vehicles.

Re: Amazon Warns Customers: Those Supplements Might Be Fake

#115

Post by deogeo »

IanCal wrote: post #30
throw20102010 wrote: post #10

Amazon needs to stop with inventory comingling. They know it and refuse to stop, so they are culpable. I'm sure it would hurt their logistics to stop, but it also hurts cigarette companies to not advertise to children and we made that a law. It is ridiculous that you can order a supplement where it says "sold by Proctor and Gamble, fulfilled by Amazon" on the product listing, and then receive a counterfeit product th…

> At the very least they need to give brand owners the tools to protect their brands- an option to put non-authorized resellers' shipments into a separate comingled bin, and have all the authorized resellers in another. As a brand I think you can stop others listing your products. I tried to sell something a while back and was refused because I was a third party seller.

I should have known this would be used as an excuse to even further expand corporate control at the expense of individuals. Now they're trying to use it to restrict the second-hand market.

Instead of making it clear you're buying second-hand goods, or from a non-authorized seller, they are deliberately conflating what you're buying, with who you're buying it from. This way their anti-counterfeit efforts will conveniently squash the second-hand market.

Re: Amazon Warns Customers: Those Supplements Might Be Fake

#116

Post by chrsstrm »

throw20102010 wrote: post #10

Amazon needs to stop with inventory comingling. They know it and refuse to stop, so they are culpable. I'm sure it would hurt their logistics to stop, but it also hurts cigarette companies to not advertise to children and we made that a law. It is ridiculous that you can order a supplement where it says "sold by Proctor and Gamble, fulfilled by Amazon" on the product listing, and then receive a counterfeit product th…

They could require all suppliers to put up a surety bond. Make the amount high enough to filter out suppliers unwilling to sell long-term and also attempt to filter out anyone intending to sell counterfeit goods. Any suppliers who hit a certain threshold of failing to meet Amazon's standards of product authenticity would forfeit their bond. This isn't a new idea, it works well in other industries.

Re: Amazon Warns Customers: Those Supplements Might Be Fake

#117

Post by empath75 »

vernie wrote: post #79
empath75 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah my wife bought ‘tylenol’ that was a bunch of individually wrapped packs of two marked ‘not for resale’. I made her throw them out.

Why?

Because who knows where they came from or what it was.

Re: Amazon Warns Customers: Those Supplements Might Be Fake

#118

Post by jrockway »

gnicholas wrote: post #110
jrockway wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. In fact, I basically only use Amazon as an AliExpress with free 2 day shipping. For anything that could be counterfeited (which is really anything these days!), I won't touch them anymore. B&H is the same price and I can always show up at their store and be annoying until they fix my problem.

“Free 2 day shipping” = prepaid unlimited 2 day shipping that costs $120, and is bundled with some streaming content.

If AliExpress wants to cap my yearly 2 day shipping fees to $120/yr, I'd take that deal.

Re: Amazon Warns Customers: Those Supplements Might Be Fake

#119

Post by rossjudson »

AnssiH wrote: post #72
gamblor956 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue isn't reselling branded products. The issue is selling fake products as a branded products. Amazon makes this easy to do by commingling inventory and not matching/tracking sellers to inventory items. This fact by itself would probably make Amazon liable for product liability claims in any court in the US, it's traditional CDA liability sheild notwithstanding. EDIT: Products liability law is complicated, but…

> Amazon makes this easy to do by commingling inventory and not matching/tracking sellers to inventory items. That is not correct. Amazon's seller help pages and Amazon spokesperson comment on e.g. this FT Alphaville article https://outline.com/4R7fp6 say that Amazon tracks the original supplier: > The system is purposefully designed so that similar products are not placed next to or near each other, and Amazon can a…

If this physical separation exists, it is useful only to Amazon if buyers can still be fulfilled by any of the sellers.

When evidence builds for fake product, Amazon can halt use of a particular seller's inventory...but prior to that you might get a fake, regardless of the seller's reputation.

Re: Amazon Warns Customers: Those Supplements Might Be Fake

#120

Post by viburnum »

vernie wrote: post #87

And if you return too much stuff they'll ban your account; very cool.

I stopped buying a lot of stuff from amazon because I don't want to get banned. They just put books loose in boxes now. If I'm buying an $80 art book I want it delivered in mint condition. It might take amazon three tries to do that now.
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