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Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

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Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#171

Post by CriticalCathed »

nextos wrote: post #36
mariomariomario wrote: post #24

This happens because Amazon allows inventory commingling. For example Amazon has their own, legitimate inventory in a West Coast warehouse, and a third party seller has the same inventory with the original UPC manufacturer bar code on it, sitting in an East Coast warehouse. Amazon considers this 1:1 inventory. Amazon will debit their inventory on the West Coast, and credit the inventory that belongs to the third part…

This is sadly so true. I have stopped using Amazon after 15 years due to the unacceptably high rate of counterfeit, grey market or used items I got on a daily basis. It's totally insane. I have even emailed Jeff Bezos and got into the trouble of talking to all middle managers. They don't care.

It must be becoming more and more common. I ordered some bluetooth headphones a few weeks ago and received a counterfeit product. I was able to return the item, but by the time I had the product page no longer existed and the seller had vanished. It was a "fulfilled by amazon" situation including Prime shipping.

Months back I ordered some Miele vacuum bags and they too were counterfeit.

I had never experienced this until 2019.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#172

Post by rebuilder »

msbarnett wrote: post #65
ikeboy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't help significantly. People would still get counterfeits when buying from bad sellers.

What? That would help enormously . If they stopped commingling it would be easy to quickly identify and eliminate bad sellers. Consumers would also have the option of sticking to a known-good seller like Amazon and be able to trust that they weren’t going to get some comingled bullshit copy. That’s a pretty damn far cry from the current situation.

It's easy to identify the bad seller right now. It's Amazon.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#173

Post by Rapzid »

buckminster wrote: post #39
kadoban wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add most electronics, IMO, especially things like memory cards and hard drives.

I bought a hard drive from Amazon about four years ago. It came in a large cardboard box half full of packing paper. The unprotected drive was rattling round in the empty half of the box. Never again. That's the last thing I bought there.

I just bought a 1TB nvme driver and they sent me a 500GB drive the first go. In isolation that's barely an anecdote you'd mention to people over drinks but this stuff happens ALL. THE. TIME. to me with Amazon.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#174

Post by Rapzid »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #20
danso wrote: post #3

I just ordered a carbon monoxide detector from Amazon, supposedly shipped from the manufacturer. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t immediately think of Amazon’s many counterfeit scandals before ultimately ordering it as I do most things, out of habit. Still, this is a thing for which silent failure is catastrophic, so maybe I’ll send it back tomorrow.

I was recently looking for some dusk masks to have handy due to fires in my area. It's such a clusterfuck when you look on Amazon. They have special labels like "Amazon's choice" or "Editor Recommended" which have nothing to do with the efficacy of the mask. A lot of masks make claims about being NIOSH approved and N95 certified, but they don't provide the approval numbers and NIOSH has no records of the manufacturer…

"Amazon's Choice" seems almost entirely algorithmic; base d on purchasing and review patterns. Easy to see how something like that could get gamed and become self-sustaining.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#175

Post by ikeboy »

astura wrote: post #160
ikeboy wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I link to it every single thread like this, but here goes: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/200141480?... "For inventory tracked with the manufacturer barcode, each seller’s sourced inventory of the same ASIN is stored separately in our fulfillment centers. We can also track the original seller of each unit." Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20549623 , https://news.ycombinat…

It's not a misconception - they claim to track inventory source, but I don't believe it for a second. There are warnings all over seller blogs and forums not to commingle inventory because you'll be held responsible if Amazon sends another seller's counterfeit product to a buyer on your behalf. People have experienced this en mass - including myself, I was dinged for selling a "generic" item instead of the name brand…

There's lots of warnings about that, and virtually no one actually experiencing it.

Generic complaints typically come from customer complaints. Customers complain even when the product is authentic. There's nothing in your story to suggest commingling is the issue.

Phantom inventory is an issue, usually arising when someone else's units were checked into your inventory. There's always a record of that, and you should report the discrepancy to Amazon.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#176

Post by ikeboy »

MertsA wrote: post #159
shawnz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But when you return the defective product, Amazon can see what seller it came from.

Are you sure about that? I thought part of the whole incentive for commingled inventory was that Amazon no longer kept track of it separately per vendor and just lumped it all into the same bin without a unique serial number.

Am sure and posted the link elsewhere on this thread

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#178

Post by _coveredInBees »

ohgreatwtf wrote: post #94

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B452QQS/ Check this product out. It's made in a chinese guy's garage in northern california using equipment he imported in 2014. It doesn't have legitimate GMP or FDA licensing. This is the kind of problem we are talking about. And the issue is worse than it appears, just as toast0 mentioned, because the same exact product with same product page and AMAZON barcode, NO UPC, is also…

I'm curious, how do you know details about the operations of the seller for the listing? I couldn't find anything with a cursory Google search.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#179

Post by billpollock »

dbcurtis wrote: post #157
ikeboy wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that's a problem with or without commingling. My point was that commingling doesn't contribute significantly to the counterfeit problem. Regarding your points: 1. Amazon takes action when a brand complains, even with only a single complaint. Sellers have to prove the complaint is wrong to be allowed to continue to sell the product, or in some cases to be reinstated. Usually this is done by providing an invoi…

>1. Amazon takes action when a brand complains, even with only a single complaint. The owner of No Starch Press shows up at a lot of CS shows and other shows. Next time you are at one, seek him out for a chat. Tell him Anazon takes action after a single complaint. Be prepared for him to disabuse you of your misconceptions. Source: I heard his story first-hand at PyCon.

It it has taken us months to get Amazon to respond to a counterfeit claim. I hope that they will respond quickly to this one.

Re: Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

#180

Post by billpollock »

ikeboy wrote: post #164
dbcurtis wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>1. Amazon takes action when a brand complains, even with only a single complaint. The owner of No Starch Press shows up at a lot of CS shows and other shows. Next time you are at one, seek him out for a chat. Tell him Anazon takes action after a single complaint. Be prepared for him to disabuse you of your misconceptions. Source: I heard his story first-hand at PyCon.

I'd be fascinated to know why he didn't sue Amazon, if they're refusing to process DMCA takedowns. My experience is that if anything, it's too easy to file a case and brands abuse this to get rid of grey market sellers that are selling authentic products.

No one wants to sue their major unless they're pushed to the wall.
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