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Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

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

#211

Post by Silhouette »

nextos wrote: post #101
paulcole wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you identify a grey market item? And what/how much were you ordering that this was a daily issue?

At some point I was using Amazon for almost all shopping. Obviously daily is an oxymoron, but it'd happen several times a month. I can identify grey market items easily. Buy an item in Amazon UK of product X and get version packed to be sold in Italy (with all labels in Italian) or Russian (with all labels in Russian), instead of the UK version. This is because some smart supplier is doing arbitrage.

I've noticed that a significant number of my recent TV/film purchases from Amazon UK looked new on the packaging but had some sort of mark on at least one of the discs, suggesting that something had been handled previously. This seems to be a clear trend over the past 1-2 years that I had never previously encountered. In some cases, it's been obvious enough that I've returned the product, though I also have lingering doubts about whether others with just a small mark might have been me when opening the packet but might have been something else.

I already basically gave up buying anything important and/or fragile from Amazon and now avoid them for almost everything around holiday seasons. Far too many instances a few years ago of things like different sizes of items thrown into a box with obviously inadequate packaging, resulting in damaged electrical items, would-be Christmas presents turning up unfit to give as gifts, and so on. They're pretty good about accepting returns without quibbling much these days, but it's still a huge hassle when things go wrong so often and so avoidably.

It's a shame, because for a while Amazon was a convenient alternative to bricks and mortar stores and carried a wider range of books and TV/film/music than any physical store. I'm glad I supported the better local stores now, and that some of them are still there so I can buy from them instead today.

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

#212

Post by philjohn »

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…

Indeed - and there have been cases of dangerous goods being shipped, e.g. counterfeit chargers.

I've stopped buying things from Amazon and instead gone back to using bricks and mortar stores with online presences and do click and collect, there's just too much crap to sift through these days.

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

#213

Post by emerongi »

manigandham wrote: post #207
lawkwok wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably old news to seasoned Seller Central users, but I was surprised how easy it was to "take over" product pages from already existing products. Our sales figures definitely weren't high. I think it may have been related to how much stock we had for all the sizes of the product. Soon the product images and descriptions we provided became the canonical version and overrode whatever was there before. Even p…

There seems to be a scam where product pages are sold off to host a completely different item. They usually have lots of 5 star reviews and high search rank but the reviews are all talking about something different than what's now being sold. I thought it was a bug at first but I've seen this too often. I don't understand how Amazon doesn't know this is happening, or why it even lets it happen in the first place. Pro…

What they also do is that they sell a quality product for 1-2 years, get good reviews and then switch to inferior materials.

Luckily the review system can catch this, as long as you look at recent reviews and the seller isn't buying any new reviews.

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

#214

Post by alok-g »

masonic wrote: post #209
alok-g wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have missed the part about the investments they have made for the same, perhaps doing themselves what you suggest.

Their counterfeit problem is rooted in policy , not technology.

I would like to hear more. What policy? :-)

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

#215

Post by nmstoker »

What's wrong with just complaining as normal if this happens?

I've ordered literally hundreds of books and with the two that had issues, they immediately dispatched another and in one case told me I needn't return the original.

It's not hard to put in this type of complaint (unlike some where they do put barriers in the way) and it avoids any exaggerated need to "police" Amazon, you can just get on with life with a minor blip in the overall delivery time of the proper (non-fake) product.

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

#216

Post by toxik »

emerongi wrote: post #213
manigandham wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be a scam where product pages are sold off to host a completely different item. They usually have lots of 5 star reviews and high search rank but the reviews are all talking about something different than what's now being sold. I thought it was a bug at first but I've seen this too often. I don't understand how Amazon doesn't know this is happening, or why it even lets it happen in the first place. Pro…

What they also do is that they sell a quality product for 1-2 years, get good reviews and then switch to inferior materials. Luckily the review system can catch this, as long as you look at recent reviews and the seller isn't buying any new reviews.

I find this happening everywhere. Loss leader, great product, next season the product cost the same and is now crap.

Anecdote: in my country they sell Toppits brand cling film, and it used to be great. Now it’s absolutely useless! Doesn’t self adhere at all.

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

#217

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

cthalupa wrote: post #191
billpollock wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These books are counterfeits. Counterfeiting is illegal and intent doesn't matter. This is not a matter of some other seller providing Amazon with inventory. These are coming direct from a printer to Amazon and being sold in place of the legitimate inventory. There is no third party to go after here. There's only one seller in this case. That is Amazon.

>The se are coming direct from a printer to Amazon and being sold in place of the legitimate inventory. There is no third party to go after here. There's only one seller in this case. That is Amazon. No, it's not. Even if it says "Shipped and sold by Amazon", it does not mean that the item originated from Amazon's purchase. Amazon considers co-mingled inventory as fungible. Let's say Amazon has 10 warehouses, and eve…

Putting aside the strong allegations made by No Starch Press for a moment.

This is such a bullshit rationalisation.

If the product is treated as fungible, and it doesn't matter physically who sourced the item then of course Amazon is responsible for selling / fulfilling the counterfeit product because, as you say, it doesn’t matter physically who sourced the product.

Amazon is aware of this issue, but fixing it breaks their enabling-crime business-model.

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

#218

Post by manigandham »

emerongi wrote: post #213
manigandham wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seems to be a scam where product pages are sold off to host a completely different item. They usually have lots of 5 star reviews and high search rank but the reviews are all talking about something different than what's now being sold. I thought it was a bug at first but I've seen this too often. I don't understand how Amazon doesn't know this is happening, or why it even lets it happen in the first place. Pro…

What they also do is that they sell a quality product for 1-2 years, get good reviews and then switch to inferior materials. Luckily the review system can catch this, as long as you look at recent reviews and the seller isn't buying any new reviews.

I seriously doubt many people are catching it otherwise the scam wouldn't be so popular. People probably stop reading after the second or third review and don't check that entire pages are talking about a different product.

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

#219

Post by lucb1e »

cayblood wrote: post #133

Seems like they could greatly reduce fraud by using RFID stickers to authenticate manufacturer-authorized products.

RFID is the same as a barcode, just that you don't need an optical reader (or line of sight, even). Did you mean NFC with some signature scheme, or did you mean a unique code like a barcode or RFID to track an item individually?
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