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Counterfeit books “shipped and sold by Amazon”?

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

#231
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For whatever reason, the counterfeiters have no problem lying about anything, except the "Made in China" label. I'm sure there's a good reason for this, but it's been the only consistent red-flag I've encountered.

Are chargers made anywhere else? Even with official chargers (i.e. that came with the new laptop/phone) I don't think I've ever seen a charger that wasn't "Made in China".

For a while at least, all the Samsung fast chargers sold in the US were made in Vietnam. If you got one from China, it was fake. Or a slow charger.

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

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the opposite experience. Hard drives from Amazon have been in factory-original packaging (involving a lot of foam) whereas hard drives from Newegg have been in plastic clamshells rattling around in the box. In fact, 100% of hard drives I've ordered from Newegg have failed. (The replacements received from the manufacturer were packed like the drives I've gotten from Amazon.) I think the TL;DR is that reseller…

Both Amazon and Newegg are marketplaces, and at least Amazon has commingling issues which can obscure the actual source from the customer, even when you think you are buying direct from Amazon. It's possible the differing experiences reflect different actual sources on the same marketplaces.

Newegg has recently had problems with their own stock being listed inaccurately, especially selling white box or oem as retail, or listed with incorrect warranty info.

If you call to return it, many of the call center reps seem to get genuinely aggravated at the company for allowing this to repeatedly happen.

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

#234
Duplicate/Counterfeit books are rampant here on Amazon India. Return/Replacement also results in a fake. Usually, publishers have special Indian edition prints but these fakes have $ prices & a sticker that hides this with an Rs price. This is quite easy to check but no-one is checking for counterfeit's on Amazon.

$ Label on a book purchased on Amazon.in

https://serving.photos.photobox.com/77575690eea121ebb5a6d939...

Print quality is so bad.

https://serving.photos.photobox.com/6469056496de32f9d3adef45...

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

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. I even saw some masks that supplied an invalid NIOSH approval number (it had been revoked in 2014). IMO, this is criminal.

Water filters. Are the worst.

Besides a registration/ certification number, they should all have a stamped (not printed) serial number or date code or similar.

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

#236
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's marketing / advertising and nothing else. Sellers can jump through some hoops (buy ads) to qualify their product listing, but it has nothing to with any sort of quality vetting.

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

#237
post #43
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…

Product reviews are meant to be of the product, so it shouldn't matter which seller it is if you're all selling the same product.

Perhaps people who write product reviews should get into the habit of starting their review with a description of what they are reviewing, who they ordered it from, and how much they paid for it. That last bit of information is definitely very relevant if you're going to comment in your review on whether the product was good value for money.

Perhaps also put the date in the review itself and state that you do not give permission for the review to be edited.

Unfortunately, I think that some sites don't allow reviews to mention prices.

Even if the T&Cs say you give up all your rights in the review you perhaps still have a right not to be misrepresented so they shouldn't edit your review if the review is still going to be attributed or attributable to you.

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

#238

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…

>It's made in a chinese guy's garage in northern california using equipment he imported in 2014.

There's nothing on that link that indicates this. So either you're making it up or back up your statement.

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

#239
post #226
post #37

Just this year, one of my team members ordered a Blue Yeti microphone off Amazon. We were in a WebRTC meeting when it arrived and I watched him excitedly open it and his facial expression turn sour because it was a glass jar in a Blue Yeti box!!! The sadder part is he left it in the kitchen at his home with the intention of dealing with it later and his dad, not knowing what it was threw it out with the garbage. Ther…

Couldn’t he just have replaced it with another glass jar?

That would open Pandora's box of ethical concerns.

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

#240
post #229

I don't care what particular business strategy or operational process makes this happens. This is Piracy . This is what Copyright was originally conceived to fight against. Amazon should be slapped with the same RIAA/MPAA-style grotesquely theatrical / existential threat fines that random individuals were treated with. Otherwise is the same old canis canem non est

No, piracy is if Amazon raids mercantile ships for their goods. If we can just start willy nilly assigning offenses with worse connotations then what is to stop absursity like referring to bouncing checks as treason or delinquent parking tickets as child molestation?

Hell many of the "counterfeits" are really unauthorized production because they were made by the same factories they outsourced to. Counterfeiting implies reproduction and presenting it as the original. When they gave the specs themselves to the manufacturer that isn't a reproduction. The brand holders themselves have undermined the meaning of counterfeiting by not being the manufacturer. Granted the ethical thing to do is to launch their own "knock off" brand.

Besides those rates only work against those massively legally outgunned - they are bullying rates. It isn't a solution but a sign that the system is massively messed up. The whole point of it is consistent enforcement based upon facts and rules and to not be might makes right.

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