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Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

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Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#191

Post by tadblarney »

emaste wrote: post #187
tadblarney wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There's no way to report a counterfeit on Amazon unless you're claiming a violation of your own IP rights" I feel this is problematic - one would think that AMZN would want to at least have a 'heads up' with respect to these issues very quickly to look into them, you know, to protect their brand? Because if Amazon is selling you 'XYZ' and it's a knock-off - they are part of the crime. Rather odd.

I ordered a pair of SD cards from a FBA Amazon seller which turned out to be counterfeit. I used Amazon's contact form to report these, and was told to just initiate a return. I think I chose "Item not as described" as the reason in a drop-down, and entered "Counterfeit" in a comment box, but someone later changed it to some benign-sounding reason. I got a refund on my credit card, but now have the impression that Am…

Well - if it said 'counterfeit' then they would be in legal trouble. So at very least, they 'changed it' for that legal reason.

It's possibly 'they may care' but are overwhelmed, and just ignore the little stuff, or can't reasonably hunt down every entity.

It's also possible that they don't care, and will only clam down on it enough to stay out of jail.

It's also possible they do care, and they make money from it.

For direct sales though - this is a problem. If it's some 3rd party - that's one thing - but from their inventory? Bad. Very bad.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#192

Post by beastcoast »

wyc wrote: post #74

It seems that these large distributors that aggregate from many sellers are once again having quality issues. However, they'll still get my business because of their many conveniences. I'm just less likely to use them for critical things like medicine or heavy equipment. I just went through something similar with some kitchen equipment purchased through Soap.com. I tried to claim warranty with the manufacturer, and t…

Soap.com (Quidsi) is an Amazon subsidiary.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#193

Post by wnevets »

blobbers wrote: post #101
bdrool wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've stopped using Amazon for: - Anything eaten - Anything that consumes or stores power (too much fire risk) - Anything worn on the body (even socks) And now, based on this article, it appears I'll have to stop using them for books, as how can I be sure it's word-for-word the same? What's left?

'fire risk': oh noes. . . I bought my searzall and fire extinguisher off amazon.

> fire extinguisher off amazon.

I literally just had mine delivered yesterday from amazon. Now I'm a little woried

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#194

Post by dang »

danjoc wrote: post #87

Ohh, I get it now. HN hates Amazon. I wasn't aware of that. It's not Google defenders or Python for Kids people clicking down. It's people who have a visceral hate for Amazon. I knew HN basically hated Apple, but this is news to me. Thanks for the clarification guys :)

HN doesn't hate $what_you_like, it just feels that way when you find yourself in a defensive position for whatever reason. This sort of perception is largely in the eye of the beholder.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13926022 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#195

Post by ikeboy »

Scaevolus wrote: post #6

Counterfeiting is a huge problem across Amazon. Since they started commingling inventory, it's been used by bad actors to launder counterfeit goods. It's even worse for the Fulfilled by Amazon people-- there have been DVD resellers selling >$40k/mo legitimately getting banned because pirated items are being shipped to fulfill the same listings. I've chosen to buy from smaller sites to be more assured of quality-- esp…

The story that usually gets thrown around is very misleading. The guy was buying back DVDs from random people online, no vetting, of course counterfeits got in. Amazon said the problematic items weren't commingled.

I know plenty of 7 figure sellers who only do commingle with no issues.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#196

Post by ticviking »

cookiecaper wrote: post #114
blobbers wrote: post #63

Counterfeits in comingled inventory has become pretty common on Amazon these days. "Fulfillment by amazon" has led them to comingle inventories on common products, meaning every seller's product gets jumbled together. I've gotten counterfeit huggies diapers from amazon (invalid serial number for huggies 'points' and different build quality), Mach 3 razor blades, GE MWF Water filters, even a counterfeit baby bath. The…

Amazon offers the option to NOT commingle inventory, but the FBA seller has to opt-in. Somewhat counterintuitively, if you know that the third-party seller has done this, you're safer buying from the trusted FBA seller rather than Amazon.com. Amazon.com will ship you anything that an FBA seller has submitted under the same product identifier. Amazon is getting very strict re: counterfeit and knockoff products, as the…

I will believe that when we see a solid policy designed to actually address this.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#197

Post by ChristianBundy »

danjoc wrote: post #156
jessaustin wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN hates Apple ? Whatever drugs you're on, it might be time to cut back...

It's subtle. It manifests like Stockholm syndrome really. "I used to love Apple, but this touchbar thing is just a gimmick!" up votes. "Apple dropped everything but USB-C ports? Dongle$ are u$!" more upvotes. "Why did Apple make the red phone with a white frame, so ugly! It should have been $other_color" more up votes. You can't say "Razer is way better than Apple" though, or they jump on the defense. They probably n…

I'm not a doctor, but if I was I'd write you a prescription to take a few deep breaths and go outside before spending any more time on your computer.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#198

Post by ticviking »

ceejayoz wrote: post #141
s917 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't this be the perfect time to do a chargeback?

Just make sure you don't have any Kindle books or AWS resources tied to the same Amazon account, in case Amazon cancels your account over the chargeback.

Ugh... there's a bit of stallman is right in the thought of avoiding seeking legal recourse because someone can take your ebooks away. (I know they "weren't mine")

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#199

Post by exolymph »

themagician wrote: post #178
blobbers wrote: post #63

Counterfeits in comingled inventory has become pretty common on Amazon these days. "Fulfillment by amazon" has led them to comingle inventories on common products, meaning every seller's product gets jumbled together. I've gotten counterfeit huggies diapers from amazon (invalid serial number for huggies 'points' and different build quality), Mach 3 razor blades, GE MWF Water filters, even a counterfeit baby bath. The…

I've been running into his problem personally. About 25% of our business now is done via Amazon. We sell to Amazon retail directly and also use Amazon FBA internationally. The problem is that "other sellers" keep beating us to the buy box for certain SKUs. Amazon keeps asking us to sell to them for a lower price. The funny thing is, Amazon already gets the lowest price, by far, compared to all other distributors. I k…

Hey, you don't have contact info on your profile, so I'm trying this. Any chance you have time to talk about your experience, tomorrow? My email is smann@inc.com

(If the answer is no, you don't want to talk about it or don't have time, that's obviously totally okay!)

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#200

Post by tux1968 »

I've given up using Amazon, and so have all my family back east. It's just too hard to know what you're getting or if you're getting scammed. We're just one small family worth of lost customers who used to use their service a lot, but how long until they lose a significant fraction of their base?
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