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Fake Goods Sold by AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Wish

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Re: Fake Goods Sold by AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Wish

#21

Post by tonyedgecombe »

mdszy wrote: post #9
nkrisc wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have as well, but Amazon isn't bad when what you need is cheap crap (a bag of 1000 cable ties, for example). Bonus: they keep offering me free trials of Prime so I just save up a cart of stuff and then buy it when they give me free shipping.

I've also just stopped using Amazon for ethical reasons on top of the decline in quality. However, if I want cheap stuff, that's what I use eBay for. Given Amazon has just turned into, like I said, eBay with slightly faster shipping, I have no reasons to use it anymore.

At least with eBay you know what you are getting, Amazon seems to go out of its way to hide the fact you are buying from a 3rd party.

Re: Fake Goods Sold by AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Wish

#22

Post by shadowgovt »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #6

> What's more, the product was found to contain 751 times the amount of lead Health Canada considers acceptable in cosmetics. How long are we going to let companies hide behind their "platform" bullshit? They know this happens but, because they're not the actual seller, they get to offload the liabilities to some fly-by-night company that'll close down and reopen under a different name. Lead in products is dangerous…

Ideally, this sort of market abuse would be translated into mistrust by the consumer.

But I think a case can be made that it already is. Most consumers understand buyer-beware on online merchant websites (especially since eBay was rampant with this issue at its inception and has gotten better over the years). Perhaps it is the responsibility of the consumer to self-educate, not the responsibility of the market broker to exhaustively police the vendors that use it? To spin the story around a bit: Amazon, eBay, et. al. don't background-check buyers to make sure they're not buying a product to build a bomb or something with it. Why are they obligated to background-check the other half of the transaction?

Re: Fake Goods Sold by AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Wish

#23

Post by mdszy »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #21
mdszy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also just stopped using Amazon for ethical reasons on top of the decline in quality. However, if I want cheap stuff, that's what I use eBay for. Given Amazon has just turned into, like I said, eBay with slightly faster shipping, I have no reasons to use it anymore.

At least with eBay you know what you are getting, Amazon seems to go out of its way to hide the fact you are buying from a 3rd party.

Exactly, that's why I use it when I want cheap above all else.

Re: Fake Goods Sold by AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Wish

#24

Post by shadowgovt »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #12
gsuppy wrote: post #7

Why is anyone shocked AliExpress products are fake? I only go there if I want a knock off version of something (shirts, AirPod cases, etc.). Ebay and Amazon are also not surprising either, but both retailers often have the "official merchants" of products that are being sold. As long as you buy through the official storefronts, then you're good to go.

We shouldn't have to be investigative reporters in order to buy products that won't harm us. Even the merchant name is bullshit on Amazon. Try finding Apple headphones and see how many are sold by merchants named "Apple". Amazon has to know that product is not actually being sold by Apple, yet they allow the counterfeiting to continue.

> We shouldn't have to be investigative reporters in order to buy products that won't harm us.

There are other marketplaces that offer a much higher quality guarantee than Amazon. Shop there instead.

Re: Fake Goods Sold by AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Wish

#25

Post by dd36 »

gsuppy wrote: post #7

Why is anyone shocked AliExpress products are fake? I only go there if I want a knock off version of something (shirts, AirPod cases, etc.). Ebay and Amazon are also not surprising either, but both retailers often have the "official merchants" of products that are being sold. As long as you buy through the official storefronts, then you're good to go.

I thought they mixed skus?

Re: Fake Goods Sold by AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Wish

#26

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

mdszy wrote: post #2

If you're buying from AliExpress/Wish (aka: direct from china) I don't think there's much room for being surprised when you get fakes. eBay in many cases too. Amazon especially needs to get its shit together, though. I unsubscribed from Prime and have all but stopped using Amazon because of how it's turned into basically "eBay with marginally faster shipping" at this point given all the absolute offbrand crap that's…

Same. My partner and I have both let our Prime subscriptions lapse because of this shit. We no longer buy from Amazon.

Re: Fake Goods Sold by AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Wish

#28

Post by Spivak »

dd36 wrote: post #18
Spivak wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This frustration seems like it's just being directed at the closest entity you can shake your fist at rather than the actual cause. Suppose all those fly-by-night companies set up merchant accounts on Shopify or just bought cheap Wordpress template and hosted it themselves and did the exact same thing. The world of boutique men's watches is absolutely rampant with this. Would you be demanding that Shopify or Tim Bern…

They should have to buy liability insurance and if the insurer won’t insure them, they can’t list.

Offloading the work of law to insurance companies rather than retailers doesn't really sound like we're making any progress.

Sidebar: this is super common btw, had more than one law professor go on a rant about how all the CS people in their courses just want to push everything to the actuaries and create a de-facto court system within insurance.

Re: Fake Goods Sold by AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Wish

#29

Post by quickthrowman »

nkrisc wrote: post #16
quickthrowman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you order those cable ties if you were a low-voltage contractor suspending a bundle of ~100 cables for 200’ above an ACT grid ceiling? Cheap cable ties may work for bundling cables in your home rig or home stereo setup, but they may not be sufficient for a more robust load that a commercial application demands.

No, I wouldn't. But I'm not a low voltage contractor. To hold two Cat5e cables running through my basement, though? Sure. Heck I'd use tape if it wasn't a pain to remove later. If I was buying for a commercial project I would use a supplier I trusted.

That’s fair, the 1000 pack is what contractors generally buy, which is why I wanted to make the point that counterfeit junk could make its way into permanent installations in commercial spaces and eventually fail. Not all contractors use quality materials, though generally the ones that offer guaranteed work and stand behind it spend the extra money for Panduit/Legrand/Etc.

Re: Fake Goods Sold by AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Wish

#30

Post by jfengel »

Spivak wrote: post #14
MichaelApproved wrote: post #6

> What's more, the product was found to contain 751 times the amount of lead Health Canada considers acceptable in cosmetics. How long are we going to let companies hide behind their "platform" bullshit? They know this happens but, because they're not the actual seller, they get to offload the liabilities to some fly-by-night company that'll close down and reopen under a different name. Lead in products is dangerous…

This frustration seems like it's just being directed at the closest entity you can shake your fist at rather than the actual cause. Suppose all those fly-by-night companies set up merchant accounts on Shopify or just bought cheap Wordpress template and hosted it themselves and did the exact same thing. The world of boutique men's watches is absolutely rampant with this. Would you be demanding that Shopify or Tim Bern…

If they set up their own shops, then they'd be far less visible, and they wouldn't benefit from the reputations that fairer dealers get.

Those "random corporations" are a few very large players who have won the network effect lottery. Most people will go to the place that everybody knows, especially if it's cheap. There's only room in the public brain space for a small number of these. It's very hard to set up a new one, especially if its tag line is "More expensive but at least it won't kill you".

Such natural monopolies are frequently subject to regulation if they won't do it themselves, simply out of self-protection. They're not just the "closest entity"; they're a bottleneck where regulation is feasible. But such regulation is going to be more cumbersome if it comes from an outside entity, so they should take calls like this as a sign that it will be worse for them one way or the other. Today, they've got some flexibility in their solution.

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