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Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

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Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#271

Post by baked_ziti »

Timberwolf wrote: post #83

There are some categories of product I'm no longer willing to buy from Amazon: power cables, replacement chargers and batteries being the biggest offenders. They're such a minefield of fakery and shortcuts that are outright dangerous (e.g. UK plugs lacking fuses and with pins the wrong shape/size) that I'd rather have the extra work and expense of going to a local shop where I can inspect what I'm buying.

I don't know if they ship to the UK but I have had outstanding experiences with monoprice. For a few categories of items I go there now always instead of amazon.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#272

Post by dannyw »

cm2187 wrote: post #246
download13 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a more subtle version of this, where the seller leaves the listing the same, but once enough positive reviews have accumulated they move production to a cheaper factory and use cheaper materials. So you might see older reviews for a pair of boots that say they're made from sturdy materials with good stitching, followed by later reviews saying that they didn't match the advertised sizing and pictures, or…

And most reviews aren’t seller specific. What I see is reviews for a product, but some of the sellers for that product will sell a counterfeit version (Intel NIC in my case). The top (default) seller when the reviews were written may be replaced by a bad actor a couple of years later.

That’s because picking by Amazon is not seller specific. You get something in that tray; it can be from any seller.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#273

Post by dannyw »

tracker1 wrote: post #253
cm2187 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And most reviews aren’t seller specific. What I see is reviews for a product, but some of the sellers for that product will sell a counterfeit version (Intel NIC in my case). The top (default) seller when the reviews were written may be replaced by a bad actor a couple of years later.

Because amazon doesn't add seller stickers/labels it's nearly impossible for them to even determine the seller if it's "Fulfilled by Amazon" ... I tend to stick to the "Sold by Amazon" or "Sold and shipped by MFG" because at least with Amazon, returns become easy and/or I trust orders from MFG slightly more than otherwise.

Even when something by is sold by amazon, you could get something shipped to them by a third party seller. They keep all products with the same ID in one area, and pick whatever is on top.

If I started using FBA and supplying an item, it’ll go in the same box and chances are more likely an “sold by amazon.com” will sell my product, and I’ll sell an “amazon.com” product.

See the problem?

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#274

Post by nlfwhulsdhouv »

jcrites wrote: post #269
owenmarshall wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on uploaded photos that product seems to have a past life as a cutting board, a drying rack, a canopy for a kids bed, some type of dagger (letter opener?) and a lancet. That’s incredible , and the fact that someone hasn’t seen that inside Amazon and said “we have a huge problem” makes me suspect Amazon doesn’t regard it as a problem at all.

I consider it a problem. This appears to be an instance of listing abuse. I'd encourage people to report listing abuse if they come across it. I believe these are the correct instructions: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/200444420 Situations where you're fighting against financially-motivated human adversaries are always difficult.

Oh hai it's one of the people getting rich off a corporation suppressing unionization efforts and workers rights in Amazon warehouses. Neat!

Yeah I'm not going to do your work for you by reporting listings thanks. This isn't Reddit or Youtube.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#275

Post by iliketrains »

blairanderson wrote: post #187
iliketrains wrote: post #152

One of my Amazon orders was just re-ordered from Wallmart under my name and shipped by Wallmart to my address. I even got the Walmart receipt with the cheaper price in the package. I was not happy about that, esp. that some stranger is entering my shipping info to some other retailers DB. It is also clearly against Amazon ToS. I have contacted Amazon, citing the ToS violation and concern about my personal data and th…

Was it a product review or seller review?

Product review. There are seller reviews too?

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#277

Post by dharmab »

agumonkey wrote: post #262
a3n wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like a box that remains the same size over the years, but the contents are gradually reduced. I would love to have "that much" Mike and Ike's, but it's never in there.

This is a fitting description of audio devices. What used to fill a box is now a 5mm chipset. The perverse effect is that the chip has 20x more options than the original device, so it looks better, but the quality and longevity may very well be degraded in disguise.

I have to laugh at how large my receiver is when I can peek into the "cooling vents" and clearly see a fairly small solid state board and a ton of empty space.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#278

Post by earthshot »

jcrites wrote: post #269
owenmarshall wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on uploaded photos that product seems to have a past life as a cutting board, a drying rack, a canopy for a kids bed, some type of dagger (letter opener?) and a lancet. That’s incredible , and the fact that someone hasn’t seen that inside Amazon and said “we have a huge problem” makes me suspect Amazon doesn’t regard it as a problem at all.

I consider it a problem. This appears to be an instance of listing abuse. I'd encourage people to report listing abuse if they come across it. I believe these are the correct instructions: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/200444420 Situations where you're fighting against financially-motivated human adversaries are always difficult.

I don't have a seller central account, and (it appears) I cannot open one either. Is there a way for me to report listing abuse _without_ being a seller?

I'd like to, at a bare minimum, report the abusive listings that have nailed me, personally.

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#279

Post by zemnmez »

habosa wrote: post #77

My favorite Amazon scam is the Amazon Ship of Theseus[0]. You sell a product, normally a cheap electronic, and build up a decent corpus of positive reviews. A good example is a USB-C cable or something. Then you decide you want to sell a new product in a more competitive subcategory, like Bluetooth Headphones. You then take the _existing_ listing and change it piece by piece. First the pictures, then the title, then…

I definitely saw something like this buying (of all things) underwear. calvin klein makes cotton underwear and the more expensive 'stretch cotton' underwear. The listing had a picture of the stretch cotton underwear, but I, and about 1/3rd of those with pictures in the reviews were getting regular cotton underwear

Re: Amazon’s quest for more, cheaper products has resulted in a flea market of fakes

#280

Post by earthshot »

dv_dt wrote: post #228
Havoc wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Until you have a listing for your headphones that comes with 5,000 pre-made positive reviews! Fk. That's possible? How has Amazon not done anything about that? Like I can get keeping fake stuff out is a losing battle, but that seems like a rather significant design flaw if you can "transfer" reviews like that.

Think about all the AI/Machine learning work going on. I really think it's not a losing battle, that if Amazon really cared, they could train and maintain a "product listing integrity" AI fairly easily. That they don't already have such a thing to dissuade the gaming going on to dissuade the sketchy practices essentially means to me Amazon condones the behavior.

During a recent Amazon all-hands meeting, the company leadership talked about how there are something like 5,000 employees working on various marketplace frauds, including using ML on some of this.

I have no idea why it's so hard, but I don't think Amazon is being as complacent as it seems from the outside.

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