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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

#61

Post by rswskg »

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…

My previous role was scraping and automating the removal of offending items from auction sites. eBay sort of cared, the rest didn't give a shit. Amazon especially.

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

#62

Post by shadowgovt »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #35
shadowgovt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Why do you accept that it’s ok to sell harmful products? Amazon is a $1 trillion dollar company. It’s not some guy selling things out of the trunk of his car. It should be reasonable for me to assume buying something there is safe.

> It should be reasonable for me to assume buying something there is safe.

The only thing we should ever assume is that a company has policies and will honor those policies as required by law.

Here's Amazon's policy on guarantee. https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=... There is no mention of safety.

Here's Amazon's policy on safety. https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=... There is no guarantee associated with it.

They are a trillion-dollar company, but what we're observing is that the market isn't hyper-thirsty for safety guarantees and is willing to accept their current climate for service convenience. Other stores will let you make a different safety-convenience tradeoff.

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

#63

Post by shadowgovt »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #34
shadowgovt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Without easy access to the relevant information? I mean how would the average customer know from the Amazon page or from even using the product that there is 751 times more lead than allowed in it? If the distributor was required to test the product and put a large red banner "might induce lead poisoning" on the product page, then of course the consumer could choose. Alas, that's not the case.

Why should that responsibility rest on the distributor's shoulders and not the original manufacturers?

If people were deeply concerned about lead, shouldn't we expect that products that can offer such a guarantee have a market advantage? Amazon et. al. make product attribute comparison pretty straightforward.

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

#64

Post by superhuzza »

julianlam wrote: post #48

My wife and I purchase a lot of things from Amazon. We're taking a more critical look at what we buy ever since we had a baby. We bought our car seat and stroller from Amazon, and we were honestly not sure whether it was certified for use in Canada. I shouldn't have to doubt any purchase I make online from a reputable retailer, but it seems Amazon no longer makes the cut for me. For what it's worth, the car seat _did…

There's an absolute ton of fake climbing gear on Amazon, claiming to be legitimate brands and certified. Furthermore, goods from different suppliers are often mixed together in Amazon warehouses. So buying from the brand's own account doesn't necessarily mean it came from them!

I would strongly advise not getting any safety equipment like a car seat through Amazon.

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

#65

Post by jsjddbbwj »

matthewowen wrote: post #41
jsjddbbwj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy any health product, makeup, etc from AliExpress we should call this natural selection. Only half joking. I don't want to see AliExpress closed down just because some girl decided it was a good idea to buy lipstick there at an unbelievably low price.

i don't understand how you can hold these two beliefs at once. if you believe that it is fundamentally unsafe to buy health products and makeup from aliexpress, then isn't it also reasonable to believe that aliexpress shouldn't sell it? there's a "people should be free to make bad decisions" counterargument, but as a society we've decided against that: it's the reason we have consumer protection laws. put another way…

Having AliExpress check the safety of all of their products would increase the price of all of them substantially. That would me bad for me.

To make matters worse, the kind of girl who buys lipstick on AliExpress doesn't buy cheap Z80 clones or radios there, so she wouldn't come back to that site again once they take the lipstick down; only informed buyers would suffer the consequences. How's that fair?

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

#66

Post by xboxnolifes »

gilrain wrote: post #32
shadowgovt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The nearest Target to me is 130 miles away. Non-coastal states exist.

Don't go to Target then.

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

#68

Post by 34679 »

I noticed that Wish gives refunds on counterfeits without question, provided you upload a photo of the item. It got me wondering if that's to avoid any legal liability. The law states that "trafficking" in illegal goods is a crime, and clearly these platforms don't want to be charged.

So, assuming they're actually legally required to refund purchases of counterfeits, I think a reasonable recourse would be to have as many people as possible order as many counterfeits as possible and then demand refunds. The platforms' cost per transaction goes up, and the manufacturers/resellers are out their items plus shipping.

I feel this would work best if the actual manufacturers that are being copied did the buying, that way they have legal recourse at their disposal and a literal pile of evidence if the refund is denied. And they can destroy the counterfeits.

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

#69

Post by 34679 »

djohnston wrote: post #3

“Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome.” There are currently few economic incentives for these market places to try harder to stop counterfeit vendors. The solution seems to be harsher consequences for the marketplaces. I'm also kind of surprised by Walmart's inclusion. There are no examples in the article on their products, and they say that Walmart disputed the findings, so what's the deal? I wasn'…

When you spot a counterfeit, buy as many as you can afford and then demand a refund when they arrive.

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

#70

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

julianlam wrote: post #50
karl11 wrote: post #5

I have basically stopped buying anything from Amazon that I can just buy direct from the manufacturer. Especially clothes, kids toys, etc. Most online stores now have shipping that is almost as fast, and 9 times out of 10 an extra couple of days shipping is not a big deal.

That 1 time in 10 is still a factor, though... Many retailers still operate on the old expectation that when you order something, you'll get it in "6-8 weeks", which nowadays, is frankly ridiculous! I ordered a crib from a local Canadian retailer, and the thing arrived after THREE MONTHS, and I had to pick up the box from the warehouse myself! You have to give Amazon props for their logistics systems, they've gotten…

Given that a fake crib can actually kill a baby, this is one of those times where I put aside my convenience and drive to a real brick and mortar store and buy the crib myself.
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