[HN Gopher] Amazon establishes new Counterfeit Crimes Unit
___________________________________________________________________
Amazon establishes new Counterfeit Crimes Unit
Author : ssully
Score : 202 points
Date : 2020-06-24 16:08 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.aboutamazon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.aboutamazon.com)
| esaym wrote:
| No joke, if I need food items from online, I try to go with ebay
| before amazon. I trust old/nearly expired or half opened boxes
| from some obscure ebay user before getting anything editable from
| amazon. If people are counterfeiting oral-b toothbrushes, I'm
| sure they are counterfeiting vanilla extract and gourmet
| chocolate.
| ikeboy wrote:
| When are they going to start suing those who file false claims of
| counterfeiting?
|
| Google started something similar last year when they sued someone
| who was abusing YouTube's DMCA system.
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/15/20915688/youtube-copyrig...
|
| But despite widespread abuse of Amazon's IP reporting system, to
| date Amazon has not sued anyone for that as far as I know.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| They do this every six to twelve months:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22106305
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19091852
|
| It's just platitudes so long as their interests are served by
| pretending the problem doesn't exist.
| ourmandave wrote:
| I thought it was a study committee to see how they can get a
| bigger cut.
| Zaheer wrote:
| This goes beyond just words. Establishing a dedicated team to
| investigate / prosecute Counterfeiters is a solid step forward.
| arkades wrote:
| Until they start prosecuting people and putting up barriers
| to counterfeit sales, it _is_ just words. They 're slightly
| different words, but still.
| throwawayiionqz wrote:
| I ordered a well-known baby-bottom cream. The product gave her
| never-expanding rashes for a few days. Then I realized the color
| slightly differs from the same cream bought at the local
| pharmacy, and that many 1 star reviews also report knockoffs
| version of the cream. In some cases review pictures show that the
| packaging itself is clearly fake.
|
| I write a 1-star review explaining the above, and saying that the
| anxious parents are now in an unbearable situation after applied
| a fake, potentially harmful and untraceable product to their
| newborn bottom.
|
| The review does not respect community guidelines and won't be
| published.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| This sounds litigation ready!
| ummonk wrote:
| Second this - this needs to be litigated.
| awakeasleep wrote:
| How many hours a week would a person need to dedicate to
| starting a lawsuit about something like this?
|
| Anyone have experience? Even if a law firm would do 100% of
| the work & charge on contingency, I bet it still takes 100+
| hours for the average joe to research and find the firm to
| do that.
| jnwatson wrote:
| The copied brand owner would likely be very interested.
| That's direct harm to the brand.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Yes, Amazon has what seems to be a paid program for brand
| owners to monitor and respond to Amazon reviews. It's been
| around for years now.
| throwawayiionqz wrote:
| To add some context, the "critical" reviews of the product [1]
| describes multiple instances of the problem.
|
| [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Aquaphor-Healing-Ointment-Advanced-
| Pr...
|
| Edit: Searching with "yellow" or "fake" brings more reviews
| with the same issue. In the mean time parents keep receiving it
| and applying it on their newborn.
| elliekelly wrote:
| Do you still have the counterfeit tube? It might be worthwhile
| to get in touch with your Attorney General's Office. Doubly so
| if your AG is up for re-election.
|
| I imagine a lot of Attorneys General would jump at the chance
| to stand up to Amazon in defense of poor little baby bottoms
| and a media-friendly fact pattern like this could help bring
| about much-needed change at Amazon across all product
| categories.
| throwawayiionqz wrote:
| Before calling the AG on this, how do you make sure that fake
| is fake in the first place?
|
| The major hurdle is that you do not even know and cannot
| know. Maybe the product is actually legit and the visual
| difference comes from temperature or whatever, and the rash
| appeared for a different reason. One avenue may be to contact
| the manufacturer with the lot number.
|
| If you try a new product and baby develops rashes or
| allergies, you know not to buy this product again. With
| Amazon you can't even conclude anything about the official
| product because you might have used a knockoff.
|
| You can just conclude to stay away from Amazon for baby care
| products.
| scoot wrote:
| > Before calling the AG on this, how do you make sure that
| fake is fake in the first place?
|
| Contact the manufacturers consumer helpline.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I don't think you need to conclude it's a fake product in
| order to contact the AG so long as you have a reasonable
| suspicion. The AG, if they decide to pursue the case, will
| contact the manufacturer and/or have the contents of the
| tube tested by a lab.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Before calling the AG on this, how do you make sure that
| fake is fake in the first place?_
|
| You have enough evidence to form a reasonable suspicion
| that you were sold a counterfeit item, and that it harmed
| your child. At this point, it would be the AG's job to
| figure out whether or not the product is fake, and whether
| or not follow up on your report.
| HereBeBeasties wrote:
| I wrote a detailed, solid, accurate 1 star review of a child's
| digital camera which clearly didn't contravene their
| guidelines. Didn't meet their guidelines, wouldn't publish it.
|
| Amazon used to be great. Nowadays it's full of fake reviews and
| dodgy secondhand stuff being sold as new.
| 908087 wrote:
| Of my past 10 orders with Amazon, 4 of the items I've
| received have been either non-functional, the wrong item
| entirely (a knock-off of an APC replacement battery), or
| clearly used.
|
| Amazon has refused to publish every one of my reviews, which,
| as you said in your situation, clearly met their guidelines.
|
| My experiences indicate to me that they have no interest in
| improving. They're far more interested in protecting shady
| sellers from buyers than they are in protecting buyers from
| shady sellers, counterfeit products, etc.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| At least five years too late, but I'll take it.
| Trias11 wrote:
| Windows dressing.
|
| It's not in Amazon's interests to reduce business by eliminating
| counterfeit products, fake reviews, etc..
|
| Real solution is for government to hold platform responsible for
| peddling fakes and fraud to customers.
| starpilot wrote:
| I just bought some gym shorts from Target for $20. Amazon had
| some for the same price, but numerous reviews with photos showed
| people were getting fakes. Fuck that. Target of all places seems
| more curated than Amazon.
| nr2x wrote:
| Yes, I initially thought so as well, and shifted my buying
| accordingly. However, I bought an HDMI dongle from one of
| Target's supposedly vetted partners and when I got it it was
| clearly open-box. When I tried to get Target to replace or
| refund they weren't able to help me via normal channels and
| told me I had to call some other number. Given the time cost
| was non-trivial, and the item was, I just decided to never
| order electronics from Target again. I'm down to BH at this
| point.
| ghaff wrote:
| The more you focus and the more you curate, the more you can
| trust you're getting what you think you're getting and the more
| confidence you can have in the overall supply chain.
|
| The tradeoff is selection and probably price--although for some
| large specialist retailers like B&H Photo you largely do get
| both price and a pretty good selection of products.
|
| Amazon should at least better separate the products it largely
| has control over the provenance of and everything else. But a
| third party marketplace is always to be hit or miss in terms of
| what you get.
| jacobush wrote:
| Is it really "selection" though anymore, when it comes down
| to a throw of the dice what you actually get home when you
| order?
|
| A wide random selection is still wide I guess.
| ghaff wrote:
| "Throw of the dice" is an exaggeration. Personally, I
| haven't (knowingly) had an issue with counterfeit. And I
| have found things on Amazon or eBay that were super-obscure
| and I'd have had difficulty tracking down elsewhere. And
| it's not like various obscure websites can't be dodgy
| themselves.
| boulos wrote:
| > Target of all places seems more curated than Amazon.
|
| Isn't this going to be true of any "pure" retailer? The nature
| of FBA and third-party sellers just means there will always be
| at least some percentage of fraud and so on that's higher than
| "trick various people in the retailer to sell fake goods".
|
| Particularly as it's much easier for insiders at a retailer to
| steal from their employer (and then resell via whatever means),
| I think the utility for "put fake goods on the shelf" at a
| retail shop is basically zero. I dunno, maybe you can
| trick/bribe the person near the start of the supply chain, but
| it wouldn't take long for returns to pile up and an
| investigation to find "Jim and Sally colluded to sell fake gym
| shorts".
| jacques_chester wrote:
| > _Isn't this going to be true of any "pure" retailer?_
|
| No. First-party retailers don't generally commingle stock
| with other third-party retailers. They typically have few
| suppliers, often one supplier, for each good. That's for many
| reasons, but it also makes it easy for them to identify who
| sent them counterfeits.
|
| Amazon is discovering what old-fashioned retailers learned
| long ago: customers do not give a fuck who, ultimately, has
| injected the counterfeit. They will blame the retailer.
|
| If I was Wal-Mart I would be absolutely _hammering_ this
| point to customers. I 'd be running ads about "Shamazon".
| Tearful mothers whose child got sick. Teens who saved up for
| a game system or phone and got a block of wood. Grandparents
| who bought medical equipment and got a faulty knockoff.
| Everything dangerous, disgusting, outrageous or even just
| annoying. I'd be carpet-bombing every channel with ads
| amplifying the message that Amazon can't guarantee what you
| get. Wal-Mart aren't saints, but their historical success has
| rested heavily on an incredibly tight grip of their supply
| chain and logistics. They do actually know what they have on
| the shelf.
| bcassedy wrote:
| Walmart's online store is a mess of 3rd party options now
| too. I went looking for hair clippers at the start of the
| pandemic and all I could find were no-name brands offered
| by third party vendors on their website.
| jacques_chester wrote:
| Well then. From my comfortable seat outside the arena,
| this seems like a squandered opportunity for Wal-Mart.
|
| (Also: is it Walmart or Wal-Mart?)
| cjsawyer wrote:
| What's left? Target and Best Buy?
| acomjean wrote:
| I've had good luck ordering directly from companies. For
| me it was Nike, a yoga mat company, and some local toy
| retailers and a frame company. I still buy stuff from
| amazon, but not critical stuff.
|
| I knew things were going bad, when rock climbing gear was
| being counterfeited. (2011).
|
| https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/recalls/2011-2-21/Infor
| mat...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/climbing/comments/b685vi/new_cli
| mbe...
| ConcernedCoder wrote:
| yes! and have you thought about working in politics?
| jacques_chester wrote:
| I did and eventually ran against my former boss (and came
| second last).
|
| I wasn't very good at it. But I learned a lot.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Amazon traded their quality for being a market platform and
| taking a cut of a much larger pie with more selection
|
| Unfortunately they also completely ignored counterfeit issues
| which has sabotaged their reputation. I think this is just
| damage control because I'd they're selling coungerfeit goods
| with some knowledge of the issue they mm at have some Liabity.
| ckastner wrote:
| I've said this before: they should look at how the finance
| industry deals / has been dealing with bad actors for decades
| _before_ they engage in a business relationship with a client.
|
| Assign every vendor some risk category based on their profile,
| for example: projected annual revenue, country of incorporation,
| products sold.
|
| A mom-and-pop store located somewhere in Iowa selling pillow
| cases would probably be low-risk, there's not much you need to
| do.
|
| A vendor selling USB cables out of China is probably very-high-
| risk. These need deep vetting. As in: show up in an office, bring
| along your lawyer, show us documentation on the working
| conditions in your factory, sign an agreement to let us audit
| your factory, etc.
|
| Now, banks don't do this (at least, as far as I'm aware), but to
| play the devil's advocate: just imagine if Amazon asked very-
| high-risk vendors to _post collateral_ before selling. If they
| get caught, the collateral is used to compensate victims.
|
| That would take out the incentive to sell counterfeits in the
| first place.
| dublinben wrote:
| Speaking of incentives, why would Amazon want to place such
| onerous restrictions on their suppliers? Are consumers supposed
| to demand this? Would regulation require it?
|
| Amazon's success at being "the everything store" is
| fundamentally opposed to vetting their suppliers like this.
| ckastner wrote:
| > _why would Amazon want to place such onerous restrictions
| on their suppliers?_
|
| Because they have a massive counterfeiting problem, as
| evident by this submission.
|
| To reiterate, what I suggested would only be onerous for the
| highest-risk suppliers.
|
| > _Amazon 's success at being "the everything store" is
| fundamentally opposed to vetting their suppliers like this._
|
| Certainly, Amazon is also fundamentally opposed to customers
| becoming victims of counterfeiters on a platform they provide
| them with.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Certainly, Amazon is also fundamentally opposed to
| customers becoming victims of counterfeiters on a platform
| they provide them with._
|
| You can't even select "This item is a counterfeit/I suspect
| this item is a counterfeit" when filing for a return.
|
| Surely if they cared about their customers becoming victims
| of counterfeiters, they'd give the customers who did become
| victims of counterfeiters on Amazon's marketplace the
| ability to return and report such items accordingly.
|
| During my last return of a counterfeit item, I had to lie
| about the reason for the return during the return process.
| I had to choose between the vaguely related, but Amazon-
| approved, platitudes of "Wrong item was sent", "Inaccurate
| website description" or "Item defective or doesn't work".
| ckastner wrote:
| Just to be clear, my argument was rhetorical.
|
| I fully agree that in practice, we're seeing something
| completely different.
| vageli wrote:
| > Now, banks don't do this (at least, as far as I'm aware), but
| to play the devil's advocate: just imagine if Amazon asked
| very-high-risk vendors to post collateral before selling. If
| they get caught, the collateral is used to compensate victims.
|
| Requiring merchants to be bonded for entry into high-risk
| categories sounds like a great idea! I know they already have
| hurdles for entry into protected categories like vitamins but
| adding a financial hurdle seems sensible for certain categories
| or volume.
| donmcronald wrote:
| In theory I think requiring a cash bond could improve many
| distribution systems, but the reality is that these big tech
| companies are so terrible at moderation and curation that
| we'd end up with tons of people having their bonds seized for
| no reason. Then, since there's actual money involved, those
| people might actually have some recourse, so it'll never
| happen IMO.
| myself248 wrote:
| Foxes announce plan to investigate threats to henhouse. Film at
| 11.
| Finnucane wrote:
| I don't really get the attitude of 'I don't care about
| counterfeits because it's easy to make returns.' I mean, you know
| what's even easier than that? Ordering from a more trustworthy
| vendor and not having to make returns. Getting the right thing
| the first time! If I have to go to the post office to send a
| thing back, I might as well just go to an actual store and buy
| the thing myself.
| luizb wrote:
| they should start by investigating the "Amazon Basics" brand
| bradstewart wrote:
| Is it safe to assume "Amazon Basics" products are not
| counterfeit? Obvious clones of products from other brands, but
| quality-controlled by Amazon?
| PaulWaldman wrote:
| I was thinking that too. Unless someone claimed they are just
| reselling their AmazonBasics items that were previously
| purchased from Amazon.
| awinter-py wrote:
| nos custodimus quod lingus
| panitaxx wrote:
| I started buying clothing from the brand itself (eg shoes
| directly from adidas, etc). Some appliances also direct. I
| sometimes buy food from Walmart but only if they are the retailer
| (they don't seem to commingle inventories). I bought some ssd
| directly from Samsung site. Another problem with amazon is the
| sheer quantity of not-counterfeit but cheap unknown knockoffs. It
| seems more like an expensive AliExpress.
| benologist wrote:
| I wonder if they will solve the mystery of how executives either
| didn't know, or didn't do anything about it, for so many years
| even as it was widely reported. It might have been more
| appropriate to use a federal investigative body and start with
| whatever misconduct, or deficit of attention, has been enabling
| the counterfeiters to thrive on Amazon for years.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Forgive me if I think this is both not enough and a little too
| late.
|
| Too many incentives are aligned within Amazon to continue to
| ignore counterfeits sold on their marketplace, and the only way
| I'll believe that such a unit is effective against such
| incentives is with independent audits.
|
| If this was an honest attempt to clean house, surely Amazon would
| welcome audits with open arms.
| legitster wrote:
| I have yet to have an issue with a counterfeit - my main problem
| are the pages and pages of crappy listings. I was trying to find
| a child's bike helmet the other day, and it's hundreds of brands
| I have never heard of, with no safety information, and all look
| virtually indistinguishable from each other except for weird
| logos plastered on them. (Kamugo? Galf? LERUJIFL? Turboske?
| OUWOER? LANOVAGEAR?)
|
| I ended up driving to Wal-Mart for a Bell helmet that cost the
| same.
| pps43 wrote:
| Is there a way to contact this new unit? I have a bunch of links
| to clearly counterfeit products on Amazon. But something tells me
| that they might not be particularly interested.
| verdverm wrote:
| I mentally added the word time in the middle of the domain name
| and chuckled. It would be great if they did that, show that they
| still have a bit of humanity left over there
| CommanderData wrote:
| Are they going to tackle the surge in poor quality face masks
| claiming to meet FDA or European standards?
| codezero wrote:
| The cynic in me assumes they are doing this so they can make
| Amazon Basics versions of popular counterfeited money and remove
| the angle that counterfeiters are using...
| rckoepke wrote:
| The categories of things that I've received counterfeit versions
| of on Amazon have been truly mind-blowing. It's been replacement
| HEPA filters, cat toys, even breakfast cereal. It's not just
| earphones/mics, batteries, usb cables, flash drives, extension
| cords, and other electronics.
|
| Who counterfeits breakfast cereal??? I've had this issue with
| both Quaker Oats and Raisin Bran. The scale of fraud is
| magnificent. And it really gaslights consumers; it took me
| forever to actually accept that I was eating an off-brand
| imitation of my favorite cereals.
|
| I do still buy from Amazon. The ease of returns still gives me
| confidence that I can decide after receiving an item whether the
| price:quality ratio is worth it.
|
| But not if I absolutely need it to conform to certain standards
| and I don't have the skills/tools to validate the performance
| myself (like HEPA filters). Then I tend to buy from somewhere
| with a more curated supply chain (Home Depot, direct from
| manufacturers website, etc).
| jbay808 wrote:
| My company got a counterfeit textbook.
|
| On the cover was the book we had ordered, about control theory.
| The printed pages were a veterinary textbook by a different
| publisher.
| r00fus wrote:
| Was that order fulfilled by Amazon? I have a suspicion that
| some of the "counterfeiting" is done by substitution of
| inventory by a bad actor, and FBA silently ignoring that.
|
| VendorA sells a good product with decent margin using FBA as
| their fulfillment mechanism.
|
| VendorFakeA claims to sell same product with discount and
| sends seemingly valid inventory to FBA - which co-mingles the
| inventory and throws away the receipts.
|
| Customer buys something from VendorA but gets VendorFakeA
| product instead.
|
| It's like a supply-chain joe-job but VendorFakeA profits.
| LegitShady wrote:
| That must have been a hilarious return.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| I'm curious about the incentive that leads to this. If you're
| going to print and sell counterfeit textbooks, why not use
| the actual content? Surely nearly every copy with a random
| other book will be returned. Is it possible that they meant
| to include the right content, but they counterfeit lots of
| books and have low quality control? My best guess is that
| they can easily grab a copy of a book's cover online, but
| actually acquiring and scanning a copy of each book is cost
| prohibitive, so they just sell entirely fake ones and hope
| that they get at least some money out of it.
| wincy wrote:
| Weird, you could print off Library Genesis and get better
| results than that.
| arkades wrote:
| I got a counterfeit book of knots. And I kept it.
|
| As far as I can tell, someone printed and hardbound a PDF
| of the actual book, which is otherwise I guess out of
| print. It's about the best I could hope to get under the
| circumstances. So ... there we are.
| LaserPineapple wrote:
| What book?
| arkades wrote:
| The Ashley Book of Knots.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| I bought (and returned) a legit copy of that book. At
| least in the sense that it wasn't a printed pdf.
|
| Weird.
| esaym wrote:
| https://archive.org/details/TheAshleyBookOfKnots/page/n63
| 7/m...
|
| nearly 700 pages of knots, nice!
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I can't imagine there's a lot of margin in counterfeit
| textbooks. The publishers themselves already offer lower
| quality copies with the same content. They just restrict it
| to the Indian subcontinent, and "used, excellent condition"
| copies start showing up quickly on Amazon. I have one right
| in front of me. Paper quality is definitely lower, printing
| quality much lower, but the content is identical and it
| cost me 25% of what the same book runs when produced for
| the US.
| perpetualpatzer wrote:
| There is actually a LOT of margin in counterfeiting
| textbooks.
|
| Even in the US a textbook costs ~$10 to manufacture. The
| reason prices are so high is that there's a high fixed
| cost up front to write/edit/typeset/design/market the
| book, and a small, capped number of readers over which
| you can hope to amortize those costs.
|
| If publishers need to sell for $200 to break even, you
| can sell your counterfeit copy as "used" for $50-100/u,
| and get a 4-900% gross margin because you don't have to
| waste money on things like developing or marketing the
| content or paying royalties.
| jbay808 wrote:
| I was also very confused. If you're going to sell a fake
| book, why not just fill it with blank pages? Why go to the
| extra effort? Did they really think I wasn't going to
| notice when I opened it and it was full of information
| about hamsters? Were they hoping I'd just put it on my
| bookshelf and never actually read it?
|
| We concluded that they probably run some kind of big
| automated print-on-demand counterfeiting operation, and
| have a database of textbook PDFs from several publishers.
| They probably had the wrong entry in their database for
| this title, and linked it up with the wrong contents.
| Perhaps next time you order a small-animal veterinary
| handbook from Amazon, you'll find it full of block diagrams
| and transfer functions.
|
| I imagine that if they had printed the correct PDF, I never
| would have noticed. The book was printed on high-quality
| paper and well bound.
|
| For what it's worth, this wasn't a cheap purchase.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| Amazon also prints many books on demand; could it simply
| have been a fuck-up at the printing facility, swapping
| covers for two print jobs?
| kube-system wrote:
| I'm guessing it's because they didn't manufacture the
| book at all -- they probably took a used book that was
| worth next to nothing and put a new cover on it, hoping
| that some people wouldn't open it until their return
| window closed?
| ponker wrote:
| That, frankly, is downright pleasant compared to counterfeit
| food.
| awinter-py wrote:
| you say that now but you'll change your tune when future
| control theory only works on dogs
| draw_down wrote:
| If people can make a quick buck counterfeiting it then they
| will.
|
| For me it doesn't work to say "who would do that??", I'd rather
| focus on "Why has Amazon let the problem get this insanely
| bad?"
| pjc50 wrote:
| Can anyone confirm if this happens in countries with
| functioning consumer protection? Or is it just an Amazon.us
| thing?
| mike_d wrote:
| Even with strong consumer protections, the bad actors are
| often based overseas. There is little to no incentive for the
| Chinese government to inhibit fraud taking place in the US or
| Europe.
| markdown wrote:
| > Even with strong consumer protections, the bad actors are
| often based overseas.
|
| Nope. There aren't many countries that allow foreigners
| who've never set foot in their country to sell product
| there without local representation.
| jacobwilliamroy wrote:
| Oh my god you ordered food in the mail. Did you put it inside
| your body? Are you okay?
| nytesky wrote:
| In times pandemic I've been ordering from Target, CVS, and
| Costco. Do is this a bad idea?
| blondin wrote:
| i am as surprised as OP that GP ordered cereals by mail
| too!
|
| first of all, transportation is not the same. food
| transportation to grocery stores is most of the time if not
| always different. in fact, some brands insist on having
| their own trucks.
|
| i feel like with amazon, even with the prime trucks,
| everything is thrown together with everything else.
| [deleted]
| rckoepke wrote:
| I thought this was hilarious personally but in general, this
| kind of comment doesn't really add to the discussion and
| feels not very appropriate for HN.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't
| cross-examine. Comments should be more thoughtful and
| substantive, not less.
|
| However, I will absolutely take the opportunity to plug a
| food-by-mail company that is very near and dear to my heart:
|
| https://www.zingermans.com/OnlineCatalog.aspx
|
| Prices are obviously a bit high, but the quality is amazing.
| They treat staff incredibly well. They do lots of employee
| training so people really can work their way up from Janitor
| to whatever they want. Pay has always been above average. All
| finances are essentially open-book to employees and they go
| through each businesses (it's a conglomerate now)
| monthly/quarterly finances on a whiteboard with the team
| members so that everyone understands where they're at.
|
| Sometimes ordering food by mail is awesome.
| azinman2 wrote:
| I know you're getting downvoted because of product
| placement not adding to a discussion, but I have to say
| that having food items that are all represented by a
| drawing doesn't inspire confidence in me. I'm looking at
| bread and all I see is a cartoon -- I have no way of
| evaluating it from that page. A photo of bread can tell me
| a ton about the quality of the bake, and if this is more
| generic grocery store or is something properly done by an
| artisan.
|
| In person this becomes even more obvious. I don't see this
| being a good way to shop for food by mail.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Who counterfeits breakfast cereal??? I've had this issue with
| both Quaker Oats and Raisin Bran. The scale of fraud is
| magnificent. And it really gaslights consumers; it took me
| forever to actually accept that I was eating an off-brand
| imitation of my favorite cereals.
|
| Take a look on what is going in China for a fast forward look
| into the future.
|
| What you see in China now is exactly that. Pro counterfeiters
| mostly make money on rarely contested, or completely
| uncontested, hard to trace, abandoned, or obscure niches.
| Nobody nowadays buys into Abibas, but quite a few seekers of
| highly hyped boutique stuff often buy into exotic goods fakes.
|
| And on the other end of the spectrum, there are fake foods, and
| fake daily use goods, things few people would even mind being
| fake, or bothering to check for that.
| [deleted]
| mfkp wrote:
| I've got a hard rule of not ordering anything from Amazon that
| goes in/on my body. Too many counterfeits and too much risk.
| I'll stick with trusted retailers for that (ordering from
| Target is just about as easy these days, maybe slightly slower
| shipping but can pick it up in-store if I need it fast).
|
| Even Walmart is getting hard to shop online and filter out
| products that are sold by "marketplace" sellers.
| BluePen7 wrote:
| I started following that rule a while ago too, I wouldn't
| trust some random off-brand food from amazon, but the brand
| name food has a fair bit of markup.
|
| If the counterfeiters are willing to produce anything to make
| a buck, and amazon is willing to sell counterfeit goods as
| legitimate, it makes sense we'd eventually have counterfeit
| brand name cereal or canned goods.
|
| A while ago my fiancee was having trouble finding some Eagle
| Brand Medicated Oil (it's this traditional asian stuff her
| mom rubbed on her), and I saw it was on amazon. It's possible
| they have changed their manufacturing processes slightly
| since her previous bottle, or it was different because it
| wasn't as old, but it just kept being every so slightly
| different in subtle ways, such as the feel of the bottle and
| even cap, the texture of the oil, the smell was a bit
| different, the box was a bit bigger, etc.
|
| I honestly still am not sure if it's counterfeit or not, but
| that's just the issue, I don't have the means to check. My
| only choice is to buy from sources with trusted supply
| chains.
|
| It's ironic, I was the first of all my friends to start using
| amazon excessively, and got them into it, but nowadays my
| fiancee remarks she found her workout supplement on there for
| a few dollars cheaper and I reflexively reply "Hell no! We
| don't put things from amazon in our body.
|
| At this point I only trust them with things that can fail on
| their own without causing damage, or for products so
| complicated no one has made a knock-off yet (I'm waiting on
| knock-off brand name monitors). They went from this amazing
| cheaper alternative to big-box stores, to AliExpress with 2
| day shipping.
| tintor wrote:
| I would never buy online food or anything similar from Amazon,
| only directly from the manufacturer.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > I do still buy from Amazon. The ease of returns still gives
| me confidence that I can decide after receiving an item whether
| the price:quality ratio is worth it.
|
| The time and labor spent refunding is well worth spending an
| extra few dollars at a competing vendor where I don't have to
| worry about commingling nonsense.
|
| If you told me 12 years ago that I would be choosing to
| patronize Best Buy over Amazon, I would have told you Best Buy
| will be out of business. Lo and behold, I now pay Best Buy (or
| manufacturer website) whatever they want since I can't trust
| Amazon to not send me some AliExpress garbage.
| julianozen wrote:
| Really interested to hear how you figured out the breakfast was
| fake
| rckoepke wrote:
| Yeah, great question. Basically wrong flavor and texture.
| Visually looked quite similar but just had a cardboard
| consistency. Repeatedly compared vs. grocery store bought
| over a few months span of alternating purchases to confirm.
|
| It was somehow both immediately obvious and also subtle. My
| girlfriend eventually confirmed that something didn't seem
| right with it, so we started buying back-to-back orders
| alternating from grocery stores vs. amazon. Every once in
| awhile we'd get non-counterfeit cereal from Amazon but mostly
| it was "fake". Or at least diverted from another global
| region where the recipe/ingredients are somewhat different.
|
| I always wanted to do some quantitative analysis like density
| or fill size or precise box dimensions or spectrometry of the
| ink on the boxes. But at the time I was just trying to
| convince myself that I wasn't crazy, and eventually I was
| 100% sure so I stopped experimenting before bothering to
| collect quantitative data.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| I wonder if the cereals customer support would have been
| interested enough to try to help you confirm it wasn't
| legitimate
| chihuahua wrote:
| Malt-o-meal makes excellent imitations of name-brand
| cereals. For example, Golden Puffs = Kellogg's Honey Smacks
| -- completely indistinguishable, but much cheaper. They
| make about 30 different kinds of cereal.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOM_Brands
| crazygringo wrote:
| Did you check the expiration dates by any chance?
|
| I'd be _highly_ suspicious that this was, in fact, food
| counterfeiting in any way. I 've never heard of a food
| brand being counterfeited on Amazon (with actual evidence).
| Food "counterfeiting" is generally a "legitimate"
| manufacturer themselves falsely representing their
| ingredients (e.g. diluting their olive oil with canola
| oil).
|
| Amazon used to be known for keeping boxed foods for _much_
| longer than a grocery store -- so if cereal takes 2 years
| to expire, at the grocery store you 're always buying
| cereal that was made last month, while from Amazon it might
| have been made a year and a half ago.
|
| If it wasn't the expiration date, then it was probably kept
| in a very hot environment for an extended time, which also
| breaks down flavor and texture. If kept on pallets under
| plastic in the blazing sun for days, it could cook them
| like an oven, flavor _goodbye_. (Might not have even been
| Amazon, but a wholesaler or similar.)
|
| Everything you've said is far more consistent with
| time/heat than the notion that you were getting
| "counterfeit" cereal.
| tqi wrote:
| > Or at least diverted from another global region where the
| recipe/ingredients are somewhat different.
|
| Did you happen to check for differences in the packaging?
| rckoepke wrote:
| I did. They weren't identical but the "counterfeit"
| wasn't flawed enough to say it was definitely made by a
| different company as opposed to a different printing
| facility or box vendor.
| ericd wrote:
| You're sure it was not a storage condition or age issue?
|
| I think you might be right in your theory that it was made
| by the correct company but intended for a different market
| and was made with a different formulation. Perhaps there's
| some arbitrage opportunity there.
|
| I guess I don't understand why someone would try to
| counterfeit something like cereal. Seems like it would be
| hard to get enough scale to make it worth the effort, given
| the low per-unit profit.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _I guess I don 't understand why someone would try to
| counterfeit something like cereal. Seems like it would be
| hard to get enough scale to make it worth the effort,
| given the low per-unit profit._
|
| Cereal is cheap, like really cheap, and name brand
| cereals like Raisin Bran go for nearly $9 a box.
|
| If you've ever been in a discount store, or a liquidator
| with a consumer facing outlet, tons of counterfeit food,
| toiletries, etc flood their shelves.
|
| Both the counterfeiter and the retailer benefit from
| selling counterfeit goods, and sometimes consumers either
| don't care or don't have enough information to tell the
| difference.
| rckoepke wrote:
| Checked expiration dates, they were comparable to store-
| bought. I store my cereal in pretty abhorrent conditions
| sometimes (like leaving it in the back of my car during
| Texas summer for a few days) and never noticed
| degradation leading to flavor/texure like this, but
| storage issues are still a possible cause. Maybe I'll do
| a real experiment sometime involving storing grocery
| cereal outdoors in the Houston summer and see what
| happens.
|
| I completely agree with all your sentiments and part of
| why it took me so long to come to my conclusion.
| amelius wrote:
| Someone should counterfeit the Amazon website.
| elliekelly wrote:
| If Azamon.com promises to be more diligent in monitoring for
| counterfeit items I would happily become a Preme subscriber.
| gregmac wrote:
| I don't order food from Amazon at all because I don't trust
| them not to send something counterfeit or expired. It's just
| not worth the risk/hassle, and a lot of the time they're not
| the best price anyway.
|
| I'm also extremely cautious about electronics, but there are
| still certain categories (such as memory cards) that I won't
| even consider. Usually the only benefit from Amazon vs anywhere
| else is shipping, and saving $shipping is simply not worth the
| risk of using a fake card.
|
| This is a step in the right direction to fixing the problem,
| but I'm not sure I'd trust anything -- even stuff sold by
| Amazon itself -- so long as they co-mingle inventory.
| throwaway_jobs wrote:
| Here is one (plus the story of a defective product lawsuit
| behind it).
|
| A water slide. The type that bolts down into concrete for use
| with pools. If the first thing in your mind is...isn't that
| something from the 70's/80's...yes it is.
|
| So the counterfeiter must have molded the entire slide
| (complete with the company logo that was embossed into the
| slide itself) thing is that company was dissolved back in the
| 80's.
|
| So purchaser's kid cuts their leg open on the slide and they
| sue for defective product. Of course the investigation leads to
| suing this Dissolved manufacturer. As I recall the dissolved
| entity actually defended (sort of rare from a dissolved Corp
| that dissolved so long ago) and it was only during expensive
| phase of discovery they learned they didn't manufacture the
| slide In question, and that it was completely counterfeited.
|
| One day Amazon is going to get smacked with such a lawsuit
| resulting in billions in punitive damages, then and only then
| will you see real effort on their part to curb this behavior.
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| > One day Amazon is going to get smacked with such a lawsuit
| resulting in billions in punitive damages, then and only then
| will you see real effort on their part to curb this behavior.
|
| IIRC at least one person (probably more) has died already
| from counterfeits on Amazon. I read one where I guy died in a
| motorcycle crash, it was found that his helmet (which he
| bought off Amazon) was a fraud and wasn't/didn't meet DOT
| standards, even though it had the DOT sticker.
| throwaway_jobs wrote:
| I recall stories of counterfeit child car seats that failed
| safety standards (don't think there was a lawsuit) just
| "undercover purchases" and actual safety testing of the
| fakes.
|
| As I understand it Amazon isn't liable which to me makes no
| sense as it relates to defective products (everyone in the
| supply chain of a defective product should be jointly and
| severely liable).
|
| I don't care if it's a 3rd party seller, Amazon should be
| liable as it hosts the product for sale, connects
| buyer/seller, processes payments, typically stores (and
| commingled) the products, and probably delivers the
| product.
|
| The thing about punitive damages is they are a punishment,
| so eventually there will be a case where The jury hears how
| Amazon knowingly and willfully continued selling 3rd party
| items it knew were fake and dangerous (Fake DOT helmets;
| expired baby formula; fake baby car seats; exploding
| electronics; etc...)and the jury is going to drop the
| hammer. Even billions In punitive damages wouldn't be a
| surprise, Amazon will appeal and it will come down to 10's
| or 100's of millions, but that's when they will take real
| action to stop this. But it's going to take time for this
| to happen.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| The alternative is an online marketplace with no
| accountability. That doesn't sound safe.
| tux1968 wrote:
| That's interesting, how do you sue a company that hasn't been
| in business for 20 or 30 years?
| throwaway_jobs wrote:
| It's a jurisdictional question so it really depends (I
| couldn't tell you in this case, I didn't work on it
| personally).
|
| In my opinion it's even more odd they defended (in at least
| some jurisdictions a dissolved entity has no standing to
| bring or defend lawsuits), but even if you could defend,
| why, time, costs, no ability to pay/collect. Something I
| always wondered to myself but literally as I wrote the last
| sentence it hit me...I'm guessing they were insured At the
| time they were in business selling the slides, so if the
| plaintiff sued and got a default then they could in theory
| move to join the insurer and collect against the insurer,
| so likely it was the insurer behind the scenes paying to
| represent the dissolved company.
|
| On the flip side I had another colleague work on the Exxon
| Valdez Oil Spill case at the time it finally ended, let's
| just estimate the litigation being over 10 years. During
| the litigation many of the damaged businesses were
| dissolved while the litigation was pending and apparently
| many of those that were dissolved may not have been able to
| collect as a result.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Edit: theory probably doesn't work, see comments below
|
| > So the counterfeiter must have molded the entire slide
| (complete with the company logo that was embossed into the
| slide itself) thing is that company was dissolved back in the
| 80's.
|
| I have a simpler explanation for that. Someone bought the
| tooling (injection moulds?), in an auction maybe, didn't
| bother to change the brand and is out there manufacturing
| slides.
|
| It's not "counterfeit" per se they just didn't give a f. (to
| use the technical term) and are selling it. Maybe outside
| branding is theirs but not the plastic one.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The slide probably cut someone because it didn't fit
| together quite right or there was a sharp parting line
| because the tooling used to make it was worn out (hence why
| the cost was low enough that the segment of the market that
| doesn't give a F was able to buy it).
| throwaway_jobs wrote:
| > I have a simpler explanation for that. Someone bought the
| tooling (injection moulds?), in an auction maybe
|
| But the company never sold them, so even they from the
| beginning reasonably believed they had in fact manufactured
| the slide. Had they sold the molds (which I don't think a
| company would do bearing their mark without selling the
| actual mark as well) it would have actually helped their
| defense and helped them consider/discover they were not the
| manufacturer of this particular slide.
| extrapickles wrote:
| It's somewhat common for worn out molds to be sold as
| scrap metal, then someone buys them from the scrap dealer
| and starts making counterfeits. This is why quite a few
| places will deface old molds before scrapping so it would
| be cheaper for the counterfeiter to make a new mold than
| repair the genuine one.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Ah, those details were not clear from the original story.
|
| They could have assumed (at the start of the process)
| that it could have been a pre-dissolution built slide.
|
| But if they admit that, during the dissolution process
| their machinery wasn't sold that definitely goes against
| my theory.
| throwaway_jobs wrote:
| FWIW I think your comment was in good faith and at
| minimum intellectually curious.
|
| I asked my colleague similar questions when hearing about
| the case.
| jacobush wrote:
| Don't worry, long before that day Bezos will have superpacked
| his way out of such concerns. What is money for, but buying
| politicians?
|
| (Much less stress than _acting_ politician, just look at the
| top public servant currently.)
| rckoepke wrote:
| Not sure that level of snark is appropriate for HN. Not
| that I explicitly disagree with you, of course. It's just
| we gotta have a higher bar around here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation;
| don't cross-examine. Comments should be more thoughtful and
| substantive, not less.
|
| > Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless
| you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated
| controversies and generic tangents.
|
| > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological
| battle. That destroys the curiosity this site exists for.
| jacobush wrote:
| Fine, I'll try to do a bit better. :)
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| There's fraud in clothing too.
|
| They reuse product photos from higher quality products to sell
| you a lower quality product.
| numpad0 wrote:
| They pretend to "fight counterfeit" occasionally but the
| "rampant" counterfeits on Amazon is structural and strategic.
| Marketplace seller competition is a race to the bottom against
| all of global online shopping so genuine examples can't
| possibly survive.
| wombat-man wrote:
| This is one of the reasons I don't buy a lot of stuff from
| amazon anymore. I don't have a printer to make return labels
| and easy returns are cold comfort. At the end of the day I just
| prefer to go in person to a store or order from a big box
| store. As long as you stay away from their weird 3rd party
| sellers, I feel pretty sure I'm getting real cereal or
| whatever.
| shotta wrote:
| Where I'm at you can return products "as-is" to a Kohl's
| Department Store and they will handle packaging and shipping
| back to Amazon. The refund starts processing sooner, too. I'm
| not sure how widespread this option is, though.
| snarf21 wrote:
| The issue is so simple to solve and they don't have to have a
| crimes unit to do it. Simply segment reviews and ratings based
| on seller. All you have to do is have each seller put a
| scannable sticker on each product based each batch going
| through intake. You can even still colocate. Then all the
| returns and bad reviews go to the right person and they can
| just get banned. This is not rocket surgery.
| kube-system wrote:
| Amazon has a program for this:
|
| https://brandservices.amazon.com/transparency
| calimac wrote:
| Really? How is it working considering the number of
| counterfeits flowing out of the Amazon warehouses daily?
| tlrobinson wrote:
| So if you want Amazon to stop selling counterfeit versions
| of your product you have to opt in to this program, and
| start serializing all of your products at your own expense?
| ConcernedCoder wrote:
| counterfeit stickers...
| derefr wrote:
| Single-use stickers, sent as a roll to the supplier at
| their registered address. Like a one-time pad of proofs.
| Each sticker would just be a QR code containing an HMACed
| {shipper ID, sequence #} string.
|
| When Amazon receives the stock, it adds the sequence # to
| the set of sequence #s used/acknowledged for that shipper.
| If there's a collision, the shipper gets a strike against
| it (because it's their responsibility to protect their
| sticker roll from copying) _and_ the item itself is
| returned-to-sender as undeliverable (because it was very
| likely a counterfeit.)
| lozaning wrote:
| A date string and or a string specified by amazon at the
| time of shipment creation signed with some sort of private
| key should fix this I think.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You're assuming they want to fix the problem
| rckoepke wrote:
| Not sure that level of snark is appropriate for HN. Not
| that I explicitly disagree with you, of course. It's just
| we gotta have a higher bar around here. I'd love to see
| substantial elaboration on the topic that adds to the
| discussion.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation;
| don't cross-examine. Comments should be more thoughtful
| and substantive, not less.
|
| > Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics
| unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid
| unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You're assuming snark was implied. I honestly do not
| believe that Amazon feels that this is a problem that
| needs to be solved. Before Amazon bans sellers/buyers, it
| needs to have total control of the market. At that point,
| it can decide what it wants to do.
|
| I've seen you post this reply several times lately (even
| today alone). Maybe you should attempt to contribute more
| to the conversation yourself rather than being a 6 month
| old account playing hall monitor.
| programbreeding wrote:
| I don't know enough about Amazon's fulfillment to know if
| this is possible, but maybe the sticker is unique to that
| seller. Meaning if it isn't their sticker that is scanned
| during fulfillment, they don't get credit for the sale.
| archgoon wrote:
| Why counterfeit? Just dumper dive when someone removes
| those 'worthless' stickers from the product.
| jedberg wrote:
| My number one rule with Amazon is that I don't buy anything
| that is supposed to go in my body. I don't trust it enough to
| get legit safe items.
|
| Anything else I figure if it's counterfeit but still works it's
| not the end of the world (although I'm pretty cautious about
| which electronics I get).
| viburnum wrote:
| You can't just add anti-fraud sprinkles on top. The rampant fraud
| is built into Amazon.com's business model. Monitoring product
| quality is hard. All the little shopkeepers and buying managers
| were actually doing work, work that isn't easily automated.
| Amazon's recreating the problems of central planning that the
| USSR had in product quality.
| olafure wrote:
| I'd really like them to establish a "counterfeit reviews" unit
| too.
|
| Many years ago their review system was one of their businesses
| advantages. Many users and fairly honest reviews.
|
| Now it's rife with fake and bought reviews, rendering it useless.
| mtnGoat wrote:
| considering they make money either way, i feel like this could be
| kind of dubious and just lip service. i would have more faith if
| an uninvolved party was doing the work.
| 7863949364 wrote:
| They should start by investigating themselves for antitrust
| violations.
| gwittel wrote:
| Are fake listings a problem? Absolutely. But is it the primary
| issue? I'm not so sure. It seems like Amazon is doing all sorts
| of things but not actually addressing the root -- inventory co-
| mingling + sketchy 3rd party sellers that can come back
| overnight.
|
| Simply ending inventory co-mingling would likely handle a
| substantial portion of counterfeits since Amazon is sourcing
| their stock through standard channels.
|
| Amazon knows this. There's probably cost models somewhere in HQ.
| But ending this would mean: slower delivery times, and Amazon
| would have to carry the inventory on their books. I'd gladly wait
| an extra day or two if I know the item I get is legit (just like
| pre FBA/3rd party days). Instead, Amazon is burning goodwill and
| cash on efforts like this one.
|
| If anything, Covid-19 has forced other retailers to up their
| online game. Its accelerated my spending shift away from Amazon
| as I'm tired of fraud. Fraudulent items can injure, poison, or
| even kill people. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll wait another day
| for that delivery.
| ikeboy wrote:
| >Amazon is sourcing their stock through standard channels.
|
| This just isn't true. There's been plenty of lawsuits alleging
| that Amazon themselves sourced counterfeit product. Their
| supply chain for many products is not necessarily better than
| third party sellers.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| About 6 years ago I ordered a $150 graphing calculator from
| Amazon, 'Shipped and sold by Amazon' or whatever the actual
| phrase was, and iirc there were no 3rd-party sellers for the
| item. The calculator came in two versions with software
| differences as well as a different accent color on the
| hardware to differentiate. I ordered the one with the extra
| software but instead got the one with the cheaper color and
| firmware. I returned it for a replacement from Amazon and got
| the right one that time.
|
| It wasn't counterfeit (I don't think anyone is ripping off
| high-end TI calculators, and it also came with a license key
| for the computer software), but I believe it was
| intentionally incorrectly sold. It came in a blister pack and
| the paper insert inside plastic indicated it was the CAS
| model, but the calculator itself was the non-CAS model - in
| other words, aside from having the non-CAS calculator in the
| box, it was exactly identical to the CAS model as you would
| buy from a store.
|
| Maybe TI mixed up their stuff but I doubt that; by that time
| I had already heard of Amazon selling counterfeit items and
| as you said there have apparently been lawsuits for this.
|
| About a year later I had the exact same issue occur with
| another item - sold by Amazon, but fake, but got the right
| one after a return. Can't remember what it was though.
| ciarannolan wrote:
| >It seems like Amazon is doing all sorts of things but not
| actually addressing the root -- inventory co-mingling + sketchy
| 3rd party sellers that can come back overnight.
|
| Right, and for the reasons you listed, they simple do not care.
| They care only about appearing to care.
|
| As someone else linked in this thread, they announce some
| bullshit "investigative team" like this every 6 months or so.
| ABeeSea wrote:
| I'm not sure commingling is as big a problem as you imply.
| Amazon's inventory system is random so every item can
| essentially be tracked by location. Even with commingling, if
| there is a counterfeit all the inventory from the original
| sourcer can be tracked and pulled. It's not like they are
| randomly tossing all of the same item into a random bin and
| doesn't know whose is whose.
|
| Also Amazon buys from many distributors just like every other
| retailer. Even their own inventory for the same item could come
| from many different suppliers. Many of those
| distributors/suppliers are now sellers themselves and all
| that's changed is who sets the price and who decides when to
| send in more inventory (and who takes on the working capital
| risk.)
|
| As for sellers coming back overnignt, one of the largest
| complaints on the seller forums is how onorous the KYC process
| is for new sellers. (Bank documents, passports, business
| license, etc).
|
| Also you a manufacturer can become a brand owner which prevents
| commingling and other sellers from listing on their items.
| Notice that Ankara highest volume power banks pretty much only
| have offers from Anker and amazon warehouse / woot (an amazon
| subsidiary).
| csa wrote:
| > It's not like they are randomly tossing all of the same
| item into a random bin and doesn't know whose is whose.
|
| Tell this to my buddy who had his card game counterfeited
| about 3 years ago.
|
| He was getting a lot of complaints about counterfeit
| products, so he ordered a few and got a few duds.
|
| He ended up having to recall all of his inventory from
| Amazon, and he found out that a fairly sizable percentage was
| counterfeit (~20%... can't remember the exact number).
| According to him, Amazon was literally "tossing all of the
| same item into a random bin and [didn't] know whose [was]
| whose".
|
| The solution he ended up going with was paying Amazon extra
| to separate his items from other potential sellers of his own
| product. IIRC, he also set up (paid for?) the right to be the
| sole distributor for new items. I can't remember if he took
| those actions concurrently or sequentially, but he decided it
| was cheaper to do both rather than deal with counterfeits.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > I'm not sure commingling is as big a problem as you imply.
|
| Commingling is the sole reason I canceled Amazon prime and
| don't shop there.
|
| I am spending my money to receive a certain product, and in
| order to do that I have to trust the vendor. If I can't trust
| the vendor, why should I buy from them?
| gwittel wrote:
| Hard to say since only Amazon knows. As you've mentioned,
| there are many ways for counterfeits to enter the supply
| chain.
|
| I think the main difference is who shoulders greater
| risk/impact of a counterfeit. Under normal models, the store
| (Amazon) is hit harder (returns, supply chain management).
| Under Amazon's model, the customer and potentially
| manufacturer bears a heavier burden.
|
| As a customer, why should I care about the brand owner
| feature? Additionally, Amazon does not clearly mark products
| as such. These things just look like any other FBA product.
|
| As a product creator, why should I have to register myself
| with Amazon? Should I have to police Amazon listings (which
| seems likely based on the brand ownership service feature
| list)? Or can I just work with my trusted distributors like
| the standard model?
|
| I don't have an answer to these questions especially on the
| sell side. However, this all seems more like Amazon's way of
| shifting risk and cost to external parties.
| donmcronald wrote:
| At the very least, whoever ships the product should be
| considered the retailer. If I visit Amazon.com, buy a product
| that's stocked in an Amazon warehouse, pay Amazon, and Amazon
| ships it to me, it's insane that Amazon can turn around and
| claim someone else is the retailer when things go bad.
|
| Politicians are tough on crime unless it's corporate crime I
| guess.
| mjevans wrote:
| Having a chain of ownership list would be a great help with this.
| Track and report which company owned the item back to it's
| manufacture and who 'owned' the IP of the run. Even more ideally
| also the production time, etc.
| r00fus wrote:
| This goes against everything that makes Fulfilled by Amazon
| successful/dominant. Not expecting anything to change.
| anonymousDan wrote:
| Good shout. If only there were a technology to support this
| kind of usecase....
| Vendan wrote:
| Good news, there is! It's called a database. When an item
| comes in, tag it with a unique barcode and add a row to the
| database saying "Item X came from company Y in shipment Z"
| and then sue/penalize/whatever company Y when it's
| counterfeit.
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