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Amazon 'Seized and Destroyed' 2 Million Counterfeit Products In 2020 (arstechnica.com) 60

Posted by BeauHD from the countering-counterfeits dept.
Amazon "seized and destroyed" over 2 million counterfeit products that sellers sent to Amazon warehouses in 2020 and "blocked more than 10 billion suspected bad listings before they were published in our store," the company said in its first "Brand Protection Report." Ars Technica reports: In 2020, "we seized and destroyed more than 2 million products sent to our fulfillment centers and that we detected as counterfeit before being sent to a customer," Amazon's report said. "In cases where counterfeit products are in our fulfillment centers, we separate the inventory and destroy those products so they are not resold elsewhere in the supply chain," the report also said. Third-party sellers can also ship products directly to consumers instead of using Amazon's shipping system. The 2 million fakes found in Amazon fulfillment centers would only account for counterfeit products from sellers using the "Fulfilled by Amazon" service.

The counterfeit problem got worse over the past year. "Throughout the pandemic, we've seen increased attempts by bad actors to commit fraud and offer counterfeit products," Amazon VP Dharmesh Mehta wrote in a blog post yesterday. Amazon's new report was meant to reassure legitimate sellers that their products won't be counterfeited. While counterfeits remain a problem for unsuspecting Amazon customers, the e-commerce giant said that "fewer than 0.01 percent of all products sold on Amazon received a counterfeit complaint from customers" in 2020. Of course, people may buy and use counterfeit products without ever realizing they are fake or without reporting it to Amazon, so that percentage may not capture the extent of the problem.
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Amazon 'Seized and Destroyed' 2 Million Counterfeit Products In 2020 More

Amazon 'Seized and Destroyed' 2 Million Counterfeit Products In 2020

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  • Selling Chinese garbage on Amazon is forbidden (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Monday May 10, 2021 @08:51PM (#61371294)
    ...unless the garbage is labeled as an Amazon product, has manipulated reviews, and is profitable.

    • I've gotten some good stuff built and designed in China.

      • Re:Selling Chinese garbage on Amazon is forbidden (Score:5, Interesting)

        by PsychoSlashDot ( 207849 ) on Monday May 10, 2021 @09:41PM (#61371438)

        I've gotten some good stuff built and designed in China.

        Absolutely. A huge portion of the products we know and love are either completely or partially sourced from China. Sure, the occasional stories about children's toys with lead in the paint are valid, but they're statistically insignificant.

        Most Chinese products are just fine. Heck, most knock-offs are just fine, and many are made on the same assembly lines as the sanctioned products.

        What I'm off-put about here is... a large amount of product, much of which is perfectly equivalent to its authorized equivalent were destroyed. I understand stuff like USB drives that falsely report their size and are garbage. But it feels wrong to dispose of the good stuff. I don't have a solution, but... so much productivity and source materials... gone... because the wrong person is making the profit.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by imidan ( 559239 )
          It's not that the wrong person is making the profit. The sellers have every opportunity to not misrepresent their product as someone else's. They don't choose to follow the rules. They would rather lie, cheat, and steal as long as it puts money in their pockets.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Fluke had a load of multimeters destroyed because they were a similar colour scheme to its own ones. Apple gets "unauthorized" parts destroyed as fake even if they aren't trying to pass themselves off as genuine.

            It's a scam, Amazon is just protecting big brands from competiton.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by imidan ( 559239 )

              Yeah, I didn't read in depth about that Fluke situation, but I don't believe those multimeters were "counterfeit" Flukes, they were multimeters that Fluke asserted infringed on their trademarks (due to their visual design), right? I don't think that's appropriate. And I also don't support intercepting aftermarket parts that the manufacturers aren't trying to pass off as genuine.

              But it's not just Amazon protecting big brands from competition. It's trivial to find sellers "hijacking" Amazon listings and selli

        • Re:Selling Chinese garbage on Amazon is forbidden (Score:4, Interesting)

          by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @08:55AM (#61372572)
          dont forget the unsafe Li-ION batteries china was flooding amazon with. Those were, in fact, unsafe as hell. Many were missing the safety components. Specifically I am talking about the 18650s and similar batteries. Its also disturbing that 3 different 18650s from three different 'brands' dont share the same dimensions. Im not talking button top vs no button top (ie the safety component). I am talking the same overprotection board or in some cases, it was faked to look like it had an overprotection board but did not. To add more injury and insult, they were sold with really shitty chargers. There have been multiple cases of these things exploding while being used. In some cases they were used in Vape equipment putting the explosion right in the face of the user.

          Sometimes they arent talking legitimate knock-offs either. Counterfeiting is so rampant in China that literally TOOTHPASTE is being counterfeit with a compound that contains no fluoride and does not even work as a cleaning solution. There was also a counterfeit ring that was counterfeiting baby formula but the product contained no nutrition resulting in several infant deaths.

          The other issue with counterfeit is even if its functional and dimensionally correct its made with substandard materials. When the item is branded as the original, not a knock-off version, it harms the manufacturer by way of reputation. One example I have seen first hand is the Magpul MS1 to MS4 sling adapter and/or the MS4 sling. Magpul charges north of $50 for their MS4 sling. There are cheap knock-offs on ebay for $20. The ugly truth is that the knock-offs are made out of die cast cheap chinese pot metal (think matchbox cars here) instead of machined steel. The dimensions of the QD are not even accurate. So if its branded as 3rd party, you get what you pay for. When its spray painted black and they put a little MS4 tag on the side and try to pass it off as Magpul, it damages the reputation of another company.

          One more example. I recently switched over to a Ryobi brushless motor 40V cordless electric lawnmower. It comes with one 6Ah battery. To buy another one, the battery cost nearly $200 (nearly half the cost of the lawn mower that included one battery). I found counterfeit batteries branded as Ryobi on Amazon for about half the cost. While the batteries ARE functional, they are NOT 6Ah batteries. The laws of physics still apply and a 6Ah battery is going to weigh the same even if its not an actual Ryobi product. Sure enough there are plenty of complaints of poor battery life. Also, in the reviews, they mentioned that it weight LESS than the 4Ah battery ryobi sells to use in their string trimmers. So they 1) made a battery to look identical to ryobi's (though there is one spelling error on the packaging) and 2) it was inferior because they only put half the number of lithium cells inside the packaging in order to make a profit at this cost. This harms the consumer, and it harms Ryobi's reputation. Are the official Ryobi batteries manufactured in China? Absolutely.

          The problem is inferior products being passed off as original. They are either cloned out of substandard material, and other times actual assembly line products that failed the Quality Assurance checks, and then stolen to be sold anyway.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by doccus ( 2020662 )

            Sometimes they arent talking legitimate knock-offs either. Counterfeiting is so rampant in China that literally TOOTHPASTE is being counterfeit with a compound that contains no fluoride and does not even work as a cleaning solution. There was also a counterfeit ring that was counterfeiting baby formula but the product contained no nutrition resulting in several infant deaths

            You forgot to mention the plastic rice which is rampant in china now.. they even mix it with real rice so it's harder to detect..

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 )

          What I'm off-put about here is... a large amount of product, much of which is perfectly equivalent to its authorized equivalent were destroyed.

          Perfectly equivalent is often questionable. But that aside, they could legitimately sell the product under their own branding but instead pretend to be a more reputable brand. The people doing this are doing it for the sole purpose of defrauding the people they are selling to in order to get a higher price for the product. That's not only hurting the company being imitated, it's hurting the consumer buying the products. The products are almost always sub-par, but sold as a premium brand with their logos an

        • Even something as simple as a handbag would be hard to re-inspect to make sure it has the right stitching and actually serves as a handbag without the bottom ripping out. People who create knockoffs are aiming to undercut the market -- it's hard to believe that they'd be spending extra on quality control. And even if most of them are, we still would have to do the inspection to verify that before we could, for example, give the knockoffs to the authorized seller to sell as their own. Destroying the knockoff

      • I've gotten some good stuff built and designed in China.

        Could you name a few of these Chinese designed products?
        For a huge country with vast resources and economy I'm struggling to think of anything original they've created.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The Amazon Formula

      Sell 20 million counterfeit products

      Destroy 2 million counterfeit products, and brag about it

      PROFIT!

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • No, Amazon does not manipulate reviews. They let the vendor manipulate reviews: deleting reviews pointing out the product is fraudulent, or giving test results showing the product is fraudulent. And when you complain of the vendor manipulating reviews to the "Amazon community" email address (try finding that address), the vendor answers the complaint: "No manipulation here! Your reviews were removed because our investigation showed you were shipped an actual one of our products!" ("2 TB USB stick" with 32 G

  • We've accepted your return! You can expect to see a refund in your account within 3-5 days.
    • Amazon's return system is amazing. I have no idea how they make a profit when returns are free and almost all returned products are destroyed.

      • Amazon's return system is amazing. I have no idea how they make a profit when returns are free and almost all returned products are destroyed.

        Maybe none of it is worth anything?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by jhylkema ( 545853 )

        I have no idea how they make a profit...

        They probably don't, at least not on the sale of products. AWS? Different story. There's tons and tons of money to be made by turning IT infrastructure investments into ongoing expenses. Those are tax-deductible, after all, but you can only claim depreciation on hardware. The fact that you have no recourse when they drop the ball, but such things don't enter the "minds" of MBAs.

        Bottom line, AMZN has been cooking the books for decades so that Smilin' Jeff's funny money can keep increasing in value.

        • The fact that you have no recourse when they drop the ball, but such things don't enter the "minds" of MBAs.

          What recourse do you have when your in-house IT staff drop the ball?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by larwe ( 858929 )

        almost all returned products are destroyed

        Is this true? I see many many YouTube videos of people buying random pallets of Amazon "returned goods" and selling them on eBay.

    • Better than most. Newegg charged me for returning even though the whole thing was a bait and switch by the seller.
      I've even had Amazon automatically refund cost of an order because their delivery driver didn't deliver. I didn't even have to say a word.

  • It's like the petroleum producers scaling back flaring, isn't it?

    Since there's now a general consensus that what you do and allow is morally suspect, you'll be pleased to inform us, you're, effective immediately, willing to curtail the activities of an infinitesimal small percentage of the dodgy buggers selling on your site. Who... pay you commission when they sell us shite that might not be up to snuff.

  • Look! We got 2 million (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zkiwi34 ( 974563 ) on Monday May 10, 2021 @09:25PM (#61371390)
    Missed about 500 million. Yay Amazon!
    • I'd be willing to bet that the scale of counterfeiting at Amazon might be a lot closer to 5 billion items a year than 500 million. As long as everything is automated, with little to no human review, then it will be dead simple to create a vendor account, ship a boat load of crap to Amazon and then sell it it on to customers with Prime Free 2 Day Shipping.

  • Amazon Basics (Score:4)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Monday May 10, 2021 @09:42PM (#61371440)

    Did they include the biggest counterfeiter of all, Amazon Basics?

    • There's a difference between a counterfeit and a knock-off. Amazon Basics are knock-offs, and really poorly made garbage at that. But they are not counterfeit. Amazon doesn't sell an Louise Vitton bag complete with LV logos all over it. They may sell real Louis Vuitton bags, they may sell Amazon Basics ones with the same shape but a different colour and a different logo, but that (sadly) is still legal in the grand scheme of things.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )
      the counterfeit sting was not a sting on chinese knock-offs or look-alikes. It was a sting on knock-off look-alikes branded and sold as the original brand. You can still get some fly-by-night brand for a fraction of the price. For example theres a dozen brands of emergency solar/hand crank radio/flashlights. Im not sure I would call them counterfeit, but I sure as hell have never heard of these companies, and looking back 6 years, the companies seem to magically change their brand name every 6 months. If yo

  • So they'll seize and destroy fake purses (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jhylkema ( 545853 ) on Monday May 10, 2021 @09:59PM (#61371506)

    but cheap-ass lithium batteries that catch fire are A-OK by them.

    Got it.

  • I recently discovered a not-for-profit thrift shop in a rural area that re-sells Amazon discarded products. It was a first time deal for them, in which they somehow arranged to receive a truckload of miscellaneous merchandise. Some may have been used, some refurbished, but none clearly identified as such. This thrift shop inventoried the wide range of products they received and listed them for sale. ON AMAZON!

    I don't know what or if they paid for the merchandise. I only know of this because I bought a keybo

  • Counterfeit (Score:3)

    by Barny ( 103770 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @01:09AM (#61371868) Journal

    How many of those 2m products were spare parts for Apple products?

    Oh, wait, we were supposed to forget that was happening, right? /s

    • They're not counterfeit if clearly labeled as third party and not presented as official Apple parts. The quality might be suspect and Apple might void your warranty, but the consumer understands they're getting a cheap replacement part.

  • How can Amazon distinguish between their own inventory and third party sellers with the same product? Amazon comingles third party sellers products with their own. Unless Amazon determined it was counterfeit before they mixed it with their own inventory.

  • Can't they just sell them at very cheap prices with warnings of counterfeit labels? It seems a waste to destroy something that can still be used if safe.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      Can't they just sell them at very cheap prices with warnings of counterfeit labels? It seems a waste to destroy something that can still be used if safe.

      I wish they would. Then I could buy them in bulk and sell them on ebay without the warnings.

  • Throughout the pandemic, we've seen increased attempts by bad actors to commit fraud and offer counterfeit products,

    David Hasselhoff can’t catch a break these days.

  • That is nothing to brag about (Score:3)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @07:56AM (#61372448)
    Amazon is still filled with counterfeit goods and outright scams. I expect the crooks see the occasional destruction / seizure as just the cost of doing business on the platform. I'm also sure that Amazon is quite happy to keep the money it receives and seizes for the sale of counterfeit goods / scams and probably turns a profit from doing it.

  • As long as the quality is as good as the original, I don't give a shit if it's counterfeit. Hell, for a large segment of products I would seek out counterfeit stuff. I despise paying for a name when there is something verifiably just as good. I am a research junkie and when I make significant purchases, I always compare reliability, power, cost, maintenance and other factors and if I can find off brand stuff that equals or surpasses name brand, I'll go that way every single time. I definitely don't give a s

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      I think you are confusing counterfeit with knock off. Unless you would be cool buying a John Deere tractor for near retail cost, only to find out it's a Kioti painted green and yellow with John Deere logos on it and you are shit out of luck getting your money back. That's a counterfeit.

    • The quality may not be as good. Most stuff is made in China, and companies have strict contracts to not run off more pieces than cintracted for. Yet they still do, often with cheaper materials.

      So counterfeits can be in the actual form of the real stuff, down to stamped words.

    • I am a research junkie and when I make significant purchases, I always compare reliability, power, cost, maintenance and other factors and if I can find off brand stuff that equals or surpasses name brand, I'll go that way every single time. .

      If it's counterfeit, how do you know you're actually getting what your "research" tells you you're getting?

  • How is this still up on Amazon's site? The whole fake seeds thing got lots of publicity about a year back. I'll respect their commitment to not selling fraudulent goods, when they take down obviously fraudulent listings. https://www.amazon.com/1000Pcs... [amazon.com]

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