Maybe a decade ago, but the political situation has changed. Just look at the EU going after Apple and forcing them to open their app store. If you think US threats of sanctions has the same effect as today, you're in for a reality check. No one in Europe is even afraid of the US anymore, in so far that European manufacturers are now just outright refusing to do sales to the US because of their ridiculous regulatory agencies being different state by state, city to city.

Where are all the agencies to prevent this from happening? Where is UL? Where is CSA? The counterfeit parts all bare their markings and not a peep from any of them, but they're eager to make me, the end user, report it to them for free after I payed for it of course.

Where is US Customs and Borders who are supposed to prevent all this? Where are the inspectors that are so qualified to determine what's real or not? They always complain they're understaffed, but somehow the EU can handle this with a quarter of the size and budget. Obviously things aren't working properly and all those stupid videos UL did about counterfeit Christmas lights back in the 90's that they still use as training videos today isn't stopping anything. Meanwhile, I as an end user, receive these counterfeit products unknowingly, but I'm somehow required to determine these parts are fake as the end user when they look genuine. How about reports on the failures of these agencies, from OSHA and US Customs to city agencies and insurance companies and how they're failing the public from keeping these counterfeit products from reaching us? Of course that will never happen.

We are supposed to have strong protection from this in the form of third party certifications, such as UL. Lately, they have been holy water blessing everything or manufacturers making faking certifications, so you see this garbage come through. The same thing is happening with solar stuff, everything has been holy water blessed, while house fire after fire, nobody cares.

Or my favorite thing manufacturers do, they provide a CE self-certification in the US, which is absolutely meaningless here because we don't have the same baseball bat like in Europe, but idiots accept it, along with the consequences.

And we also have a failure of our last line of defense, which is supposed to be US Customs and the Insurance companies. Both have claimed they don't have the people or knowledge to do anything about this.

The difference in Europe is that they allow self-certifications but if someone dares veer off the standards, they do get the book thrown at them because one person complains, unlike here, where no one cares anymore because enforcement is lacking all over the place and complaints like this get completely ignored.

So here we are. Expect more garbage like this flowing into the US.

CE mark is a self-certification for the EU. There are some heavy rules regarding this in Europe (And can get you in some big trouble for messing it up), but not anywhere else, so it's worthless around the globe except in the EU.

As for UL, I'm not their police man. They're a multi-billion dollar industry that should be doing their job like they're supposed too, litigating and catching these things themselves. They have the might of the federal government to assist them (US Customs and Borders, OSHA, etc) and none of it gets used. So for the most part, yes, the UL mark might be useless on these products.

Why does everyone else have to do quality control on every piece of merchandise and Amazon gets a free pass?

Because our industry is now about cutting corners and getting away with it. Our lack of enforcement is our own undoing opening the gates to mass counterfeit products. When you have US Customs and Borders not doing their jobs like they're supposed too and not checking huge shipping containers marked as gift, you end up with this nonsense.

It will get worse

They don't even offer good LCD's displays anymore. Almost all of them are overpriced and take forever to ship.

It's a good thing Harbor Freight is being sued to oblivion over this. Now it's Amazon's turn.

I stopped shopping for electronic stuff from Amazon. If I want something cheap and know what I'm getting, I'll go to AliExpress. But for the most part, everything has moved to B&H and back to Newegg.

I mean, just look at desktop office PC's on Amazon. You're better off buying directly from the manufacturer. Almost all of them are models from 4 years ago being sold as brand new at full price on Amazon. They really don't care.

If they can sue Harbor Freight for this nonsense and win, they can definitely sue Amazon for this nonsense.

You mean like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You can do the same thing with the VW Touareg. You put a clip or water bottle on the steering wheel and now you have auto drive. There's even youtube videos of people abusing this.

Why don't they pick on VW about this trick that has been around for the last couple years already?

We need law enforcement to actually do their jobs. I had an attempted phising incident with my accountant. I was able to trace back and locate the fraudster as they use empty homes as mail drop off points. I then handed the FBI and local law enforcement the actual address to the fraudster.

Guess what? They don't care. They don't even care if a million dollars was swiped off your business accounts. They're "too busy". Meanwhile, the fraudster continues to pester all my people, despite me blocking all the domains he registers. Do we need better security? Yes. But we also need law enforcement to do their due diligence or vigilante justice will happen (It would probably be cheaper for me to hire a hitman overall).

Meanwhile, we're laying mass fiber across the ocean without problems or thinking about it being "Just too expensive".

If anything, it should be cheaper to run fiber in the US than places like Japan or South Korea.

I couldn't describe Bestbuy right now any better than this.