CSI: Amazon.com coming soon to a screen near you When you log on to shop at Amazon.com in the near future you may benefit from the work of a CSI team the retail giant has created to crack down on counterfeit kit and haul its makers into court. The Register has taken a little licence with our CSI acronym – Amazon has named its new team the "Counterfeit Crimes Unit". iPhone …
> the job of helping Amazon “to more effectively pursue civil litigation against suspected criminals
So in other words having a reputation as a tat bazaar, filled with low-quality knockoffs, is finally beginning to affect the bottom line.
Or was it that eBay objected to Amazon muscling in on their turf?
In my eyes, Amazon has lost reputability. If something was important, or there could be severe consequences if using the product was fake, I would generally buy it from elsewhere, for example ointments.
I still buy shit products from Amazon, but I haven't a clue if they're fake or just, well, shit. When I was a kid everything seemed to have worked much better.
I've mentioned this before.
A watch collector I knew bought a "fake Rolex" sold as such in Italy. He bought it as he thought it was a very good fake. He also opened it up out of curiosity and was surprised to find an Eterna movement in it; "a far better movement than bloody Rolex ever fitted", as he put it.
Not all fakes are crap.
Also real reviews for one product on Amazon appear under other products that they consider similar. Also fake products find their way into Amazon warehouses because they are tagged by the seller as equivalent to the real product and fulfilled by Amazon, so you could buy the real product from Amazon themselves or a reputable third party store and still get a fake one. All of these problems are entirely of their own making.
...for Amazon's own-brand knockoffs of the products that other companies sell through them?
1) Small Company X invents a widget.
2) Bezos' Bazaar is pretty much the only game in town, so Small Company X has no choice but to sell their widget on the Marketplace.
3) Jeff's flying monkeys spot a successful new product, and make their own nigh-identical (but juuuuuuuust different enough that suing would be a long, drawn-out process, and too expensive for Company X) version.
4) The "Amazon Essentials Widget" shows up first in every search on Amazon, by some incredible coincidence, and Small Company X is properly screwed.
Considering it started as a book company it cannot even track things by unique identifiers, like an isbn.
Instead they use an amazon product code, and they can be manipulated by third parties.
Say Big Company releases Widget 2.0 then the listing for Widget 1.0 drops out of site. But that amazonid can have something else loaded against it by a third party, they can change the picture and description - but they keep the positive feedback for the original item.
This is how I got an apple changing cable instead of a network tv tuner last year, as it was mid hijack when someone purchased my chrimbo pressie.
Or some times it's just Amazon changing suppliers and they don't fulfill orders purchased off the first amazon id.
Moving into clothing and then you are ripe for alternate supplier or overrun shifting the same as ebay. Levi's from country A appearing in country B are all frowned upon. They want to keep the brand stores and it's them insisting on this. Let alone items in different continents sizes, or kids clothes listed in with adults or visa versa.
Many years ago I used Amazon when it was just a bookseller to source some out of print books. Was happy with the service.
More recently, I tried to use them. Ordered some Thrustmaster rudder pedals that were shown as currently out of stock, but I was happy to wait. They never came into stock and when I remembered the order and checked a couple of months later, they had just cancelled the order without telling me. Bought them from Box instead when I was last in the UK.
Over Christmas I tried to order a battery ride on car for my son. Placed order, then noticed that while on one part of the description it said it was a ride on car, another part said it was an inflatable Santa. Queried this, received no response but they cancelled the order without telling me. Tried again on a different car which was shown as in stock. Checked a couple of days later, now shown as out of stock. Checked the next week and they had cancelled the order without telling me.
Thought screw this, bought car from Kogan. Delivered on time with no issues.
Not sure if I will bother with them again.
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