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Comment by jimmaswell | Hacker News Reader

This website is the only place I ever hear complaints about supposed counterfeits or excessive low quality products on Amazon. I feel like it's not as much of a real issue as it's made out to be, especially to the average person. Personally I still use Amazon regularly and have no real complaints.

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Eh. I use Amazon fresh and the produce quality used to be good but it's now fairly hit or miss (I'm sticking with in season items only). This isn't crazy stuff. Im talking about bananas, strawberries, etc

By comparison, if I instacart it from Costco, I've found it to be still consistently good.

FWIW, Amazon seems to scrub reviews about counterfeits once they become aware of them. I got a counterfeit item and when I complained about it, I linked to a review that showed exactly the differences between a real and a counterfeit version. After Amazon sent me a replacement (which was also a counterfeit, despite assuring me it would not be), that review was nowhere to be found. There were dozens of other reviews talking about fakes on that item. I did not initially read them because I was replacing one I lost.

I've been an amazon customer for more than 10 years. I buy from them a lot. I will still buy from them. It doesn't mean it's not a problem.

I use Amazon frequently and haven't been aware of any quality issues with anything I've purchased (though who knows for sure what their quality is), but there's definitely been an uptick in sketchy looking product alternatives made by unknown pop-up companies when you search for electronics and such. It kind of feels like viewing a modern Google search results page, where at least half the items are the equivalent of search engine-gaming blogspam. It wouldn't shock me if a lot of safety issues and hazardous materials are waiting to be uncovered in a lot of those products.

The only thing in my life I've ever felt compelled to report to the CPSC was a top rated "no name" product on Amazon that caught itself on fire for no good reason (it was even plugged into an AFCI, etc). The CPSC collected it from me and is working on a recall.

I think a lot of that isn't really knockoffs per say it's just a million fly-by-night drop shipping companies rebranding the same stuff.

Even Jeff Bezos' own newspaper, the Washington Post, recently acknowledged the "scourge of fake goods" on Amazon.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/02/28/amazon-mo...

I have seen multiple low quality or counterfeit batteries from amazon. I gave up on buying them there. lithium batteries for my house were extremely poor (lasting a month instead of years), aaa and cr32 batteries were also poor. I have noticed headphones being incredibly crappy also, unlike their reviews. It's really got me to the point I'm afraid to buy stuff from there. I still do, it's so convenient. I feel more comfortable buying clothes if they are us retailers (but the storefronts lie). Why doesn't amazon try to fix this?

I also have experienced no problems with counterfeits but, because it's flagged up here so often, I have become ultra cautious. Anything with a potential for harm, I buy elsewhere now.

Interestingly though, for some stuff, the problem isn't counterfeits it's the incremental degradation of quality of some 'premium' products. Almost all footwear brands, for example, are guilty of this. In some cases, the cheap knock-offs being better than the real thing.

Does topical discussion of Amazon come up at other places you frequent? If not, this makes sense.

Your comment doesn’t need make me trust amazon more, but it definitely makes me trust HN more.

Are there HN complaints about Amazon quality/counterfeiting in Europe, or is this a US poor consumer law problem?

Have you forgotten the eclipse sunglasses fiasco? It made national news.

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