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Comment by ChildOfChaos | Hacker News Reader

I am not sure Amazon has become as bad as everyone seems to suggest it is. I still buy from amazon frequently and never have a problem.

The thing with Amazon is there customer service is great, so if something does go wrong then you can sort it.

The other thing is to avoid the more dodgy looking listings and to buy only from amazon direct or shipped by Amazon and a fairly trusted brand.

Not sure if Amazon US is much worse than Amazon UK though. Ebay can be a bit more annoying to talk too, it takes much longer, amazon can be sorted in a quick 5 minute chat on there website.

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> I still buy from amazon frequently and never have a problem.

> The other thing is to avoid the more dodgy looking listings and to buy only from amazon direct or shipped by Amazon and a fairly trusted brand.

Amazon's problem is that it commingles inventory in such a way that counterfeits get mixed with legitimate products across sellers. In light of which I have to ask why you think you've never been bitten (and keeping in mind that counterfeits aren't always obvious; ex. lead looks like any other metal)

I'm pretty sure the level of counterfeits on Amazon varies massively by region. I'm in the UK and don't recall ever getting a counterfeit, and I buy ~1 thing per week from Amazon on average.

Actually I did get some Phillips LED bulbs that were a bit suss, but I'd still probably put my money on them being crap rather than counterfeit.

Counterfeits aren't always obvious but most are; if you've never seen any obvious counterfeits then it's unlikely you've missed high quality ones.

> I'm in the UK and don't recall ever getting a counterfeit

Again, how would you know? I know you think

> Counterfeits aren't always obvious but most are; if you've never seen any obvious counterfeits then it's unlikely you've missed high quality ones.

But the articles I've seen like https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/amazon-counterfeit-f... tend to lead with side-by-side pictures of visually identical products, which makes me think that's not true

Those don't look visually identical to me. With the possible exception of the tweezers the differences are pretty obvious.

What's the difference in the gloves?

Most obviously the lines are a lot thicker on the fake.

Disagree.

I was buying a high end soap product from Amazon and when we used one from a hairstylist we realized ours were consistently fake.

Bottle and everything looked the same. But then we started buying direct from Dermalogica and it was clear the Amazon products are all fakes. Worst part is the store name on Amazon is Dermalogica products or something very similar to the real name.

I am not sure, but if the store name was 'Dermalogica products' that would seem a bit dodgy straight away.

They also obfuscate multiple sellers in a tucked away menu and sometimes you click the "seller" and it turns into search term, no seller profiles.

I've ordered two of the same product at the same time and received 1 out of 2...

The amount of fakes in certain niches is off the charts.

That 'obfuscation' though is showing you the cheapest product+shipping price by default, even if Amazon-as-seller is not it (and is one of the slightly hidden more expensive ones).

Fair enough if you want the available sellers to be clearer, I'm just saying I think there's only good intentions there.

It's pretty easy to see who the seller is.

If I am buying a big name product that is likely to have a counterfeit problem, the seller is usually going to be amazon direct or the manufacturer anyway as big products are stocked by Amazon directly, the stuff that isn't, is usually more generic or niche and not usually a type of product that matters since it's something fairly generic anyway, i.e a dish cloth, tape etc.

I am not sure if it's just less of an issue buying from Amazon UK or it's the type of stuff you are buying, but from what i've read it seems like it's mostly an Amazon US issue. Most things in the UK are not from third party sellers unless you are buying a generic item that is effectively dropped shipped from AliExpress like a fancy dress dinosaur costume.

Unless, of course, the supposed seller is irrelevant because Amazon just mixes up the real and fake items regardless: https://old.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/ifytxk/ysk_t...

But for a lot of the items, the only sellers are official.

Look at the Apple Lightning cable, a typical fake product, here in the UK the only place you can get it from is amazon or amazon warehouse, so what products are there to get mixed up? Again, this seems to be more of an Amazon US issue, the reddit post you linked yet again just uses US sources.

I've not experienced this with Amazon, even when buying highly faked items, items that i have purchased from ebay however have been clearly fake. Sure I could have missed a fake product or two, but i've not been obviously scammed where it matters, but on ebay this has happened pretty much every time I buy a highly counterfeited product.

Apple specifically has deals with Amazon such that Amazon is the only allowed seller and there is no third party inventory to commingle. Most brands do not do this, apple is an exception and has the clout to demand such an exception.

> I am not sure Amazon has become as bad as everyone seems to suggest it is. I still buy from amazon frequently and never have a problem.

Example, I bought a new high end camera on Amazon and what I received was a beat-up used camera with parts missing! Had to drive to a Whole Foods to return it and reorder the camera from a proper camera shop, wasting more than a week.

They also substitute junk quality for what was advertised as something else. I bought a power strip clearly advertised as UL Listed and what I received was some homegrown piece of junk that definitely was not. Threw that away taking the loss, not worth the drive to Whole Foods for a return.

At other times, I get the correct item. So you never know, Amazon is a probabilistic shopping site and the probability of getting what you ordered seems to be getting lower.

Very large % of stuff on Amazon US is 3rd party sellers.

There are plenty of reports of 3rd party sellers subbing in rebranded/relabelled goods like SSDs/HDDs/SD cards where you take a cheaps/low one and re-market it as a high speed high price one.

Agreed Amazon absolutely has great customer service for buyers.

I recently built a media-server so was purchasing HDDs. Every single online retailer I purchased from, including Amazon, delivered one that was refurbished or taken from an OEM system and therefore out of warranty. I ended up buying one in-person in a computer store that was about 10% more expensive. For what its worth, Amazon had the easiest return process.

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