| It's a real problem. I have been buying and selling used products from Amazon to other marketplaces for the last 8 years. I used to get counterfeits once a month. Now, I get them 3 or 4 times a week. Even when I bring it to Amazon's attention, I only get my money back half the time. When I tried to file a claim with my credit card company, my buying account was temporarily banned until I paid back the money (for counterfeit goods that I actually got inspected by the manufacturer and had the paperwork to prove it). The big problem is that Amazon will only give you your money back if you can prove it. It can sometimes take 5 months to get it actually inspected (if you are lucky) and by that time, you are well past the time to return it. The worst part is that it nearly destroyed my business. I got two cease-and-desists in 8 months because I wasn't able to catch all of the counterfeits in time. Myself and my staff are well versed in catching these counterfeits, but it's still a very difficult task. I had to hire an attorney, and I sent all of the sellers' info to the attorney of the manufacturer. I was lucky it ended here. To this day, I still can't sign up with an Amazon seller account because 5 years ago, a single customer complained about an item I sold them. I returned their money promptly and even paid for a return shipping label. Amazon support didn't care. My account was closed, and I was out $500, because the buyer never sent it back to me. They no longer will even talk to me about it (all emails go into a black hole as if I never sent them) and I can't even manage another person/companies account without getting it permanently banned. This is why it's so dangerous to allow a few companies to control so much of the Internet. They can potentially ban you from even making a living and there is really no appeals process. At the time, they had a few automated prompts that claim it's an 'appeals process', but I could tell it was just a bot. I still don't understand how so many of these sellers can sell counterfeits, which is illegal in the US, and make multiple accounts, with almost no issues. It has to be some sort of collusion with employees. It really doesn't make any other sense. |