[dionian]

I ordered an instant pot on amazon. instant pot box shows up, with mfr.s packaging.... I opened it and similar-looking - but much cheaper - chinese knockoff was in box.

if amazon's customer service wasnt so good i would have dropped them already. (I know it's not them making the mistake, but still..)

however I buy stuff there much less frequently now since i have no way to know if I'm getting counterfeits for certain types of goods.

[vanilla_nut]

This is a really important point that Amazon seems to completely ignore: counterfeit goods aren't just a ripoff, they're downright dangerous. A fake instant pot could burn your house down or scald you when it fails to depressurize properly; a fake phone charger could overheat and catch your bedsheets on fire; a fake smoke alarm could fail to detect smoke properly and not activate in time to save someone's life.

I can't believe there hasn't been a slew of lawsuits over this, especially in the highly litigious culture of the US. Could I just be mistaken in thinking this is such a serious problem? Or has Amazon just been lucky?

[ggg9990]

This is why after having a kid I shifted my purchasing 90% from Amazon to 90% from Target even though I have to drive 15 minutes to the Target. Amazon was the lazy mans approach.

[ceejayoz]

I'm amazed some of these brands haven't sued over the reputation damage they're likely taking. It's really remarkable Apple hasn't.

[d0lph]

Agree with the rest, but the US is not highly litigious, common misconception, probably created by corporations trying to defend themselves from "frivolous lawsuits".

[vanilla_nut]

Out of curiosity, what countries are more litigious than the US and why? I've always been told that the US is unusually litigious, but if I'm wrong about that I'd like to know better.

[d0lph]

In this list, the US is #5, curiously having more lawyers per capita. https://www.clements.com/resources/articles/The-Most-Litigio...

[freyir]

It's strange that a company sells its customers counterfeit goods, and we still praise them for "good customer service."

[drharby]

Is it?

Customer service is independent from the primary business transaction being executed.

They are fucking up but compensate through good cust. Service.

Seems like a policy decision, as fighting it costs more than the break fix

[maxxxxx]

You can't call this good. They are fucking up on purpose and have made a calculation that most people won't notice and it's cheaper to refund the few that do. That's terrible customer and feels very unethical.

[chii]

> most people won't notice

if a customer doesn't notice it's a knockoff, then it's not a knockoff?

[x0x0]

Go look at the atrocious reviews of chinese knock-off power supplies. I mean, they might not burn your house down, so we're cool, right?

[gowld]

Calling them "Chinese" knock-off power supplies is xenophobic and/or racist. The top-quality authentic power supplies are just as Chinese as the counterfeits. Same set of factories make all this stuff, but the counterfeits use cheaper materials and skip components.

[maxxxxx]

If I take money from your bank account and you don't notice it's not theft?

[freyir]

It is.

Good customer service should start with not selling customers counterfeit crap in the first place. Instead, the phrase "customer service" means something extremely specific, i.e., a good return policy for customers who realize they've lost at Amazon's game of counterfeit roulette.

[wmf]

To me, "service" encompasses the entire experience of dealing with the company. A company that makes mistakes and fixes them quickly shouldn't be considered better than a company that doesn't make mistakes in the first place.

[maxxxxx]

"A company that makes mistakes and fixes them quickly shouldn't be considered better than a company that doesn't make mistakes in the first place."

If the mistake is their normal way of doing business they should be rated as bad.

[gowld]

If the overall cost, including cost of returns and bad goods, is lower than the cost of buying higher-guaranteed stuff elsewhere, it's a net win.

[Khaine]

It is borderline criminal. If they were not such a large organisation they would be charged with facilitation. They are knowingly allowing the sale of counterfeit goods.

You go down to a street corner and sell knock-off Prada bags and you will be arrested. You let someone sell counterfeit goods from your store and you are an accessory.

This will only change when Amazon are held accountable.

[fencepost]

> if amazon's customer service wasnt so good i would have dropped them already.

I'd consider it good customer service if every time I had to return a counterfeit I got a 25% credit of the original price to cover my time and frustration, but that still leaves problems with undetected counterfeits - and of course it'd never happen because Amazon would have to eat the cost because commingled products mean they can't track it back to the supplier anyway. Oh, and yes I mean EVERY time - 25,50,75,100,125,etc. If I get 5 fake items, Amazon pays me 25% of the original cost. That's what it'd take to make it worth the hassle.

At this point I basically won't buy through/from Amazon unless it's something impossible to counterfeit (e.g. ThinkPads) or where I don't really care because I'm not looking for a brand or significant quality anyway.

[Spooky23]

What part of selling a fake and probably dangerous appliance is good customer service?

My favorite thing about Amazon is that they screw up and ship me things that I don’t order a few times year.

[mizzao]

Thats usually a sign of getting someone trying to get fake verified reviews.

[vkou]

> I know it's not them making the mistake

It is absolutely Amazon making this mistake. They are responsible for their supply chain, and customers have higher expectations of them then they do of a flea market.

[gowld]

Amazon bills itself as a flea market. It's the "Everything Store".

[krapp]

>if amazon's customer service wasnt so good i would have dropped them already.

And this is why Jeff Bezos is sitting on (maybe) the biggest pile of money anyone has ever had, and why counterfeiting is not a problem Amazon will ever be interested in solving. It doesn't matter. People either don't notice that they've wound up with a counterfeit, or they don't blame it on Amazon. They just return it or write it off and remain customers.

...this and AWS.