Sure, you might get a fraudulent product either way. But that's not the problem here. The problem here is that they couldn't return the product and get their money back. And the scam itself caused that situation.
That has everything to do with whether it was Amazon themselves denying the return, or the seller themselves.
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. Returns for Amazon-fulfilled items have been awesome for me, even when it's something like this where they sent the wrong product or even no product. I once received an empty bag. No problem, they refunded me and I bought another.
When dealing with things shipped directly from the seller, you're going to have to deal with them directly for returns. I almost never buy like this because I like having Amazon's return policy to fall back on. If they start denying me, I'll definitely start looking for another store to buy from that has a better policy.
I’m not sure, perhaps my post was too empty, I had just woken up when I posted. I couldn’t find the distinction in the article, but returning to third parties is never so easy. Understandably so, though. A smaller business doesn’t want to be scammed either. I had a friend try Amazon after selling on his site and eBay for a long time and he lost thousands to returns that had been damaged during install or just returned a rock.
At least in Europe, buying from Amazon directly is no guarantee for getting what you paid for. You can find numerous reports online of people who purchased expensive electronics items from Amazon directly and received cheap garbage of approximately the same weight. People had to go to great lengths to get their money back from Amazon.
Always buy electronics from a reputable retailer like B&H Photo or Target. Amazon or NewEgg are not trustworthy.