This why I buy Brother cartridges from Staples, and one of the reasons I cancelled Prime. Amazon can’t be trusted thanks its inability to manage 3rd party sellers and grey market inventory.
My wife recently bought a brother toner cartridge off Amazon and it ended up damaging our printer. We later found out it was counterfeit when the flimsy brother logo pealed off (and after a printer repair person mentioned there was something weird about the toner we had used). I'm on the verge of cancelling Prime myself.
I guess they have a "counterfeit crimes unit" now, news to me but I abandonded Amazon over 5 years ago.
> “if we find them”—neatly describes the problem.
Doesn't pass the smell test. Amazon has more compute than almost anyone and could easily afford to run AI or heuristics to find and shut down these stores the moment they pop up.
I refuse to buy at Staples. Last time I went to buy memory and a new HDD from them (and very common brands, and well stocked, so nothing esoteric) they wanted nearly twice the MSRP - over $200 for a $129 hard drive. And they wouldn't budge.