Blatant Tech Frauds Run Amok on the Biggest Online Marketplaces (arstechnica.com) 56
Online retailers that host third-party sellers, like Amazon and Walmart, have extensive, competitively priced electronics selections. But for years, they have also served as playgrounds for fraudulent sellers, who list products with inflated or deceptive performance claims. Worse, some of these products pose a physical threat to customers. ArsTechnica: The problem has become so widespread that by the end of this month, the federal government will require online retailers to do a much better job of vetting seller credentials, courtesy of the Integrity, Notification, and Fairness in Online Retail Marketplaces for Consumers (INFORM Consumers) Act. But scammers are persistent, and workarounds seem inevitable. So what more should we demand from these giant retailers, and what can shoppers, including the less tech-savvy, do to take matters into their own hands? To paint a picture of how prominent scammy tech is online, imagine you're in the market for a roomy portable SSD. You eventually land at Walmart.com, where there's a 60TB drive selling for under $39. The only downside? It's obviously not a real 60TB SSD. In reality, even a 2TB portable SSD will run you three figures. But for years, this scam has run amok on popular online marketplaces.
Review Geek recently showed that the scheme includes selling a much lower-capacity microSD card instead of a large-capacity SSD (the site received a 64GB card instead of the advertised 16TB SSD). Fake SSDs are just one example of counterfeit tech scams on huge online retailers, though. Consumers also have to look out for fake Apple chargers, cables that don't meet the advertised specs, and counterfeit batteries that threaten serious physical harm. Despite their considerable resources, these marketplaces have failed to properly vet sellers and their products. Without outside pressure, shoppers will continue to pay the price.
Review Geek recently showed that the scheme includes selling a much lower-capacity microSD card instead of a large-capacity SSD (the site received a 64GB card instead of the advertised 16TB SSD). Fake SSDs are just one example of counterfeit tech scams on huge online retailers, though. Consumers also have to look out for fake Apple chargers, cables that don't meet the advertised specs, and counterfeit batteries that threaten serious physical harm. Despite their considerable resources, these marketplaces have failed to properly vet sellers and their products. Without outside pressure, shoppers will continue to pay the price.
This will continue (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't care. They prolly help this along. They get the sale. What do they care.
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They don't care. They prolly help this along. They get the sale. What do they care.
What this tells me is that Amazon doesnt have enough competition as if they did they'd be worried about losing customers due to selling them fraudulent product through their site.
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Imagine if a State AG prosecuted Amazon for falsely promoting illicit products and services a al Dave Ramsay's current legal troubles.
Nobody wants to take on the REALLY deep pockets. They are insulating.
Re:This will continue (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine if we took corporate personhood literally for consequences and responsibilities instead of just rights and benefits and put them on trial like we would a normal human being. Have Texas start executing corporations by revoking their charter, liquidating their stock and distributing it among victims, and jailing executives from the top down.
Re:This will continue (Score:5, Insightful)
I've long argued that Corporations are a creation of the state, and therefor are NOT people but rather "legal entities" as such.
Additionally, I would like to exclude all Corporations from being able to donate to ANY political campaign or politician, as that is simply a automatic natural conflict of interest (being a creation of the state). This doesn't prevent them from buying their own campaigns for their causes, but it would prevent industry collusion to rig our government against the will of the people (real kind).
As for the corporate death penalty, I would FULLY support it, where the public trusts (copyright, trademarks, etc) are released as public domain (perpetuity) as part of the death penalty. Imagine being a corporate board member having to explain 100% loss of value to the stock holders.
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Newegg marketplace used to be a very similar disaster, but checking just now it looks to have been cleaned up and I don't see random brands of several TB cheap USB flash drives anymore. Newegg can probably police the computer stuff. I am not sure how Walmart and Amazon would do it since they have everyone selling pretty much everything across the board and would need staff with expertise across the board. There seem to be a lot of sellers with almost random names that don't stay around for very long on
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I am not sure how Walmart and Amazon would do it since they have everyone selling pretty much everything across the board and would need staff with expertise across the board.
Walmart and Amazon categorize products. I'm sure they could figure out how to group those categories into knowledge domains, and hire appropriate staff to cover them. They choose not to do so.
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I saw someone else mentioning Newegg being good on this nowadays so I'll have to make sure to shop with them more. I've only had good experiences with them in the past.
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Ironically, if I need to ensure stuff is "clean", especially with SSDs and USB drives, I wind up going to an "old school" seller. Office Depot, CDW, SHI, and others have clean inventories, otherwise companies would put them out of business fast, since there is zero toleration for a fake enterprise SSD in the enterprise.
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I am not sure how Walmart and Amazon would do it since they have everyone selling pretty much everything across the board and would need staff with expertise across the board. There seem to be a lot of sellers with almost random names that don't stay around for very long on Amazon.
This is what we call a them problem... (as in, "it's not my problem, it their problem")
It does not matter HOW they deal with the problem. The law needs to hold them responsible for the consequences of what they sell. No letting them hide behind the "Oh, we are only the marketplace... xyz123 is the real seller, and they went out of business, so no one can contact them anymore...sorry." Make it legally their problem, and let "market forces" sort out how to fix it.
This type of legal responsibility would sol
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The same people are selling the same fake shit on other marketplaces.
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Word is under this article that Newegg has cleaned up their site pretty well in regards to this. I'm sure stuff occasionally slips through but given how many listings for product that was likely fraudulent I came across the last time I bought a memory stick off Amazon I'm happy to try someone else.
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Exactly. This isn't a bug, it's a feature. Amazon, Newegg, Walmart, and other "marketplaces" online are not in the business of selling products to consumers. They're in the business of selling consumers to chinese scammers. Both Amazon and Newegg operated for many years as legitimate businesses known for their quality of service and reliability. They're perfectly capable of operating as a legitimate business. They choose not to because it's vastly more profitable to run a blatant daylight scam.
They're neve
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There are also countless morons that cannot see that "too good to be true" likely means it is. A scam is always a cooperation between the scammer and the victim. Unless the victim helps, it does not work.
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This. I've had issues with being shipped something different than was described. They've always refunded me, but declined to address the listing.
Try NewEgg (Score:2)
Although since they also run a marketplace I am not guaranteeing they are fraud free, but they run a much tighter ship at the very least. Also, stuff that ships from NewEgg should be good.
Re:Try NewEgg (Score:4, Interesting)
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Also, if you have to actually contact them, good luck.
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Also, if you have to actually contact them, good luck.
On the other hand, returning items within the official return window is automated, no approval required, same as Amazon. I had occasion to avail myself of that service this week so I know how easy it is. (Returning a hotkey-enabled KVM that only responded to one keyboard I own from 2002.)
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As long as you pay attention when selecting your widget since most stuff ordered by lowest price will ship from mainland China and take a while to arrive (surprisingly fast, actually, given the distance, but still several days longer than stuff shipped from within the borders)
I don't even know how it makes sense to ship a $5 cable from China, but apparently it does...
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Because giant boats that burn crude oil for fuel, of which a mere 15 account for more pollution than every single car and truck on the planet, are unbelievably cheap to operate.
There's a reason Saint Greta demanded you give up air conditioning, cars, meat, and safe family homes to live in a pod and eat bugs but never said a word about all the cargo shipping to and from china and india.
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Container ships are ridiculously efficient due to their sheer size. They burn a lot of fuel, but they're moving so much they're actually far more efficient than road or rail transport, let alone air. If you walk two kilometres to the shop and back to buy a shirt imported from China, you actually exhale more CO2 than the the CO2 produced per shirt by the container ship. Far more CO2 is emitted getting the shirt to the shop than bringing it in from China in the first place.
Add to this Facebook Marketplace (Score:4)
Where people will list an item for a ludicrously low price (9 drawer Craftsman toolbox new for $50) and location near you, but look at the seller profile. IT is often in Arabic, they joined within a a week or even that day, and the main profile lists they life at some middle eastern city.
Most of these point you to a link for an obviously sketchy site. Yes, obvious.
It's a huge mess, and some regulation needs to be instituted. WalMart should know better. Facebook needs to decide if Marketplace is expected to be marginally honest.
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Where people will list an item for a ludicrously low price (9 drawer Craftsman toolbox new for $50) and location near you, but look at the seller profile. IT is often in Arabic, they joined within a a week or even that day, and the main profile lists they life at some middle eastern city.
And so what exactly is the "scam" here? Are people actually dumb enough to pay for something online before driving to a location nearby where you would normally validate it's not a scam and inspect the very product you're going to buy?
If mere trolling has become that profitable, I'm in the wrong damn career field.
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First, same scam as ordering something online for a ludicrously low price
Second, you can't drive out there, when you respond with 'can i pick this up', you've not read the description, which tell you about the great site they used, and how cheap it is. They show up on local results near you because they claim to be local. Lie upon lie.
Reporting them will be useless, FB seems to not have a method to address these outright fraudulent postings, location of THE ITEM being completely fictitious
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I see this a lot on FB marketplace with expensive espresso machines. It’s always an advertisement for a scam retailer in the description.
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Second, you can't drive out there, when you respond with 'can i pick this up', you've not read the description...
Facebook appears to have a scam-busting policy that clearly states a failure of basic reading comprehension isn't their fucking problem. Go figure.
Maybe we'll get colleges to start selling an education instead of an indoctrination if we find enough evidence to justify it. Facebook appears to be sponsoring that evidence gathering mission.
Re: Add to this Facebook Marketplace (Score:2)
My point was that a 'local' listing, in these cases, is a lie. The user profile didn't even claim residence in the US... This doesn't require AI of anything other than simple rules. But hey, no profit in that right?
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And so what exactly is the "scam" here? Are people actually dumb enough to pay for something online before ...
Calling people dumb does not make it less of a scam. It's a feature of scams that it is effective primarily on uninformed people.
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And so what exactly is the "scam" here? Are people actually dumb enough to pay for something online before ...
Calling people dumb does not make it less of a scam. It's a feature of scams that it is effective primarily on uninformed people.
Since another poster here clarified this scam often boils down to a lack of (very) basic reading comprehension, I'm going to stick with my original theory here and call a spade a spade. There's a difference between uninformed and stupid.
And look on the bright side of being honest. Tends to highlight the fact that certain education systems need to start selling an education again instead of an indoctrination.
Re:What exactly is the scam here? (Score:2)
And so what exactly is the "scam" here? Are people actually dumb enough to pay for something online before driving to a location nearby where you would normally validate it's not a scam and inspect the very product you're going to buy?
What I see most often goes like this:
Seller: My [husband/brother/parent/whatever] got a promotion and we need to sell all our worldly goods at these amazing low prices! {post includes photos of the shiny}
Usually the seller immediately disables comments so people can't ask questions (or post warnings) in public. You have to DM for more info
Buyer: Great, I can come pick up [item] today! Where are you located?
Seller: Because there are so many people interested, I must ask for a deposit to hold the item for you
Buyer: I'm not ready to commit to paying for it yet, I just want to see it so I can decide whether to buy it
Seller: We can accept Paypal or Venmo
You see where this is going. Less suspicious people will actually pay money up front without having a local address, local phone number, or even real name. Yes, part of me wants to say "If they're that gullible, they deserve to be taken so they will learn the hard facts of life." But that's victim-blaming, and Homey don't play dat.
I will usually play the scammer out as long as I can, extracting more evidence that this is a fraud, and then post the conversation verbatim -
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The obvious answer and a more nuanced solution (Score:5, Informative)
Require the company that runs the marketplace to provide full refunds, with free return shipping, in cases of misrepresentation by their vendors. Of course, this will add to the reverse problem: Fraudulent returns.
A more nuanced solution:
For vendors who are in the US or in countries that have and enforce anti-fraud laws: Criminally charge the companies and their executive officers in the cases of fraud where the company's upper management knew or should have known or failed to take industry-best-practices steps to prevent fraud. For rogue employees who found a way around a company's industry-best-practices anti-fraud/fraud-detection mechanisms, give hefty civil fines to the company but save the jail time for the rogue employees and any supervisor who turned a blind eye.
For vendors who are out-of-reach of the American legal system and whose home country won't give justice, the marketplace (Amazon, etc.) should do its own inspections of every delivery before they reach the customer and provide a money-back guarantee. Of course, this will cost money, which will drive up the price those vendors' customers pay. It also invites return-fraud.
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Better yet, don't allow junk like this to be created and marketed in the first place. Considering all the "AGW" concerns and efforts around that, the production of junk products should be a focus of every gov't. Open every container that comes into a nation, if you have a "junk" or counterfeit product, put it back into another container and load it on the same ship it came in on.
Wait, you say "muh GDP!" to which we can reply "When has your GDP been a concern in AGW discussions?"
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or should have known or failed to take industry-best-practices steps to prevent fraud.
This is the key. When executives make use of the "idiot defense" by claiming to be unaware of what their company was doing it should not be a defense, it should be a confession of gross negligence on top of everything else.
For rogue employees who found a way around a company's industry-best-practices anti-fraud/fraud-detection mechanisms, give hefty civil fines to the company but save the jail time for the rogue employees and any supervisor who turned a blind eye.
No, always jail the executives. If you do this they'll just structure the job in such a way that people are forced to violate those standards and mechanisms in order to stay employed and meet their quotas. It's the same with OSHA practices.
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No, always jail the executives. If you do this they'll just structure the job in such a way that people are forced to violate those standards and mechanisms in order to stay employed and meet their quotas. It's the same with OSHA practices.
Your point is well taken, but it has to be balanced with the idea that if we make people criminally responsible for their underlings behavior despite a good-faith effort to run an honest business, you will scare off good would-be executives, and the talent that remains will demand higher salaries to compensate for the risk of jail.
Either that, or the companies will put in so many checks and balances to make sure the executives stay out of jail that, while rogue employees will no longer be an issue, the cost
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you will scare off good would-be executives,
No you won't. This is already how it works in many other situations, particularly for poor people.
and the talent that remains will demand higher salaries to compensate for the risk of jail.
No they won't. They already demand ever growing salaries and ever more outrageous golden parachutes.
the costs of running a business will skyrocket
No they won't. We USED to hold businesses and leadership responsible and many other countries still do.
Guess who pays that cost? The end users.
No they won't. You can't have a consumer economy if nobody can afford to consume. If companies stop paying trillions of dollars in outrageous bonuses and golden parachutes the problem will be solved.
Amazon Being Treated with Kid Gloves (Score:2)
Everywhere (Score:3)
Not just the super high tech stuff.
I assure that any Stun gun advertising millions of volts is lying. If they offer 14 million, you will be lucky to get 14 thousand.
Most flashlights lie about the number of lumens. Anything more than 400 is likely bull.
Show a thermometer strip on a cooler? Decorative, not functional. Even if it is advertised for medical use. (Insulin coolers for diabetes)
Amazon is the equivalent of buying from a guy on the street with a table labelled "Definitely real, no fakes!"
Unless Amazon itself is selling it. Then it is totally real, advertised correctly - and they ripped off the idea from one of their clients who went from making 100k a year to 30k after they did it.
Amazon mixes counterfeit stock in their own sales (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless Amazon itself is selling it. Then it is totally real, advertised correctly - and they ripped off the idea from one of their clients who went from making 100k a year to 30k after they did it.
The "sells from" label is who gets the money. It's not a guarantee of who sourced the item. I used to think like you did, then I got a counterfeit Lenovo battery from amazon.com (as the seller). I paid a reasonable price (market price), bought directly from amazon.com as the seller, and what arrived was a plain box, printed on some dude's laser printer and a counterfeit battery with the wrong label, etc.
The reason? They mix stock. So Amazon.com has an order of 1 million batteries, but "Zhu's House of Totally Legit Bargens" has 100 batteries with the same SKU stored in one of their warehouses in my city, they'll just grab one from "Zhu's House of Totally Legit Bargens"...it's the same, SKU, right? It's happened to me and several friends when buying Apple cables and chargers as well. In each case, Amazon gladly take the returns and gives you no fuss...in the case of the Lenovo battery, it didn't even work. I do worry that someone who doesn't know what a legit Apple looks like or is vision impaired will use the charger and set their house on fire.
If you buy anything that is commonly counterfeited, don't buy from Amazon.com...unless you enjoy their return process. The "Sells from" label on the site is only who gets your money and handles the return. If it's fulfilled by Amazon, they readily mix stock.
For Apple products, I buy from BestBuy.com, Apple.com, or Target.com. I avoid Amazon. The same applies for power tools. HomeDepot.com and Lowes are fine, but there are a lot of sketchy counterfeit DeWalt and Milwaukee power tools on Amazon.com as well...especially for easy-to-clone things like accessories.
Please people, grow a brain (Score:3)
If something sounds too good to be true, it is.
You see 10 sellers selling something for roughly X bucks, maybe plus or minus a few cents or even a few percent. And then there's a seller that sells it for X/2 bucks.
Why the hell would you think that this is anything but a scam?
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Amazon is basically Aliexpress with a domestic markup. I order from Aliexpress because I know it’s cheap and direct from China. Can’t beat led bulbs for $1 each shipped. Also picked up some M3 screws and standoffs for upcoming projects.
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I don't think they are though.
Aliexpress (and Alibaba if you want a container full of goods) are just a market place. They don't make (or brand!) their own products, or do shipping, or stock mixing etc like Amazon (well not last time I looked!). They are a market place purely to connect buyers and sellers, like eBay. Sure there's junk, but what's going on is clear.
Amazon are trying to play it both ways. As a legit seller, but with super cheap prices because of all the dodgy marketplace crap. They are defini
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That works until your package does not show up. Or the vendor sends you the wrong thing. Any customer service issue turns into a nightmare. You need to be ready to wait weeks and need to be ready to eat the cost of whatever you spent. You are not getting a US typical experience on Ali-x.
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A number of years ago, before my honeymoon, I went to Amazon to buy an SD card for a digital camera. I bought a name brand product (SanDisk) in its original package. It was priced $2 less than some others.
I received the card and everything seemed right, including the real storage size. After about a week of use the SD card died. When I got home I called SanDisk about the warranty. Turns out I had a counterfeit SD card, it was missing a hot stamp on the SD card itself. I had to threaten Amazon to get my mon
Buy Direct. (Score:4, Interesting)
Buy direct from the manufacturer when you can. At the least you might be directed to a legitimate Amazon storefront with valid product that is hopefully fulfilled by the manufacturer or Amazon (if they are an authorized reseller).
For me, the small amount of savings often isn't worth the hassle of wondering if you purchased valid product from reseller mega-sites because they clearly don't care enough about the counterfeit problem and likely never will. They'll merely pretend to care in order to appease regulators who barely care.
Another benefit of purchasing direct is it can often make the product registration process quite automated and warranty claims become a bit easier.
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It won't matter because Amazon deliberately mingles inventory in their warehouses based solely on the claimed identity of the product from the shop supplying it. This is how they protect the chinese scammerswho are their real customers (you're the product being sold) and deliberately obfuscate responsibility.
You can pay 3x the market rate to get something directly from the original storefront of the original manufacturer and still wind up with the chinese knockoff.
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This.
Needed a Dyson vacuum attachment back in 2018, went through their official storefront page on Amazon and ordered. Even labeled "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com." One day later, a knockoff version showed up. I sent it back and re-ordered from Bed Bath & Beyond instead.
I never buy anything with electronics in it or food from Amazon anymore. Ultimately I canceled Prime because my lack of trust means I never place orders with them. Instead I buy direct from the manufacturer, even if it means paying t
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Just return dodgy stuff (Score:2)
Amazon has an easy return policy.
I've bought stuff that was mis-represented from them. I just return it. Maybe if enough of that stuff comes back, they'll get the message.
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Maybe if enough of that stuff comes back, they'll get the message.
Amazon did nearly $130 billion of revenue and earned $16 billion in profit (EBITDA) in the first three months of 2023.
I doubt they'll get the message from customers returning fraudulent merchandise. If anything they'll close your account and ban you for a high return rate, like some other retailers have.
Also on Youtube (Score:2)
The amount of scam ads on Youtube for crap such as "the flashlight that burns stuff like a light saber" complete with a doctored video is alarmingly high.
" Check out the 50 dollar telescope that has the FBI concerned" sheesh, and there are debunking videos on Youtube for these very products!