eBay Turns A Blind Eye To Dangerous Counterfeit OTC Drugs

Unknowing consumers receive dangerous fake drugs despite complaints.

October 30, 2018 - Los Angeles, CA – eBay is under fire for some shady practices - enabling and facilitating the sale of an inexhaustible supply of counterfeit goods, while hiding behind illusory counterfeit policies and ineffective website policing.

Shockingly, repeated complaints for dangerous over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are ignored, and if removed, the sellers simply relist the same counterfeits. Complaints to eBay General Counsel, Marie Oh Huber, appear to fall on deaf ears or eBay just doesn't care. eBay remains a haven for U.S. and cross-border scam artists to freely unload counterfeits on unsuspecting consumers.

For example, The Counterfeit Report, an award winning consumer advocate and industry watchdog, found 24,398 counterfeit OTC Dr. Numb 5% Lidocaine products, shown below. Over 14,300 were sold to consumers and the remainder removed on behalf of the brand owner. eBay was often so slow to act that the product sold out before the listing was removed. Some sellers posted dozens of counterfeit drugs over a period of months, even years, yet remain on eBay.

Inexplicably, eBay doesn't notify the buyers they bought a fake even after General Counsel Marie Oh Huber was notified that laboratory testing of the same packaged item revealed the product did not contain any Lidocaine as indicated, but Tetracaine, a potentially fatal drug.

The counterfeit Novartis Lamisil shown resulted in a criminal investigation and charges against the eBay seller in Los Angeles. While Novartis doesn't offer its authentic OTC anti-fungicide medication, Lamisil®, in the liquid, cream or soap shown, or the packaging, the product is currently sold on eBay.

(Photo: ©The Counterfeit Report)

Consumers just don't have a chance of identifying the dangerous, deadly and often visually indistinguishable counterfeit goods which may contain the wrong or no active ingredient, or may be contaminated. eBay is also flooded with OTC Lidocaine products, OTC drugs and medical devices missing the required FDA approval.

• A U.S. Government Accountability Office ("GAO") investigation of online counterfeit consumer goods, including eBay (EBAY), found that about 50% of the items purchased by the GAO were counterfeit.
• Forbes recently deemed the e-commerce giant a "cesspool of counterfeits and other illegal and potentially dangerous goods."³

eBay has migrated from the auction house of garage sale items to a global "Marketplace" seller model and charges a transaction fee for each fake sold. Unvetted global sellers are about 80% of eBay business and can sell just about anything they want on eBay, including counterfeit OTC drugs, medical devices and prescription pill dies to make replica Oxycodone, Alprazolam and Xanax, This is the same marketplace model that landed Jack Ma's Alibaba (appropriately named after the fable “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves”) on the U.S. Government's Notorious Markets List - a designation reserved for the world's most notorious markets for counterfeit goods.

Everyone knows selling counterfeits is illegal, yet through huge legal loopholes, and virtually immune to prosecution, IP laws and safety standards, eBay continues to enable and facilitate criminal activity with impunity, and profit from fraudulent sales which impact consumer safety, jobs and public trust. The consequence is destroyed U.S companies and retailers, lost U.S. jobs and duped consumers. The value of counterfeit and pirated goods is forecast to grow to $2.8 trillion, and cost 5.4 million net job losses by 2022 states a 2017 International Chamber of Commerce Report.

Consumers seeking authentic items would be safer and better served buying directly from the manufacturer or authorized retailer.