Walmart Holiday Shoppers Face Fraudulent Sellers and Counterfeit Products

Walmart not safe for holiday shoppers.

December 11, 2018, Los Angeles, CA – Holiday shoppers expect Walmart to provide honest services, authentic, and safe products when they shop on Walmart's website -- but that doesn't happen. Walmart's push to capture a portion of the exploding e-commerce marketplace, exposes a seedy and dishonest practice -- selling counterfeits.

Walmart is a both a direct retailer of counterfeits, and has opened its website, Walmart.com, to global third-party sellers who can list just about anything they want, including counterfeit, fake and replica products.

Counterfeit items appear right alongside authentic products, creating the illusion they are from Walmart, or have Walmart's endorsement. Deceived consumers spend good money for counterfeit, fake and replica products, and Walmart takes a transaction fee for each item sold.

• The Counterfeit Report, an award winning consumer advocate and industry watchdog, found over 2,400 counterfeit items on Walmart's website and submitted infringement complaints authorized by the brand owners to remove the counterfeit items. Some listings were removed, yet others remained for months or were relisted.
• An undercover investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office ("GAO") of counterfeit consumer goods on e-commerce websites, including Walmart (WMT), found that about 50% of the items the GAO purchased were counterfeit.

Brand owner complaints receive Walmart's dismissive response to 'resolve trademark claims directly with the seller.' The counterfeits remain, consumers are left exposed, and brand owner's reputations are destroyed.

The counterfeit items below were found or purchased on Walmart.com.

(Photo: The Counterfeit Report ®)

• Vans, the popular footwear and apparel company, does not make or license the use of the Vans® trademark on iPhone 6, 7 or 8 phone cases. The fake item shown was offered by third-party sellers on Walmart's website.
• Authentic Fullips® beauty products are made from safe food grade plastic and FDA approved colorant. Counterfeits have been found with lead and arsenic. A three-pack version was never manufactured by Fullips.
• In simple terms, there is no authentic 64GB microSDHC® computer memory product in the SDHC standard, or any licensed manufacturer's authentic product line. The fake microSDHC and SDHC cards shown here were purchased from both Walmart as a direct retailer and third-party sellers on Walmart. The microSD® and SDHC® trademarks are owned by SD-3C, LLC, who licenses its registered trademarks to authentic, conforming SD products.
• CREE® manufactures lighting products and LED's, but CREE does not make flashlights. The items shown are fake, they do not exist in the CREE product line, but are offered on Walmart.com.
• Untested and non-FDA approved OTC drugs are a hazard to unsuspecting consumers. It is unknown what ingredients are in this Deep Numb product bearing the unauthorized Dr. Numb® registered trademark. Authentic Dr. Numb® 5% Lidocaine Cream is a topical anesthetic. Counterfeit Dr. Numb tested in the packaging shown here, which is also offered on Walmart.com, did not contain Lidocaine, as indicated, but Tetracaine, an anesthetic known to cause fatal defects in animal testing, and can result in "full blown anaphylactic shock" says Dr. Tom Brock, Surgeon and Anesthesiologist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
• Composite Resources, Combat Application Tourniquet® (C-A-T®), has been supplied to the U.S. Military, police, first responders and the public worldwide for the past decade. Counterfeit and replica versions of the C-A-T tourniquet have catastrophically failed during actual life-saving applications. The fakes and replicas can be found on Walmart.
• This counterfeit Duracell® battery with its easily peeled off label was purchased from a Walmart third-party seller. Would you trust a fake for smoke detectors, baby monitors or first responder's equipment?
• All the SD® and microSD® memory cards shown here from Walmart's website are fake. None of the capacities in the formats shown exist in the SD standard or in any legitimate manufacturers authentic product line. Consumers risk losing data and images using counterfeit memory products.

Everyone knows selling counterfeits is illegal, yet through huge legal loopholes, and virtually immune to prosecution, IP laws and safety standards, Walmart 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.

Walmart expects its online sales to grow 40% for the current fiscal year. How much will counterfeit products contribute to that growth?

View more Walmart fakes here.