Amazon Is A Safe Haven For Counterfeit Sales
Amazon snubs brand-owners, dangerous counterfeits remain
November 5, 2019 - Los Angeles, CA – Amazon is a company the world can't trust. Amazon built its global empire, in part, by flooding the consumer marketplace with an inexhaustible supply of counterfeit, fraudulent, and replica merchandise, OTC drugs, and books. The global giant is both a direct retailer of the fraudulent goods, e.g., "ships from and sold by Amazon.com" while also enabling and facilitating global criminals, counterfeiters, and scammers to manipulate its hyper-competitive environment with scams, fakes, and fraud.
Making matters even worse, Amazon provides safe-haven to bad actors and counterfeit sellers, ignoring brand-owner complaints and allowing counterfeit and fraudulent items to remain. Worldwide-sellers openly and freely distribute their fake wares with Amazon's approval, duping unsuspecting consumers into spending good money for bad products. Amazon takes a transaction fee for each item sold.
Amazon's crumbling empire has earned global recognition for what it is, a cesspool of fakes, fraud, and scams, accompanied with allegations of data leaks and employee bribes. Nothing short of an admission came last week when Amazon consumer chief Jeff Wilke advised that Amazon may need to spend billions of dollars to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods, expired food items, and dangerous products on its platforms. More lip service.
Research by The Counterfeit Report, an award-winning consumer advocate and industry watchdog, reveals Amazon's all-too-common practice of ignoring or not acting on counterfeit complaints. Even if consumers wisely avoid Amazon, they are still at risk of injury or death from counterfeit and fraudulent products.
Amazon's practices didn't miss the attention of the Wall Street Journal, who found 4,152 items for sale on Amazon's site that have been declared unsafe by federal agencies, are deceptively labeled or are banned by federal regulators. At least 157 items were for sale that Amazon had said it banned, including sleeping mats the Food and Drug Administration warns can suffocate infants. About half were shipping from Amazon warehouses. 130 items with the same policy violations reappeared, some sold by the same vendors previously identified by the Journal under different listings.
Amazon continually responds with its patently false self-congratulatory sanctimony; "Products offered for sale on Amazon must be authentic. The sale of counterfeit products is strictly prohibited." Why then are 130,000 brands fighting Amazon counterfeits and Amazon routinely introduces new counterfeit programs; Brand Registry, Project Zero, and Transparency? New programs are only needed when existing programs don't work. Behind the illusory fanfare and chest-pounding, consumers and brand-owners are paying the price of failure.
When you make a claim, you better make sure it’s true and that you’re actually doing what you claim you’re doing -- Amazon is not. Amazon is caught in repeated lies and inaction on counterfeit items that endanger consumers and destroy American businesses.
For example;
For over 20 years, U.S. based Drew Technologies, Inc. has been a world leader in vehicle diagnostic and reprogramming interface tools, cables, and accompanying software used by manufacturers, dealers, experienced technicians, service centers, and independent mechanics. Their trademarked and patented $495 Mongoose® Pro cable and software kits have integrated complex processors with accompanying software to program hundreds of critical vehicle functions including; braking, airbags, steering, safety features, emissions, and performance for the major auto maker's vehicles.
Along with success come the counterfeits on Amazon. The fake products may contain malware, damage or destroy expensive vehicle computers and components, and alter safety features on your vehicle, or the vehicle next to you.
The Counterfeit Report sent thousands of infringement notices, authorized by the brand-owner and monitored by two Amazon Brand Managers, to remove counterfeit Mongoose products offered on Amazon. Hundreds of counterfeits have remained worldwide for months, including the counterfeit purchased below.
Shown: Amazon Listing ASIN B07TT5KR5T 11-5-2019 -- Counterfeit Mongoose Pro diagnostic cable
Over 1,100 counterfeit notices for 43 counterfeit Mongooses listings were sent to Amazon and two Amazon Global Brand Managers. Amazon's response; "The intellectual property right registration numbers you provided for US,CA,MX,UK,DE,ES,FR,IT,PH are not registered in the rest of jurisdictions you are targeting." The counterfeit remain and can still be purchased on Amazon's worldwide websites and delivered to the U.S.
What makes this particularly appalling is that The Counterfeit Report, the authorized agent for the brand-owner, did just that, purchasing 35 counterfeit Mongoose products to memorialize Amazon's shady practices;
Amazon's Corporate Counsel, Annasara Purcell, confirmed the deceptive practice in her response to The Counterfeit Report, writing; "We remove suspected counterfeit items as soon as we become aware of them, and we remove bad actors from selling on Amazon," but only some, adds Ms. Purcell; "trademark rights are jurisdiction specific and the fact that a brand has rights in one country is not indicative of comparable rights worldwide." The comments were echoed and endorsed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Hard to reconcile with Amazon's "Products offered for sale on Amazon must be authentic." policy.
Sadly, this dangerous and potentially deadly counterfeit and accompanying software probably won't gain any consumer attention.
Amazon is not making a better marketplace that serves consumers. Amazon is no more than an arena of creative destruction, leaving consumers on their own to sort the legitimate, honest sellers from all the bad actors under an umbrella of legal immunity. They are voracious churners of counterfeit and fraudulent items, indifferent to the damage they cause to consumers, legitimate sellers, and manufacturers while fulfilling their desire to be the sole source of items for purchase.
Amazon provides a platform for fraud because Amazon makes money allowing fraud -- taking a transaction fee for each fraudulent item sold. And it's working -- Amazon made $11.2 billion in profit in 2018 and $5.6 billion in 2017, yet paid no federal income taxes. There is no incentive to clean-up its cesspool of fakes, fraud, and scams.
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