700,000 Brands Fighting Amazon Fakes - up 40% From 2021

Self-Serving Amazon report is full of bluster and self-congratulatory claims.

June 16, 2022 - Los Angeles, CA – Amazon has published its second dubious Annual Brand Protection Report filled with illusory chest-pounding and sanctimonious claims. The report illuminates the enormity of Amazon's counterfeit problem, and along with contradictory claims, exposes a harsh reality -- 700,000 brands are fighting Amazon fakes. How much merchandise on Amazon is authentic?

According to Amazon, they invested $900 million and 12,000 employees "dedicated to protecting customers, brands, selling partners, and our store from counterfeit, fraud, and other forms of abuse." Amazon claims they "identified, seized, and appropriately disposed of more than 3 million counterfeit products." How many did they miss?

In stark contrast to Amazon's claims, well-documented Amazon practices, procedures, and activities tell an entirely different story, making their latest claims wholly unreliable. Amazon is a leader in the supply and trafficking of counterfeit, fraudulent, replica, and stolen goods, accompanied by phony reviews and deceptive "Amazon's Choice" endorsements on counterfeit and fraudulent items. “Make no mistake, Amazon lets criminals make a living peddling hazardous knockoffs and stolen merchandise on its platform,” said Michael Hanson, spokesperson of the Buy Safe America Coalition - AP Analyst.

Simply put, there is no evidence that Amazon is committed to stopping counterfeit goods. Consider the following undisputed facts:

• Several of Amazon's worldwide e-commerce sites have ended up on the U.S. government’s Notorious Markets List -- reserved for the worst online counterfeit markets and offenders. Amazon is not listed in the European Commission's Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List but is ranked second (behind Alibaba) as the most frequently reported e-commerce site offering counterfeits.
• Amazon's Brand Registry is little more than a system to make trademark owners data-entry clerks for Amazon's automated systems and requires brand owners to register and submit complaints on each of Amazon's 23 worldwide websites -- an exhaustive and labor-intensive process.
• The Counterfeit Report, a global award-winning consumer advocate and industry watchdog, identified and removed listings for over 1 million counterfeit items on Amazon websites. This is for just a tiny fraction of the 700,000 brands that have signed up to fight Amazon fakes -- a glaring representation of the challenges facing consumers and brand owners. How many fakes remain?

Amazon Senior Corporate Counsel Annasara Purcell boasts in the report, "I'm proud of all of the work we do to prevent infringement, but I'm most proud of our program to proactively notify and refund customers when they have received a counterfeit product. We built this program because it is the right thing to do to protect customers, and I hope that other online stores follow Amazon's lead in this way."

• In fact, The Counterfeit Report has never received a notification and refund for any of 154 confirmed counterfeit products reported by trademark owners and purchased directly from Amazon as the direct seller, or third-party sellers.
• Even more disturbing is Purcell's claim that the trademark-owner complaint submissions with accompanying test purchases were an "unacceptable abuse of Amazon's infringement reporting system" and directing the rejection of over 25,000 counterfeit complaints. Purcell directed the blocking of The Counterfeit Report's email submissions, writing, "Amazon will no longer accept any notices of infringement that you file. Any email that you send to any Amazon email address or submission channel will be automatically blocked by our systems. If you attempt to create or use alternative email addresses to attempt to circumvent this block, we will consider it an unauthorized usage of Amazon systems.”
• Purcell went on to block the removal of trademarked counterfeit products listed on Amazon foreign websites purchased and delivered to The Counterfeit Report. It is hard to reconcile her actions with Amazon's claim, "Amazon is committed to driving counterfeits to zero," and Vice President of Worldwide Selling, Dharmesh Mehta's claim, "trust has been at the foundation of everything we do." The counterfeit items remain, but trust does not.
  

  

Amazon's commitment to removing counterfeits and its claim "we strictly prohibit the sale of counterfeit products" is patently false. For example, there is no 32GB microSDXC® memory card in the ADATA® product line. Yet, Amazon is a direct seller worldwide of the counterfeit item shown below and other items, along with third-party sellers. Amazon initially removed the counterfeit item listings in response to trademark owner complaints but relisted the item claiming, "We concluded that the claim was invalid or that the appeal was successful." The product doesn't exist, yet over 24,810 have been reported sold. Amazon collects a transaction fee for each item sold.

What exactly do Amazon's "12,000 employees dedicated to protecting consumer brands do?" Two account managers assigned The Counterfeit Report to facilitate and expedite intellectual property enforcement haven't responded in years. Calls to Amazon are routed to voice mail or recorded messages. Over 6,000 automated email responses were received, usually irrelevant to The Counterfeit Report's initial inquiry. Yet Amazon still claims, "Amazon is committed to driving counterfeits to zero."

Amazon has no incentive to clean up its website -- they make too much money. Amazon paid no federal income tax on $11.2 billion in profit in 2018 and a 1.2% tax rate on a $13.3 billion profit in 2019. First-quarter 2021 net income hit a first-ever high of $8 billion.

Amazon's Annual Brand Protection Report from Dharmesh Mehta, VP of Worldwide Selling, summarizes, "We are excited about what we can do together to hold bad actors accountable and ensure the entire industry is rid of counterfeits."

When, Amazon?