Amazon and eBay - A Bad Choice For Black Friday Shoppers

E-commerce websites are flooded with counterfeit products, phony reviews, and fraudulent deals

November 19, 2019, Los Angeles, CA – Consumers love a good deal and will flock to the internet for Black Friday deals. However, online-shopping may be risky, dangerous, and little, if any, actual value. Last year, one-third of online shoppers received an unexpected surprise - they received a counterfeit product from U.S. and cross-border scam artists.

Peter K. Navarro, White House trade advisor to the president, issued a harsh consumer warning, "When you purchase brand-name goods through online third-party marketplaces like Alibaba, Amazon, and eBay, there's a good chance you'll end up with a counterfeit."

The Counterfeit Report, an award-winning consumer advocate and industry watchdog, has removed over 380 million counterfeit items offered on e-commerce websites, including Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba, and eBay, on behalf of brand-owners. Still, the problem has spiraled out of control as website brand-protection programs are ineffective, dysfunctional or deliberately obstructive. Over 200,000 band-owners have signed up to fight counterfeits on Amazon, a glaring representation of the enormity of the counterfeit problem.

Amazon (AMZN), eBay (EBAY), and Alibaba (BABA) are the perfect free-flowing platforms to enable and facilitate distribution of an inexhaustible supply of counterfeit, fake, and replica goods, a $1.7 trillion global criminal enterprise. Only eBay reports actual sales figures, which reflect consumer purchases of over 770,000 counterfeit items from just a tiny sample of products investigated by The Counterfeit Report - who received over 2,300 fakes from eBay sellers.

Alarmingly, the e-commerce giants did not notify buyers they received a fake after the receiving brand-owner counterfeit notifications, and have skirted secondary liability for enabling the sale of counterfeits. eBay went as far as to block test purchases by The Counterfeit Report.

Before buying from Amazon, Alibaba, or eBay, consumers should consider these facts;

• The advertised bargain may be no bargain at all. A market study found Costco's prices 17% lower than Amazons.
• Search results and product reviews are no indication of authenticity or quality, and may not even be related to the product searched. Worldwide scammers work to outsmart and trick ranking systems with fake reviews and ratings. Amazon and eBay block or remove negative consumer reviews.
• Amazon is a direct retailer of counterfeit goods; "ships from and sold by Amazon.com" in addition to facilitating counterfeit goods sales from unvetted worldwide marketplace sellers. Apple® reported that 90% of Apple products it purchased directly from Amazon were counterfeit. Amazon Prime membership, Amazon Warehouse Deals, and the Fulfilled by Amazon ("FBA") offerings are plagued with counterfeit, fake and replica items. Even Amazon's coveted "Amazon's Choice endorsement promotes counterfeit and fraudulent products.
• eBay has migrated from the auction house of garage sale items to a global "Marketplace" seller model. These unvetted marketplace sellers are about 80% of eBay business and can sell just about anything they want on eBay, including fakes. This same marketplace model landed China'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.
• Alibaba and subsidiary AliExpress are the 'go-to" websites for counterfeits and replicas and should be avoided. Both serve as a first-stop for brand owners to check if their products are counterfeited.
• The U.S. Government Accountability Office ("GAO") recently conducted an undercover investigation of e-commerce counterfeit goods sales and reported that about 50% of the items it purchased from eBay, Walmart, and Amazon were counterfeit. Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") Director Michael O'Rielly sent a letter to Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, and eBay's at the time CEO, Devin Wenig, telling each to knock off the counterfeit electronics.

Consumers would be better served to shop at local retailers or online with the major authorized retailers (Kroger, Costco, Home Depot, Target, Lowes, Best Buy, etc.) who offer consumers competitive purchase options for authentic products.