Walmart Consumer Counterfeit Protection Falls Flat

Walmart shoppers face counterfeit, replica, fraudulent and dangerous products.

November 18, 2021, Los Angeles, CA – Holiday consumers expect Walmart to provide authentic and safe products when they shop on Walmart's website -- but that confidence is misplaced. Walmart is 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 on bad products, while Walmart takes a transaction fee for each item sold.

The Counterfeit Report, a global award-winning consumer advocate and industry watchdog, found over 11,700 counterfeit and fraudulent items on Walmart's website and removed 3,043 fakes at the direction of the infringed brand-owners. Walmart ignored dozens of trademark owner infringement complaints, sent unrelated or frivolous responses, or removed and later relisted the exact same counterfeit listing.

For example, the counterfeit 64GB microSDHC memory card listing below (there is no such product in the microSDHC® standard) was removed by The Counterfeit Report on July 8th. Inexplicably, the fake item, along with other removed counterfeit items, is relisted with the same listing number and seller, "Joybuy," who has a 50% positive Walmart rating and 33 counterfeit listing complaints.

Walmart's dysfunctional process of removing counterfeits earned Walmart an "F."

Shown: Walmart listing #604314206

Walmart offers trademark owners two options to submit complaints, a "brand portal," requiring trademark owners to agree to an adhesion contract with ridiculous terms such as "Services are subject to change at any time without notice" and indemnifying Walmart, or using its inadequate, dysfunctional, and cryptic submission form. Trademark owners are reduced to data-entry clerks for Walmart's dysfunctional system. Recent Walmart responses to trademark owner counterfeit product complaints included:

• "We encourage you to contact the sellers offering the product to resolve the matter. Pursuant to our agreement with Marketplace Sellers, we allow them the opportunity to resolve trademark claims directly with the claimant."
• "Provide any supporting details and/or any evidence that the seller Is offering counterfeit product."
• "Walmart does not intervene in any authorized or unauthorized reseller arrangements."
• "If you are a requesting party, attempting to serve Walmart with a subpoena or request for information, please utilize our Registered Agent CT Corporation to execute proper service for your subpoena."
• "The server was not able to deliver your email message."

Could you spot a counterfeit, replica, or fraudulent product on Walmart? All the counterfeit products below are from Walmart listings.

(Photo: The Counterfeit Report ®)

• Vans, the famous footwear and apparel company, does not make or license the use of the Vans® trademark on iPhone 6 through 13 phone cases. Third-party sellers offered the fake item shown on Walmart's website.
• Authentic Fullips® beauty products are made from safe food-grade plastic and FDA-approved colorant. A three-pack version was never manufactured by Fullips, and counterfeits have been found with lead and arsenic.
• CREE® manufactures lighting products and LEDs, 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 and counterfeit Dr. Numb product. Authentic Dr. Numb® 5% Lidocaine Cream is a topical anesthetic. Counterfeit Dr. Numb tested in the packaging shown here, and 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 surgeon and anesthesiologist, Dr. Tom Brock.
• 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. 144 fake and replica tourniquets were found listed 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 battery for smoke detectors, baby monitors or first responder's equipment?
• 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 offered on Walmart by Walmart as a direct retailer or third-party sellers. The microSD® and SDHC® trademarks are owned by SD-3C, LLC, which licenses its registered trademarks to authentic, conforming products. None of the capacities in the formats shown exist in the SD standard or in any legitimate manufacturer's authentic product line -- they are fake. 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. Walmart profits 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 $4.5 trillion and cost 5.4 million net job losses by 2022.

View more Walmart fakes here.