Amazon is an opportunity for dishonest vendors to make billions of $$$ and Amazon isn't making much of an effort to police it. A buyer shouldn't have to rely on customer reviews to find out a product is inferior or less than advertised.

Another who thinks it's getting to be a big problem. I began to suspect a product I had ordered a couple of times was fake when I saw a photo of myself. I use Revision Nectifirm and it's pricey (purchased it from my physician's skin care center). Then I saw it on Amazon for almost half price and went for it. When I saw a photo of myself about 6 months ago with a crepey neck I thought 'Wow, I've been using that stuff and it's not doing any good anymore'. Then it hit me that I've been using a fake product. I immediately went back and bought the real stuff and after a couple of months my neck looks so much better again. Here's the Revision website about it (if you don't want to go there, it turns out it's sold ONLY in physicians offices). I sure do feel dumb over this one. Shee, I have also used Skinceuticals CE Fereulic but had not bought it from Amazon.

Thanks to dsg2015 for starting this thread. I was going to bring this up and so glad you did. I thought maybe it was limited to fake cosmetics, but the info you posted about counterfeit products even expands this further to how it's hurting legitimate vendors and their products.

Edited to add for Cattyles: If you can find a Shisheido eyelash curler, I can recommend that brand. I bought one a long time ago and it is still going strong. I don't use mine much any longer but highly recommend it. Might have to go to a department store for it.

Amazon is an opportunity for dishonest vendors to make billions of $$$ and Amazon isn't making much of an effort to police it.

Not much of an effort? They actually encourage it, because they are far more concerned about ali baba getting a toehold here than they are about you and me. There isn't going to be any policing from amazon until people start voting with their wallets and leaving them.

I really don't want to waste weeks or months using an an ineffective product so I steer clear of Amazon for skin care and cosmetic products. I generally buy directly through the manufacturer's website or from my dermatologist's office and if its a ridiculously priced item (SkinCeuticals CE serum, for instance), I will look for a less expensive alternative with a different manufacturer rather than buy the discounted version from Amazon.

Thanks for the heads up, dsg2015 & others. We don't buy a lot from Amazon, but this is useful info for sure.

Like Jellytoast, there are certain items I would not buy from Amazon (or ebay, etc.). I don't think I'd buy meds for sure. Also, for us the FREE SHIPPING, not the 2 day is what I like. If I were to cut down the amount I buy bought, it wouldn't add up to as much so Prime might not be worth it then.

Edited to add for Cattyles: If you can find a Shisheido eyelash curler, I can recommend that brand. I bought one a long time ago and it is still going strong.

Agree about this eyelash curler. I've been using it for close to a decade now. Hands down best curler I've ever used for my long, but straight lashes. I've only had to replace the pads a few times.

I think I got some fake Born shoes once. Born shoes always fit me perfectly and these didn't. The style was also one I never saw anywhere else.

Well, the more I think about it and absorb the comments here, the more I'm leaning toward letting my prime membership expire. The BareMinerals is one purchase I'm sure was a fake because, though the packaging and product were identical to the real thing, it did not perform as such. Now I'm wondering how many other products I may have purchased from Amazon that may have been counterfeit, skincare in particular. It never really occurred to me until fairly recently that there could be counterfeit products sold on Amazon. And the reviews can be fake, too? :(.

I buy a lot from Amazon for both business and personal. I have received a number of counterfeit items. Just like you see in almost all places.

Lots of counterfeit items at all the big box stores. Amazon is REALLY good at making sure you get a refund or the proper item. Their customer service is absolutely outstanding.

Here is an example along with my review of the item in 2014: https://www.amazon.com/Fisch-FSF-320814-Double-Drills-7-Piece/dp/B0052WJRGO/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1474302161&sr=8-10&keywords=fisch+drill+bits&refinements=p_n_feature_three_browse-bin%3A2991638011

I have received the really well documented counterfeit Gillette razor blades from Costco, Target, Walmart, and two different sellers on Amazon.

I saw some counterfeit sheets recently at a local bedding store, made from "100% Egyptian Comfort". How bad a counterfeit is it when they cant even duplicate the label properly?

That's not trying and failing to duplicate a label, it's trying to be misleading without actually lying.

I expect to possibly get an inferior item at Big Lots. But Amazon used to distribute good quality items at reasonable prices. Now they are resting on their laurels and thousands of old reviews and unscrupulous sellers are taking advantage of it.

If you read reviews you will see that people do have issues getting refunds for poor quality items. If the sale is not fulfilled by Amazon and is sent direct from a dishonest seller you have to deal directly with the seller.

In recent months I have had to return a ton of stuff for one reason or another so I will pay more to buy from a 'shipped by Amazon' company. I flat out won't buy from a company that isn't.

I am very careful to only buy from 'sold by Amazon' products. When I wasn't careful about that, I received refilled ink cartridges that were being sold as 'genuine'. Well they were genuine empty cartridges that were refilled. The cartridges came to me leaking. I did get a refund from Amazon.

I went on Amazon to buy a Flexi-leash for my dog. This is a specific name of a leash from a specific company from Germany. I looked for a "genuine" flexi-leash in my local stores and they were all out. I bought what was advertised as a flexi-leash from this German company....and what came was a piece of crap knock off from China. I think Amazon needs to step up and do a better job policing their own site because more and more people are getting upset about this problem.

I think it helps to read the reviews. I've read quite a few where previous buyers tell you the stuff is fake - do not buy.

Well, after this thread, I decided to post a review of Revision on Amazon. My 1-star review was rejected. Shocking, huh?! It apparently was too profane. I did not use profanity at all, just stated it was likely a fake, didn't work like the product I had bought in a physicians office, and stated buyers should check the Revision website which states all Revision products are sold through a physicians office only. So apparently Amazon doesn't appreciate true reviews.

Outside, that seals the deal for me. Thanks for the follow-up.

outside, was the product shipped by Amazon or the shady seller? I wonder if the seller ships the product and makes the listing that they also have control over the reviews. There are plenty of bad reviews on Amazon so something doesn't seem right. I would communicated directly with Amazon about it.

I would report the review refusal to Amazon customer service, something doesn't sound right there.

I wonder if the seller ships the product and makes the listing that they also have control over the reviews.

Sorry, but this makes me chuckle. As an author, I can tell you that nobody has any control over amazon reviews. Even when I have had reviews for completely different titles by other authors on my books' pages, amazon rarely does anything about it. They won't even move reviews to the correct product.

And don't underestimate the arrogance of amazon. I wrote a popular book on digital editing. Now in the modern world, publishers publish a week's worth at a time for big sellers so they can ship them right out without warehousing anything. Well, some idiot at the publisher let the book fall out of print for a week by not factoring in the demand during the pre-holiday season, so amazon just took it upon themselves to start sending people who ordered it black and white xeroxes of a full-color book, which they tatted up themselves.

They never did a thing to correct it, and refused to do anything about the reviews that complained that while the book is listed as being in color, it was actually in black and white. That's how amazon is.

I went back to my original order and it says it was fulfilled by Amazon. Funny thing though it shows 2 different suppliers. One is shown as a 'storefront'. I don't get it. I re-wrote the review, slightly modifying some of the stronger words and gave it 2 stars just to see what happened. Mainly I left out the word 'fake', which I assume they thought was profane. It was accepted.

FYI I wrote a few reviews for the SkinCeuticals and like Outside mine were rejected. That is irritating. After reading the guideline for reviews that they linked to I apparently have to spend at least $5 in order to post one. However, I've left reviews before on there for items I DID NOT purchase from Amazon.

I use Amazon a lot because I live in the boonies and I can't get a lot of the products I want. I've had a couple of duds lately, but I am pretty careful about my purchases. A lot of times I just purchase some thing I already use but can't get locally, in bulk. Like my favorite shampoo or recycled wax paper. But now I see some off brands showing up and the last two "recycled" items I got were probably fakes. The book reviews I learned early on, could be totally fake done by friends of the author.

My daughter recently purchased Nexxus Humectrus hair conditioner and said it was not the real product. I never thought to call customer service but will now that I've read this.

The book reviews I learned early on, could be totally fake done by friends of the author.

Those never bothered me on books from my competition, since nobody has that many friends who will do one. But you can buy amazon reviews, both good and bad, for any product at many internet sites, as many as you want. A while back amazon made a token pretense of going after one of the more notorious, but they don't really care.

How can you buy reviews? I got burned on a few books, but now I am more savvy as far as how I read reviews. Are there any clues to "bought" reviews?

I bought a designer hand bag that was advertised as "genuine leather" and when it arrived it was not. It had great reviews. I've never had a problem buying books from Amazon.

Recently I was looking at ordering a cell phone battery and some vitamin C serum (Timeless). Looking at the reviews many indicated that they were fake. So I bought elsewhere- like the direct skin care website and a recommended by LG cell phone online store.

I've never had a problem with amazon purchases. Then again, I mainly order books, and never beauty products or purses. Yes, some reviews are fluff from friends, but those are usually rather obvious, as a review writer (of the honest sort) there myself.

akl, fyi you can use Hot and Flashy blog code "hf5off" for $5 discount when ordering Timeless products from their site:).

How can you buy reviews? I got burned on a few books, but now I am more savvy as far as how I read reviews. Are there any clues to "bought" reviews?

I'm not going to give them free publicity, but just google 'buy amazon reviews' and you'll get pages and pages of places to do it. There are whole companies devoted to just this.

As for spotting them, it's getting a bit harder. It used to be that very generic reviews, e.g., "This is great. I recommend it to anyone," especially with the kind of grammatical and spelling errors that made it clear the reviewer wasn't fluent in English were a good give-away, but they're getting more sophisticated now, and I'm sorry to say that as economic pressure builds up it's gotten easier to get well-educated people to do this. Originally they were mostly offshore, but I would bet your local craigslist has ads for people to write amazon reviews.

There are far more direct from China sellers than there ever were before. It is becoming a problem.

All of this helps me to reign in my materialistic cravings... so much junk out there. The time spent and lost forever shopping/returning is such a tremendous waste. In August, I bought a replacement older-model LG phone for my daughter on Amazon and it arrived non-working. The seller claimed it was new, but I believe that it is either a counterfeit or something that sat in a warehouse for years, and no longer functions. Emails from the company read like they were written by a teenager in an ESL class, no capitals and missing words. More like a text message. Their return shipping label required me to pay for postage and then they stated that since nothing was wrong with the phone, they would charge me a 20% restocking fee. Crazy. At that point, I turned the entire problem over to Amazon who processed the refund for me, regardless of what the seller decided. Bought another item and description said "In Stock" but little did I know that "In Stock" meant that it was in stock in China. Once I realized that I would not receive the item until after I needed it, I cancelled the sale. The seller sent me a return label, where once again I had to pay for shipping, to a location in Canada (!?!?). Just didn't make sense. The item took over a month to arrive (because I cancelled after the boat left the dock, I guess), and I refused delivery. Thank God I was home when the mail man delivered the package. I called Amazon to notify them of the fact that the package was heading back to China unopened. I received a refund immediately. Sheesh.

There are far more direct from China sellers than there ever were before. It is becoming a problem.

You do realize that this isn't just a random phenomenon, but the result of an active decision on amazon's part, to keep ali baba's new consumer division from getting business away from them? So it's not a problem at all, not to amazon. It's exactly what they are spending big bucks to bring about.

It is a problem for me and other consumers if you need clarification. I do not really care about their bottom line, I care about mine.

oh and Ali baba is a joke as is screaming Owl. Zero quality control and zero customer service. Lead filled toys and fitting issues galore.

i make the active decision not to purchase from these sellers. Etsy also now allows Chinese wholesalers. eBay as well. Buyer beware.

Amazon also made sweeping changes to their supply contracts which really hurt small businesses and I know several WAHMs that have chosen not to participate any longer as suppliers because of these contractual changes.

As your aware from your previous post Amazon reserves the right to distribute and manufacture your product as they see fit if it is profitable enough. The contract is an interesting read.

Dsg2015- I think I did...after all my reading of the hundreds of reviews of ALL the vit C serums! ;) thanks for the tip! It helps also because that $5 US is like $25 Canadian ;) (just kidding! But our dollar is sooo bad right now!)

These off-shore wholesalers have ruined eBay and will ruin Etsy as well. At this point, I'd rather buy local anyway. Brick and motar retailers are bent on pleasing customers, and what is not to love about keeping jobs in your own neighborhood or city?

Hmmmmm...I haven't noticed my bricks and mortar stores bent on pleasing me. I love Amazon but they are starting to do a few things to annoy me. The always five star reviews from people who were given the product in exchange for their unbiased review. Ya, right - those are the only products in my experience that consistently get five star ratings. And now their sponsored products placed in the middle of my search. I guess they are finally making it a priority to be profitable.

Not from Amazon, but how about supermarket products? My cats will not eat Fancy Feast cat food from Walmart. I've tried giving it to them at least 3 times, and they sniff it and walk away~the dog eats it. However, they will eat the very same flavors if I purchase them from Target or the grocery store~the dates have never been expired. Anyone else notice this?

Well that's just a cat thing (g)

Patriceny, I bought a flexi (neon) leash in July. It shipped from and was sold by Amazon. I love it! I bought the medium size for a dog weighing 10 pounds more than the maximum weight. We've had a few late night armadillo incidences when I thought surely the lease would snap into! It's fine, my arm did not hold up as well!

I hadn't given this subject much thought but this week I recommended a pricey dog brush to a poster here. I had purchased mine from the company where the price is currently $60. I did a Google search to check for a better price and found one on Amazon for $14.99.

The company's site warns about imitations. I'm pretty sure this is one of those cases.

Is that pricey dog brush a Furminator? I bought one this summer at the local Tractor Supply. I think it was $49. Worth every penny.

patty_cakes, I haven't noticed that about cat food--don't have a cat now, but many products are different when you buy them from walmart. For instance, for many years I bought Hanes women's nylon briefs. If bought elsewhere they had lace an inch wide around the waist, half inch from walmart. And the sizes ran much smaller. Walmart puts such a hard squeeze on their vendors that they do all sorts of things to be able to get the cost down to walmart levels.

Another reason to shun that store.

Barbara, I can't imagine *how* they could coerce a company that makes cat food to 'cheat' but I won't even by the dry cat food there. As for clothes, have picked up tee shirts/shorts for the grands, and socks for myself. Those things wore well enough, but I have my doubts re:their food products too.

I can't imagine *how* they could coerce a company that makes cat food to 'cheat'

They are the 800 lb gorilla in the room. All they have to do is say, "You must do something to get our cost down to $x, or we don't carry your merchandise." There is a fair amount of wiggle room in specs on most things.

Even for things like medications there are changes you can make and still fall within the lines. A non-walmart example: I very occasionally need to take cetizirine for allergic reactions. I've noticed that although the Publix brand zyrtec clone and the one I get from the Publix pharmacy are supposedly identical in dosage, there's enough difference that the one behind the counter works hugely better. I asked the pharmacist why that could be and she said that there is probably a micro difference in the dose and a difference in the inert stuff that makes up the tablet itself. But medically, they are considered exactly the same.

If something as tightly regulated as medication can vary like that, you can be sure there's plenty of room to make changes in the proportions and fillers in pet food.

It's well documented that vendors produce separate items for Walmart to be able to comply with Walmart's cost demands. The same thing happens with some Black Friday sale items at Target, Best Buy, etc. The Samsung XYZ TV that normally costs $500 turns into model XYZa with fewer features. And that's how they can sell it for $279.

Yes, I should have mentioned that even a big grocery chain like Publix, which does everything as BOGO these days, often has different sized/formulated products for the BOGO to make you think you're getting a deal when you aren't.