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Comment by meritt | Hacker News Reader

> Not sure about that number

Based on what? Why would your gut reaction to this entire story be "I'm suspicious of that dollar amount" [1]?. The fact that it's revenue and not sales doesn't somehow make the headline false. It's still a loss of revenue.

The broader point of this story and others is that Amazon has a rampant counterfeit goods problem and they do little to nothing to ensure authenticity for consumers.

> where OP ironically appears to be ripping off from

It's a local news station. Watch the video. They interviewed the manufacturer. They likely read the original story and decided to bring additional attention to a local business.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality

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>Why would your gut reaction to this entire story be "I'm suspicious of that dollar amount"

Because it's presented without any explanation or context, and it's difficult to see how it could be reasonably estimated. The headline is literally false. Losing revenue, even if that estimate is accurate, is not correctly described as losing money. It's kind of how cops inaccurately report "street value" of confiscated drugs - see e.g. https://www.cjr.org/analysis/drug_bust.php

>The broader point of this story and others is that Amazon has a rampant counterfeit goods problem and they do little to nothing to ensure authenticity for consumers.

And this point is wrong, of course. If anything, they go too far - I've seen many victims of their overzealous enforcement and am one myself. There's been many lawsuits by companies that have been blocked from selling despite selling only authentic products. That's hardly consistent with them doing little to nothing.

Yes I'm aware of your case [1]. You sold non-retail unpackaged electronics on Amazon, you are not an authorized reseller, and were accused of selling counterfeit goods. TP-Link got you banned from Amazon. Now you're suing TP-Link for $5M-10M because you lost ~$100k/mo profit.

But the story above is about actual counterfeit goods. Not people reselling wholesale goods for below MAPs to retail customers.

[1] https://pdfhost.io/v/zU6v@9u0_Microsoft_Word_TSI_complaint6d...

I'm responding to your point that Amazon does "little to nothing to ensure authenticity for consumers."

I disagree, and I'd imagine the plaintiffs in the following cases would as well:

Or for that matter, the 12,000+ people who've signed a petition complaining about Amazon's overzealous enforcement at https://www.change.org/p/jeff-bezos-amazon-com-should-only-s.... Read through a few of the comments there.

False positives rates go up when trying to minimize the false negative rate. As such, evidence that the false positive rate is high shows that actual counterfeits are being enforced heavily as well.

Anyway, OP doesn't mention any specific actions they expected Amazon to take that weren't taken. It doesn't say, for example, that they asked Amazon to take down counterfeits and were refused.

I think we're in agreement regarding Amazon: They don't take an active role in policing their marketplace. They have a "report this listing" mechanism that essentially bans a seller outright, with no effort to validate the claim. They just assume it's legit by default and the seller is always in the wrong. But to be clear, the brands are the ones taking action (and thus the defendant in these lawsuits), Amazon has essentially no role.

It's my view that Amazon themselves should be taking action on behalf of both consumers and sellers to ensure that: 1) products are authentic, and 2) consumers can get the best prices possible even if that's from an "unauthorized reseller"

I'd mostly agree with that, with the caveat that they will often restrict particular listings or brands that got a high volume of complaints, and require proof of purchase to sell. They also flag sellers that have large sales increases in a short period of time.

>It's my view that Amazon themselves should be taking action on behalf of both consumers and sellers to ensure that: 1) products are authentic, and b) consumers can get the best prices possible even if that's from an "unauthorized reseller"

This is reasonable. They could require proof of purchase for all products, or perhaps for all products where more than 10 units are being sold.

I also think there should be a higher bar for foreign sellers, or perhaps a bond that must be posted.

I don't see why they don't require proof of purchase for every single item in their supply chain by a third party reseller, with valid, verifiable invoices issued only by the OEM.

1. The cost to verify all of those would be extreme. They ship billions of units in a year, that's tens of millions of invoices at a minimum.

2. "issued only by the OEM" but there are many valid suppliers that are not the brand owner. Even Amazon themselves buy from many vendors that are not the brand owner. Amazon wants those suppliers and third party sellers because they bring down pricing and have a wider selection than they'd get if they only allowed sellers buying direct.

Sellers have complained that this opens up their supply chain to be courted by Amazon.

Ex: if i sell a trendy product on amazon, then they ask me for proof of purchase, they then know who to approach to make the amazon basics version, and take the wind out of my sails.

>You sold non-retail unpackaged electronics on Amazon

Just to clarify: some goods were repacked in polybags, and labeled as such. This is explicitly permitted by Amazon's ToS for the cell phone category:

"Amazon product detail page requirements: All non-retail packaging requires a separate detail page. All non-retail packaging requires either "[Non-Retail Packaging]" or "[Carrier Packaging]" in the title. For example: Motorola H12 Bluetooth Headset [Non-Retail Packaging] Motorola H12 Bluetooth Headset [Carrier Packaging]"

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/200785030?...

This was for other products, not the tp-link products, which were all in retail packaging.

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