Don’t fall foul of fakes

My favourite….
I was looking for a camera battery.
Looking at an auction on ebay titled “Genuine Nikon Ion Battery”, I checked the picture and ION was spelt IOM on the battery !!!!!!!

Went to a local camera store and ordered one instead.

Of the two problems highlighted here – [1] people are being diddled, and [2] there is a risk to health, or safety, or both – I feel the second is by far the more important and should attract more attention from trading standards/consumer protection. As we know from other Which? Conversations, perfectly legitimate traders with impressive and powerful websites are selling non-compliant electrical connectors, both directly and indirectly [through other traders under their umbrella], and not doing much to stop it. A lot of people knowingly buy fake products, probably because they cannot afford the real thing. After all if a handbag looks like a Mulberry, functions like a Mulberry, and gives a few months’ service like any other handbag, that might be good enough; the fact that it hasn’t cost as much as a Mulberry is a bonus [even though the selling price is still a rip-off because the quality of material and manufacture is shoddy]. Same with a fake Rolex watch. I know someone who bought one on holiday in Greece; it looked more-or-less like a Rolex and told the time for a few months but no reputable jeweller would repair it or fit a new battery. None of that mattered – it looked smart enough to impress and nobody else would have been rude enough to question its provenance. In terms of product quality, buying on-line carries the same risks as the old-fashioned mail order. If you can’t examine the goods before purchase you know you are taking a risk. The added complication these days is the almost complete lack of protection when things go wrong. For mail order, suppliers needed to advertise through magazines and newspapers; once the publishers started receiving complaints about particular traders or products the advertising was terminated. The on-line open market place is a free-for-all on a global scale where any dodgy dealer can set up their stall and con the gullible. Other than much better consumer education, it’s difficult to see what can effectively be done to control it.

I tend to avoid online marketplaces offered by amazon, play, ebay etc unless its a trader with a normal retail presence. Otherwise I’m just not prepared to take the risk.

Websites such as Amazon that result in fakes being purchased should be fined. If they stuck to reselling only what they buy, or used legitimate resellers that could be trusted, they would not have a problem. It is because they make money from uncontrolled sources accessed through them that many problems arise. They are responsible and should be held to account; maybe then these practices would be less prevalent.

Earlier this year, I bought 100 one amp plug fuses from a well established Amazon Marketplace trader. A substantial proportion were faulty or out of specification and could overheat. Amazon took no action and the product is still on sale. Trading Standards took no action. I think I reported the details to Which? at the time.

I am not planning to buy any electrical goods from Amazon in the near future, having heard numerous examples of incorrect and dangerous plugs on some of the goods they sell.

Most of us would be wary about buying from a company we have never heard of. Amazon Marketplace seems to be a scheme to encourage us to do this, by virtue of the fact that the sale is conducted through the Amazon website. Don’t expect much help from Amazon if you have a problem. I am not the first to discover this the hard way.

I am not especially critical of Amazon in general as I have made many good purchases from them, but I am now much more concerned about certain aspects of the business in the light of comments of other customers. The worry is that if companies like Amazon are seen to get away with supplying defective or non-compliant products then other firms will think they will be able to do so.

Amazon has gone from primarily a books and music on-line store to a general store offering a vast range of merchandise, sometimes sold directly and sometimes through their “market place”. The public assumes that traders under the Amazon umbrella are likely to be more responsible and that the goods they offer are likely to conform fully to European specifications and UK standards where applicable. This is not a reliable assumption. Examples have been quoted previously in Which? Conversations [with regard to indirct selling] to show that Amazon does not necessarily stand between the buyer and the seller in the case of a product deficiency; it merely acts as a facilitator to bring about the transaction. The rate of growth of Amazon in the UK, and the scale and reach of its product inventory, shows what a powerful force in retail it has become. The appeal to a trader of getting on the Amazon website is immense and it is possible that some firms are putting themselves on the brink of commercial suicide in order to get a slice of the turnover that Amazon can deliver. It is probably a cut-throat business and I expect margins are extremely thin after allowing for (a) the retail discount required in order to compete, and (b) the commission [presumably] payable to Amazon. Given the sheer number of categories and items in the catalogue it is virtually inevitable that many companies and products are admitted without much in the way of testing or inspection and there is therefore no warranty from Amazon in the case of items purchased through them rather than from them. For reputational reasons they might exercise some oversight and diligence but they are not going to commit the resources in staff time and expertise to give the level of customer assurance that some other retailers do. Amazon’s chief concern seems to be run a highly efficient logistics operation where fulfilment and delivery performance are the critical factors.

I would not consider Amazon to be particularly prone to selling or marketing fake or counterfeit products relative to other ‘value’, ‘bargain’, and ‘discount’ channels. With all such purchases, we just have to be more wary and make sure there is the possibility of effective consumer support in the event of problems, the more so as the price rises and the distance of the seller extends beyond reach.

Amazon could be persuaded to label on site those resellers and products they take responsibility for, and which they do not. This would clarify the position to the purchaser and allow them to judge risk against cost.

My wife bought a copy of Despicable Me 2 recently from a site (claiming) to be based in the UK. It looks very professional, and given that the site came up high in the Google Search ratings and allowed payment through PayPal (which she thought would provide some protection) it seemed legitimate.

The dvd did seem fine on arrival, and the picture quality was fine. However, it did not contain extras and on closer inspection we realised it was a fake. The company has shown no interest in responding to our e-mails.

Then the disappointment started. PayPal only suggested we would get our money back, but since the return address was now in Thailand it would cost pretty much the cost of the dvd to return. They seemed to class it only as ‘not as described’ and not a counterfeit.

More surprisingly, the Federation Against Copyright Theft – FACT (the people that spend a lot of time with their discouragement of the fake dvd trade on legal products) and their partners Crimestoppers were only interested if we could supply a name, and not just a company name.

I wonder about a couple of things:
a) Where can I pass on my warning to others about this DVD website to prevent them from being ‘had’
b) How do FACT and Crimestoppers hope to eliminate dvd piracy if they show no interest in pursuing cases such as this?