I stopped buying important things from Amazon for this reason. I don't want to risk getting counterfeit products.
We just got an email from Amazon that they identified that the water filter refills I bought 6 months ago were fake, so they issued a refund. But I hate the idea that they allowed it in the first place itself. And this is something that's affecting the health of my family. (Thankfully our unfiltered tap water won't kill us but still...)
We've been trying to avoid Amazon as much as possible and it's been hard. But not impossible. They've got such a head start over everyone else on their solid logistics operation.
They're actually open to competition... from ex-Amazonians. It's like all the ex-googlers that left and took those ideas to make open source versions because Google was so far ahead.
1) Retail return policies are mostly liberal. It's the smaller stores that tend to be more stingy.
2) Price Matching solves any issues with regard to lower prices
3) Returning is actually easier since you get the instant gratification of a refund, not 5 days later. Anyway with amazon we've always had to drop it off to UPS, so we don't save time making the trip.
The bigger issue is that since Amazon is so large and pervasive everywhere, it's very tough to actually boycott the company. Brands like Whole Foods, Ring, AWS etc are still important parts of our lives and careers.
We had constant issues with our fridge water dispenser using 'Samsung' water filters bought on Amazon. Out of desperation, I just bought a cheap off-brand one, hoping if it was at least being honest about not being an official product, it'd at least be functional as a replacement. All of the issues with our fridge have since vanished.
I've since learnt real Samsung water filters come with an authentication tag, and none of the ones I ordered on Amazon came with one. I think we've been drinking water from counterfeit filters for a year now.
These kinds of things have me quitting most things recently.
I don't own a TV, don't own a car, don't drink coffee anymore, don't subscribe to any streaming service, don't have a TV, don't have social media. My internet usage basically boils down to NYT, HN, Reddit and Youtube.
I can't say I miss much of what I gave up. My life is far from deprived. The caveat is that I live in western Europe, with good public transport, accessibility to plenty of nature and many things to do outside of glowing rectangles.
It’s just what happens when you mix the spirit of legal and business imperatives with tech, but there probably was never a tipping point for a world of hobbyists. Nobody accuses the lawyer or businessman of malfeasance when they secure the business moat.
>We had constant issues with our fridge water dispenser using 'Samsung' water filters bought on Amazon. Out of desperation, I just bought a cheap off-brand one, hoping if it was at least being honest about not being an official product, it'd at least be functional as a replacement. All of the issues with our fridge have since vanished.
Another example: I recently needed new brush heads for my electric toothbrush. I hesitated before buying, because I can't be sure that the toothbrush manufacturer-branded refills on Amazon are genuine. Going with a generic, compatible refill with good reviews is preferable in this case, aside from the lower price, because presumably no one will counterfeit it.
(I ended up buying the manufacturer-branded refill ... from Best Buy, not Amazon.)
I used to buy pet fountain filters on Amazon, but I've changed to a policy of not buying anything health-related since reading about Amazon's counterfeit issues.
I considered buying a pet fountain filter, but checked the reviews and found lots of horror stories about build up of slime and mold on counterfeit filters. One story even had a cat dying in way plausibly connected to the filter [1].
Unfiltered tap water won't kill you, but a counterfeit filter might.
It's really not clear that water filters are doing anything positive (you'd have to get your water tested to know) and they do have a tendency to increase the bacterial load in the water because of the inevitable biofilm that accumulates on the filter surfaces. In addition it's just another single use plastic product
They can make your water taste a lot better. My tap water is barely palatable. If I didn't use these filters, I would drink tap anyway but the rest of my family would probably resort to bottled water.
Fair. I've always been lucky enough to live in places with great water, if occasionally astonishingly hard, but if I was in say Las Vegas I'd probably stick to bottled water
My fear with a counterfeit water filter would be what it adds to the water. There is something in there and if it is counterfeit you don’t know what the plastic and filter material is. You could be leaching plasticizers, bpa, lead, who knows what into your drinking water.
They may not be regulated but if you’re buying a name brand water filter from a retail store in the USA, it’s unlikely that brand is getting away with selling something full of lead or other bad things. Those filters are sometimes tested by independent labs (e.g. Consumer Reports) and retail sales are regulated by the CPSC, e.g. https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/1997/cpsc-and-ecodyne-announce-...
In contrast if you are getting a counterfeit Chinese filter from amazon, it can be very hard or impossible to even figure out who to sue even if you have proof the product is bad.
> I stopped buying important things from Amazon for this reason. I don't want to risk getting counterfeit products.
There's nothing in my life that I buy where I would accept a counterfeit. I accept that it has absolutely happened, that it will continue to happen, but I have nearly completely retreated from Amazon since having children.
Oh man, water filters. I should add that to my list.
The problem is, I want to buy a generic filter because fridge manufacturer has the typical massive markup that a manufacturer does (like printer ink) but finding a reputable generic is difficult.
Co-mingeling is exactly right. I bought a Samsung product sold and fulfilled by Amazon and still got a counterfeit. I didn't discover it was counterfeit until after the standard return warranty and when I contacted Amazon, they couldn't have cared less, and basically acted like it was being counterfeit was just another aspect of a product that should be evaluated by a customer during the return period. Amazon can FO and die!
We just got an email from Amazon that they identified that the water filter refills I bought 6 months ago were fake, so they issued a refund. But I hate the idea that they allowed it in the first place itself. And this is something that's affecting the health of my family. (Thankfully our unfiltered tap water won't kill us but still...)
We've been trying to avoid Amazon as much as possible and it's been hard. But not impossible. They've got such a head start over everyone else on their solid logistics operation.
They're actually open to competition... from ex-Amazonians. It's like all the ex-googlers that left and took those ideas to make open source versions because Google was so far ahead.
1) Retail return policies are mostly liberal. It's the smaller stores that tend to be more stingy. 2) Price Matching solves any issues with regard to lower prices 3) Returning is actually easier since you get the instant gratification of a refund, not 5 days later. Anyway with amazon we've always had to drop it off to UPS, so we don't save time making the trip.
The bigger issue is that since Amazon is so large and pervasive everywhere, it's very tough to actually boycott the company. Brands like Whole Foods, Ring, AWS etc are still important parts of our lives and careers.