This is not a link blog, but I just had to highlight this blatant fraudulent activity at Amazon reported by my friend Lee Badman. A quick glance shows that the same thing is widespread – too-good prices on items offered off-Amazon with payment through gift cards. It’s a straight-up scam, and I wonder how many people have been hurt by it and why Amazon hasn’t done anything to stop it!
The Scam
I’ll let Lee speak to the scam. If you’re interested in reading his whole tale, including a personal investigation and attempted transaction, I urge you to read his story, The Curious Case of Bogus Amazon Sellers.
I’m sure I’m not alone in admitting that I generally love Amazon. The access to massive product variety, frequently great prices, the whole Prime feature, and a sense that you can really trust the entire framework just makes Amazon easy to appreciate. But that trust thing… well, lately I’ve had it rocked a little bit when it comes to Amazon. Here’s the executive summary:
- I have found multiple clearly fraudulent sellers in the “used” category
- I’ve engaged Amazon’s customer service and investigations staff, had my suspicions confirmed and told by Amazon they’d get rid of the bogus sellers
- The same sellers keep coming back, and they are pretty convincing if you don’t know better
- There seems to be no way for Amazon to keep them out
Essentially, there are scammers actively “selling” on Amazon, blatantly asking to go “off-site”, and using classic phishing techniques to defraud customers. And Amazon does nothing actively to stop this. Back to Lee:
That anyone can join the Amazon used market as seller and then be allowed to tell customers to go through email and break Amazon’s rules WITHOUT AMAZON THEMSELVES CATCHING IT is bewildering
It’s easy to find similar offers on Amazon. Search for something expensive (a MacBook Pro, for example) and look for too-good-to-be-true offers in the used section. As Lee notes, the scammers appear alongside valid sellers. Amazon does sort them to the bottom of the list (maybe because they’re new/unverified sellers) but allows them to appear!
Here are the hallmarks:
- Too-low round-number prices roughly half the retail cost
- Items sold as used but with specific notes that they’re actually new
- Instructions to email to begin the transaction rather than using the Amazon site, including obviously obfuscated gmail addresses with spaces between letters
- “Just Launched” seller profiles with no ratings
They’re honestly very easy for a buyer to avoid. But I wonder how many people take a risk on a “great deal” and get burned!
What Can You Do?
First, buyer beware. Do not assume that Amazon polices their third-party sellers and be very skeptical of offers that seem too good to be true.
But it’s not fair to place all the blame on the buyer. This is Amazon’s site, and they should stop this practice. Sure this one is pretty blatant, but I bet none of us would like to live in a totally “caveat emptor” world. We shop at sites like Amazon because they offer us some peace of mind. We will stop shopping there if we lose this.
Everyone reading this can contact Amazon and publicize the problem. Share Lee’s article on Twitter and tag @Amazon so they know it’s a real issue. Tell them you are upset and want some resolution. Escalate!
Stephen’s Stance
If something seems to be too good to be true, it probably is! It ought to be easy for Amazon to create a scam filter to block these, but they don’t seem at all interested, as Lee shows. This is their responsibility: By creating this marketplace, Amazon took on the responsibility to police it. It’s time for them to step up!
as a seller on amazon,i found it’s a risky place to sell there. too many ridiculous rules and it seems to be a trap everywhere. NOT fair to sellers. LOW profit and HIGH risks.It’s even worse than Ebay. Stay away from Amazon.
This is fucking hilarious. If you don’t buy something on Amazon why the hell would they help you get your money back? If you DIDN’T PAY FOR IT ON THEIR WEBSITE how can you even claim that they are responsible. That’s like going to Walmart where an employee says he can get you the newest Ipad at half price but you gotta pay with cash out behind the store. then you get home and find out it’s a box filled with s*** and you sue Walmart for selling you a box of shit.
I have seen this on Amazon. I don’t think it it bogus sellers but sellers websites being infiltrated some how by the the schamers. This is the responsibility of Amazon.
They find a seller with lots of goods with a good rating and put hundreds of high priced goods on at very low price. You are asked to contact seller with bogus email if you are going to buy. They then send you an email saying if you send us your details name address they will instruct Amazon to contact you with payment details. You have to contact them what ever because if you put it in your basket and try to pay I believe it will not let you pay.
The products are removed after 24 hours and then appear on another sellers listings some hours later.
You are led to believe you are dealing with Amazon.
This was 1 day ago when I saw this.
I did not send any details because to me it was too good a deal but it is easy to see people being drawn in by this.
I have told Amazon twice about this.
great analogy. No one is capable of taking responsibility anymore, especially if there is a responsible, profitable, successful business anywhere in the vicinity, they will always get the blame in the hope that, in this case, Amazon will pay for the stupidity of some of it’s non-customers.
People put their trust in employees of companies, they don’t expect to be scammed/misled by them. Therefore, there’s fuck all hilarious about the current Amazon Fraud problem. It’s initiated on Amazon. Amazon have a ‘Duty of Care’ to provide a safe site, not infested with criminals who wish to mislead customers.
Amazon need to maintain their security to ensure the integrity of who can make a for sale listing, ensuring it is genuine. If their system fails and ultimately fails a bona fide customer who for example visits http://www.amazon.co.uk to purchase an item, it is Amazon’s responsibility to reimburse and apologise to their customer. There has to be a security net available!!
At the current fraud rate they are losing rather than gaining customers. I for one am one of those customers who placed an order against a listing on Amazon’s Marketplace site and received absolutely nothing other than the shock and disbelief that I had been scammed. These such listings ask you to e-mail them for further information and in my case a fake Amazon ‘pro-forma’ was created to be paid against. Believe me I’ve been using Amazon a long time and it all looked very real to me. Amazon had provided me with no warnings in advance of this. I wish I had received a detailed warning so an alarm bell would have rang. I do not feel gullible to this day.
Amazon in their billions and billions of Luxembourg Tax haven profits at present don’t seem to give a damn. Pure greed and lack of responsibility!!
Does their founder Jeff Bezos a multi billionaire who owns 18% of Amazon and now the 3rd Richest Person ‘In the World’ know of this? Would he care, knowing the company he founded is as crooked and deceitful as the criminals the website harbours? If they are knowingly harbouring them, yes they are criminals! He should be very concerned for Amazon’s customers and Amazon as a branded name since 1996. This scandal could be the beginning of the end for Amazon!
Wait until you or someone you know and respect is frauded via Amazon to see how you feel about the situation and Amazon around the world!
Shame on Amazon!!
The point is that if your not paying through their website you can’t prove that fraud occurred. Your bank may reimburse you if they get enough fraud claims against that seller, but Amazon wasn’t a part of transaction so there is no money for them to give back.
I’d also like to mention that Amazon isn’t “harboring” anybody. While the people who do these scams are certainly deceitful they do get removed constantly, but with hundreds of new sellers being added daily it’s not possible to keep them completely off the market.
I proved that fraud occurred in my case. It wasn’t difficult proving it to the Police force/Interpol with all the right evidence. I think we have to be honest with ourselves as consumers about big money making companies. In this case Amazon can analyse what’s going on and do what they can to to ultimately balance and protect themselves and their profits and do the bare minimum to cover their asses with the like of small print for legal reasons. We are only numbers (small fish) unless we are going to buy a shitload of shares. If there are so many scammers lurking on Amazon, then the way I see it, Amazon has a crap anti-fraud system period. They know this and are obviously happy to harbour crooks (well they are in a strict sense if they got in and are sitting comfortably and easily on their site and Amazon knows). All because of their shit lack of security and duty of care!
Amazon have it all weighed up and it would probably cost them more than what they’re comfortable with to put their system right/keep it as clean as possible. As long as the profits keep turning out well, this is collateral damage to them. In the UK they pay next to fuck all in tax with their European profits enjoying the Duchy of Luxembourg tax haven.
Think of big companies too that are happy to pay large fines as a ‘slap on the wrist’ rather than change their ways as it costs them less. I don’t know if Amazon have had this happen them but wouldn’t be surprised.
I’d like to see them done a la Volkswagen if possible. I wouldn’t drive a Volkswagen again if I was affected. I’d feel cheated and treated like a number for their gain and also doubt the fact they couldn’t build a proper fucking engine in the first place. Obviously I no longer wish to be an Amazon customer which will be a struggle as I had been such a keen shopper with them for years.
In good faith!
More power to you m8! I’m glad you see sense and understand that Amazon have to be responsible for the protection of their customers. I’m glad to hear you reported to Amazon.
I actually bought an amazon e-gift card. The scammers used it online. Amazon knows who used it, they know they are not the recipients of the e-gift card (paid with my credit card, send to myself to my email). They say they cannot do anything about it, as it can be “a gift”. They say theyr’re going to take care with seller, but nothing can be done and my money won’t be returned. The thing is that I contacted the seller through amazon (as I couldn’t make the payment directly due to “technical issues”) and on amazon ther was a link with the seller’s email to contact if we have any issues. I received a fake email from amazon with the order (I though that it was the order I’ve already tried to place) with payment instructions, to do it via an amazon gift card, so I bought it on amazon. I know I should have investigate prior to send the gift card information to the look-so-real fake amazon email, but I thought I was protected, that amazon cheked their sellers better. Even ebay, where anyone can be a seller, has a protection plan. The ehing is that Amazon gets advantage of the scam as the goods ar bought on amazon website anyway. They make it happen by making us contact the seller, by providing us with that information (on ebay you can contact a seller only through ebay, and they advise you not to do anything directly with the seller after first contact through them).
Actually its not like that. You do pay for it on their website. Its more like you walk into a walmart and 1 out of 10 employees are not employees at all, but walmart gave them employee costumes. And its not that they see you eyeing a laptop and whisper to meet the out back for a deal. You see hte laptop on the shelf with the others showing the good deal. Except when you take it to the register it fails and the fake employee tells you something is wrong with the register but they know a work around. buy a walmart gift card for the same price and then hand it back to the employee and you can walk out of the store with what you wanted. Any given day with a few minutes of search will find these scams, they are so prevalent. Also Amazon is the one advertising the scams. Than makes it amazon’s responsibility.
4. “Just Launched” seller profiles with no ratings
my amazon seller profile says “just launched”, has no buyer feedback, and i sold my first item almost a year ago and sold several items since, delivered everything on time and as described. amazon isn’t like ebay, where everybody provides feedback. hardly anybody on amazon provides feedback. amazon doesn’t even show in my profile the items i have sold so people at least know i am delivering the items with no problems. i have no idea what it takes to get the “just launched” description off my account, either. like i said, i sold my first item almost a year ago. does it go away after you sell a certain number of items? under performance>summary in my seller account i see all green check marks and under reports all the sales got 100 or 110 points, but none of this shows to buyers. “just launched” and having no buyer feedback says absolutely nothing about a seller’s legitimacy. the primary issue the OP seems to have is phishing scams directing people off the site, which should be obvious to all but people with cognitive issues. i’m sure if you report those ads to amazon they will be removed. maybe amazon could IP block some account holders as well as deleting the accounts for those kinds of infractions?
Yes it is possible : they simply have to put an end to the «free for all» market without any regulations (unless people complain, and as a client it’s a tedious process). There are rules, but they are enforced only when there’s not one but several complains. In short, they don’t want to be some kind of “Mall”: they are acting as if they wanted to be and possess “THE” whole market in a neoliberal/neoconservative/Globalized way under their hands… THUS, yes they can, they simply don’t want to. The sorry excuse about “there’s too many of them that are registering we can’t possibly do it», is lame at best, all they’d have to to is to verify the commercial/banking/name information they’re provided so that any future recourse wouldn’t have to require an army of investigators, especially since it seems to be so much easier to scam people using Amazon’s storefront than “traditional” scams…
The latest seemingly scam (I just bought one item to try it, and this was all fulfilled via Amazon,ca transaction form without any communication with the seller), has an Intel i7-4790 at 1.66$, plus 5.xx dollars for shipping fees ! LOL… However the transaction seems legit, I received confirmation by Amazon – As I said there was no communication with the seller whatsoever, all was done through Amazon services and interfaces.
NOTE : Amazon makes a buck on any transaction from their Web site (15% with minimum 1 dollar), whatever their “policy” (which should not be taken as “the Law” or whatever market regulation). As such, since they capitalize on “scammers” too… There you go: a very tedious process so as to enforce you consumer’s rights, IF you can do it and get reimbursed which I doubt.
Go through the Amazon registration process as a seller, and you’ll see that they have all the information they’d need to make a simple check before hand (banking and credit accounts, verified names etc.). IMHO, if they don’t want to enforce some sense of security, then they MUST step back with their dream of “being the market itself”…
I bought a tv,or so i thought by having to contact the seller before buying,needless to say i was scammed and amazon are saying they have no record of the order,because the emails i recieved from amazon were fakes,they advertised the tv so they are responsible whether i can prove it ornot is another matter
Amcl1956
Be aware, all of this is still happening, sadly. I was just scammed using “Amazon Coins” instead of a gift card.
Amazon is an open market place, just like other websites, EBAY or etsy. Anyone can sell on the site. They protect us as customers by offering the SAFE checkout process. You can’t tell me that you think it would be okay, on any website including Amazon to do the opposite of use their safe checkout process? I mean, come on. You do not pay for it on their site. These people saw someone on Amazon selling something at a price super cheap and then instead of going through the SAFE checkout process they chose to text/email/call some random person and make a deal. As if contacting a random person that you don’t know isn’t shady enough, they then went and purchased gift cards? Why, because suddenly a seller on Amazon states they can’t use the cards on the account, but they can use a gift card gifted to them? Please, you can only make so many excuses, but your are just plain dumb to fall for something so juvenile.The fact that you even put, “whisper to meet the out back for a deal” shows how shady these sellers are and if you trust someone like that it’s your own fault.
“on ebay you can contact a seller only through ebay” It’s the same with amazon, even when you get sent an email it is from an encrypted amazon email server, not that person. If you fall for a scam, you are the one who emailed them at an email because amazon does not give your email out to sellers.
Ordered adapter from the website AdapterChargerStore. No money no goods. Scammers gave me non existent tracking number.Ive send them hundreds emails without getting any reply back.Only after opening dispute through the PAYPAL they send me another tracking number which is doesnt exist too.
Reported these scam bags to the Canadian AntiFraud centre,to the police, on the different websites.
Please if you want to save your money and time stay away.
AdapterChargerStore this seller selling non existent adapters and accessories to the computers and laptops. All the reviews are fake.Dont be stupid like I am.