re: Is anyone else becoming wary of what you buy on amazon?

They are really going downhill.

Many things get repackaged after they get sent back for one reason or another. I've even read reviews saying a company was selling watered-down shampoo (it was a much lighter shade than it was supposed to be).

Amazon letting these shady sellers who sell counterfeit, repackaged, or completely misleading things was a bad idea. Hell, I've had a lot of stuff be listed as prime, but the seller wouldn't even have it in stock. Why should they be allowed to sell something they don't have? Then, when you review them, Amazon just takes it down for a ToS violation

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Walmart online is really becoming a better option than Amazon and their shipping is usually faster now as well.

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I love it when the little man is able to beat out these big corporations

Bought two pair of Ray Ban's in 2013. This past summer I wanted to get the lenses replaced on the aviator's. Was told by the service dept the aviators were fakes. Went back through my Amazon history and sure enough, they were advertised as genuine, etc. Contacted Amazon about the issue and at first they sent me a $10 inconvenience credit while they investigated. Amazon proceeded to explain that I should contact the seller for a replacement and or refund. I expressed to Amazon that I purchased the sun glasses through their site, so they should contact the seller and I demanded a refund from them because I was not going to deal with the company that scammed me in the first place. Amazon obliged, without dispute and refunded the full purchase price on the aviator's. What is odd is that the other pair of Ray Ban's I purchased are genuine and have been authenticated. Definitely seems like a scam that one pair were authentic and the other were fakes. So perhaps Amazon does get ripped by these sellers, however, their customer service in my experience has been top notch.

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, what are you guys buying that is a 50/50 shot of being counterfeit?

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I'm not sure if they mean counterfeit as in truly fake, or counterfeit as in 100 shitty Chinese versions of the original product.

The former I haven't seen, the latter is definitely a problem.

But it's easy to spot the low quality stuff when the company is called YSDWOW and it's a deal of the day every day.

But even the cheap Chinese stuff - what are people actually buying?

I know finding a phone case is a mess, for example, but ordering something like an HDMI cable for $1 should be a pretty good sign it's going to be shite.

The only things I'm really careful on are replacement parts, but reading a couple reviews usually prevents any poor purchases.

Most sellers I see are all selling the same products across all three platforms.

Sure, I could spend all kinds of time price shopping and comparing shipping but at the end of the day, dealing with Amazon is just a better experience.

I like not having to figure out where I purchased items in the past when it is time to return or reorder.

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Amazon's strategy is obvious. Get people in a routine of buying from Amazon without price shopping. Then slowly raise prices over time.

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I price compare with Walmart.com every so often.

If Walmart is cheaper, it's usually by $.02. Seriously. An item that is $9.99 at Amazon is $9.97 at Walmart. Often times they're the exact same price. I'm not sure if WalMart has a "Subscribe and Save" feature, but that is something I use a ton on Amazon.

They either do a horrible job of vetting and terminating bad sellers, or they DGAF. They don't even care about sellers with thousands of fake reviews (or paid reviews)