[HN Gopher] Amazon Japan ordered to pay 35M. yen for allowing li...
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Amazon Japan ordered to pay 35M. yen for allowing listing of fakes
Author : resonious
Score : 146 points
Date : 2025-04-26 04:39 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mainichi.jp)
(TXT) w3m dump (mainichi.jp)
| laughing_man wrote:
| Less than a quarter million dollars. That might be enough to
| motivate your local car wash, but Amazon Japan?
| grugagag wrote:
| Hey, it's a start. Maybe other suchs fines crop up allover.
| tjpnz wrote:
| If it continues to happen the Japanese government can force
| them to cease business for a set number of days.
| Delk wrote:
| Looks like it's damages and not a fine. Also, I don't know the
| Japanese system but lots of jurisdictions don't have a US-style
| concept of punitive damages. So the sum is probably what it is
| because it's intended to compensate those particular plaintiffs
| for demonstrable damages rather than to deter Amazon.
| koito17 wrote:
| The companies suing Amazon Japan requested damages of
| approximately 280M JPY, or approximately 2M USD. Of course,
| this is not a lot of money given Amazon's scale, but the
| companies tried to recuperate lost profits.
|
| With that said, the discussion on Yahoo News is mostly in
| agreement with the opinions shared in this thread: given
| Amazon's scale, a fine of 35M yen is equivalent to no penalty.
| openplatypus wrote:
| I wish this was more common.
|
| I rarely, like once every 6 months, look for some obscure thing
| on Amazon. First thing I do after finding products, I research
| which one of the listing has any chance of not being a
| fake/dud/scam.
|
| I can't imagine buying anything of value on Amazon.
| wombat-man wrote:
| Yeah Amazon is my last stop these days.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Well, I'd probably shop at Amazon before Temu, but yeah,
| Amazon is the option of last resort. I do wonder how common
| that sentiment is, probably not very, even if it seems like
| at least the people around me never really use Amazon
| anymore.
|
| It varieres from region to region obviously, but here there's
| no point in ordering from Amazon. Everyone else is cheaper,
| have faster shipping and don't have a ridicules number of
| scamming sellers with fake, defective and dangerous products.
| It seems like Amazon should be failing, but I don't think
| they are.
|
| The Amazon store really have become an absolute shitshow.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I don't buy anything over $50, on Amazon. Been burned by
| fakes and gray-market stuff (sold as legit brand).
|
| Amazon definitely explicitly supports this.
|
| What I do, is go directly to the product Web site (not the
| Amazon page for the manufacturer), and order from there.
| Sometimes, the fulfillment is via Amazon, but I know I'm
| getting the real thing. The difference in price is often
| smaller than you might think. Amazon prices aren't that
| good, anymore.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| If the fulfillment is by Amazon, how do you know what you
| are getting? I thought Amazon commingled all their stock
| in one bin no matter where it came from.
| mrgoldenbrown wrote:
| Vendors using FBA have some control over whether
| commingling happens but I don't know if consumers have
| any way to know the current status of whether its
| commingled or not.
| mrgoldenbrown wrote:
| If the fulfilment is by Amazon, how do you know you
| aren't getting a fake? Is there a way to see if a seller
| is using commingled inventory or not?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20499808
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I would think that it would only take one or two
| incidents, to destroy that whole business model.
|
| Vendors can be flexible, if the malfeasance is under the
| Amazon imprimatur, but it's a completely different story,
| if they act as fulfillment for a separate company, and
| substitute fake stuff.
| bombcar wrote:
| At least with Temu I know I'm getting cheap Chinese crap,
| and they sometimes slip me $130 in my PayPal account after
| ordering $200.
| wombat-man wrote:
| Amazon is going to ignore this problem until enough people
| actually stop shopping there.
| terminalbraid wrote:
| You wish paltry fines of the equivalent of $250k USD were more
| common for infractions like this?
| Zanfa wrote:
| Not GP, but yeah, more frequent fines, e.g $250k USD per fake
| listing would likely motivate Amazon to do something about
| it.
| openplatypus wrote:
| Exactly. I wish fines for selling fakes were more common.
| namaria wrote:
| I have one use only from amazon. Since basically all books in
| print are listed there, I use the shopping cart as as a wish
| list.
| CM30 wrote:
| Honestly, I'm surprised authorities haven't come down hard on
| these 'marketplaces' for neglience given how often they seem to
| completely ignore both safety and IP laws.
|
| I guarantee a smaller company would probably be sued into
| oblivion if they were as relaxed about what they stocked as
| Amazon is. Same with an app store that was as willing to stock
| knockoffs and fakes as the iOS App Store and Google Play.
|
| The fact these companies seem to be able to just stock anything
| and everything without any sort of oversight or quality
| control, and can just basically say "buyer beware" boggles the
| mind, especially compared to traditional retail and offline
| equivalents.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| In the UK the retailer is responsible for refunding you for a
| dodgy item.
|
| The one time I had a problem with an Amazon item it was
| immediately refunded.
|
| They are still operating in the UK so can clearly operate
| profitable under these rules. You shouldn't accept anything
| less.
| nolok wrote:
| Same with France, also applies to warranty, or delivery
| issue, or... You buy from X you deal with X.
|
| Not only is it much better for the customer, it's also
| clearly profitable.
|
| It can also act as a differentiator, many retailers here
| including some big French ones tried to play around that law
| with the marketplace system, "we are not the seller just an
| intermediary", and while changes to the law is on its way to
| stop that it allowed Amazon to easily take over by not making
| that distinction.
|
| There is still some issue about the difference between
| shipped by Amazon or not for the warranty request (not refund
| or fake or... but regular warranty issue), which I hope the
| law tackles head on.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| I stopped using Amazon around 2015. I don't want to buy goods
| from AliExpress with extra steps so I just directly buy from
| there. And if I need something urgently I go to a local store.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Amazon is often the most reliable shipping for me though. I
| just generally never get anything of real value from Amazon.
| olyjohn wrote:
| You spend money on things with no real value?
| shinryuu wrote:
| Where do you buy instead?
| olyjohn wrote:
| Is this a loaded question?
|
| Amazon sells everything. You literally buy things everywhere
| else.
| maxglute wrote:
| I dropped prime this year. Free shipping is over 2 weeks.
| Aliexpress ships to my door in 10 days. I think US tariffs
| freed up logistics for shipping RoW. Even less of no brainer.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| That's not very much money. It probably cost Amazon more to cut
| the check.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| They're out a measly $250K but some expensive, shitty PR.
| yapyap wrote:
| 244 thousand dollars is really nothing though for Amazon JP
| mjmas wrote:
| > Excel Plan reported the situation and requested Amazon take
| appropriate action, but the page listing the genuine oximeter was
| deleted and the company was unable to sell it, according to the
| suit.
|
| How very nice and kind of Amazon.
| AraceliHarker wrote:
| It's not uncommon to see pirated, uncensored anime character
| dakimakura covers and books being sold on Amazon Japan.
| rootsudo wrote:
| Yes I hated parallel imports so much. Some sellers are open about
| it but many would include fake receipts along fake products to
| show they were purchased in USA or whatnot. What's shocking is in
| Japan this is pretty new / rare (not Amazon fucking up supply
| chain /comingling) but generally ordering A and getting a fake
| itself.
|
| There is a lot of ecomm change happening now in Japan with the
| rise of Mercari, junk items selling more than new / real (makes
| no sense) etc.
|
| Pre pandemic, it was a dream to order online in Japan. No fakes,
| low prices, great quality.
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(page generated 2025-04-26 23:02 UTC)