Counterfeits surge on Amazon, The New York Times reports
Amazon has long struggled with vendors selling counterfeit goods. But it’s one thing to receive a knock-off handbag, and quite another when you find yourself with a textbook filled with poorly written or incorrect information. “Booksellers that seem to have no verifiable existence outside Amazon offer $10 books for $100 or even $1,000 on the site, raising suspicions of algorithms run wild or even money-laundering,” the Times reports. Novelists are hit by counterfeits, too: Andrew Sean Greer and Lauren Groff both tweeted about finding fake copies of their hit novels on Amazon.
The tech giant was quick to respond to the story, saying in a blog post that “A recent New York Times article claims that Amazon doesn’t care about counterfeits and takes a hands-off approach to what is sold in our stores. Nothing could be further from the truth. We invest substantial amounts of time and resources to protect our customers from counterfeit products, including books.”
