Amazon is filing lawsuits against two social media influencers that were allegedly teaming up with about dozens of different third-party sellers in order to promote, advertise, and even facilitate the sale of certain counterfeit luxury goods on the company's platform. Amazon officially announced the lawsuit against the two influencers.
Amazon files a case against two influencers
Amazon accused both Sabrina Kelly-Krejci and Kelly Fitzpatrick of both using Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok accounts, and the influencers' own personal websites, to promote the said counterfeit products that are being sold directly on Amazon. The suit was filed in the United States District Court for Western District of the state of Washington. There were also 11 names of different individuals and businesses all based in the United States as well as China that had all allegedly listed these particular counterfeit products directly on Amazon.
The story was reported by CNBC and Fitzpatrick as well as Kelly-Krejci both denied to comment with regards to the lawsuit. Amazon's popular marketplace, which launched back in 2000, currently holds more than half the company's total overall sales. While it still remains quite a critical part of Amazon's whole business, the entire marketplace has also been facing a number of different issues all related towards the sale of unsafe, counterfeit, and even expired goods.
The case revolved around the selling of counterfiet products
Fake products are said to be potentially end up particularly harmful to certain credible brands that are selling on Amazon. These fake products siphon away the actual business and also force these businesses that are already trying to survive on very low margins towards lowering their prices even more just to compete.
The company has also pursued different counterfeiters directly in court and rolled out different programs in order to seek and also detect the sales of certain counterfeit goods. Back in June, the company even launched the known Counterfeit Crimes Unit that consisted of former federal investigators, prosecutors, as well as data analysts in order to mine the entire site in search for certain fraudulent activity.
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Amazon's Dharmesh Mehta gives his statement
Amazon's vice president directly of consumer trust as well as partner support, Dharmesh Mehta, stated in an interview that the whole case stood out specifically towards him due to the alleged counterfeiters' own brazenness on different social media platforms. He stated that every piece of data that users look on Amazon, or what they had, looked pretty fine but the whole "smoking gun" was actually just lying around on a set of different social media sites.
Mehta then stated that the whole case actually illustrates the need for a better collaboration between these online platforms, which could then simplify as well as expedite the long process of being able to catch certain fraudsters. Counterfeits, however, aren't the only problem Amazon is experiencing.
Related Article: EU Commission Announces Second Formal Investigation Into Amazon's Alleged Breach of Antitrust Rules
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Written by Urian Buenconsejo
