Even all the people complaining about them in tech circles seem to either be delivering second-hand complaints, or are buying like huge amounts of SD cards and got one supposedly counterfeit batch one time. I am fairly convinced that the counterfeit goods thing is something that happens vanishingly rarely, probably similar to the people who get an expensive camera box containing nothing but a rock.
It really depends on what you’re ordering. I suspect they’ve put a lot of effort into solving this issue since I stopped using Amazon several years ago, but I had a couple issues in short succession that really got on my nerves. For me, it seemed to be niche Asian brands that were problematic. I got some counterfeit ham radio gear, and some counterfeit RC gear.
One of my parents recently got a gray market laptop was advertised as new from Dell, but the laptop that showed up had specs different from its service tag.
It’s shady crap like this that has made me happy to shop at specialty retailers. Sure, Amazon makes it easy to return, but I’ve found it easier to buy things from specialty retailers instead of processing returns. Especially now that many retailers have competitive pricing, quick shipping, and store pickup.
I've bought roughly 6 electronics things from amazon over the past 10 years (really, mostly 5 years ago) and had problems with 3 of those things.
2 were not the right product (in the right packaging), 1 was obviously opened but not marked as opened when I bought it. I've never received something as obviously wrong as "a rock instead of a camera".
My experiences may have been exceptional but they are my own. Now I just buy from Best Buy instead.
