I don’t know about the US, but at least in Germany, Amazon has lost control of its inventory many years ago. Fake products, fake reviews, empty boxes, etc. have been very common. There are also many products having no or faked safety certificates. So it’s not surprising that you can buy stuff like spy cams intended for illicit use on there.
Similar in the US. Fake sellers, drop shipping, selling used as new. The review systems is very bad. Sellers resubmit new products by editing old products to carry good reviews. We see “Sauté pan works wonderful” comments on Bluetooth speaker pages. The titles have gotten crazy long with every related and positive word. Reminds me of SEO from a couple decades ago.
I used to sell things (books, video games…) occasionally on Amazon and I would use fulfillment by Amazon. Very good seller rating and only one complaint ever out of 30-40 sales (person failed to read the item description).
Within the past two years, any listing I put up immediately gets flagged and removed by other sellers. It’s a hostile environment for new or infrequent sellers, and existing sellers are using reporting as a barrier to entry.
