Example, I've owned just about every brand of electric shaver and hated something about nearly all of them. I finally dropped the $70 on a Wahl that has a third of the features but it's a beast. Couldn't even tell you how many kitchen appliances I have bought and thought were awful. Or bathroom mats, towels, patio mats, etc.

Personally I think a lot of consumer products just suck and Amazon is pretty much the equivalent of Walmart now when it comes to filtering through cheap crap. Products are half-assed most of the time and companies spend more money on marketing than making a good product (or the best they can for the price). Or they focus on one really big feature and skimp out on the rest.

I'm trying to buy a lot LESS but very high quality stuff nowadays.

I've had to stop using Amazon as my "buy-all" place. Almost felt like I was being gaslit by 5 star reviewers of shitty towels/etc when I finally discovered Frontage products and went "wow, lux Hotel quality towels DO exist." I don't want to use Amazon for cheap Walmart quality junk, I want it for its fast shipping and options.

edit: Frontgate not Frontage.. they make killer towels, I'm a changed man

I used to have this problem buying brand razor blades from eBay a few years back. They were counterfeit because they actually hurt to shave with, yet the supermarket version (same brand), were perfect.

Long story short, when it comes spare power adapters (e.g. Macbook), I only buy from Apple direct. I do fear getting a knockoff which is unsafe.

If you paid slightly above retail, it seems even less likely it was fake, and probably just shoddy QC.

As for the higher price, when I brought it was out of stock everywhere which limited my options to an Amazon seller. It was the run up to Christmas and after buying, other places got stock.

I did as much research as I could to spot it, even buying a new on from a trusted retailer.

But when the consequence could be fire[1] it wasn’t worth the risk and I couldn’t face passing that risk to someone else by returning it. I wanted a proper investigation. That didn’t happen.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-35075642/fake-nutribul...

Those are being faked on Amazon. You can't know if you're getting the brand you think. It's a huge problem.

The problem is that Amazon commingles by default, so if you bought something from seller A, but seller B’s counterfit was closer to you, you will get the counterfit.

I don't know about the case of the 3rd party distributor, although it seems likely to be worse and not better.