I utterly loathe the horrible photocopied books which sometimes turn up in place of proper printed editions. Have become better at spotting them, but it's a really unpleasant situation which dissuades proper publishers from reissuing out-of-print public domain works.

More often than not, electronics stuff I've bought on Amazon have been unsatisfactory in some way, such as: counterfeit, was obviously returned by someone else, parts missing, obviously broken, etc.

Their return policy helps with this, but I don't have anywhere near this level of problem at Best Buy or Newegg. So I don't buy electronics on Amazon anymore, even if they're cheaper.

I can't understate how disappointed I am that NewEgg is offering 3rd party sellers access now...

I've gotten counterfeits of other products (for example, I once got a counterfeit DVD boxed set), and a lot of products I look at will have reviews noting that they received a counterfeit and what to look for to make sure you're actually getting the product listed. It seems to be reasonably common.

I've never seen an avalanche. The fact that people talk about specific mountains where avalanches happen (and not the avalanches in general), indicates to me that it's not as widespread.

This is what your argument looks like when put through reductio ab asurdum. It's certainly fine for you to be weary of these claims since your experience has been different, but to say this is indicative of anything when it's your 1 anecdote vs all of the other anecdotes is a claim with little force behind it

Based on the number of reactions I was completely wrong, but my point was: You are not going to see a news article about avalanches. News is always about infrequent events.

>I don't think I ever got a counterfeit item on Amazon.

Well you wouldn't, if the counterfeit's were any good.

Fair point, but if I can't tell that the good is fake, even after using it, I don't care that much.

It could be I'll order Dove soap, get counterfeit, and incorrectly assume Dove soap sucks, but mostly I'm ordering brands too obscure to bother faking, or brands I'm familiar enough with to realize the bad counterfeit isn't the real thing. (But like ma2rten, I don't think I've ever gotten a counterfeit.)

> Fair point, but if I can't tell that the good is fake, even after using it, I don't care that much.

Heavy metal poisoning may take years to show effects.

Shoddily made laptop chargers may be a fire/shock hazard that kill in 100/1,000,000 instead of 1/1,000,000 cases.

Not every dangerous counterfeit is immediately obvious as such.

If you're slathering it all over your body but you have no idea where or how it was made, do you suppose that you might suffer from deferred regret at some point in the future?

(cf. today's talcum powder news item)