There is all sorts of generic rock climbing gear on Amazon that is genuinely dangerous. Climbing forums have plenty of people recommending never to buy gear on Amazon, but I can’t help thinking of the thousands of people buying these things who have no idea.

The negative reviews for some of the cheap climbing harnesses on Amazon are frightening...stitching coming undone, buckles that don’t work, obviously fake safety certification labels, and more. These are critical life safety devices that are impossible for individuals to evaluate for effectiveness on their own. To sell (or to allow to be sold on your platform) these kinds of products to which people trust their lives, with forged safety certifications, is unconscionable.

> These are critical life safety devices that are impossible for individuals to evaluate for effectiveness on their own.

Well, that's not quite true. Just take a big fall where you really need your harness not to break and see what happens. You (or the person who scrapes you off the ground) will quickly find out whether your harness is effective.

This testing procedure is prohibitively expensive and best avoided.

I recall stories of counterfeit child car seats that failed safety standards (don’t think there was a lawsuit) just “undercover purchases” and actual safety testing of the fakes.

As I understand it Amazon isn’t liable which to me makes no sense as it relates to defective products (everyone in the supply chain of a defective product should be jointly and severely liable).

I don’t care if it’s a 3rd party seller, Amazon should be liable as it hosts the product for sale, connects buyer/seller, processes payments, typically stores (and commingled) the products, and probably delivers the product.

The thing about punitive damages is they are a punishment, so eventually there will be a case where The jury hears how Amazon knowingly and willfully continued selling 3rd party items it knew were fake and dangerous (Fake DOT helmets; expired baby formula; fake baby car seats; exploding electronics; etc...)and the jury is going to drop the hammer. Even billions In punitive damages wouldn’t be a surprise, Amazon will appeal and it will come down to 10’s or 100’s of millions, but that’s when they will take real action to stop this. But it’s going to take time for this to happen.

The alternative is an online marketplace with no accountability. That doesn't sound safe.

The Alternative is going back to eCommerce where individual shops put up their own web site, market their own website and are liable for their own website (and have control over their supply chain)

Today since the build of consumers are on Amazon if you are a retailer you need to be one Amazon, and if you want access to Prime Customer you need to use Fulfillment by amazon, Where now you loose control over your supply chain due to co-mingled inventory

So even if I have a stellar reputation as A+AcmeMerchant, and customers look for my store on amazon they are not guaranteed to get the product that I sent to amazon, no they could get JoeBobScammers Product even though it was sold "by me" and fulfilled by amazon

So I will not go as far as to say amazon should be liable for ALL sales, but I do agree that any Sale that is shipped from an Amazon Warehouse they should be liable for. They choose to comingle all of their inventory they should face the liability

The online marketplace have more accountability. You know who you are buying from. Buy from name brand and you get name brand. Buy from nane brand (did you notice the n not M?) and you get from nane brand. This gives name brands lawyers someone to send their lawyers after and traceability if there is fraud. With Amazon cominguled good you don't know where the counterfeit came from so you can't play wack-a-mole with fraud. It just keeps happening.

The issue is Amazon doesn't know. All they have to go on is whatever UPC/SKU you enter to tell them which bin to put something in and that's it. That is the extent of their inventory management. This is why you should not utilize FBA if your major concern is people actually getting the product you are selling.

I believe I've heard of electrical fires from counterfeit electronics that had fake UL and/or CE stickers on it.

Amazon is being promiscuous. They don't appear to care where the product came from, as long as its cheap. There are almost no categories where a 'too good to be true' price doesn't mean something illegal was going on. Either those aren't real products, they were stolen (how is it we never talk about that scenario), or someone made a huge mistake and is reselling them at a loss.

Only one of those is good for news for consumers, and it's still predatory.

I definitely had a ladder I bought on Amazon collapse when I was using it. It’s dumb luck that I didn’t fall off.

Was the ladder counterfeit, or just crappy?

In fairness, I think it was a just crappy. It never occurred to me that anyone would sell a ladder that could catastrophically fail, so I wasn't on the lookout for that.

In any case, how is amazon not responsible for selling a ladder that obviously didn’t meet safety standards??

They aren't, until someone can afford the lawyers necessary to prove their responsibility. Or the class is large enough for group action.