Amazon Book Buyers Beware!
Do you buy a lot of books from Amazon? Are you aware that Amazon is overrun with POD fakes, and with scams in general since their lack of enforcement makes it so scammer-friendly?
There are two types of book scams, the first is a scan or OCR of a real book, there are quite a few counterfeits of real books on there. You can get caught by these no matter how careful you are because if the same SKU is sold by Amazon and the scammers they mix them into a single sorting bin, so you can buy the real thing and end up with a counterfeit.
The other type is outright fakes cobbled together from Wikipedia pages and stock photos and ranked highly through SEO manipulation. For those you just need to check to make sure it's from, and sold by, a real, recognized publisher.
Sadly this has been around for at least 7 years, we have seen multiple articles over the years about various authors discovering this problem. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/amazon-caught-selling-counterfeits-of-publishers-computer-books-again/
Another more recent example: https://nypost.com/2022/07/31/pirated-books-thrive-on-amazon-authors-say-web-giant-ignores-fraud/
Somewhat "funny" (in a bad way), each time this comes up Amazon promises to do more, but each time authors are quoted as saying despite trying Amazon don't do anything about their reports while they get bad reviews/etc about their books due to the fakes. I know it is not always practical, another reason to support local booksellers.
Publishers, authors, and booksellers have been concerned about the concentrated power of Amazon over the book industry for years. They sell more books than any other retail outlet, controlling at least 60 percent of the physical book sales market. And since recommendations are made by scripts and coding, not by actual people, certain books and authors are favored based on the website’s algorithm. Money spent on the site goes toward advertising and the pockets of ultra-wealthy owners, not to the below-livable-wage warehouse crew and drivers.
Is there a way to avoid getting ripped off from Amazon knock-off books? Yes! You can help to promote literacy, support authors and fellow book lovers, and put money back into the community, and it’s so easy - shop with purpose and buy local, from an indie bookstore!
