Fake goods: Amazon sues social media influencers

San Francisco, November 13

Amazon has filed a lawsuit towards 13 people and companies together with two social media influencers for allegedly promoting, selling, and facilitating the sale of counterfeit luxurious items in Amazon’s retailer, in violation of the corporate’s insurance policies and the legislation.

The lawsuit was filed within the US District Court for the Western District of Washington and alleges the defendants operated in live performance with one another to promote counterfeit merchandise and have interaction in false promoting, Amazon stated on Thursday.

Among the 13 defendants, the lawsuit alleged that Kelly Fitzpatrick and Sabrina Kelly-Krejci conspired with sellers to evade Amazon’s anti-counterfeiting protections by selling counterfeit merchandise on Instagram and TikTok in addition to their very own web sites.

Fitzpatrick and Kelly-Krejci posted side-by-side images of a generic, non-branded product and a luxurious counterfeit product with the textual content, “Order this/Get this.” “Order this” referred to the generic product falsely marketed on Amazon, and “Get this” referred to the counterfeit luxurious product.

By posting solely generic merchandise on Amazon, Fitzpatrick and Kelly-Krejci — and the sellers they coordinated with — tried to evade Amazon’s anti-counterfeit safety whereas utilizing social media to advertise the true nature of those counterfeit merchandise, Amazon stated.

Fitzpatrick and Kelly-Krejci additionally posted quite a few movies describing the alleged top quality of the counterfeits they promoted.

“These defendants were brazen about promoting counterfeits on social media and undermined the work of legitimate influencers,” Cristina Posa, Associate General Counsel and Director, Amazon Counterfeit Crimes Unit, stated in an announcement.

“This case demonstrates the need for cross-industry collaboration in order to drive counterfeiters out of business,” Posa stated, including that social media websites should vet, monitor, and take motion on dangerous actors which can be utilizing their companies to facilitate unlawful behaviour.

Fitzpatrick was beforehand a member of the Amazon Influencer Program, however after Amazon detected her counterfeiting actions, she was faraway from this system.

She continued to promote counterfeits utilizing social media websites and directed followers to her personal web site.

Amazon stated it additionally detected and blocked Kelly-Krejci’s scheme and she or he equally started to direct her followers to buy counterfeits on her personal web site.

Saying that it strictly prohibits counterfeit merchandise in its shops, Amazon stated it invested greater than $500 million in 2019 alone to guard clients and types from fraud, abuse, and counterfeit.

–IANS