Amazon sues four sellers for peddling fake luxury goods

Amazon is suing four of its third-party marketplace sellers for listing fake Salvatore Ferragamo goods on its platform as it continues to ramp up anti-counterfeit action.

The Italian luxury fashion brand and Amazon have launched two separate lawsuits at the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, accusing the foursome of selling belts that featured Ferragano’s branding without permission.

Amazon and Ferragamo are understood to be seeking unspecified damages as well as an injunction to prevent them selling any products using the branding again.

Both of the lawsuits state that Amazon and Ferragamo confirms the items were fake by purchasing them and examining them, and Amazon has now shut down each of the sellers’ accounts.

READ MORE: Amazon is partnering with the US government to tackle counterfeiters on its marketplace

Each also accused the sellers of leaving out any specific mention of the brand in the product descriptions, a common method of evading anti-counterfeit detection algorithms.

The sellers also allegedly used fake names, contact information and unregistered businesses.

In November Amazon announced it was partnering with the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Centre, a task force set up by the Department of Homeland Security to “analyse data and conduct targeted inspections aimed at preventing counterfeit products from entering the US”.

Any evidence collected by the team, made up of former federal prosecutors, investigators and data analysts, will be used to advance ongoing investigations into bad actors on its marketplace.

While Amazon has launched various initiatives, pursued counterfeiters in court and blocked millions of suspected bad actors, it has struggled to stamp out counterfeit goods on its vast marketplace which now accounts for over two thirds of its sales.

This saw Amazon draw the ire of the Trump administration which promised to tackle the “Wild West of counterfeiting and trafficking” on websites like Amazon.

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