Mr. Thanh, residing in Binh Chanh district – Ho Chi Minh City, specializes in dealing with used technology products. He often searches for products on e-commerce platforms, not to buy but to grasp market information and understand the tricks of deceptive shops/sellers.
According to Mr. Thanh, counterfeit and fake goods on e-commerce platforms are often concentrated in the technology products category due to their high value. The appearance of genuine and fake goods is the same, only different in the internal configuration. “Buyers who are not knowledgeable about products, lack verification basis, and are eager for cheap prices are very easy to fall into the trap of fraud.” – Mr. Thanh said.
He cited the example of the Dell 9310 2in1 foldable laptop, 512GB SSD, with an official price of tens of millions of dong. However, this laptop is being sold on e-commerce platforms for only 3 million dong, discounted to under 2.1 million dong. The iPhone 14 Pro, with an official price of about 25 million dong, is being sold online for only about 8-9 million dong. Almost 99.9% of these are “fake” products because genuine products cannot have such cheap prices.
“At the end of 2023, the Hanoi Market Management Agency seized a huge stockpile of counterfeit Marshall brand (UK) products worth over 4.4 billion dong. Up until now, these famous Bluetooth speakers are still being sold rampant on e-commerce platforms for only a few hundred thousand dong per item” – Mr. Thanh added.
Super cheap Marshall headphones are sold on e-commerce websites
Meanwhile, Mr. Thanh Vinh, residing in District 3, Ho Chi Minh City, discovered a series of identical reviews from the same account or similar accounts under camera, phone… products on some shops on the Shopee platform. Suspecting something wrong, Mr. Thanh Vinh asked some camera players and was warned of the risk of fraud.
The business director of an e-commerce platform in Ho Chi Minh City said that the common scam method nowadays is to post products with high value such as electronics, phones… at very low prices compared to official prices. Along with that are descriptions like “shocking discount”, “clearance sale”… There are also cases where scammers advertise “super promotions” with prices 3-4 times cheaper than the listed prices, and the delivered products have no value.
An online shop on Shopee selling iPhones at super low prices, only 1-2 million dong, all customer reviews are the same. Screenshot
So how can we identify fraudulent shops? According to the director, the first sign is that these shops sell high-value products on the market at a price that is only half, one-third, or even one-tenth of the official price.
The second thing is that the products on these shops have a high number of sales but few or no reviews, indicating that the shop may have hired a third party to make fake purchases in order to create fake sales for the products.
Another sign is in the product reviews section. If the shop hires a service to increase sales and reviews, all the reviews will be excessively positive and similar to each other.
A representative of the Shopee e-commerce platform said that in order to maximize consumer rights, the platform has implemented the Shopee Guarantee policy (orders will only be paid to the seller after the buyer confirms that the order has been delivered correctly according to the buyer’s order and in good condition).
In case the received product does not meet the requirements, the buyer can request a return and refund according to Shopee’s regulations.
For orders that undergo collaborative checks, at the time of receiving the package from the shipping unit, the buyer can inspect the package and request a return without having to pay any additional fees.
In addition, the Shopee platform is equipped with features and tools that allow users to identify and report products/sellers that violate the platform’s selling policies.
“We always strictly manage all types of goods circulated on the platform and strictly prohibit illegal acts as well as violations of the platform’s selling policies. When listing products, sellers are responsible for ensuring that their goods comply with current laws and Shopee’s policies” – Shopee representative stated.
