Readers React: Amazon’s knockoff problem is the kind of issue that could harm the company

To the editor: Now that the Los Angeles Times has revealed Amazon’s inability and perhaps even reluctance to prevent low-quality knockoffs from being sold on its marketplace, it behooves the company to tighten up its supply chain.

Otherwise, Amazon faces a mass exodus of consumers either back to brick-and-mortar stores or to the manufacturers’ own websites so that buyers can be sure they are getting the genuine item.

Turing a blind eye to this problem has been profitable for Amazon up to now. However, this is a black eye for Amazon not unlike the account scandal was for Wells Fargo. Amazon should do right by aggrieved manufacturers and Prime members by fixing the problem.

Jim Rueff, Fountain Valley

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To the editor: Amazon’s fakes are affecting students.

In the medical coding class I teach for the adult and career education division of the Los Angeles Unified School District, my students need to have one particular manual published by the American Medical Assn. The books they buy from Amazon look like the right publication, but we have discovered that many of the pages are missing, there are many misspelled words, the indexes are not alphabetized correctly, and the tabs don’t adhere to the pages.

This is totally unacceptable, and I am telling all my future students not to purchase any of their educational books from Amazon. I am suggesting they purchase their books directly from the publisher.

Unfortunately, this will not affect Amazon’s bottom line, but at least my students will have a proper book so they can gain the knowledge they need.

Sheryl Kinne, Van Nuys

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