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Amazon Prime Day 2018: How to spot a fake product

Would you know how to spot a fake product on Amazon?
(Photo: Getty Images)

With all the Amazon Prime hullabaloo totaling millions of dollars of sales, odds are there will a few people unhappy with their purchases.

That's because they just got scammed.

A January 2018 report from the Government Accountability Office found numerous products advertised on Amazon and other online retailers could be counterfeit. These fake products not only weren't the real deal but some actually turned out to be dangerous.

Take a look at this phone charger, for example. Spot the difference?

Credit: U.S. Government Accountability Office
The difference between these two phone chargers, the government says, sometimes could be life or death.

The charger on the right is missing an important "LISTED" marking, as well as the name of the product. UL, a safety and certification company, found a 99-percent failure rate in 400 counterfeit iPhone adapters, which is literally and figuratively shocking.

"... 12 of the adapters posed a risk of lethal electrocution to the user," the report reads.

What about this cosmetic product?

Credit: U.S. Government Accountability Office
The difference between these two aren't so noticeable at first glance, but look at the color and packaging.

At first glance, there's not much of a discrepancy. But the product's packaging, color and text each are sure signs one isn't worth the final price.

Amazon says it is active in how it works to protect a company's copyrights and trademarks for its products. Some of its efforts are automated, sorting through text and images to weed out the fake listings, and others involve actual humans following up on complaints of copyright infringement.

Users are advised to carefully read product reviews. Those that have misspellings or sound too good to be true might actually be fake. Also, compare and contrast prices on Amazon and other sites. If a product's price on Amazon is way, way lower than another store, it might be -- too good to be true.

Fakespot.com is another resource: Paste the product URL into the box and it will analyze the listing for any possible issues.

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