How to Avoid Scams and Shoddy Wares on Amazon

Step 3: Once the page refreshes, scroll to the bottom of the left rail and choose “Amazon.com” as your Seller.

Step 4: Now you will only see “Pixel 9A” products sold directly by Amazon.com.

If you still don’t see “Amazon.com” as a seller, try hitting the “See More” button. It will bring up a dense but readable alphabetical page of sellers. If Amazon is one of those sellers, it will show up in the list. You can use CTRL+F (or Command+F on Mac) to search for the word “Amazon.com.” Sometimes you’ll see “Amazon Warehouse,” which only sells used and refurbished items.

One thing to note about trusted third-party sellers: In some instances, a product manufacturer might be the seller fulfilling the order. This is the case, for example, with many Anker products. This is OK; Anker is a widely known and trusted seller. But in the case of a seller that you haven’t heard of before, you may want to think twice (or dig in deeper, like we’ll teach you to below).

Avoid Fake Discounts

When people see that a product they like is on sale, a wave of excitement washes over them. Instead of thinking about how much we’re spending, we start to think about how much we’re saving. Coupons and discounts exist because they create a sense of urgency that causes many people to buy things they normally wouldn’t. Some sellers abuse that pricing power. There are a lot of products on Amazon that are endlessly “on sale,” and this makes it difficult to know whether you’re getting an actual bargain.

There’s an easy way to check. Just copy the URL or ASIN and paste it into CamelCamelCamel. You’ll get a page with a graph on it showing every price fluctuation in the past year. A lot of products have deceptive sale prices, to varying degrees. Knowing what the actual going rate is for a product puts you in charge.

Alternatively, the Keepa extension for Chrome will add a similar box right into Amazon.com pages for you—though it does try and get you to register for free, and it can slow your browsing down.

Tools like Keepa and CamelCamelCamel may also help you determine the best time to buy an item. Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K Max, for instance, consistently fluctuates between its normal $60 price down to $40. As of press time, it has sold for lower than $40 only a couple of times, meaning that if you see it on sale for $40, you (probably) don’t need to wait to score a good deal—unless you care a lot about the $7 difference and you’re willing to wait for as long as it takes for that rock-bottom price to come around again. The tools can help you spot similar trends in other products, like televisions, which tend to get a lot cheaper around Christmas or the Super Bowl.

Don’t Trust Every Review

Amazon’s five-star review system is supposed to make it easier to choose between products, but it’s easily manipulated. If you’re looking at an expensive product from a company you’ve never heard of, or if there are hundreds or thousands of very positive reviews, do a little sleuthing. Many sellers try to use fake reviews to get their products listed more prominently on Amazon (or to make you more likely to purchase them).

We like using The Review Index and Review Meta to double-check. These aren’t perfect tools, but they can give you a hint at whether a majority of the customer reviews are fake or suspicious. We’ve got more advice on detecting fake Amazon reviews that’s worth reading.