Warehouse of Bogus Batteries Destined for Sale on eBay, Amazon

The Feds said it found 44,000 counterfeit batteries in a California warehouse that were destined to be sold on eBay and Amazon. A man admitted in a plea agreement that from March 2014 to June 2019, he and co-conspirators fraudulently obtained approximately at least $3.5 million and as much as $23 million from the sale of laptop batteries through eBay and Amazon, according to the government.

“Co-conspirators in China packaged counterfeit batteries and electronics and shipped them to the United States, sometimes covering the trademarks with black tape or a similar material, so that a quick inspection of the items by customs officials would not reveal the trademark,” the government alleged.

Also found in the warehouse: 175,000 labels bearing the counterfeit marks of multiple companies, including Apple, Dell, HP, Toshiba, Lenovo, Asus, Acer and Samsung, according to the press release.

The government made no mention of whether the unsuspecting eBay and Amazon buyers would be notified or whether the marketplaces would be allowed to keep the fees they collected from the sale of millions of dollars worth of bogus batteries.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.