Counterfeit goods on Amazon.com?

[MrsPennyPincher]

I recently bought DS a <brand name> winter jacket through amazon. The price was very good, way lower than in stores. When it arrived, we found that the quality is not as good as one might expect from <brand name>. It made me wonder if the jacket was in fact counterfeit. It does sport <brand name> logo. To be clear, I do not care much about <brand name> corporate profits, or even about the quality, since DS will probably outgrow it very soon, and DS, bless his soul, doesn’t care what he wears. Just curious if Amazon marketplace has become a market of counterfeit stuff, such as used to be sold on the street.

[Bernard]

I do not know the extent of the problem, but, yes, there is counterfeit stuff on Amazon, like everywhere else. I've seen a top of the line Taylor guitar, a K24ce made from Koa wood and sold for $4,799 street price in the US, offered on Amazon for less than half that price. It was a Chinese copy.

Rule of thumb, if it's too good to be true, proceed with extreme caution.

[ApacheStache]

Counterfeit goods are definitely a major issue on Amazon. This wasn't as rampant of an issue until Amazon became too big for their britches and failed to acknowledge or address the problem years ago. Now just about every merchandise category within the site is riddled with fake goods or cheap knock-offs created by fly-by-night brands. Most counterfeiters focus on stuff that they can sell for cheap and still make a decent profit. Their goal is sell stuff that is so inexpensive that it's almost not worth the effort to try to return it. Other counterfeiters look for 4-5 star goods that they can cheaply replicate because they know Amazon promotes these items and people are likely to blindly trust ratings. Then there are other counterfeiters that sell boxes of merchandise to Amazon so that Amazon can stock their shelves with popular items. Once that happens, legitimate goods get mixed with counterfeit goods and the stuff "Sold By Amazon" becomes a melting pot of cheap knock-offs and legitimate goods.

Personally I will pay more to buy from a known retailer just to avoid being scammed by the increasing number of fakes out there.

Ditto. I rarely shop Amazon now because life is too short to deal with counterfeit stuff.

[bacchi]

Personally I will pay more to buy from a known retailer just to avoid being scammed by the increasing number of fakes out there.

Ditto. I rarely shop Amazon now because life is too short to deal with counterfeit stuff.

Same. We've made 2 orders this year, which is a huge drop from last year.

[NorCal]

The WSJ had some good articles on this over the last few months.  All behind a paywall unfortunately.

The general gist is that Amazon has about zero control, knowledge, or liability related to anything sold through the Amazon marketplace.  The WSJ found thousands of items that didn't meet safety regulations, were falsely advertised, or otherwise fraudulent.

Items that were "reported" for removal ended up re-posted several days later by (presumably) the same person with a different username.

Heck, one guys house even burned down because of a bad battery in one of those "hoverboards".  Amazon disclaimed all liability because they weren't the seller (since it was Amazon marketplace) and they didn't market it or make it.

Somehow this is all legal.

[Loren Ver]

I do find it harder to find what I want of good quality on Amazon, so much knockoff junk to sift through.  So now, amazon is where I go, when I want something similar, but don't want to pay the named brand price.  I don't buy much, but for things that don't need branding, I like what I get and pay little for it.

Loren

[CupcakeGuru]

The last couple of items I ordered from Amazon had high ratings and seemed to be the actual manufacturer. However, when I received the order, they were counterfeit. When I checked the order online, the seller "changed" from the one I thought I originally placed the order to a  third party seller. I am really at the point of no longer ordering from Amazon.

[ApacheStache]

When I checked the order online, the seller "changed" from the one I thought I originally placed the order to a  third party seller.

That is super sketchy.

Here's a recent Washington Post article about this topic https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/14/how-amazons-quest-more-cheaper-products-has-resulted-flea-market-fakes/?arc404=true . Apparently Amazon is trying to employ legitimate companies to spend their time and resources to help police their products on the site.

“We do believe we can take counterfeits to zero, but we need brands to help do it because there are millions of brands,” Amazon’s retail chief Jeff Wilke said at a tech conference last month.

Amazon’s response to the counterfeit problem has been, in large measure, to ask brands to help it ferret out fakes. The company introduced an initiative in February that gives brands tools to remove listings of counterfeit products from Amazon’s site.

Because luxury brands often don’t sell goods directly with Amazon, they are unlikely to participate.... in written testimony to the Commerce Department, Anish Melwani, chief executive of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton’s North American operations, wrote it’s too costly and inefficient for retailers to police online marketplaces such as Amazon’s site for possible fakes.

I like how Amazon is trying to delegate its marketplace governance and reconnaissance responsibilities onto other companies who likely have more important business initiatives to focus on. The fact that there are "there are millions of brands" to police is a self-imposed problem and something that Brick and Mortar stores have largely figured out decades ago. No wonder, Nike pulled it merchandise from Amazon last week.

[MilesTeg]

I recently bought DS a <brand name> winter jacket through amazon. The price was very good, way lower than in stores. When it arrived, we found that the quality is not as good as one might expect from <brand name>. It made me wonder if the jacket was in fact counterfeit. It does sport <brand name> logo. To be clear, I do not care much about <brand name> corporate profits, or even about the quality, since DS will probably outgrow it very soon, and DS, bless his soul, doesn’t care what he wears. Just curious if Amazon marketplace has become a market of counterfeit stuff, such as used to be sold on the street.

Never buy a market place item on Amazon or anywhere else. It's highly likely to be a counterfeit or otherwise a scam.

Manufacturers don't sell their products at huge discounts to 'joebob1' so that he can undercut huge volume resellers selling their stuff on Ebay or amazon marketplace.

'Joebob1' is selling a copy of that product made by a shady Chinese company that best case scenario is shit quality / waste of money but could also be flat out dangerous either due to shoddy construction or toxic chemicals or any number of potential defects.

Just don't wade into that cesspool.

[MilesTeg]

Also understand that it's not high price fancy brand stuff that gets counterfited most often. It's every day commodities. Soaps, food stuffs, clothes, etc.

If it's something you could walk in to Walmart and buy and it's in the Amazon marketplace being sold by a 3rd party it's almost certainly a counterfit, stolen or otherwise not legit.

[LearnTo]

Also understand that it's not high price fancy brand stuff that gets counterfited most often. It's every day commodities. Soaps, food stuffs, clothes, etc.

If it's something you could walk in to Walmart and buy and it's in the Amazon marketplace being sold by a 3rd party it's almost certainly a counterfit, stolen or otherwise not legit.

Yes, I tried buying some brand name underwear on Amazon and it was visibly worse quality & material.

[Paul der Krake]

Scammers go to extreme lengths to game the review system and it's a never-ending game of cat and mouse. Amazon and other online marketplaces are spending a ton of money fighting it, but it's a hard problem to solve.

If you receive a bad item, you should complain. Not only will they make it right, but you're helping root out the problem.

[Cranky]

It feels to me that a lot of people who sell cheap knock off junk on Ebay do the same thing on Amazon now.

OTOH, I bought two fantastic second hand kids coats from eBay sellers this fall, so you can still sift through stuff.

[dcheesi]

I don't have the link, but another article I read suggested that even the "sold by Amazon" stuff can be suspect these days. Apparently they throw third-party vendors' stock for a given item in the same bin with their own, so it's a crap-shoot as to which item you actually get.

[Villanelle]

Scammers go to extreme lengths to game the review system and it's a never-ending game of cat and mouse. Amazon and other online marketplaces are spending a ton of money fighting it, but it's a hard problem to solve.

If you receive a bad item, you should complain. Not only will they make it right, but you're helping root out the problem.

I bought some lightening cables a while back.  Within a couple months of use, two of 3 had died.  (It was a pack of 6, but we'd only used 3.)  I went to write a review probably 6 months after the purchase and couldn't because the listing was no longer active.

But the same exact product was listed with an identical (as far as I could tell) listing.

Clearly what they are doing is making a listing and coasting on the reviews made by people within a week or purchasing saying the cable are great and work super well.  As the cables die over time and they start building up negative reviews, the just start over again. 

I'm someone who reads reviews fairly carefully and doesn't buy products with few reviews (especially if a read of them makes it clear they are fake or bots).  But it's difficult as a consumer to combat something like that because the great reviews are real, written by people before the products had a chance to fail. 

(Thankfully, the cords were quite cheap.  I did get what I paid for, but it was a risk I was willing to take.  Other than these items ending up in a landfill, it's not a big deal to me.  But it was frustrating not to be able to warn others.  When I tried to put a review on the new listing, I got a message saying something like "due to am odd pattern in the reviews for this item, reviews are limited to verified purchases".  So I couldn't place a review because I hadn't bought from that exact listing.)

[seattlecyclone]

I have quite a bit of experience with Amazon from many angles. A couple thoughts:

* On reviewing. If someone sells you a counterfeit product, writing a bad review on the product page is the wrong place to do it. That product page is there for all sellers of that product, real and counterfeit alike. The product reviews are there to help people decide whether the product will meet their needs, not whether the third-party sellers are legitimate (because for many product pages you can probably buy real and fake products from the same page depending on which seller you choose!). Instead you need to write a bad review for the seller and also consider reporting them to Amazon.

* On selling. Amazon has tightened up the process for listing items in recent years. For many brands there's now a requirement to upload an invoice showing purchase of product for resale in order to be able to list that item for sale as a third-party seller. I imagine this is easy enough to fabricate, and it really frustrates my main use case of the selling platform (selling used items that I never had any sort of resale invoice for), but it's something. Clearly they need to do more in this area.

* On buying direct from Amazon. When something says it's being sold directly by Amazon, I tend to trust that. They have a reputation to maintain. They're not going to go buying brand-name stuff from anywhere other than a legitimate source. You do need to be careful when you read the site though. "Fulfilled by Amazon" and "sold by Amazon" are two completely different things. "Fulfilled by Amazon" just means a third-party seller shipped a pallet of their products to an Amazon facility to handle the packing and shipping of individual orders; the goods are still owned and supplied by a third-party merchant that Amazon has no direct control over.

[ApacheStache]

If someone sells you a counterfeit product, writing a bad review on the product page is the wrong place to do it. That product page is there for all sellers of that product, real and counterfeit alike. The product reviews are there to help people decide whether the product will meet their needs, not whether the third-party sellers are legitimate (because for many product pages you can probably buy real and fake products from the same page depending on which seller you choose!).

This confounds and frustrates me about Amazon product reviews — well this along with the brevity and lack of substance for many reviews. On one hand, the condition that a buyer receives a product in and the level of authenticity of that product can indirectly play a role in what a buyer thinks of a product. However, I agree that reviews should review the product and not the seller. I've read too many reviews for music albums where the reviewer states "jewel case cracked" or where the reviewer receives a book and states the binding was poor and then gives the item 1 star. I can understand the reviewer's frustration and the desire to warn other buyers, but sometimes I just want to know what they thought of the album's contents or the book's contents. It's a shame that a few bad apples can quickly bring down the product ratings and brand reputation for items that legitimate sellers sell.

[Steeze]

My understanding was that if I order a product from California to be shipped to NYC from seller A, but seller B has that product sitting in an amazon warehouse in New Jersey, the product will ship from seller B and I am none the wiser. If seller B has sent me a counterfeit product I will never know it didn’t come from seller A. I go and leave seller A a bad review, and it’s up to seller A to file a complaint with Amazon to resolve the situation. Perhaps I am mistaken.

[cchrissyy]

I haven't experienced this as a customer but a friend who manufactures something wrote the below about her struggles with amazon accepting counterfeits of her product and shipping from those makers from bins where their stuff is all mixed in with the legitimate product, even against all her legal efforts ot straighten it out. It's a very long-term and frustrating situation for the real brand.

https://jenniferlabit.com/2016/07/21/counterfeit-baby-products-sold-at-amazon/

[seattlecyclone]

My understanding was that if I order a product from California to be shipped to NYC from seller A, but seller B has that product sitting in an amazon warehouse in New Jersey, the product will ship from seller B and I am none the wiser. If seller B has sent me a counterfeit product I will never know it didn’t come from seller A. I go and leave seller A a bad review, and it’s up to seller A to file a complaint with Amazon to resolve the situation. Perhaps I am mistaken.

When you order a product you can choose from a whole variety of sellers. They each have their own prices and review ratings and shipping prices and wait times. It would be nonsensical to let you look at all that information and choose a seller based on whatever criteria are important to you if they can just go ahead and substitute in a different seller without your say-so. While I have no hard evidence to prove that you are either correct or mistaken, the behavior you describe doesn't really compute to me.

[kanga1622]

I haven't experienced this as a customer but a friend who manufactures something wrote the below about her struggles with amazon accepting counterfeits of her product and shipping from those makers from bins where their stuff is all mixed in with the legitimate product, even against all her legal efforts ot straighten it out. It's a very long-term and frustrating situation for the real brand.

https://jenniferlabit.com/2016/07/21/counterfeit-baby-products-sold-at-amazon/

Thank you for that link. That was a great read and I appreciated her breakdown of how the counterfeiters do their best to make it look legit. As a cloth diaper mama, I always bought direct from the company so they could get a higher percentage of the profits. Amazon has basically become my last resort with all the counterfeit products these days.

[NorCal]

I haven't experienced this as a customer but a friend who manufactures something wrote the below about her struggles with amazon accepting counterfeits of her product and shipping from those makers from bins where their stuff is all mixed in with the legitimate product, even against all her legal efforts ot straighten it out. It's a very long-term and frustrating situation for the real brand.

https://jenniferlabit.com/2016/07/21/counterfeit-baby-products-sold-at-amazon/

Wow, that's an amazing article.  I thought I was up to date on the worst of Amazon's shenanigans, but everything I read keeps getting worse.

I am serious re-thinking how I do business with all of the big tech companies.  I'm generally okay with Apple and Microsoft, but Google and Amazon have really been pissing me off over the last few years.

[GuitarStv]

Amazon is flooded with cheap knock-off goods drop shipped straight from China.  I'm always a bit cautious when buying from the site for that reason.

[Dicey]

For various reasons, we have a lot of Amazon Gift cards ($800-ish). We don't buy a ton there, because of the reasons cited so far on this thread. What's a mustachian to do to get reasonable value for these GC's?

They were not free to us, so reselling for a discount isn't desirable. Just looking for thoughts on what a reasonable  mustachian might do.

[Paul der Krake]

For various reasons, we have a lot of Amazon Gift cards ($800-ish). We don't buy a ton there, because of the reasons cited so far on this thread. What's a mustachian to do to get reasonable value for these GC's?

They were not free to us, so reselling for a discount isn't desirable. Just looking for thoughts on what a reasonable  mustachian might do.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FYJMPLS/

[Villanelle]

For various reasons, we have a lot of Amazon Gift cards ($800-ish). We don't buy a ton there, because of the reasons cited so far on this thread. What's a mustachian to do to get reasonable value for these GC's?

They were not free to us, so reselling for a discount isn't desirable. Just looking for thoughts on what a reasonable  mustachian might do.

Use them to purchase gift cards either to places you use, or to give as gifts.  Also consider things like books, where there's a very low risk of counterfeiting to give as gifts. 

You could also use Amazon Fresh or similar Amazon services to purchase grocery items for yourself, to spend down that money. 

[GuitarStv]

For various reasons, we have a lot of Amazon Gift cards ($800-ish). We don't buy a ton there, because of the reasons cited so far on this thread. What's a mustachian to do to get reasonable value for these GC's?

They were not free to us, so reselling for a discount isn't desirable. Just looking for thoughts on what a reasonable  mustachian might do.

Use them to purchase gift cards either to places you use, or to give as gifts.  Also consider things like books, where there's a very low risk of counterfeiting to give as gifts. 

You could also use Amazon Fresh or similar Amazon services to purchase grocery items for yourself, to spend down that money.

+1

Buy stuff that you would buy regularly anyway . . . soap, deodorant, breakfast cereal, etc.

[honeybbq]

Amazon is flooded with cheap knock-off goods drop shipped straight from China.  I'm always a bit cautious when buying from the site for that reason.

Yep. DH got fake athletic sneakers. He sent them back and got a refund.

[Lady Stash]

I gave up on ordering from Amazon earlier this year.  I had way to many experiences with counterfeits, fake reviews, shoddy products.  I am much happier knowing I have the genuine article, not because I care about a brand name but because I care about safety, product longevity and supporting legitimate businesses. 

I would not buy something for a child from Amazon.  Several news outlets have found that they sell products with lead and other dangerous chemicals and take no responsibility for them.  No thank you.

[msbutterbean]

I'm on my company's Amazon team. We are a manufacturer that sells our trademarked products direct to Amazon.

When you order a product you can choose from a whole variety of sellers. They each have their own prices and review ratings and shipping prices and wait times. It would be nonsensical to let you look at all that information and choose a seller based on whatever criteria are important to you if they can just go ahead and substitute in a different seller without your say-so. While I have no hard evidence to prove that you are either correct or mistaken, the behavior you describe doesn't really compute to me.

It's called commingling and it's definitely a possibility. Sellers have some control over whether their inventory gets commingled with items that have been shipped into the warehouses by others, but there are hoops to jump through if you want to opt out.

I don't have the link, but another article I read suggested that even the "sold by Amazon" stuff can be suspect these days. Apparently they throw third-party vendors' stock for a given item in the same bin with their own, so it's a crap-shoot as to which item you actually get.

Commingling is much less likely to happen if you choose the "Ships from/Sold by Amazon" offer. It would be more of a mix up, not a deliberate switch. There is effort made to cordon off product that comes in straight from the mfr.

Regarding the efforts to stop counterfeiters, Amazon says they make it easy but it's not. We can trace our inventory and have a really good idea who has our products and the names they sell under. The only thing that will definitely get Amazon to shut down a suspect seller is if we ourselves make a purchase from that seller, then file a report with photos and documents proving it's a fake. It's incredibly time consuming and very rarely done.

[parkerk]

Although I would absolutely believe that there are counterfeit goods on Amazon, I had an interesting experience this summer that's another possibility.  I bought shoes from a well-known brand name in a reliable, brick-and-mortar store that's not known for stocking cheap stuff.  The shoes fell apart in less than three months of normal wear. 

When I took them back (the store backs all products and so I got a full refund) the guy at the counter said that this particular brand had started trying to expand their market share by offering some products at lower prices which are made with cheaper materials in different factories that are noticeably worse quality.  He also said that they've noticed a few of their suppliers doing it.

So they're basically trying to up their sales by trading on their own brand name and offering cheaper stuff in categories where they assume/hope that people won't notice (i.e. these were casual shoes, not runners or hiking boots that would normally be expected to stand up to harsh conditions).  So yeah, not counterfeit but also not the quality they used to be.

[ApacheStache]

Although I would absolutely believe that there are counterfeit goods on Amazon, I had an interesting experience this summer that's another possibility.  I bought shoes from a well-known brand name in a reliable, brick-and-mortar store that's not known for stocking cheap stuff.  The shoes fell apart in less than three months of normal wear. 

When I took them back (the store backs all products and so I got a full refund) the guy at the counter said that this particular brand had started trying to expand their market share by offering some products at lower prices which are made with cheaper materials in different factories that are noticeably worse quality.  He also said that they've noticed a few of their suppliers doing it.

So they're basically trying to up their sales by trading on their own brand name and offering cheaper stuff in categories where they assume/hope that people won't notice (i.e. these were casual shoes, not runners or hiking boots that would normally be expected to stand up to harsh conditions).  So yeah, not counterfeit but also not the quality they used to be.

It might be the brands I buy, but I get the sense that a lot of the major undergarment and clothing companies are experimenting with cutting manufacturing costs to boost revenues. I don't know what it is but the elasticity on socks and underwear that I find in brick and mortar stores has dropped off a cliff. I'm much happier now just spending extra money on brands that actually give a damn about their customers and their brand reputation.

The silver lining behind all of this is I now own less clothing and what I own is of higher quality because the cheap stuff has self selected itself to either Goodwill or the garbage.

[Cranky]

For various reasons, we have a lot of Amazon Gift cards ($800-ish). We don't buy a ton there, because of the reasons cited so far on this thread. What's a mustachian to do to get reasonable value for these GC's?

They were not free to us, so reselling for a discount isn't desirable. Just looking for thoughts on what a reasonable  mustachian might do.

Toilet paper, cleaning stuff, books. I actually buy shoes from Amazon and haven’t had any problems.

[dcheesi]

The WSJ had some good articles on this over the last few months.  All behind a paywall unfortunately.

The general gist is that Amazon has about zero control, knowledge, or liability related to anything sold through the Amazon marketplace.  The WSJ found thousands of items that didn't meet safety regulations, were falsely advertised, or otherwise fraudulent.

Items that were "reported" for removal ended up re-posted several days later by (presumably) the same person with a different username.

Heck, one guys house even burned down because of a bad battery in one of those "hoverboards".  Amazon disclaimed all liability because they weren't the seller (since it was Amazon marketplace) and they didn't market it or make it.

Somehow this is all legal.

This.  Amazon is a fount of frauds.

Our personal experience: we learned that you can, in fact, buy a fake iPhone on there.  It even works like a real one for a few days, until it breaks and you carry it down to the Apple store only to learn that it's a fraud.

I'm surprised Amazon hasn't taken this more seriously; it presents a serious challenge to their business model.

Except that they're already the 800-lb gorilla in the online retail market, so there's really no one with a better track-record for customers to switch to. Wal-mart is trying, I guess, but they have their own shoddy product reputation to deal with¹. Meanwhile, with this scheme Amazon gets a broader selection to help their "one-stop shopping" reputation, and gets to compete with ebay and AliExpress (the latter probably being the main inspiration here, as they're the 800-lb gorilla in other parts of the world.)

¹With Wal-mart it's not so much counterfeits, but rather the actual manufacturers making inferior versions of their products to meet WM's stringent price expectations.

[Car Jack]

I figure everything on eBay and Amazon are fakes unless they're in a bottle that says "Amazon Basic Oil" which doesn't have any actual brand.  If you want real, don't buy from Amazon.

[tipster350]

Although I would absolutely believe that there are counterfeit goods on Amazon, I had an interesting experience this summer that's another possibility.  I bought shoes from a well-known brand name in a reliable, brick-and-mortar store that's not known for stocking cheap stuff.  The shoes fell apart in less than three months of normal wear. 

When I took them back (the store backs all products and so I got a full refund) the guy at the counter said that this particular brand had started trying to expand their market share by offering some products at lower prices which are made with cheaper materials in different factories that are noticeably worse quality.  He also said that they've noticed a few of their suppliers doing it.

So they're basically trying to up their sales by trading on their own brand name and offering cheaper stuff in categories where they assume/hope that people won't notice (i.e. these were casual shoes, not runners or hiking boots that would normally be expected to stand up to harsh conditions).  So yeah, not counterfeit but also not the quality they used to be.

It might be the brands I buy, but I get the sense that a lot of the major undergarment and clothing companies are experimenting with cutting manufacturing costs to boost revenues. I don't know what it is but the elasticity on socks and underwear that I find in brick and mortar stores has dropped off a cliff. I'm much happier now just spending extra money on brands that actually give a damn about their customers and their brand reputation.

The silver lining behind all of this is I now own less clothing and what I own is of higher quality because the cheap stuff has self selected itself to either Goodwill or the garbage.

Definitely. In the last three years, I've noticed a huge difference in quality all across the board, from underwear to clothing to shoes. Much of what I bought didn't even last a season. I've been reading about "Fast Fashion" and it is by design that the clothes don't last. The goal is to shorten the fashion cycle, so styles are in/out much quicker, and clothes self-destruct in a NY minute. It's working, too. I'm completely revamping my habits and buying fewer, more expensive items of better quality.

[Michael in ABQ]

My understanding was that if I order a product from California to be shipped to NYC from seller A, but seller B has that product sitting in an amazon warehouse in New Jersey, the product will ship from seller B and I am none the wiser. If seller B has sent me a counterfeit product I will never know it didn’t come from seller A. I go and leave seller A a bad review, and it’s up to seller A to file a complaint with Amazon to resolve the situation. Perhaps I am mistaken.

In some cases this is true. This is what is considered co-mingled inventory. If I want to sell something on Amazon as a third-party seller I have the option of choosing co-mingled inventory and letting Amazon go off the UPC bar code - or I can apply a unique barcode sticker over the UPC that means that my product is kept separate. For some things, like grocery products, Amazon doesn't allow co-mingled inventory because it presents a much greater risk. But if you're buying a box of LED light bulbs, in theory every box is exactly the same.

I am a third party seller on Amazon and purchase items directly from local manufacturers and send them into Amazon's warehouse to be fulfilled by them.


There are some types of items I won't even consider buying on Amazon. Anything for a cell phone is highly suspect. Also any sort of small electronic device or accessory.

We do regularly buy a couple of specialty grocery items we can't find locally or anywhere else online for cheaper. We buy toys such as Legos where Amazon is pretty good about preventing counterfeits. Still buy a fair number of books - though it's frustrating to get a print on demand copy of an older classic book that is poorly formatted.