Amazon[1] has filed a lawsuit against Instagram and TikTok personalities for allegedly participating in a scheme to sell counterfeit luxury goods.
Filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington and made public on Thursday[2], the complaint alleges that 13 individuals and businesses ran a scam to lure followers into buying fake luxury products -- and deceive Amazon in the process.
The influencers, Kelly Fitzpatrick and Sabrina Kelly-Krejci, allegedly peddled counterfeit items listed on Amazon -- but disguised -- by sellers they conspired with. Amazon claims that Fitzpatrick and Kelly-Krejci used social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok -- as well as their own websites -- to advertise fake products.
According to the lawsuit, the influencers posted side-by-side photos of generic, unbranded items and a luxury -- but counterfeit -- product. The text "Order this/Get this" was posted alongside the photos, with "Order this" referring to a generic product listed on Amazon, and "Get this" referring to a fake luxury good, also referred to as a dupe.
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As shown in the court filing example below, a generic black wallet would be listed on Amazon, but customers would receive a dupe of a branded product. The generic item, therefore, was nothing more than a placeholder.
Videos describing the "high quality" of the fake products were also published by the influencers.
"By posting only generic products on Amazon, Fitzpatrick and Kelly-Krejci -- and the sellers they coordinated with -- attempted to evade our anti-counterfeit protections while using social media to promote the true nature of these counterfeit products," Amazon says.
Fitzpatrick, a former member of the Amazon Influencer Program, has now been booted out