Aukey, Anker, TaoTronics, RavPower etc brands on Amazon:

Are some of those brands you listed subsidiaries or something? I see no mention of any of those brands except Aukey in the article. In fact Anker is always touted as one of the good brands to buy.

Not that I don’t think everyone is doing it. But the rest weren’t caught.

I know I’ve been offered refund of my purchase price from some of those brands I listed. ChoeTech etc. These are all Amazon-only Shenzhen, China brands that sell battery charges, cables and other related electronics. Like how Anker uses Eufy for its smarthome stuff and SoundCore for audio stuff, RavPower is TaoTronics and other related brands.

They ALL do it.

It’s just basically been Amazon looking the other way for so long.

I’ve bought a ton of Anker stuff and always had a good experience. But yeah those other brands have always seemed sketchy to me.

Anker has (or had? I haven’t checked recently) NA based customer service and was founded by an ex-Googler who gave it some cache. Generous return/replacement policies were a staple early on but this has been copied by the other Shenzhen brands as well. On the whole, except for some risky USB-C power issues they’ve all dominated techies’ mindshare to opt for them instead of traditional “retail-ready” brands that had in-store shelf presence. This has become something of a massive advantage now that bricks and mortal retailing is dying, hastened by COVID.

I’ve bought a fair amount of Anker stuff and have always been satisfied.

Anker at least is sold at bricks and mortar retail here.

For what it’s worth I’ve had very solid experiences with Mpow stuff and wouldn’t hesitate to buy from them again.

The three Aukey products I’ve bought have been fine so far.

5-11-2021 6-52-21 AM

::shrug::

I buy Anker products exclusively for power (adapters, cables). I have an Mpow headset and Bluetooth transceiver for my TV which work well, and I use the Eufycam home security cameras.

That said, there are tons of off-brands I wouldn’t touch, nor would I trust their reviews.

I bought an Aukey portable solar charger about 5 years ago. No regrets. Works great when you’re camping and need to get your phone or tablet charged.

These guys wouldn’t have a business if Apple didn’t charge $20 for a cord.

I don’t get Apple sometimes. $20 for a cord that is just as shitty as the $5 Chinese one. I go through a lightning cable almost every month. Meanwhile, I have USB-C cables from 2015 that work perfectly.

It seems as if there’s not a significant complaint about quality, just deceptive marketing practices. I’m glad when misbehaving companies get caught, but it really does highlight the weakness of user reviews.

Lately I feel the percentage of Shenzhen “duplicate” products has exploded on Amazon. Its really tough to identify and find the original product that hopefully has a better quality. Aside from a Amazon Basics copy, I see loads of minimally different (if at all) products ranging from alarm clocks to laundry baskets, batteries and other goodies all from obscure chinese companies with fake sounding reviews and orders “fulfilled by amazon”.

Hopefully this might change that:

My god, what are you doing to mistreat your 1st party Lightning cables? I have the pack-in from the iPhone 3G through every model to the X and only had one expose the wires. Granted, the Anker, Spigen and Aukey cables have all been better while some non-spec 3-in-1 (micro, USB-C, Lightning) hydra-headed cables went bad randomly or didn’t deliver proper USB-C fast charging after a while.

So there’s still no reason that Anker is in the title of this thread, right?

The reason is they’re all Shenzhen, China-based formerly-only-Amazon-only vendors. That’s why it says “etc. brands on Amazon” - they also had shady marketing when starting out from firsthand experience.

I have no evidence they are currently doing those tactics still though but 99% of those brands are.

I’ve got an Anker USB battery charger thing, and the thing’s been sitting in my backpack for over 2 years now without being charged, and it still has almost all of the last charge… I’m kind of impressed that it hasn’t bled out over that period of itme.

I’ve ordered stuff from these vendors all the time, and there’s almost always a card in there asking to leave a favorable review. The less-shady ones just ask politely. There are others that try to throw in some kind of incentive.

There’s also usually a “if there’s a problem, please contact us directly and we’ll fix it. don’t leave an unfavorable review.”

Unfavorable reviews kill them.