Amazon and China Team up To Scam Americans

The internet is a funny place. In the early 2000s, it was seen as the wild west. A parent assumed a chat room was the same as putting their kids on a city street alone, all online purchases were triple checked, and every new site visited risked exposing your PC to a virus. As a society, we have overcorrected to the point that teens go on Omegle to film TikToks and boomers will trust any product they see on Amazon. That brings me to the headline I saw while browsing the news this morning, “Nearly 5,000 Fake Karaoke Machines Have Been Seized In Virginia”.

Initially, I saw this and thought "who the hell makes a fake Karaoke machine?" The answer was simple and obvious: China. From there the article goes on to explain that they were purchased off of Amazon and that they would be destroyed. The Fed went on to say people have to be smarter online when making purchases. As much as I agree that people are idiots online, how could one possibly blame the consumer for trusting the biggest corporation in the world? This is on Amazon and the government’s inability to govern the company.

The thing that shocked me the most about all of this is the fact that karaoke machines are still this popular. I just assumed karaoke was relegated to apps on iPhones, bars, and Korean karaoke rooms. Maybe the plan by the Chinese was brilliant, anyone willing to purchase a karaoke machine in 2020 definitely isn’t checking the validity of the seller. Regardless, be sure to check reviews before purchasing anything online. And always, if a deal is too good to be true, it’s either fake or made by people who aren’t paid a living wage.