★ Amazon Needs to Take Control of their Inventory and 3rd Party Sales System

Amazon.com:

Apple MA591G/A Dock Connector to USB Charge Cable

and

Apple USB Power Adapter for iPod/iPhone

Both items appear to be sold by Apple and use Apple’s product images for these products. both are priced just below what Apple would charge which is generally what Amazon does. Both are shipped and sold by Amazon and both are eligible for Amazon Prime.

…and both of these took more than 5 searches to find where I’d find cheap $2-$10 knockoffs each and every time until I specifically looked for the Apple model number and sorted by “Apple” as the brand. Still, these are NOT Apple’s products. they are cheap knock-offs.

This is the packaging for the charger:

Here are a few reviews:

Contrary to what other posters have said, this is Chinese knockoff of the real apple cable. It looks like an apple cable in almost every way but there are subtle differences. Looking inside the connector I notice that there are two pins on my apple cable that are not on this cable but I am not sure what they are for.

On my iphone 4 this cable had to be forced in order for it to go into the phone and getting it unconnected was just as difficult. In order to make it work I had to file the grey plastic sides and metal catches on the plug down with my Leatherman’s diamond file to get a good fit. Other than that it charges and syncs with my computer fine. I guess I will find out how good the connections are in the plugs over time as that is usually where the cheaper cables will fail.

and

I bought this cable as a replacement for the one that came with my iPhone 4. It plugs in okay (I’ve only plugged it into a wall outlet, though) and charges the phone. BUT, the instant that I started using it, my battery was completely messed up. With the real cable, I could charge it up overnight, take it to work the next day, and if it just sat in my pocket all day, no using it, it would be at about 85-90% by the time I went home. Now, it is down to below 20% after that time. I could easily leave it off the charger overnight and only lose 5-10% battery; last night I left it off the charger at 52% and by morning it was completely dead.

and

I had found many iPod wall chargers on amazon, but was happy to find a “genuine” Apple product. DO not be fooled though! This product is not an apple product. Other walk chargers on amazon were much cheaper than this one, but I bought this charged because of the apple name. I was ripped off, and will never buy from this seller again. Though the charger works, there is always a chance it will ruin my iPod touch since it is not a true apple product . While the picture the seller posted looks exactly like the one on the Apple website, it is merely a scheme, and the one I received in the mail looks nothing like it. Don’t buy this product. You will receive the same thing if you buy the .01$ ones off other users on amazon .

The fact that you can’t buy the official Apple versions on Amazon is totally fine. What bothers me is that Amazon sells HUNDREDS of knock-offs across pages and pages of results for Apple/iPod/iPhone/iPod USB Charger / Cables and you pay nearly what you’d pay for the real thing yet users are getting stuck with dead iPhones due to shoddy product quality.

…and amazon sells these products as Apple products and stocks these in its inventory with 2-day shipping.

It’s shameful and Amazon needs to get this under control.