Fake books available for sale on Lazada, Shopee, Sendo

First News Co., Ltd. brought a complaint against Lazada, Shopee, and Sendo for selling fake books

Last week, First News Co., Ltd. announced that Shopee, Lazada, and Sendo are abetting the consumption of fake and pirated books violating the law. The company said that an uncountable number of fake books were displayed for sale online.

"Fake books look like real books, only people working in this sector could distinguish them from each other by the cover. However, the spelling and grammar of fake books is just horrible. Books on health and medicine especially carry a risk of damaging people's health," First News' representative said.

This company's representative said that they had detected fake books displayed on e-commerce platforms a long time ago. First News has reported to the platforms many times, but saw little interest in return.

First News made orders 128 times on e-commerce platforms like Lazada, Shopee, and Sendo to buy some books, all of which turned out to be fake books.

Nguyen Van Phuoc, director of First News, said that after entering e-commerce websites, customers are always shown products with the highest discount or those suggested based on their interests, which makes them fertile grounds for selling fake books. "We offer around 1,000 different books, but we cannot compete with 3,000 fake titles," he said.

Fake books available for sale on Lazada, Shopee, and Sendo

Discussing with local media, Tran Huu Linh, general director of the Vietnam Directorate of Market Surveillance (under the Ministry of Industry and Trade), said that legal provisions are clear on the responsibilities of e-commerce platforms when it comes to fake or pirated goods on their websites. Accordingly, e-commerce platforms have to remove all illegal products and ban the accounts of vendors.

Meanwhile, the market surveillance authority will strengthen collaboration with other authorities to detect, seize, and deal with pirated books.