How to report counterfeit listings of your brand on Amazon

Brand owners and their authorised agents report counterfeit listings on Amazon.com and Amazon.in through Amazon's Report Infringement form, which needs a signed-in Amazon account but not Brand Registry, or through Brand Registry's Report a Violation tool if the brand is enrolled. A counterfeit report must rest on a trademark registered in the store's country and name each ASIN or seller offer; Amazon's guide to the form says that reporting one seller's offer for trademark infringement also needs a test buy, whose order ID you enter. Amazon decides on every notice, shares your contact details with the sellers it notifies, and gives no fixed review time. Brands with a record of accurate reports can qualify for Project Zero and remove counterfeit listings themselves.

Before you report: is it a counterfeit?

Amazon treats counterfeiting as a form of trademark infringement.¹ Its Project Zero pages define a counterfeit as an unlawful total or partial reproduction of a registered trademark, or of a very similar mark, used on the product, its packaging or the product detail page to imply that the product is genuine.² The trademark must be registered in the store's country, so an Indian registration supports reports on Amazon.in and Amazon.com needs a US one. Amazon says a notice against Amazon.com based on an Italian registration will likely be rejected, and that pending applications and common-law marks cannot be the basis of a counterfeit report.^1,3,4,5

Amazon does not treat these as counterfeits:

• Genuine goods from sellers you haven't authorised. Amazon does not enforce distribution-channel control or check a seller's authorisation through the infringement form, and says reports must not be used to stop others selling a genuine product.¹ Under India's Trade Marks Act, too, reselling lawfully acquired goods that the owner, or someone with its consent, put on the market is not infringement for that reason alone, unless the owner has legitimate reasons to oppose further dealings, in particular where their condition has been changed or impaired.⁶
• Distribution and price agreements. Amazon treats breaches of exclusive distribution or minimum advertised price agreements as a matter between the manufacturer and its resellers, unless local law requires it to assist; it enforces exclusive distribution rights only in countries whose laws specifically provide for them, naming China, France and the United Arab Emirates.^1,3
• Compatibility claims and barcodes. Amazon does not act against truthful statements that a product is compatible with a trademarked one, or enforce ownership of barcodes, UPCs or EANs.³
• Look-alikes without your mark. A copy that carries none of your marks falls outside Amazon's definition of a counterfeit, though a design-right or copyright report may fit.^2,4 See how knock-offs differ from counterfeits.

If you are a shopper who received a fake, the Report Infringement form isn't your route: Amazon says it can't process complaints from anyone who isn't a rights owner or their agent, and points buyers to a contact form for problems with orders.⁷ Its India anti-counterfeiting policy encourages anyone with a product authenticity concern to tell Amazon, and says Amazon will investigate.⁸

What to collect before you file

• The listing. Each ASIN, the 10-character identifier on the product detail page, and the page's URL. The same product can have different ASINs in different Amazon stores.⁹
• The seller. The seller's name as the listing shows it ("dispatched and sold by" on Amazon.in) and its seller information page.¹⁰ Indian rules require marketplaces to show each seller's business name, geographic address and customer care number.¹¹
• Your rights. The trademark registration number for the store's country and, if you file as an agent, the owner's authorisation.^3,4
• A test buy. Keep the order ID, and photograph the product and packaging beside a genuine one. Amazon's guide to the Report Infringement form says a test buy is required to report a single seller's offer for trademark infringement, though its rights-owner overview only calls one helpful; Amazon also recommends a test buy before removing a suspected counterfeit through Project Zero.^2,3,4,5
• Dated captures of the listing, the offer and the seller page, saved before you file. If you may rely on them in an Indian court, ask independent counsel about the certificate that section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 requires with electronic records; the Adhiniyam repealed the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.¹²
• A tracking sheet. For each ASIN and seller: when you found it, the test-buy result, when and how you reported it, Amazon's reference and the outcome.

Where to report on Amazon.com and Amazon.in

The Report Infringement form (no Brand Registry needed)

Amazon's Conditions of Use direct rights owners to its online form, which takes all types of IP claims: amazon.com/report/infringement for Amazon.com and amazon.in/report/infringement for Amazon.in.^10,13 Brands that aren't enrolled in Brand Registry can use it, and Amazon's Brand Registry pages describe it as publicly available.^1,3,14,15 You must be signed in to an Amazon account; the form's sign-in page also lets you create one.^1,3,7 The form is meant for rights owners and their authorised agents; on Amazon.in, a rights owner is anyone who legitimately owns the IP rights in the product, whether a brand, a seller, a customer or a third party.^1,5,7

You enter up to 50 ASINs, ISBN-10s or product URLs, and the form lists the sellers on each ASIN so that you can report all of them or only some.^3,4 Then you choose what to report:^3,4,5

• the whole ASIN, when the product or its packaging carries your trademark but you didn't make it; Amazon then reviews all its offers and images;
• specific offers, when counterfeits are sold on a listing of your genuine product; the listing stays live, and Amazon's guide to the form requires a test buy, whose order ID you enter;
• the product detail page, when your trademark is used on a page for a product that isn't yours.

Brand Registry and Report a Violation

Brand Registry is free, and you can enrol even if you don't sell on Amazon.^14,15 You need your brand name, or a logo that includes it, on your products or packaging, and a registered trademark or pending application from the government trademark office of a country with an Amazon store. The trademark owner enrols, then adds agents as users.^14,15 One account covers every store: you add other countries' trademarks once you are approved.¹⁵ Amazon's IP Accelerator connects brands without a trademark to vetted IP service providers, including providers in India; Amazon charges no fee for the introduction, and you pay the provider directly. A pending application filed through it can be used to enrol.¹⁶

Report a Violation searches the Amazon catalogue for potential violations of your active trademarks, copyrights and patents, with text and image search, and also takes store-policy and regulatory-compliance reports.^3,14,15 The brand's administrator can give the Registered Agent role to agents who represent the brand, and outcomes appear in Submission History.^3,4

Amazon.in: a signed notice to the Grievance Officer

Amazon.in, which Amazon Seller Services Private Limited operates, also accepts a signed Notice Form, sent to its Grievance Officer as a PDF emailed to grievance-officer@amazon.in with the subject line "Claim of Infringement", or by fax. The page also gives a postal address in New Delhi, but says Amazon accepts email or fax unless it has agreed another method with you.¹⁰ It asks for your contact details, including one Amazon may pass to sellers; each listing's ASIN and seller name; the right infringed; a good-faith statement; a statement that the notice is true and that you own the rights or may act for the owner; and your signature.¹⁰ Amazon.in warns that false, misleading or inaccurate information may result in civil or criminal liability, and it may forward your notice to the parties involved.¹⁰

Project Zero and Transparency

Project Zero lets enrolled brands remove counterfeit offers or whole listings themselves, with a self-service tool. It is free and available in 22 countries, including India and the US.^2,17 To qualify, you must be the rights owner of a registered trademark in Brand Registry, have had at least 90% of your Report a Violation trademark reports in the last six months accepted, and have used the tools in line with Amazon's policies; Amazon also weighs other criteria and invites brands that qualify.^2,17 The tool is for counterfeits only, brands must keep an accuracy rate of at least 99% to keep access, and each seller affected by a removal is sent a notice of complaint.²

Transparency puts a unique code on every unit. Once a product passes Amazon's operational performance review with 98% accuracy, its units can't be listed or shipped in the Amazon store without valid codes, whoever fulfils the order.¹⁸ It needs the rights owner role in Brand Registry, an active registered trademark, a GTIN for each product and a code on every unit you make. Codes are charged for, and India accepts only Amazon-issued codes.¹⁸

Where to report counterfeit listings on Amazon (checked 14 October 2026):

Writing a report Amazon can act on

Amazon's help pages for both stores ask for:^1,3

1. The right you rely on: for a trademark, its registration number in the store's country.
2. Where the infringement is: the product, its packaging, or an image or the text on the product detail page.
3. The ASINs or URLs, and the sellers: if only some sellers infringe, select just those so that the whole listing isn't affected, and leave out your own offer.
4. Supporting information, such as the order IDs of test buys.
5. Your contact details, with secondary contact details that Amazon can share with the sellers.

Amazon processes each notice as one type of IP, and if you give two trademark numbers, only the first counts, so file trademark and copyright complaints, and each trademark, separately.^1,3 For counterfeit offers on your listing, make sure its images clearly show your brand name or logo; if your brand name appears on products you don't make, explain how the listing misuses your rights.¹ Amazon may reject a notice about a mark used only to show compatibility, and copied product photos are a copyright report of their own.³

Accuracy matters. Repeated inaccurate notices can cost you your submission privileges, and on Amazon.in, rights owners found abusing the process, for example by repeatedly reporting sellers who aren't infringing, may lose their selling privileges.^1,3 You can withdraw a report submitted within the last 365 days with Amazon's Notice Retraction Form.^4,5

What happens after you report

Amazon confirms that it is reviewing your notice and follows up once it has been processed; you can track it in Submission History or through the email sent to your primary contact address.^3,4 If the notice is valid, Amazon tells the sellers concerned about your claim and gives them your secondary contact details, or your primary ones if there are none.³ If it accepts the notice, it removes the content you reported and takes what it calls appropriate action, without sharing details that aren't already public; if it rejects the notice, nothing is removed and you are told why.³

Amazon's pages give no fixed review time: its Conditions of Use say it responds "quickly" on Amazon.com and "expeditiously" on Amazon.in.^10,13 Its anti-counterfeiting policy allows it to suspend or terminate a seller's account and related accounts, dispose of inauthentic inventory in its fulfilment centres at the seller's expense, and withhold payments; it also removes suspect listings after its own review.^8,19

Sellers can contest a notice: a seller can appeal with invoices or Amazon order IDs that show the product is authentic, or ask you for a retraction if it holds a licence, and its content may be reinstated.²⁰ On Amazon.in, if a seller asks you for a retraction, Amazon asks you to send it through the email queue the seller gives you, not through the Report Infringement form.¹ And where ownership of the rights isn't clear, Amazon's India help says a court order may be required.¹

If the listing or the seller is in India

Indian law adds a grievance route and civil and criminal remedies to Amazon.in's own notice routes; independent counsel can advise on which fits a given case.

Trade Marks Act, 1999

• Infringement. Among other cases, a registered trade mark is infringed when someone without permission uses an identical or deceptively similar mark in the course of trade for the goods it is registered for; use includes putting the mark on goods or packaging, offering goods for sale under it, and importing them. No action lies for infringing an unregistered mark, though passing off remains available.⁶
• Offences. Falsely applying a trade mark to goods (section 103) and selling goods to which a false trade mark is applied (section 104) are each punishable with six months to three years' imprisonment and a fine of ₹50,000 to ₹2 lakh, or less for adequate and special reasons. The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023, which amended the penalties for some other offences under the Act, did not change these two.^6,21 A seller avoids liability under section 104 if it proves, for example, that it took all reasonable precautions and had no reason to suspect the mark, or that it gave the prosecution all the information it had about its supplier.⁶
• Police powers. These offences are cognizable. A police officer of deputy superintendent rank or above may search and seize the goods without a warrant, after obtaining the Registrar's opinion on the facts (section 115).⁶
• Civil suits. A suit goes to a District Court or a higher court, and can be filed where the owner bringing it resides or carries on business. The court can grant an injunction, damages or an account of profits, and delivery-up of infringing labels and marks, and can make ex parte orders to preserve infringing goods and evidence (sections 134 and 135).⁶

Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020

Marketplaces must show each seller's business name, geographic address, customer care number and ratings, and must make reasonable efforts to keep records identifying sellers who repeatedly offer goods that were removed under the Trade Marks Act, the Copyright Act or the IT Act, though they need not terminate those sellers. Sellers must give the marketplace, for display, their goods' country of origin, and importer details and guarantees about the authenticity of imported products.¹¹ An amendment announced on 10 September 2026, in force from 1 January 2027, strengthens seller disclosures; among other things, importer details and country of origin must be disclosed for imported goods.²²

IT Rules, 2021: the Grievance Officer route

The IT Rules require an intermediary to make reasonable efforts, by itself and by causing its users, not to host or share information that infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary right, and to publish its Grievance Officer's name and contact details.²³ Amazon.in names its Grievance Officer as a recipient of infringement notices.¹⁰ As amended with effect from 20 February 2026, the Rules provide:^23,24

• Acknowledgement and resolution. The Grievance Officer must acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within seven days, down from 15. The faster 36-hour track for certain removal requests excludes complaints about trademark and other IP infringement.^23,24
• Appeal. You can appeal to a Grievance Appellate Committee within 30 days, online at gac.gov.in, once the platform's Grievance Officer has been approached. The Committee endeavours to decide within 30 calendar days, and intermediaries must comply with its orders.^23,25
• Court orders. An intermediary that receives a court order must remove or disable access to the unlawful information within three hours.²³

Getting removed listings out of Google search

• Removed listings that still show. Google's Refresh Outdated Content tool asks Google to update a result for a page whose content has been deleted; you enter the page's URL and submit.²⁶
• Pages selling counterfeits. Google's policy says that, on notice from a trademark owner or its authorised agent, it will remove specific web pages selling counterfeit goods from its search results; the policy excludes other trademark issues, misuse can restrict future complaints, and notices may be sent to the Lumen project.²⁷ For an Amazon listing, the report to Amazon remains the main route.

When reports aren't enough

Amazon rejects your notice

Amazon gives a reason for each rejection; check it against the rules above, from the store-country trademark to the test buy.³ In India, where ownership of the rights is unclear, Amazon says a court order may be required, which you would seek through independent counsel; the IT Rules give an intermediary three hours to act on one.^1,23

The same sellers keep coming back

Keep records by seller name and storefront, so that you can show a pattern. Amazon terminates repeat infringers "in appropriate circumstances", and Indian rules require marketplaces to make reasonable efforts to keep records identifying repeat sellers.^11,13,20 Amazon says accurate Report a Violation reports and Project Zero removals strengthen Brand Registry's automated protections, which it says proactively block counterfeits, and that products enrolled in Transparency can't be listed without valid codes.^2,15,18

You need to act against the seller

Amazon's Counterfeit Crimes Unit says it works with brands to stop counterfeiters by conducting investigations, referring cases to law enforcement and pursuing litigation.²⁸ In India, the seller details marketplaces must display, together with your test-buy evidence, support a legal notice, a civil suit or a police complaint under the Trade Marks Act, each pursued through independent counsel.^6,11 The right route depends on where the seller and the goods are, the scale of the harm and your evidence, so consult independent counsel before escalating.

Doing this at scale

For one product, this is manageable by hand. For a brand selling across Amazon.com and Amazon.in, it becomes continuous work: watching new listings and offers, test-buying doubtful ones, filing in each store's format, following up rejections and retraction requests, and spotting sellers who return under new names.

• Register where you sell. Counterfeit reports need a trademark registered in each store's country, so connect each registration to your Brand Registry account.^4,15
• Batch your reports. Up to 50 ASINs at a time, with one trademark and one type of IP per notice.^3,4
• Keep a clean record. At least 90% of trademark reports accepted over six months is one of the conditions for Project Zero, and 99% accuracy keeps access.²
• Protect units as well as listings. Once Transparency is active for a product, Amazon requires a valid code before a unit can be listed or shipped; codes are charged for.¹⁸
• Close the loop. Check Submission History, confirm what was removed, and re-check the same ASINs and sellers for new offers.³

Bytescare runs this cycle for brands: monitoring the marketplaces you choose, the complaints you approve, test buys and, if you choose, legal escalation through independent counsel. Each marketplace decides on removal. Our counterfeit protection service page explains how. This guide is general information, not legal advice. Bytescare is not a law firm; for a specific dispute, consult independent counsel.

FAQs

Further reading

• How To Report Someone Selling Counterfeit Goods?
• Ultimate Guide: How to Protect Brand on Amazon?
• How to remove fake Instagram and Facebook accounts impersonating your brand or executives

Sources

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