For starters: if you don't want or need to buy your PPE off Amazon, great. This is not the point of the post.

The point is that there are people with financial barriers to masking, under the impression that they should avoid their cheapest option of Amazon for masks because "a lot can be counterfeit". It's to address this oft-stated yet rarely-substantiated axiom, which has permeated the "covid-aware" population such that even people not on social media have adopted it as truth. As always, this includes an invitation for evidence not listed here of the belief being accurate, if such exists. Read the post before simply voicing a contrary opinion.

*Because words matter, and because words mean different things to different people, I'll start by saying whatever specific terms you do and want to use is besides the point—which is: while there are likely tons of listings on Amazon falsely claiming to be respirators, actual evidence on this sub of fakes OF SPECIFIC REPUTABLE MODELS (like the 3M Aura) is minimal, and the scale of the problem is blown out of proportion based on the current state of affairs.

(for the purpose of this post I'll use the terms "fake" to mean "something purporting to be a legit respirator" [e.g. just claiming to be a KN95], and "counterfeit" to mean "something pretending to be a specific respirator" [e.g. a 3M Aura]; as such: all counterfeits are fakes, but not all fakes are counterfeits.)*

———

First, some context:

Once upon a time, there was a massive PPE shortage and respirators were in very short supply. In these days long past, money could be made by deceitful enterprisers by counterfeiting trusted makers' (3M, Honeywell, etc.) products.
But then the pandemic "ended", and while counterfeiting of anything can happen any time, the massive need disappeared – and theoretical large sums of money to be made along with it.

It was bad enough that the NYT wrote about it...in Feb. 2022.
The u.s. CDC hosts a page of counterfeit and misrepresented (basically their word for "fake") respirators...with no examples from beyond 2021, most of which are misrepresentations, not counterfeits.
In 2024, 3M issued an alert about "Fraudulent/Counterfeit Product Offered Online"...which doesn't even mention disposable respirators. Clearly the situation has changed since Sept. 2022 when they launched the Verify platform, such that an entire type of respiratory PPE doesn't even need to be mentioned in a bulletin specifically about counterfeits.

Good for us to keep in mind when discussing Amazon.

People would rightly be wary of not being protected in the early days should they have found a respirator. As mentioned, there are plenty of posts mentioning fakes on Amazon here dating back several years. But digging into the posts, almost all of them are just worrying about the possibility, not actually evidence of an occurrence.

The one single actual example of a known counterfeit I found on this sub (which, based on comments, may have been the first at that point) was about European Auras in October 2023. The oldest "proof" I found, which didn't even specify where the mask was actually bought, is a March 2021 post "Don't order N95's from eBay/Amazon/Etsy. One of these is real and one is fake, can you tell?", where the mystery mask was claimed to filter at 94.1%.

That post was cited three months later as evidence of the risk of 3rd-party vendor buying in "Do not buy masks from Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, AliExpress, Walmart.com, or other multi-vendor marketplaces", largely due to info in a linked YSK Reddit post about now-ended commingling practices (which yes, five years ago, when counterfeits were more likely to be prevalent, was an issue).

The commingling thing resurfaced a year and a half later, citing the same then-two-year-old YSK post, but it had already taken off, evidenced in a July 2021 post worrying if N95s on Amazon are legit (recommended against due to commingling), a July 2022 one wondering if Aura 1870+ on Amazon are legit, and another by someone else a few days later.

By Dec. 2022, people were throwing away hundreds of euros' worth of masks without verifying them, "getting crazy" about their Auras in Mar. 2023 because the seller on Amazon wasn't 3M; by that August, someone asked if there had ever actually been fakes received (recall that one proven case hadn't yet happened). But the sheer scarcity of evidence didn't matter – in Jan. 2024, someone assuming non-authorised sellers' masks must be counterfeit; in Feb., someone else aggressively warning against Amazon (due solely to commingling).

That March, u/SkippySkep decided to thoroughly test some u.s. Amazon Auras, provided by someone who "was pretty certain the Auras are counterfeit" as they had issues with a whole batch's nosewires which also had an off smell. The conclusion? Since only 3M can confirm a counterfeit, the assessment was that they were "a superior tri-fold mask in terms of construction and performance, and are similar to the reference Aura by every comparison I performed".

Last September saw an even more intense batch of tests on one of those ultra-cheap boxes of 440 1870+s that were around, measuring the strength of the headbands, nosewires, and electrostatic charge on top of filtration efficiency. A similar conclusion: "I do believe the Auras in the case of 440 are almost certainly genuine."
And yet...still this January, people in doubt about Amazon (yet seemingly not checking the actual listed seller was Amazon), being referred to that same ysk post.

It is 2026, and while many of us say we still "live like it's 2020", there are ways in which that doesn't help. Perpetuating a belief that a (for better or worse) very accessible way to get respirators should not be trusted is not helpful, and is misinformation.

———

Now...returning to the whole language point from the start: not all masks on Amazon are legit. Obviously.
Amazon's problem is not that it's full of counterfeit disposable respirators (those tend to be seen among reusable elastomerics). The problem is that it's full of likely-fake ones. Here are the first results on the u.s. store when searching "N95":

Eight Amazon results for \"N95\"; half are not N95s

See how half of these are not even claiming to be N95s, but KN95s? This is the problem with Amazon now, and it has always been the primary problem; in late 2020, ECRI found "that 60 to 70 percent of imported KN95 masks do not filter 95 percent of aerosol particulates", and those were masks being purchased by health systems, thus almost certainly from less nebulous sources than Amazon.

KN95 masks were(/are) troublesome because unlike N95s, they follow a self-attestation system—they don't need to be approved before marketing. Makers just need to be able to prove they do what they claim if a CCP regulator came knocking, which seems much less likely to happen if they company isn't selling their wares domestically in China. Thanks to Amazon, they have access to a global, unregulated market.

But none of these masks are trying to fool you into thinking they're a reputable version of a known and trusted product. They're just generic "masks", the granular details of which (performance standards, certification, proper fit, etc.) the average person knows nothing about. Saying Amazon is a bad place to buy masks full stop is like saying it's a bad place to buy air purifiers full stop, on the grounds that the site is flooded with dodgy no-name machines with no information about their performance or ability to verify their performance certification.

*This may be edited once I re-read it and/or if I'm met with a surprise wave of verified Amazon counterfeit respirator accounts

There are about 10 kinds* of posts that make up the vast majority of posts here, the answers to most of which are almost always found in the wiki.
But the problem is subreddits don't make wikis especially visible if they even exist. On mobile, it's hidden under the "About" section (which requires a clickthrough), and on desktop it still requires one to be zoomed out enough to see it on the right...only after scrolling well past the "Create Post" button.

Meanwhile, the pinned "Community Highlights" section is right at the top of the page by default, and a post titled something like "New, or have questions? CLICK HERE!" could be stuck there explaining all the basic shit the wiki covers, with a link to it.

Obviously this won't reinvent the wheel, but it would get people the info they seek faster in many many cases, and also reduce data/energy consumption. There's this great living repository of knowledge that took a lot of work here but instead of it being an initial reference document with the sub being used for anomalies not covered, the board is basically Quora with the same less-than-dozen questions being asked constantly.
I'm not a mod or some major player so maybe people who are most active here actually prefer this for some reason I cannot grasp...but given there's an automod directly telling people to go to the wiki, something tells me that's not the case.

———

*The Ten Most Wanted:

1. "Mask recommendations?"
2. Where to buy [mask x]/when is restock?
3. Sensory issue mask?
4. Opinion on [ineffective mask x]?
5. Mask for [y size/dimension] head and/or face (and/or kids)?
6. Mask for [smells/smoke/pollution]?
7. Mask for [very niche use situation]?
8. Shipping/tariff question
9. Zimi question
10. Fit test question

Part vent, part don't-even-know:

Post-infection IBS-M for years which has changed in specific presentation over time.
No apparent/overt trigger foods asides dairy which I don't eat.
I defy the bristol scale; 2-3 types in the same movement is my norm. Usually mix of farge/formed with soft/mush.
BM's daily (except the days when I just don't go), any time between an hour after wakeup to an hour after breakfast (regardless of when breakfast is).
Hydrolysed guar gum eithed makes them explosive, or does nothing. Psyllium does nothing, or makes them too big. Afraid to "stick it out" due to pain both have caused.
Bad and worsening haemorrhids, and recurring anal fissures from the hard stools (usually when forced out by soft stuff).
Activity levels = little to do difference (i.e. equally active last and 2 weeks prior which were C and D weeks respectively).

The only thing I've managed to zero in on as within my control to help (generally, not even perfectly) is that using PEG/macrogol/Miralax/etc. usually helps quite a bit, usually after it fully stops me up for a day, after which I can tell my insides are about a day behind. Unpleasant as that is at times, I'm more worried about the fact I am literally drinking fucking microplastics. The bottle says to not use indefinitely and regardless of what even a good dr. has told me, I put stock in this. They say it's inert, but the American Medical Association also looked the other way on cigarette's harms for decades before admitting to them. Smoking used to be commonplace in hospitals. All this due to the influence of the tobacco industry.

It would be foolish to think for a second that the oil industry has not similarly infected the medical field—the days of blatant advertising are over, but in 2024, investigation published the BMJ found that "[o]ver the past six years more than 180 articles in medical publications or medical articles in other publications have acknowledged funding by the fossil fuel industry, and an additional 1000 articles have authors who worked for a fossil fuel company or related organisation".

I recognize all meds have adverse effects. But this shit pisses me off both because fuck big oil but also because if not for shit like this maybe they could be looking into discovering more symptom-intervention options that would be less like to, I don't know, end up giving me intestinal [REDACTED] (why can't I write ca—er lol) or some other awful disease later on.

Fuck this, man.