Amazon's online storefront allows anyone to sell pretty much anything. But that’s not always for the best.

False advertising is still a major problem on Amazon, so it's all too easy to buy something that's not exactly what you paid for. This is especially true in the tech world, where companies face practically no consequences for inflated or made-up marketing claims.

With the fall gadget season coming up and segueing right into the holidays, you'll need to keep your guard up. Here are some scams and scummy sales practices I've come across that you should be aware of:

Search for "Sandisk USB thumb drive" on Amazon, and the top sponsored results will come from no-name vendors, promising flash drives with 1 TB of storage for less than $30. How is this possible, given that Sandisk itself charges five times as much for the same amount of storage?

As YouTubers Lon Seidman and GamersNexus have pointed out, this is a long-running scam that involves spoofing the device's drive controller and tricking Windows into seeing the advertised capacity. When you actually try to fill the drive, you'll discover that it stores maybe 20 GB worth of files, tops. (I suspect this unbranded 10 TB solid state drive I came across just this morning is equally bogus.)

What to do about it: Stick with name brands such as Sandisk, PNY, Samsung, or Lexar, or at least make sure the price of whatever you're buying is in the ballpark as the major players.

Portable device chargers are in vast abundance on Amazon, so how do you stand out if you're an unscrupulous vendor? Simple: Just wildly inflate the advertised capacity of your power bank, making it look like an incredible deal.

With just one search, for instance, I came across a battery roughly the size of an iPhone with an advertised capacity of 33,800 mAh, supposedly enough to charge an iPhone eight times over. The physical size of a battery directly correlates with its capacity, so this power bank either violates the laws of physics or is is an obvious case of false advertising.

What to do about it: Compare the advertised capacity in mAh with that of major brands such as Anker or Mophie, and see if there's a mismatch in physical dimensions. Or, search the Amazon reviews for "mAh" and see how many people say the battery capacity isn't what it claims to be.

You can also shop directly on the websites for Aukey and RAVPower, as they tend to offer deep discounts on chargers and power banks that actually match their advertising.

Absent some meteorological anomaly, you should never expect to receive over-the-air channels from more than 70 miles away, even with the best outdoor antennas. That hasn't stopped vendors on Amazon and elsewhere from advertising reception ranges of hundreds, or even thousands, of miles.

I wrote about this issue over at TechHive earlier this year, but bring it up again here to reiterate how it's part of a larger problem: For certain types of tech products, vendors can inflate tech specs on Amazon with practically no consequence.

What to do about it: Ignore the range claims and expect to need an outdoor antenna for channels that are more than 30 miles away. (The website Antennaweb can also tell you what kind of antenna you'll need, based on your address.) Cheap, generic antennas can still work fine, but consider sticking with reputable brands such as Antennas Direct, Antop, Channel Master, or Winegard, and be prepared for some trial and error no matter what.

None of the above scams would be much of an issue if you could depend on Amazon's customer reviews to convey accurate information.

Unfortunately, fake reviews remain common despite Amazon's attempts to crack down, thanks to marketplaces on other sites that facilitate the buying and selling of favorable ratings. A related issue: Review hijacking, in which sellers find ways to bring in reviews from an entirely different product.

(Yes, the company kicked Aukey and RavPower off its site last year for incentivizing favorable reviews from customers, but at least their products work as advertised. Enforcement against vast numbers of smaller and seedier sellers won't be so easy.)

What to do about it: Ignore the star ratings entirely, and instead harness the review section to search for objective product details, such as the number of devices a battery can charge simultaneously. For a more subjective analysis, and look for product reviews on other sites or on YouTube, and if that's not possible, at least consider using a tool such as ReviewMeta to filter out fakes. Make sure to sort reviews by "most recent" instead of "top reviews" for good measure.

If there's an overarching pattern here, it's that you shouldn't believe everything you read on Amazon (or anywhere else, for that matter). A healthy dose of skepticism is warranted before hitting that big, golden "Buy Now" button.

Watch out for "pay yourself" scams: Elsewhere on the fraud front, I just got an email from Bank of America warning about a "trending payment scam" that tries to bypass two-factor authentication on bank accounts. It works like this:

The broader takeaways here are that you can't always trust caller ID, and that you should never share your one-time security codes with anyone. For more help with two-factor authentication, check out my previous newsletter on locking down your accounts the right way.

Amazon's new Kindle: Amazon has updated its entry-level Kindle e-reader to include a sharper screen, USB-C charging, and 16 GB of storage, but it's also raising the price from $90 to $100.

For an extra $40, the Kindle Paperwhite still has some advantages, including a larger display, waterproofing, and adjustable warmth levels for its built-in screen light. I wouldn't pay full price for either one, though. With the holidays approaching, discounts can't be too far off.

Smarter light bulbs: I love this idea from WiZ to build motion sensing features directly into its Wi-Fi-enabled light bulbs. By measuring small changes in Wi-Fi signal strength, the bulbs can detect when someone's in a room and adjust the lights without any complicated external sensors or invasive security cameras. A free software update coming this month will bring the feature to all WiZ light bulbs released in the last year, the only catch being that you need at least two bulbs in a room for it work.

Hidden iOS 16 tricks: As always, some of the best features in Apple's latest software update are also the easiest to miss. Here are a handful under-the-radar tweaks you should know about if you've installed iOS 16 already:

And for the Apple haters, a perennially fun topic: The list of iOS 16 features that Android already has.

Brain sounds for geeks: Music for Programming is a free website that curates instrumental tracks to help you focus. I dig the site's code-like interface, though you can alternatively enjoy the same mixes via iTunes or Google Podcasts. The developer also has a separate site called "BUSINESSFUNK" that's worth a listen even if it's less conducive to staying focused. (Via Recomendo)

Staples has just revived its electronics recycling rewards program, giving you $5 in store credit when you bring in your old monitors, cables, keyboards, printers, and other gear. The store will take up to seven items per day, and you can earn the recycling credit once every month, though you do need to join the store's free rewards program first.

For phones, tablets, and computers, I still suggest looking on Flipsy or Sellcell to see if they have any value before recycling them. But the Staples program is a helpful way to offload extremely old tech and peripherals that would otherwise earn you nothing.

Some notable deals this morning:

Hey folks, just a heads-up that next week's newsletter will go out on Wednesday, September 28, as I'll be off earlier in the week for Rosh Hashanah. We'll be back to the regular Tuesday schedule on October 4.

In the meantime, send me your tech questions by replying to this email, or say hello in Slack!

Until next week,

Jared