Fighting flash fraud on Ebay

What do we think about this listing??

We think that as sure as eggs are eggs the flash drive on offer is a fake – and the seller clare12374 seems to know it! We think this seller is a deliberate fraudster, but she is welcome to prove otherwise!

Her listing says:

32GB high speed USB 2.0. USB flash drive
Supports windows, vista, mac osx and linux 2,4x
32GB Brand New sealed in packaging.
We have had these made unbranded for our company and are 100% tested and working. The benefit of this device you are not paying just for a name.

These are formatted to UK standard (Fat 32) these are good quality. We dont sell rubbish and anyone that purchases one of these will be very happy.

We beg to differ – we think clare12374’s customers will end up very unhappy when their files become lost or corrupted. Of course, by then, clare12374 will (like so many fraudsters) have disappeared off the scene of the crime.

Of course (if we are wrong and clare12374 is honest) she will immediately test any flash drives she has in stock and remove them from sale. She will also (of course) refund all buyers in full straight away, without question. Somehow we don’t see it – but you never know!

It seems that ebay member clothing.srl has been shopping in fake flash land. The back of the pack shown in the listing lacks the serial number sticker that is present on genuine drives of this type. The seller may be unaware the item is counterfeit – please sellers – check your items are genuine before listing them for sale!

As ever, we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory (whether USB flash drive, memory card or MP player) with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

We strongly suspect that our devious friends in China have set up a whole new set of ebay IDs to scam ebayers with fake flash memory.

All seem to be selling a very familiar model of flash drive (the most common and longest lasting fake capacity flash drive seen on ebay – shown on the left) using the devious tactic of saying the item is in the UK although the seller is in China!

Careless ebayers who don’t read listings properly (sadly most) are fooled into thinking it must be OK if it is in the UK.

We have news for you – even if this flash drive WAS in the UK (which it undoubtedly isn’t) that doesn’t stop it being a fake capacity item that will corrupt or magically “disappear” your files.

Many ebayers in the UK and elsewhere in the world have now been supplied with fake flash by fraudulent wholesalers and listed these fakes for sale on ebay.

Some are knowing fraudsters who are selling fakes deliberately (like our devious sellers in the far east) but others are innocent victims who had no idea the items they bought were fake.

Either way, all looks well when you plug the flash drive into your computer – the operating system shows what you would expect. Great! Maybe at this point you foolishly leave the seller positive feedback – big mistake!

Perhaps you are a slightly more cautious person, so you write some files to it – seems as though they are written to the drive and they appear in the index. You are now satisfied you got a bargain and leave positive feedback for the seller. Still a big mistake!

It is only when you have “saved” enough data to the flash drive to exceed the real capacity that the problems start! Sometimes this happens months after you bought a fake capacity item. Most buyers think the drive developed a fault when this happens. Not so. It was inevitable that eventually files would be lost or corrupted because the real capacity of the drive was much smaller than advertised.

Once the real capacity is exceeded there is nowhere for files to go! Sometimes the drive becomes totally corrupt and you lose everything you saved to it. If you are lucky you may be able to retrieve some of the files you saved early on.

Do not think you can buy an 8GB drive for £6, a 16GB drive for £12 or a 32GB for £35! All you will get is something fake fake fakity-fake!

It seems that UK seller sabiastyles786 has been shopping in fakeflash land and come back with some fake sony drives. These were not made by Sony and do not have 32GB capacity. They are fake capacity flash drives that will cause data to become lost or corrupt.

The seller’s description does not match the picture – in the listing sabiastyles786 says:

The USB connector is safely housed inside the sleek case, so you don’t have to worry about losing a cap.

Ahem – not if the drive looks anything like the one in the picture! We have seen this wording in other listings for fake Sony from ebayers registered in the UK. This makes us wonder if this new ID belongs to someone who previously tried to dump fakes on ebayers using a different ID – this sort of thing is all too common!

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

This item from seller mariandl06 just screams fake to us. No flash drive in this packaging has ever proved to be genuine capacity – all were small drives fraudulently programmed to appear to have higher capacities. The seller may not be aware that these are likely to be fake.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

The heading on an ebay listing for over 90 flash drives by seller aceelectronics_uk says the drives on offer are 1GB Kingston DataTraveler but the picture shown (see left) is of a 2GB DataTraveler and elsewere the drives are described as 4GB SanDisk!

We were under the impression that the 1GB model had been discontinued – does this mean the seller has a huge batch of old stock or what?? We are very confused about this listing and don’t know what to make of it at all.

We will be interested to hear from anyone who bought one.

As always we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

The flash drive shown here is not a genuine 16GB Kingston – it is the wrong colour to be a 16GB drive! Seems that seller king8830 did not do the research all sellers should do before buying flash drives to sell on ebay. Buyers will end up with lost and corrupted files if they use this fake capacity item.

As always we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

Fourteen buyers of this almost certainly counterfeit flash drive sold by mr.mino76 have already left positive feedback. It seems that buyers probably neither checked with Kingston nor tested their drives. These buyers are likely to have a nasty shock when their files start to be lost or corrupted.

We think this listing by ebay member hadi_fayad (registered in France) looks rather suspect.

As ever, we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory (whether USB flash drive, memory card or MP player) with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

This is an obvious fake Kingston – the purple and white model is 4GB and there are no drives of a capacity higher than 16GB in this range! We do not know if seller daniela_m_shop is aware it is a fake or not.

The same model has been listed by kuor75 another ebay member in Italy.

Sellers – please be responsible – check that your merchandise is genuine before listing it on ebay!

As usual we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

New ebayer bholding.inc2000 has listed this very obvious fake for sale – perhaps someone will be kind enough to tell this new ebay member that his flash drives are fake and get him to check with Kingston.

We suspect that these 16GB USB flash drives from 841024cj are fake capacity – so far it seems that no buyers have tested their items as all have left positive feedback.

The two leather-look drives are commonly sold in a range of fake capacities – the longest standing model of fake capacity flash drive on ebay.

We suspect the Hello Kitty will also prove to be a fake capacity item.

We urge all buyers of flash memory to test test them all (whether USB flash drive, memory card or MP player) with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

UK ebay seller b4rga1ns_4_u has sold a number of these counterfeit flash drives. Instead of doing the decent thing (refunding buyers and withdrawing them from sale) this seller accuses buyers who discover they are fake of “tampering” with the drives. Here are feedback comments from those who found out and the seller’s responses:

This seller is obviously a proper charmer! If you bought a Kingston flash drive from this seller contact Kingston – they will confirm that your item is counterfeit. Perhaps they might even like to take b4rga1ns_4_u to court for damaging their reputation!

Ebayer munkyhunk has been to fake flash land and come back with one of the most obvious of fake flash drives. Please sellers – do your research before selling flash drives on ebay!

As ever, we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory (whether USB flash drive, memory card or MP player) with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

Seller sales-producer registered with ebay Hong Kong on 15th May 2009. The seller offered many of the item below and sold them at what must have been a loss by the time fees, post and packing are taken into account:

These account for the majority of sales to date and the first feedback comment the seller received for these was on 24/06/09. The seller sold his first flash drive on the 23/06/09 – at present the seller is only listing one 4GB model shown below:

At the time of writing three of these have been sold and a further 30 were listed. We do not know yet whether these are genuine or fake capacity. As this model of flash drive is the most common fake capacity drive sold on ebay (sometimes in fake capacities up to a whopping 64GB) we wonder if we happened across the start of a new fraud operation.

As usual we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

This flash drive listed by hkeagle168 seems a bit on the cheap side to be genuine. As the seller was already caught out with fake 8GB flash drives we are certain this will turn out to be yet another fake capacity drive that will eventually cause file loss and corruption for anyone who uses one.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

This site www.kingstonusbcf.com sells counterfeit Kingston Technology products confirmed by Kingston Technlogies. Located in China, this site seems immune to law authorities. SSFakeFlash, fights fraud on eBay and believes that with the assistence of the global public this site can be stopped from frauding and harming people. Read SOSFakeFlash News June 26th, 2009

An ebay seller in Germany has listed these very suspect looking 64GB USB flash drives at auction with a start price of 1 Euro.

The seller has also listed the same model with 32GB capacity, again with an auction start price of 1 Euro. We think these were purchased from a fraudulent wholesaler and will prove to be fake capacity drives which will cause data loss for users.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

We think the buy it now price for this 32GB Sandisk flash drive is a little too cheap for it to be genuine.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

Hong Kong based ebay seller ediscount88 looks a little suspect to us. Feedback suggests this seller has sold fake MP players in the past but none are currently listed for sale. However the 16GB flash drives shown below are currently on sale. So far there are no negative comments about these, however one buyer who left a positive comment said that a refund was given, which adds to our suspicion that these will turn out to be fake capacity drives.

As always we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

Seller shady-aftermath07 recently sold what we think are counterfeit 64GB Kingston DataTraveler 150 flash drives. The prices which the six sold fetched at auction was less than the wholsale price of real ones so unless this seller can afford to throw money away we are convinced they just have to be fakes – probably with a true capacity no more than 2GB. If you bought from this seller do not leave feedback until you have checked with Kingston – they should be able to tell you whether the drive is genuine or not – every real one has a unique serial number.

This flash drive is one of the longest standing models to be fraudulently programmed to false capacities by fraudsters and sold on ebay.

This model has been offered by almost every fraudster from the far east who sold on ebay. It has been sold as 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB at various times (depending on what the fraudsters thought they could get away with) and it still keeps appearing.

Hong Kong based seller showwhat is selling it at auction as a 16GB drive but we doubt if the true capacity is more than 2GB.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

Seller seminolea168518 (registered in China on March 27th) only bought things until a week ago. Now the seller is listing this 32GB flash drive at auction and the same model on buy it now at under £35. We think this is too cheap for them to be genuine.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

Fraudulent ebay seller esraelonline was warned that the 128GB USB flash drive previously listed on ebay was fake. This has not deterred this seller from listing another fake model. If you buy from this seller you can kiss goodbye to your files! There is only one genuine 128GB flash drive being manufactured at the moment – and none of the drives listed by this seller are it. Nor will any others listed on ebay be genuine.

Why? Because it is a very expensive special order item that was only announced of 15th June. It not available on general sale and there is a waiting list stretching at least a month ahead for individual special orders. We expect it will be many months from now before 128Gb USB flash drives become generally available.

Here are pictures of the two fake capacity flash drives listed by esaraelonline:

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

UPDATE 06/07/09
There are now three 128GB models of USB flash drive – but still none that match the items listed by this seller who claims to have tested them with h2testw. We are not convinced – he made every effort in his first listing to dissuade people from testing his drives with h2testw by saying:

Please note that testing on H2TESTW require formating the USB Flash drive. At this volume (128GB) the USB might be harmed if formated.
Again, remember that we are guaranting 128 GB capacity on this item along with 12 month warranty. Nevertheless, Warranty is void if the USB has been formated.

After being challenged by an ebay member and reading the posts here he provided a link to h2test results that (as far as we can see) do not compute! We are not in the business of persecuting innocent sellers. Everything we saw with this seller (who is magically selling nothing after leaving comments and reading our responses) seems to indicate guilt. We leave it to our readers to judge whether esraelonline can be trusted!

This listing by seller cdss-pl is screaming fake fake fakity fake. Why? The packaging, the price and the fact that buyer IDs are private. The seller also listed the same model in 32GB. If you bought one of these test it with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

UPDATE 15/7/09

This seller is now auctioning 128GB and 64GB Kingmax U-drive flash drives. We see these offered for sale by many fraudulent sellers but there is no mention anywhere on the Kingmax site of these flash drives being available at these capacities. As far as we are aware there are only three manufacturers who produce 128GB flash drives and Kingmax is not one of them so we expect these are just as fake as the one shown above.

The packaging shown here indicates that this flash drive from Hong Kong ebay seller bestvaluezone is a fake.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

It appears that seller roberta5142 registered in Italy may have been on a visit to fake flash land and bought counterfeit and fake capacity 64GB DataTraveler 150 drives to sell on ebay. The bid start price is well below the wholesale price of genuine flash drives of this capacity, so we think these were purchased from a fraudulent supplier. The seller may be unaware that they are likely to be counterfeits – perhaps someone in Italy could get in touch and warn the seller.

Please, sellers – do not list Kingston flash drives for sale on ebay unless Kingston has confirmed they are genuine!

We suspect that USA based ebay seller needforpower has been shopping in fake flash land and purchased counterfeit 64GB Kingston DataTraveler 150 USB flash drives from a fraudulent wholesaler. If we are right then anyone using one will suffer data loss (assuming the drives work at all) after a while. Kingston flash drives of this type should have a unique serial number which can be used to verify genuine ones with Kingston.

If you bought one of these and discover it is counterfeit report in to sosfakeflash.

It seems highly unlikely that the job lot of 5 Kingston 64GB DataTraveler being offered for sale here by i.i.x.i.i are genuine – the price is far too low. If you bought a Kingston DataTraveler 150 on ebay you should test it immediately it arrives with the free program h2testw

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

Is eBay the place to buy MP Players cheap? Can you get a 8GB or 16GB or 32GB Player on eBay for less that $40 or $50 US? SOSFakeFlash is launching an education week for consumers. Recently they launched an general education week on fake and counterfeit memory devices sold on eBay: SOSFakeFlash Consumer Education Week 20090605 – 20090612. The Problem of Counterfeit and Fake Memory Sold On Ebay

This time they will be show casing sellers who sold false capacity MP Players. Too many buyers fall for seller claims that the units are defective. Most never learn the truth, these items have had their flash chips manipulated to report a size much larger that the chips can support. SOSFakeFlash is inviting buyers to learn more and leave comments on their experiences.

Visit this site during the next week for an eye opening education!

http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/

The information is useful, not only to people who buy on eBay but any where on the internet for MP Players. Become a smart consumer!

The Id flamur_12 was registered on ebay in Germany on June 20th 2009 and this seller immediately listed these very fishy 32GB flash drives for sale. This makes us suspect that this ID may have been set up deliberately for the purpose of fraud.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

This supposedly 16GB flash drive is far too cheap to be genuine – real ones cost nearly double this! The seller is also offering the models below at impossibly cheap prices – guess what we think about ebay seller judgemed96858?

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

Il semble que beaucoup de vendeurs ebay ont acheté Kingston contrefait 150 commandes de Datatraveler des fournisseurs frauduleux. Les vendeurs en France qui sont tombés dans le piège instantané faux incluent : marseillais-13260, bougotte, claudineb2828, corentincc et fraise0sucre. Les vendeurs satisfont vérifient avec Kingston que vos commandes instantanées sont véritables avant la liste ils sur ebay !

Hong Kong based ebay seller worldseller0988 recently started selling this most classic of all USB flash drives to fall prey to the frankenflash treatment. We have little doubt that these like all others we have come across will prove to be fake capacity.

We doubt if the true capacity comes anywhere near 16GB – most likely they will prove to have a true capacity of 2GB or less. This seller built up a very credible feedback score before embarking on fake flash drive sales – a cautious fraudster by the look of things!

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

If the DataTraveler 150 flash drives sold by dkl79 are genuine why is this United States based seller keeping buyer IDs private. We suspect these may be counterfeits bought from a fraudulent supplier.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

UK seller spicybargains has listed a batch of 64GB Datatraveler 150 flash drives at the unrealistically low price of £64.99 with free P&P. No one could make a profit on genuine drives of this type at this price, therefore these have to be counterfeits sold by fraudulent wholesalers. This seller is not alone:

Seller clickon786 has listed these at £49.99 with free P&P, ronaldkibuuka at £50 plus £1.50 P&P, thecskate at £50 plus £2 P&P and all-things-reeds at £50 plus a whopping £15 P&P

Please ebay sellers – do your homework!

You cannot buy genuine 64GB DataTraveler drives at a price low enough to sell them on ebay much below £100. If you buy at a low price you are buying counterfeits which will cause file loss and data corruption fro your customers.

Do you want to be responsible for a designer’s business going under because they saved their designs to the flash drive you supplied? Or a student failing their course because their final submission was saved on a flash drive from you? Or someone losing all their family photos? These things have happened to people who used fake capacity flash drives.

We think that the flash drive (item number 280361437726)  listed in a 24 hour auction by seller p-ultimaltd with a starting bid price of 99p has to be fake. The seller is using private auctions (usually a certain indication of fraud where flash memory is concerned) and clearly states he will not accept returns:

returns are not accepted we only resale this items from factory if you have any problems you need to contact manufacturer for your 5 yeas warranty

Think this just about says it all! Kingston will not refund your money if a flash drive is counterfeit (which we are pretty certain any from this seller will be) the seller is going to resist refunding you and so are ebay and paypal – they want to keep their mitts on the ill-gotten gains too!

Do not buy Kingston DataTraveler 150 flash drives from any seller on ebay!! You will almost certainly be defrauded. If there is a genuine ebay seller of these we would be pleased to hear about it – we will check with Kingston!

Feedback comments indicate that the 8GB flash drives shown above which were sold by kenqyeung08 are fake capacity (2GB not 8GB). Unlike most sellers in China (who are normally polite to buyers) this one responds to negatives by saying that buyers are lying.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

An ebay member in Australia sold this fake 128GB Kingston USB flash drive for AU $127.50 (approximately £62.56) today. Kingston only announced the first ever 128GB made by anyone on 15th of June. The flash drive looks nothing like this and it is only available on special order. The item shown above is fake fake fakity-fake.

We hoped the seller would pay heed to the ebayer who warned him about this item being fake and remove the item from sale quickly. Not a bit of it. Instead it seems that seller tuyet130953 grabbed the money from the highest bidder and ended the sale early. Not what we would call an honourable course of action!

Ebay sellers be aware – the frankenflash project is watching you. If you sell fake flash memory then you are likely to end up with your ebay ID turning up in internet searches and your reputation going down the pan. It is your responsibility to check that your flash memory items are genuine – when you list an item you accept full responsibility for your listing. Selling fake and counterfeit flash drives is fraud and if you commit fraud you can hardly complain at the consequences.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

Seller hkonstore11 is not listing anything for sale on ebay at the moment but feedback suggests that the memory cards shown above and the all too familiar flash drive above were fake capacity. There is also a comment about a fake 16GB Hello Kitty flash drive. If you bought flash memory items from this seller test them with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

We have no idea where this ebay member got this Corsair flash drive but we do know that if it is genuine the seller is likely to make a huge loss.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

If the flash drive advertised here by seller blueberry_yang2008 genuinely has a capacity of 32GB we will be very surprised. The buy it now price seems too low for the seller to make a profit. The seller previously sold the same model as 2GB – we suspect this may be the true capacity of this flash drive. If you bought one of these you should test it immediately it arrives with the free program h2testw

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

It seems to us that yet another new ebay member has been shopping in fakeflashland and come back with counterfeit Kingston DataTraveler 150 flash drives in both “32GB and “64GB” capacities. The seller may be unaware that these are likely to be counterfeits – and the buyers who have left feedback so far probably didn’t either test their drives with h2testw or contact Kingston to verify them. Ever genuine DataTraveler 150 has a unique serial number which can be used to verify with Kingston that the drive is genuine.

UPDATE 24/06/09
This seller seems to have been de-registered by ebay – as usual they have made life more difficult for those who bought fakes by removing not only listings for items that had not yet been sold but those that had been bought and paid for – thanks a lot ebay!

If you bought a “Kingston” flash drive from this seller email Kingston with clear photographs of both sides of the USB connector, along with a clear photo of the back of the package. Ask them to email you confirmation that your flash drive is counterfeit. You should then be able to use this email as evidence to claim a refund through paypal. Read the articles on our blogs about PayPal refunds to learn about the dirty tricks they may employ to avoid giving you a refund so that you know how to deal with these!

These 64GB Kingston DataTraveler 150 flash drives listed by ebay member cyber_shop_2009 (registered in Australia) look just a bit too shiny to be the genuine ones and they seem to lack the engraving that should be on the USB connector. Each DataTraveler should have an individual serial number which can be checked with Kingston to verify that the drive is genuine.

If you find you have a bought a counterfeit Kingston please report in with your evidence to sosfakeflash.

We think that the starting bid prices listed for these flash drives offered by rlpista88 (a seller based in the United States) are far too low for these to be genuine.

We suspect they are fake capacity devices which were purchased from a fraudulent supplier in the far east.

Fake capacity flash memory causes file loss and corruption. Check all flash memory items before trusting your documents, photos, music, videos or whatever to them.

As ever we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

This feedback comment from a buyer indicates that the 64GB Kingston DataTraveler 150 USB flash drives sold by pctech-man (a seller based in the USA) are not genuine Kingston but counterfeits:

item did not work at all, contacted Kingston, there was no valid serial number

If you bought from this seller do what this buyer did – contact Kingston to check your drive out. No doubt you will get the same answer. Report the seller to ebay and sosfakeflash, claim a refund through paypal, and leave the seller a neg to warn others!

This flash drive from eseeshop (an ebay seller registered in Hong Kong) looks a bit too cheap to be genuine. We think it will turn out to be a fake capacity drive which will cause file loss/corruption. A negative feedback about the same model in black suggests we are right. As usual we strongly advise ebayers to test all flash memory with the free program h2testw.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

Who is Zhonghuanyun (cao you)? eBay fake flash seller of 16GB usb flash memory drives under the id’s of: sellasera68258, yazmin_yenthe_bay, sfrankish5872. All item were sent from this address in Hong Kong:

Zhonghuanyun(cao you)

Room 305,3/F,Block A
Sun Fung Centre,88 Kwok Shui
Rd,Kwai Chung
Honk Kong

sellasera68258 and sfrankish5872 are under eBay suspension in fake flash prison. yams_yenthe_bay is attempting to evade buyers by changing his feedback to private. Those who engage in selling false capacity usb flash drives on eBay have many id’s. It spreads the risk and avoids being found out. You can learn more by reading: eBay Fake Flash Sellers Of MP Players – USB Flash Drives – Memory Cards – About Their IDs

sellasera68258, yams_yenthe_bay, sfrankish5872 engaged in hit and run selling. Together they sold many fake usb flash drives in a very short period of time. If you bought a usb flash drive from any of these eBay seller id’s you risk data loss. Please test and a file a claim against the seller id with PayPal quickly, before it is too late.

• June 4th 2009 sellasera68258 Ebay Fake Flash Seller Alert – China
• June 14th, 2009 yazmin_yenthe_bay Ebay Fake Flash Seller Alert – China
• June 14th, 2009 sfrankish5872 Ebay Fake Flash Seller High Alert – China

So were is Zhonghuanyun(cao you)? The FrankenFlash Project invites the Hong Kong Technology Crime Prevention Unit to send inspectors to pay him a visit. He has some explaining to do. Why did he unleash data poison on inspecting eBay members around the world? His guilt is clear/ Trying to save his yazmin_yenthe_bay ebay id from angry victims by changing his feedback to private do no good. Zhonghuanyun(cao you) fake flash deeds have been found out!

Zhonghuanyun(cao you)

Room 305,3/F,Block A
Sun Fung Centre,88 Kwok Shui
Rd,Kwai Chung
Honk Kong

is here:

If you bought a usb flash drive from sellasera68258, yazmin_yenthe_bay or sfrankish5872 please report into SOSFakeFlash using the Report A Fake Tab.

Just who did the seller that listed this item as a 128GB Kingston DataTraveler 200 think he was fooling? Certainly not the team at fightflashfraud.

The Kingston DatatTraveler 200 was only announced on June 15th and already someone tried to cash in. The DT200 looks nothing like this picture. An ebay member asked the seller a question about the fact that it looked nothing like a DT200 and got this answer:

This was actually a prototype design release, that’s why it looks like a quite generic Kingston design. It’s actually horrendously rare and you will probably never see one again that looks like this. Despite what I have just said that is purely the design, the technical features and memory remain exactly the same.

So it’s an experimental model is it? Is this person claiming to be a Kingston insider? If he is a Kingston employee we think he will quickly be out of a job! Is our Australian friend telling us that he walked into the Kingston labs and pocketed an experimental drive without being challenged? Wait a minute… that doesn’t add up with what was said in the body of the listing! In the body of the listing it said:

“Brand new and packaged this device is ready to go from a trusted Australian Seller.”

Ahem! Companies do not package their experimental models and sell them off! We are glad the seller had the good sense to remove the item from sale before he landed himself in some very hot water indeed. The seller was right about one thing – the rarity of such an item being listed on ebay! Rarely are people quite so stupid or bold as to list such an outrageously obvious fake!

Ebay sellers – please don’t think you can get away with listing outrageous fakes like this. Members of the frankenflash project are watching you. Ebay and Paypal’s ability (or more likely, willingness) to spot fakes and try to protect buyers from fraud may be non-existent but ours isn’t.

Seller szsa19810908 registered as an ebay member on 15-Apr-09 in China. Just under two months later this member started listings for the 16GB flash drive shown on the left. This looks to be a classic fake that has been sold on ebay under numerous IDs for a very long time.

The seller is also listing 16GB SD cards. We strongly advise anyone who bought flash memory items from this seller to test them immediately with h2testw. We think you may well be at risk of losing all your files.

Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.

UPDATE: This seller has been suspended by ebay – get your paypal refund claim in quickly!