Fighting flash fraud on Ebay

It seems that bizzy-shop is yet another ebayer who has snapped up fake flash drives on ebay from fraudsters in China and is now re-selling them to other members. We’d be very interested to know how bizzy-shop proposes to fulfil the promised warranty on the item shown on the left!!

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.

China-based ebay seller rtechrocks685625 has sold a number of flash drive models – all supposedly 16GB. Three of the models from this seller are shown above. They were sold at prices which make us suspect that these are fake capacity items. This seller is a bit more careful than most – spacing flash drives out among a range of other items. This lessens the likelihood of negative feedback reaching a percentage that will cause ebay to suspend the seller. The drive on the far left is one of the favourites with fraudsters – easy to program to whatever fake size the like but usually only really 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.

We think this flash drive listed by lany52000 is likely (like most coming out of China) to prove to be fake capacity. This seller seems to be careful to space flash drives out between other items. We expect that this is so that any negative feedback is less likely to lead to suspension of the account. 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.

Here again we see the favourite model for re-programming to display whatever capacity fraudulent wholesalers want the customer to see. We have not yet come across one of these that had a true capacity over 2GB. We suspect these are like all the rest and that the seller bought them from a fraudulent supplier. We do not know whether the seller is aware these are likely to be fakes or is a victim of his supplier but either way we are fairly certain that these will prove to have a capacity nowhere near 32GB.

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 seller facechat is not offering genuine DT 150 flash drives here. For one thing the listing states there is a choice of colours.

There is no choice of colours for this model – the only genuine ones are the colour shown in the picture.

Two other things make us very suspicious – the seller first showed a drive that is not available in 64GB at all, then changed the picture. The seller is also keeping buyer IDs private – usually a sign of fraud when it comes to flash memory.

Anyone who bought one of these can check with Kingston to find out whether the drive is genuine or not – we think not!

This flash drive listed on ebay by seller happytianqing, a member registered in China seems too cheap for it to be a genuine 16GB flash drive. We think that this, like almost all flash memory from sellers in China, will prove to be fake capacity. 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 ebay seller memoryking_com seems to be bidding on fake flash from fraudsters in China and re-selling it at a higher price to other ebayers. The fact that buyer IDs are private suggests that this seller may be aware the flash drive shown here is fake capacity. 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 21 August
Seems like (as well as the one bought on ebay that was re-sold) the seller has been shopping in fake flash land and come back with a bulk lot of the fraudsters’ favourite flash drive (same model) which are now being sold on buy it now at £17.50 with free P&P.

What can we say except that this seems too cheap to be geniune and that we think denghongmeisell12 is yet another new ID for a familiar fraud gang in China. 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.