Archive for the ‘victim sellers’ Category
Beware of fake USB flash drives on ebay from seller sinskinny
Beware ebayers – flash drives from Hong Kong based seller (registered on 22 June) are certain to be fake capacity and a fake capacity flash drive corrupts files. This devious seller has hiked up delivery charges to make it difficult for defrauded buyers to get their money back.
We advise everyone who buys flash memory items to test them with the free program h2testw irrespective of where they were purchased – otherwise you run the risk of data loss and corruption.
Report your fake if testing confirms you have purchased fake capacity flash memory on ebay.
ebay seller in Germany sold fake flash drives from fraudulent supplier as faulty
Seller vorratsspeicher (like many ebay sellers) fell into the trap of buying fake capacity USB flash drives from a fraudulent supplier. The seller realised something was wrong and sold this one and quite a few others as faulty. They are not faulty – they are deliberately created fakes. If you are an ebay seller and plan to sell flash memory items, please do your research first! There are a lot of fraudulent suppliers out there.
Always test at least a sample of any flash memory items you plan to sell as soon as they arrive (this way you stand some chance of getting a refund from the supplier if there are any problems) and don’t list them for sale on ebay unless you are sure they are genuine!
There is no real fix for fake capacity memory items – for a number of technical reasons they will never be reliable even if returned to their true (much smaller than advertised) capacity and will always be prone to sudden failure.
We advise everyone who buys flash memory items to test them with the free program h2testw irrespective of where they were purchased – otherwise you run the risk of data loss and corruption.
Report your fake if testing confirms you have purchased fake capacity flash memory on ebay.
UPDATE 16/06/2010
This seller is still at it – see ebay item number 280521894993 – fake fake fakity fake. Seems that only one buyer (who reports the same model but in black leather) as having only 2GB capacity has yet noticed that the flash drives from this seller are fakes.
UK ebay seller urbanturban obviously does not understand the fake flash memory problem!!
It seems that UK ebay member urbanturban bought a large number of obviously fake 128GB USB flash drives from a fraudulent supplier (probably in China) and discovered there is a problem with them. It seems this seller did no research before buying these to sell on ebay.
Please, pretty please?? Do some research before buying flash memory items to sell on ebay and test at least a 10% sample (wherever you bought!) to save both yourself and your buyers from greif.
The flash drive in this listing is not faulty it is a fake capacity USB flash drive that was deliberately programmed to show a false capacity to the operating system. A fake capacity flash drive always corrupts files after a while.
We doubt that urbanturban is a fraudster – it is more likely that he (or she) is simply an ordinary ebayer who fell foul of a fraudulent supplier. We hope this seller will do the honourable thing and refund any buyers – a painful financial loss, but the only honest thing to do in this situation. If urbanturban wants to get in touch we will do our best to help the seller get a refund from the supplier – sadly this is often extremely difficult.
We advise everyone who buys flash memory items to test them with the free program h2testw irrespective of where they were purchased – otherwise you run the risk of data loss and corruption.
Report your fake if testing confirms you have purchased fake capacity flash memory on ebay.
We doubt that these 128GB DT200 USB flash drives are genuine
We think that budgetelectricalstore09 may have purchase these 128GB Kingston DT200 USB flash drives from a fraudulent wholesaler. If this is the case they will be counterfeit and fake capacity – such drives corrupt files. If they are genuine they will have individual serial numbers that can be verified with Kingston.
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.
Top rated US ebay seller lists suspect Kingston DT150 USB flash drives at auction with 99 cent start price
A top rated US ebay seller, with 100% positive rating, listed these counterfeit Kingston flash drives on ebay. We fear that this seller could lose his or her good reputation by listing these. Read the rest of this entry »
Very curious listings for Kingston flash drives on ebay
Recently Kingston and other manufacturers have been gradually discontinuing lower capacity flash drives as consumer demand moves towards higher capacities. The drive shown in listings by UK seller amadiokpo seem to show one such drive -except we think it is probably not a genuine Kingston.
The model in question has always been colour coded according to capacity. Genuine USB flash drives of this type with green parts were 2GB – lower capacities were different colours. Kingston have discontinued all flash drives in this range below 4GB.
Fraudsters in China mass produced copies of the green and white 2GB model and programmed them to show all sorts of fake capacities from 16GB to 64GB. These dangerous fakes have been sold through fraudulent wholesalers for a long time.
They were also sold on ebay (either by fraudsters in China or by ebay members around the world who bought from fraudulent wholesalers) for a long time. Indeed, they still crop up on ebay occasionally at high fake capacities.
The green and white model is now (like the lower capacity blue and white and brown and white) consigned to Kingston history. We should not see too many ebay listings for these as 8GB, 16GB or higher in future. Now to the interesting bit!
How did UK ebay member amadiokpo come to list these as 265mb and 16GB as well as what one would expect (2GB) if they were genuine old 2GB Kingston stock being cleared out? No doubt members of the fightflashfraud team and other branches of the frankenflash project will already have guessed our thoughts!
At a guess it goes like this. The fraudsters in China were left with a mass of counterfeit drives of this type that had programmed to fake capacities left on their hands. They obviously could not get away with selling them as high capacity drives anymore – too many people knew the truth. What to do now??
Obvious – re-program them (yet again) but to a much lower capacity. However – each time a drive is reprogrammed in this way the fraud will be discovered sooner as the illusion of higher capacity becomes more difficut to maintain.
Only one way to go – program them much closer to the the true reamaining useable capacity (or even the actual remaining useable capacity) and get rid of them in bulk. What do we conclude – that these drives will have a short life although initially it may be possible to save close to the advertised capacity on them.
We think the drives may well be useable for small files you want to access elswhere (such as a word document that you want to access or print out on different computers when you are on the move) in the short term as long as you have the files backed up elsewehere – but we wouldn’t trust them with anything important!
We’d be interested to know if our conclusions prove correct.
We hope the seller and/or buyers test them with h2testw and let us know what they found.
UK seller disposes of fake 32GB Kingston on ebay
This listing has the following wording:
YOU ARE BIDDING ON A 32GB HACKED MEMORY STICK WITH ONLY 4GB REAL MEMORY
BOUGHT IT IN WHOLESALE AND INSTEAD OF THE REAL 32GB IT ONLY CAME WITH 4GB
THAT MEANS IT SHOWS 32GB BUT CAN ONLY HOLD 4GB
I HAVE ONLY TESTED ONE OF THEM AND THAT CAN HOLD UP TO 4GB!
SO I AM SELLING THEM OFF FOR A LOSS SINCE THE SELLER ONLY GAVE ME A PARTIAL REFUND, HENCE THE PRICE
WILL SELL THE WHOLE LOT FOR £40 CONTACT ME IF INTRESTED
NO REUTRNS WILL BE ACCEPTED
HAPPY BIDDING
Unfortunately even if buyers of these can rescue these USB flash drives they are likely to end up with a poor quality and unreliable drive that cannot be trusted with important files. Sad as it is for a seller to find they have a bunch of fakes on their hands we don’t think they should be sold on even where the fact that they are fake capacity is clearly stated. Most computer users will not have the knowledge to make them useable and will therefore eventually end up losing files.
Please sellers – just take it on the chin if you find yourself with fakes – it is your responsibility to do your research properly before buying things to sell on ebay!
Are these 32GB Kingston flash drives on ebay USA genuine??
Is this 32GB Kingston flash drive listed by US seller edmarsinc genuine? We can’t be sure. The seller has been registered on ebay for a long time – so we hope that he or she tested the drives properly with h2testw rather than simply looking at the properties. Perhaps someone would be kind enough to contact edmarsinc and get the seller to test the drives with h2testw now if they didn’t do so before.
Many honest ebayers have recently bought flash drives to sell on ebay from fraudulent wholesalers in China and are unaware of the problem. It is up to you, dear readers, to alert them to this problem – the team is exhaused. There are far too many sellers listing Kingston drives that may be counterfeit for us to be able to contact more than a small fraction of them. We need your help dear reader – without it victims of fake flash (both buyers and sellers on ebay) will not be warned and many many more people will end up losing valuable files. If a seller ignores your warning please let us know – this is usually a sign of deliberate fraud.
Power seller in China joins the fake flash gravy train?
| Powerseller sicilydreamer, a member since 05-Aug-05 in Hong Kong has recently added a huge range of 8GB flash drives (some of which are shown above) to the repetoire of items being sold on ebay. This seller does not have the knock-down prices of most other sellers based in China. None of the drives listed has a start price under £17.
We were beginning to wonder whether we had finally found a genuine seller in China. Until we spotted the model on the right, that is. This is being sold on buy it now for £17.32 with free P&P. Not cheap for a genuine flash drive but not particularly dear either. However, we are certain this one is a fake – in which case it is an expensive way of losing your files. You can lose 7GB of files much more cheaply by buying from fraudsters with lower prices! |
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If you bought one of these test immediately with h2testw and report in with your results.
Report in to SOSFakeFlash if your testing confirms you have a false capacity device.
Appeal to ebayers: please warn sellers about fake flash memory
We at fightflashfraud (and other groups of ebayers who are concerned about the fake flash problem) need your help to rid ebay of fake flash memory. If you are reading this blog you have already become aware of the issue. This may because you are an ebay seller who was warned by ebayers that items you are selling are likely to be fake. It may be that you are an end-user who suddenly started to lose files you saved to flash memory.
Whoever you are – if you see anyone selling a flash memory item on ebay that looks as if it is fake please send them a message telling them you think it may be fake and asking them to test it with h2testw. Many ebay sellers do not know their items are fake – they are victims of the fake flash plague just like their buyers. Mostly they will have bought from fraudsters in China and had no idea the drives were fake capacity.
It will only take you a few minutes to send a message and you could save the seller from landing in a lot of trouble. If the seller has not removed the item from sale or been in touch with you after two days please leave a comment on this post with the item number and seller ID so that members of the frankenflash project can try to contact the member.
Guide to fake USB flash drives now available from fightflashfraud!
An ebay member has produced a guide to fake USB flash drives and has provided this to fightflashfraud in pdf format for you to download. The guide shows a variety of both fake and genuine flash drives and gives guidance about ways to spot fake USB flash drives. If you bought a USB flash drive that seems suspect you should test it immediately with h2testw. Fake flash drive = lost files in the long run! Go to the page: Guide to fake flash to get this valuable information
Ebay seller Alert!! Beware – your items may be fake!
It seems that many ebayers in the UK are buying fake USB flash drives and other fake flash memory items in bulk on web sites such as dhgate.com, alibaba.com and shoponclearance.com. They are then re-selling these items on eBay without realising their items are fake. We cannot stress enough how important resarch and testing are if you plan to sell flash memory items such as USB flash drives, SD memory cards, pro duo memory sticks, MP4 players and so on.
If an item shows a company name (such as Sony or Kingston) check their website to see if the item matches what is shown there. If not, it is probably fake. Whether or not they are branded items you should test them immediately they arrive with h2testw. Do not either release payment to the seller or list the items on eBay unless this test runs without errors.
Ebay sellers – if ebayers warn item is fake, take note.
If you have listed an item and ebayers tell you it is fake please pay attention. There are a lot of knowlegable ebayers out there – victims of fake flash themselves. They may be either sellers who bought from dishonest Chinese companies or end users who bought on Ebay and learned a lesson the hard way. They know what they are talking about and seldom if ever get it wrong. You should immediately end your listing and check your item. The easiest way is with h2testw – if it’s a large capacity drive a test involving the first 20GB should be enough to show it is fake. If your drive comes in packaging like the ones below it is certainly fake – in fact at these capacities there are no drives that look like these anyway!
See the page How to tell whether a USB flash drive to see the only real 32GB and 64GB Kingston – everything else is fake. Also see posts about fake Kingston for info about lower capacity fake Kingston.
Ebay seller alerted that 120GB Sony flash drive is fake
Thankfully some ebay sellers take heed of warnings from members about fake flash items. Here is an example:
An ebayer who spotted a fake 120GB Sony flash drive being listed sent the seller a question. The seller posted the question and answer in his listing:
Q: Not a real 120GB see: http://fakeflashnews.totalh.com/2009/01/09/guide-on-fake-sony-32gb-64gb-120gb-360gb-500gb-micro-vault-usb-flash-drives-published-by-fakeflashnews/ 18-Feb-09
A: Hi there … seems i may have been sold some fake goods then! We are investigating the capacity etc and authenticity with the suppliers and the site that you’ve directed me to. Thank you! At least I bought them via paypal so will get my money back, hopefully! Thanks again! I’ve made sure that everyone can see our discussion by ticking the box to allow it …
Read the rest of this entry »
Ebay seller uk-trader-2000 falls victim to Internet fraud
UK based ebay seller uk-trader-2000 seems to have been an innocent victim of internet fraud. This seller bought what were advertised as Sony flash drives on the Internet. He bought them from Chinese wholesalers who, it seems, knowingly commit fraud on sites such as dhgate.com and re-sold these drives on eBay thinking that looking at the properties of a drive was enough to check that they were genuine. We have heard from some buyers and see from the seller’s feedback that he has refunded others we didn’t hear from. He is not alone – many ebay sellers have fallen victim to fraudulent wholesalers. We strongly advise everyone to check with Sony, Kingston etc before buying anything with a brand name or trademark belonging to these companies.
This seller is now very out of pocket as a result of his mistake – fightflashfraud hopes he can eventually get his money back – but he may have a long, hard fight ahead! We urge him not to give up. Why should fraudsters be allowed to walk off with our money?
Fighting flash fraud on Ebay 