BEWARE of FAKE 8GB/16GB/20GB USB Pen Drives in ebay

[prathy_nair]

A significant high number of eBayers have been deceived by fake pen drives!
Most of the well-known branded counterfeits even have brand new packaging, serial numbers like a real brand.

I was fooled into thinking I could get a 16GB Kingston brand USB flash drive for half of the market price. I bought this 16 GB Kingston drive for Rs.1300 + 200 shipping from the seller “chughgagan786”. I received the item without Kingston’s brand Pack but looks like original Kingston printed "DataTraveler 16GB".

When I connected the drive in my computer, it shows there is 16GB capacity. Every time I copy files onto it they get corrupted. I've tried it on a few machines and every time it crashes, seems to be when I go over 512MBb. The machine shows 16GB in properties though. I formatted it on Wndows XP and tried it again and again, in vain. The pen drive I received is Kingston brand blue color Capless swivel design. I looked at Kingston website and they don’t make a 16GB drive with swivel design/blue color. Their 16GB drives are DataTraveler Vault type!

Finally I've just discovered that this is a FAKE Pen drive. I searched for this problem and found a software - iformat (downloaded from : http://www.mediafire.com/?xrsmsai5rxy ) . This nifty program sorted my FAKE 16GB to its actual size 512MB capacity!
This 16 GB drive is reprogrammed from much smaller cousins 256MB, 512GB, 1GB capacity drives for quick profit! .

In fake pen drives, adding files slowly upto the 'fake' storage size will seem fine as there is some sort of programming, code or application which either compresses or 'fakes' the files you save. For e.g. a 128MB USB Pen Drive re-programmed to 2GB will save 128MB fine, but anything above that is compressed or fake 'hex' data and these files will stop working within days, weeks, or months if you are lucky. Too late to get a refund. Sure the seller will say it was a one-off problem if you have a problem with yours within days, and send you another fake 128MB posing as 2GB and you'll happily delude yourself for a short while until you realise that you ignored your instincts, the alarm bells, and me telling you that you should ask for a refund. Fortunately I caught him before I leave a positive feedback for the seller and informed the same to Paisapay. Now I have to wait till few more days to complete the normal process.

I found the following review in ebay about the Fake pen drives with pictures:
http://reviews.ebay.com/BEWARE-of-FAKE-1GB-2GB-4GB-8GB-USB-Flash-Drives-on-eBay_W0QQugidZ10000000001456613

There was a Taiwanese news article which suggested that the controller provider (ie, the IC design house) helped flash card/USB flash drive manufacturers in China to cheat the size:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitimes.com.tw%2Fn%2Farticle.asp%3Fid%3D0000050613_B6TLI47WP40NCFW4Q9HFB&langpair=zh%7Cen&hl=pt-BR&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

I hope this information would be helpful for the people in ebay search for high capacity pen drives!. Either some kind of action is required by ebay to stop this kind of fraud or buyers would lose faith in ebay.

With Regards,
prathy_nair

[gauharjk]

I was fooled with the fake pen drives. I bought 2 of them at 1200 a piece... Unfortunately, it was all money wasted... 😞

[profitbargains]

Dear Buyers,

I think this is an issue with a handful of sellers who are using non-ethical means to sell their items on eBay. I think there are a few steps as buyers you can take to protect yourself.

Please buy from a seller who offer "Easy To Buy" Feature rather than "Buy It Now". This would protect the buyer and would enable him to return the defective product back to the seller.

Insist on a Sealed Pack product in its original packaging only.

Insist on a VAT Tax Invoice with the serial number of the product on the same.

Confirm the appropriate service center numbers and addresses before you complete a purchase with the seller.

Use the eBay internal messaging system to communicate with your sellers and confirm on the above.

Check the overall feedback of the Seller. Make sure he is one who sticks to his promises.

Finally, should you still find an error with your transaction and have substantial proof that you have been treated unfairly by the seller, please leave a Negative Feedback for the seller in detail explaining your problem and situation.

Since I am also a very new seller on eBay (just my 2nd month), I have been reading this discussion board extensively. The above are points which I felt could only increase a safer experience on eBay for both buyers and sellers.

Being a seller, the above points may be in favor of buyers, but at the end, they would help us sellers enable in receiving better customers who are not one time buyers but repeat buyers on the whole.

Warm Regards,
Chetan Chawla


===
ProfitBargains.com

Visit eBay Shop: http://www.profitbargains.com

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[arpitb]

there are some ebay sellers who are using many unethical ways of doing there business.they only want to sell their products for a higher margins and don't think about the buyer.
in Delhi's palika market the pen drives of 32gb are usually sold for 1800 rs.
all know they are fake so nobody buys from their.but which is happening in eBay is not right . the authorities should suspend the accounts of such sellers and also buyers should buy with a easy to buy as it gives u the assurance to return back the product to the seller.
please sell and buy carefully.
as there are also some ethics.
thank you
arpit

[prathy_nair]

Hi Arpit,

What you said is correct that ebay should take needful action towards such fraudulent sellers. Unfortunately they are NOT doing that (as per my observation).

An example of such consideration is this discussing case only. The above said seller "chughgagan786" has sold many fake pen drives over ebay and now he has Positive feedback: 57.1%|Feedback score: 1. The kind heart of ebay still keeps the seller active!!
Fortunately I got my refund for the case from PaisaPay. Thank God!

prathy_nair

[sajalbasu]

Sorry to post on such an old topic, but this seems to be still continuing ..

I was trying to buy an authentic 16gb pen drive, I sorted by price and was amazed to see few very low priced ones.. The seller is poonam.sachdeva, and to be amazed she is even selling 250GB pen drives, I was sure this has to be fake. Now I was surprised to see 100% positive with 15 happy customers writing praises. They have also bought 250GB pen drives. My full sympathy with them. But just thinking.. she is selling probably 200 rs pen drives at 800 rs after modding the drive to show wrong space info.
Now she has in 14 days sold 15 of those, in average she will make 600x30=18000 rs just by fooling people. Once somebody with enough brains gets fooled and then files a dispute, she will probably be blocked, her account suspended. But how does it matter she has already profited a large sum, and might open another account to continue the scam..

Ebay needs to step up on such users soon and start taking legal action, rather than just suspend the user.. suspension means just a different account with clean board to start cheating new users.

http://feedback.ebay.in/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=poonam.sachdeva&&sspagename=VIP:feedback&ftab=FeedbackAsSeller

[faransqi_09]

Dear Prathy
sad to hear this. but immeadiately inform Cust Care ,open a dispute on item recieved not as described.if u paid thru paisa pay you will get a refund but with a tedious process. any help required, do contact me at 09800003363 for procedures. i also got a refund of 42" plasma TV recieved broken almost after 45 days.

All pendrive buyers if you buy any pen drive please check for serial no and register online on that company site if it registers ,fine,till now dont open the packet.if not return the item immediately.once you open ,connect it to computer and format if fake it will not acquire data and will not open.still if it passes this test ,load media files prefrably video /HD video files at least half the memory size ,if you are patient please complete fill the memory. play with the similer player if memory plays flawlessly then only your pendrive/HDD memory is OK
WARNING: no pen drives available of more than 8 GB are commonly available that too at the prices listed on e bay:simple calculation Rs 125/GB data storage.PLEASE ASK THE SELLER CLEARLY THESE STEPS AND THE PEN DRIVE SHOULD STILL HOLD THE DATA


ALSO PLEASE NOTE ALL RAY BANS ON EA BAY ARE FAKE I AM ALSO DUPED BY A SELLER "arunakkos" I ALSO PAID THRU PAISA PAY BUT UNFORTUNATELY BY THE TIME I CHECKED IT WAS MORE THAN 45 DAYS I ONLY CAME TO KNOW WHEN A SELLER shine_of _diamonds ALERTED ME AND no sooner this seller was delisted i communicated to this seller about the geniunity of the Ray Ban sunglasses and he assured me the originality on question to the seller. so please do not take this as guarantee that merely communicating on ebay resolves the paisapay issues please follow strict timelines.

[faransqi_09]

also please check out this communication with a seller still on listings selling 64 GB Transcend pendrive Made in taiwan: here the seller is avoiding a direct answer.so good luck all bidders.






Dear sanjaydmrc,
is this original transcend pen drive if no bill on e bay is fine.wether its of china or taiwan how does it makes difference if it does not stores 64 gb data.do you assure that this item at least 60 GB data even after formatting as a normal PEN DRIVE

- faransqi_09



64 GB Transcend Pen Drive made in Taiwan (Original)
64 GB Transcend Pen Drive made in Taiwan (Original)
Item ID: 120534497221
End time: 25-Feb-2010 08:58:13 IST
Seller:

sanjaydmrc (2)
100.0% Positive Feedback
Member since 07-Jan-2010 in India
Location: UP, India
Listing Status: This message was sent while the listing was active.


Dear faransqi_09,

I myself don't know as much about these pen drives as they are in sealed packs and I haven't opened them. I got them from some site as gift and selling them on ebay. All I know is they are not the Chinese copy of the pen drives and are made in Taiwan where these pen drives are actually manufactured. Because of lack of information about pen drives I am selling them under No bill, No guarantee and No return policy. There are very few left now. I will know about these pen drives once the feedback comes from the buyers.

- sanjaydmrc

[c153niyam]

outside churchgate and VT station they are selling 32 GB pendrives for Rs 200 only !!!