Fake 1TB USB Flash Thumb Drives & Bigger

[TheDutyPaid]

After watching this video on Fake Sony 1000 GB USB flash drive

I have done a number of searches on ebay and found a number of sellers flogging fake 1TB and even 2TB flash drives for around £40 a pop.

At the time of writing I believe the only real 1TB flash drive on the market is Kingston Technology 1TB USB 3.0 DataTraveler HyperX Predator and at around the £600 mark.
Have reported said items on ebay, over 2 weeks ago but nothing was done and then the items was sold. Now there are again a number of said fake drives listed again.

reading the feedback, people are happy they got the item fast but I am sure that will pass as soon as they try to write more then 2GB. Which is about what the fakes can hold if at all.

So be careful out there, I just hope that non forum members as well will happen across this post.

Here is one of the listings, http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1TB-917GB-...item4aef05b875

[Professor Frink]

If something is too good to be true......

In the video the flash drive was only USB2; I can't image how slow it would be to copy to.

Also he still had a CRT monitor!!!

[jackvdbuk]

Incompatibility issues with software/hardware/peripherals and user are down to other external factors not the drives as these adhere to the industry standard mechanism in place. .!

way to cover all bases, the USB drive is never the issue it seems

[Saracen]

....

Also he still had a CRT monitor!!!

So do I. About 10 of 'em, in fact. Why? Well, if you're offering to replace them all with shiny, new TFT's ..... no, thought not.

[watercooled]

Sadly this sort of thing is really quite common with USB drives and memory cards. They seem to work fine until data is written to non-existent blocks of memory and you notice huge amounts of your data is missing or corrupted.

If you want to check a drive you've bought there's a tool called h2testw which will write to all addressable memory on the drive and verify it can be read back correctly.

The site is German but the download links are easy enough to find: http://www.heise.de/download/h2testw.html

[TheDutyPaid]

Over the last week I have been in contact with ebay, by customer service via the website and direct message on twitter.

I passed them all the item numbers for the items I have found and links to other reference sites, also I have contacted the real companies of the brand names the fakers have been using.

So, what have been done I hear you ask?

Absolutely nothing! One seller who listed 10 at £39.99 a pop, has sold them all. That is around £345 after ebay and PayPal fees.

In my investigation, I found a suppler of said items and the unit cost of the fake USB drives is about 50p to £1 and I was offered the "SanDisk" branded at 42p each if I bought 100 (£42 total)

I think it is a lack of knowledge on the part of ebay. They would quicky spot if someone was selling a Nike branded top hat or a Apple record player. The people buying the said items will probably never know they do not have a 1 TB in capacity flash thumb drive. As most users will not move such large files across.

[watercooled]

It's disgusting and eBay don't seem to be making much of an effort to stop it. Like you say, many people buying them might not even realise they're fakes, or if they do they might assume it's just a one-off and/or blame the brand they're ripping off.

There's so much fake stuff on ebay when it comes to electronics and components you have to be really careful when you're shopping, and it's not just from small random sellers either. I've posted in the past about rubbish quality cables, claiming to be e.g. 18AWG but are hair-thin and cause power problems with connected components etc.

Even Amazon isn't immune, especially the marketplace. All you can do is report it and hope they do something about it.

[MrComputerSaint]

I've been stung by the cheap-o USB storage devices before. I try and buy brand names now

[watercooled]

Still be careful of fake branded stuff. E.g. use caution if a price seems suspiciously lol, and check things like packaging, performance and integrity (using e.g. h2testw I linked above) if you're unsure at all. And send it back, complain to the seller/ebay/amazon and leave honest feedback if you get a fake.

[Rossy]

wow this is actually very sneaky, but i feel sorry fo those people who spen £40 on one when its realy worth as little as £2

[watercooled]

It's worth less than zero TBH - not only are you getting a fraction of the real storage capacity, you're getting something which is by design highly likely to destroy data stored on it. So it's worse than useless.

I've just realised h2testw is actually mentioned in the video linked by the OP (posted without watching it ) - it really is a useful too.

[TheDutyPaid]

Maybe a win? I just been on ebay looking for fake 1TB thumb drives and the only ones listed are the real (I hope) Kingston ones.

If you can help me out by looking as well, I have done searches for a mix of as many words as I can think of. 1TB, 976gb, flash, thumb, drive, USB, memory, stick, pen and drive.

Tip: If you put the words in brackets with a comma like (1TB, 976gb, flash, thumb, drive, USB, memory, stick, pen) it will look for any or all.

I hope they have cleaned up ebay a little, well till next time.

If you find any please report, if unsure post the item number here and I will contact the real company in question. I now have contacts, which is more one way'ish at the moment. I guess due to possible future legal action.

[matematika]

eBay is horrible at policing false memory claims,

It is astonishing to what extent people go to scam other people.
I bought a 32GB memory card of eBay a couple of years ago and the guy claimed it only works with pictures. (I didn't know better than to know it as a scam there and then).

Well it turned out to be 4GB card which somehow reported it has 32GB and then seller accused me of no treading the description of it only being for images. So I needed to make 2000 copies of a random photo (I didn't want to copy my private photos on it if I am returning it to him) and stuck it on the card to show it doesn't accept 2000 4mb images.

How many people would have bothered. I talked to eBay and reported the seller and to my horror he is still selling these cards...

[watercooled]

eBay is horrible at policing false memory claims,

It is astonishing to what extent people go to scam other people.
I bought a 32GB memory card of eBay a couple of years ago and the guy claimed it only works with pictures. (I didn't know better than to know it as a scam there and then).

Well it turned out to be 4GB card which somehow reported it has 32GB and then seller accused me of no treading the description of it only being for images. So I needed to make 2000 copies of a random photo (I didn't want to copy my private photos on it if I am returning it to him) and stuck it on the card to show it doesn't accept 2000 4mb images.

How many people would have bothered. I talked to eBay and reported the seller and to my horror he is still selling these cards...

Yeah it's pretty outrageous how eBay don't seem even remotely interested in things like this. So much for 'buyer protection'!

[virtuo]

Absolutely nothing! One seller who listed 10 at £39.99 a pop, has sold them all. That is around £345 after ebay and PayPal fees.

In my investigation, I found a suppler of said items and the unit cost of the fake USB drives is about 50p to £1 and I was offered the "SanDisk" branded at 42p each if I bought 100 (£42 total)

I think it is a lack of knowledge on the part of ebay. They would quicky spot if someone was selling a Nike branded top hat or a Apple record player. The people buying the said items will probably never know they do not have a 1 TB in capacity flash thumb drive. As most users will not move such large files across.

Last year I saw someone selling "512Gb [brand name] USB drives" - note the quotes - for a fraction of the price of a legit 512Gb device (my memory is flaky, might have been 256 or even 1tb). What was interesting was they clearly state that they are fake in the description and that the actual capacity was 1-2Gb (whatever it was). It was sly, but technically fine to do.

At those margins, I'd be lying if I wasn't tempted to try it myself. They must bank on a lot of people just snap buying and not reading the description fully. Like when people were selling xbox boxes.

[peterb]

snip--->(my memory is flaky, might have been 256 or even 1tb). <---snip

Did you get it off EBay?

At those margins, I'd be lying if I wasn't tempted to try it myself. They must bank on a lot of people just snap buying and not reading the description fully. Like when people were selling xbox boxes.

Things like that are a no-no purchase of rom EBay sellers for me, but the old adage "if something is too good to be true, it probably is". For the sake of a few pounds, I'd rather buy from a reputable seller with a good return policy (because they can be fooled too) rather than risk the hassle and inconvenience of returning to someone dodgy in the first place.

I remember seeing a poster. With the slogan "Nick it, fence it, eBay it". No doubt there are many millions of legit traders on there, but that is a perception. As always "caveat emptor".