Sold fake 8gb Flash Drive

mazz1953 · 7 July 2007 at 10:33AM

On 27 June 2007, I bought an 8gb Flash Drive through a BIN on Ebay for £17.99 plus £3.99 next day 1st class recorded delivery. When I didn't received the item after a week, I emailed the seller and yesterday received my item, except it is not what was advertised. The one on sale offered a neckstrap, drivers and an extension cord, the one sent was in an easily opened and shut package and on close inspection there is a bit of dirt on the cap. Furthermore, it has a well-know brand marking on it, except the company do not make 8gb Flash Disks.

Anyway, when I used it to copy some 4gb of music files, it appeared to copy these, but when I tried to play them only about 480MB was actually on the drive and they would not play properly. Although all the folders were copied most of them were empty and I have since found out that the Flash Disk is a fake. I got in touch with the seller, pointing out that I had not received the good as advertised and the disk was faulty. He/she has now emailed with a RMA and offered me a refund.

I would like to know how I stand legally over this.

Do I let him know that I know the goods are fake?
Do I let the brand-named company know that this person has sold me this fake drive?
Do I report him to Ebay for selling fraudulent goods?
Am I entitled to all my postage costs refunded if I return the item back to the seller?
Is there anything else I can do as the seller is still quite active on Ebay as their feedback score is quite good.

Many thanks
Mazz1953

frivolous_fay · 7 July 2007 at 10:51AM

Funny how readily fake-sellers offer refunds. Almost as if they have something to hide... heh.

I would report to ebay (go through their listings and report items like the one you bought)

Take it to the company as well, if you can find a way. Trading Standards might be of assistance. They may want to keep the item as evidence... I suppose it all hangs on whether you want to stop other people being sold fakes, or get your refund asap. I'm not sure you'd get a refund if TS held on to it.

Come to think of it, would TS get involved? Maybe only if he's a business seller.

Buster_Danog · 7 July 2007 at 11:14AM

This is common. Sellers make drives that look like they are 4gb when you plug them into your PC, but in reality they are much smaller. People do not realise until they have left feedback, and then their unit crashes and they have to reformat. Very common with units from China.

ellybelly89 · 7 July 2007 at 1:25PM

as the price was ridiculously cheap it was obviously going to be fake or stolen. Avoid buying memory cards on eBay unless you can be 100% certain they are not fake.

nullogik · 7 July 2007 at 2:04PM

ellybelly89 wrote: »

as the price was ridiculously cheap it was obviously going to be fake or stolen. Avoid buying memory cards on eBay unless you can be 100% certain they are not fake.

Ditto that. There are a lot of fake high performance "Sandisk Ultra" SD cards that are out there that cost a fraction of the RRP. These are typically made from inferior components, are flimsy and have less capacity then advertised.

I would not buy such items like SD cards, XD, MMC, USB Pen Drives from Ebay.

mazz1953 · 9 July 2007 at 2:37PM

Just to give an update:

I have sent two emails to the seller stating that I would expect a refund of all my postage fees, but I have not had any response.

GamePlayer · 9 July 2007 at 4:59PM

nullogik wrote: »

Ditto that. There are a lot of fake high performance "Sandisk Ultra" SD cards that are out there that cost a fraction of the RRP. These are typically made from inferior components, are flimsy and have less capacity then advertised.

I would not buy such items like SD cards, XD, MMC, USB Pen Drives from Ebay.

Hi,

I have bought a few usb memory sticks and camera memory cards on ebay and never had any problems.
It could just be that I've been lucky. have others had problems with memory bought on ebay.?

I thought Windows mounted a usb stick as a disk drive and did the same write check when copying a file as on a normal hard disk, so should have produced an error when it failed to write all the files.
If you are using the flash drive in another device is it possible that device doesn't support 8Gb. If so have you tried copying back from the flash drive to your system disk.
I'm just interested in what might be a good test a buyer could do before leaving feedback.

James_B_2 · 9 July 2007 at 8:31PM

I've bought memory cards & flash drives from eBay on a number of occasions with no problems.

Best thing is to check their feedback if they're selling a lot of memory cards. You'll soon see if they're selling fakes and/or inferior products.

ellybelly89 · 9 July 2007 at 9:47PM

an 8gb card at £17.99 is either a fake or stolen.

Sold fake 8gb Flash Drive

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