Fake 1 TB and 2 TB Flash driveson eBay.

[Geek-9pm]

Found on eBay.   

The titleof the item is...

MOST 2 TB Flash Drive 1 TB Flash Drives ARE FAKE!

Text from the eBay item ....

"
THIS IS NOT AN AUCTION FOR 1 TB OR 2 TB FLASH DRIVES. IT'S EXTREMELY URGENT INFORMATION TO PREVENT YOU FROM BEING SCAMMED.

If you are searching for large flash drives, please, I beg you, KEEP READING or you will get scammed. 100% POSITIVE PROOF BELOW!!

ALL 1 TB OR 2 TB DRIVES ARE FAKE. They only came out just this year and cost $500!
Don't believe me? Then just ignore this warning and without a doubt, you'll get ripped off. 

Already purchase one from me? Keep reading to see how to get your refund.  I don't even want the drive back.

I am leaving this auction listed in the hopes that other people who are searching for 1 tb and 2 tb drives see my auction so they know about the "fake drive" thing going around everywhere, mostly on eBay and junk China websites. It's only costing me .30 a month to keep this auction active so I am going to leave it listed forever just to warn people.

Here's my story....

I found a "too good to be true" deal on flash drives and thought that it would be an awesome money maker (from wish.com, China junk website. Not surprised.) They were selling 1 TB and 2 TB flash drives at an amazing deal of $4 each or so. I bought an extremely large quantity of them and I was selling them and making a nice profit. Then people started to complain that there was data corruption and missing files. I didn't think much of it and refunded people who said there was a problem in thinking it was just bad one from the batch. But when I got more and more complaints, I looked into it even further.

I had no idea this existed until now. FAKE FLASH DRIVES. Flash drives that reported to be 1 TB and 2 TB but were actually much, much smaller (as low as 4 GB). After 4 GB was copied, the drive was full. Or another scenario is data over-writes existing data. I did more research and found free software to test my flash drives. If you want to test your drive, you can Google search for fake flash drive tester.   I used FakeFlashTest, but McAfee misreports this as having a virus. Good ol' McAfee. So whatever one you use is your choice, but FakeFlashTest is the quickest.
You can download that program and more here:
rmprepusb.com/tutorials/-fake-usb-flash-memory-drives#TOC-Downloads

After testing mine, sure enough, I was scammed. I was scammed over $1300 on drives to resell, only to find out these people who I bought them from knew they were fake but continued to sell them to this day. I do feel very horrible for everyone out there who has corrupt data because of this scam, and I'm sorry. 

I am keeping my auction up because I hope and pray that people come across my auction first to warn them of this horror.

There's a video describing how the whole fake drive process works at:
rmprepusb.com/tutorials/-fake-usb-flash-memory-drives

In the video it even shows the EXACT packaging ...
"
You can cut and paste the URL ans see what heis talking about.
Is this true? Are all  huge flash drives fake?   

[Allan]

sigh

[patio]

You are just hearing about this now ? ?

[BC_Programmer]

This has been a thing for at least a decade- probably far longer. It only takes a little common sense to realize it's a load of crap.

Amazon and eBay have listings from generic chinese sellers for 1TB/2TB Flash drives for as low as $19 dollars. That's cheaper than a 1TB Internal Hard Disk Drive or even a Mini 2.5" external Hard Disk Drive of that capacity. If something seems  too good to be true, it probably is.

That particularly get's highlighted because real Manufacturers have recently started creating *legitimate* 1TB and even 2TB flash drives. the 1TB Kingston datatraveler retails for around $1800. So let's give a quick think on what the Chinese manufacturers might be doing that allowed them to create the "first" 1TB drives decades earlier than the leading Flash memory companies in the world, at a price point of an elaborate starbucks coffee-based beverage.

Them being fake is the easy solution and it's well supported by the fact that nobody who has bought one of the cheap "1TB" drives has found that it is actually the size claimed.

Typically the Memory controller is simply altered to think that the memory chip it has is substantially larger than it is. Once you start writing beyond the actual size of the memory chip either nothing is saved or earlier parts of the memory are overwritten.  Most people won't bother to get a refund.

[Salmon Trout]

I once heard of fake 250 GB external hard drives that when opened contained a doctored 4 GB flash drive and a steel nut (for the weight) both hot-glued to the inside of the case. This must have 10 years ago.

[Geek-9pm]

I have ordered large two  USB flash drives selling for below 'normal' price.  They came today and I am trying to test them. I had never thought of how long it takes to verify a flash drive.  It can take hours.  So I need to find a quick test. Found this:
8 Freeware To Detect Fake USB Flash Drives, SD Cards And SSD Disk

There are many fake capacity USB flash drives on the market that claim a particular capacity, but only delivery somewhat less than this (particularly the larger drives). This is sometimes refered to as fake ‘oversize capacity’. The counterfeit drives we have examined appear to have the stated capacity in Windows Properties and it is not until you test the drive with these software that you see that there is significantly less real space.

I hope to know soon. 

[patio]

You've been had...

[Geek-9pm]

You've been had...

How did you know?   
It took a long time to find a test that would show the drives were not what they claimed to be. It takes hours to write and verify.
I had purchased from eBay:
a 128 GB USB
a 250 GB USB
Both came from China. Different vendors,, different styles,  same packaging.

[camerongray]

I did mention this in your other thread: https://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/topic,164136.msg970925.html#msg970925

Be careful with mega cheap flash drives, 250gb for $10 doesn't sound right and is almost certainly fake.  There are unscrupulous sellers that buy smaller flash drives and modify the firmware so that they report a higher size, they will appear to work fine until you reach the limit of the physical drive, it will then start to overwrite and corrupt files, something you really don't want to do with this person's photos!

For that amount of photos, pick up a reasonably sized external hard drive from a reputable source and brand, at that size, a hard drive will work out cheaper than a flash drive.  Alternatively, why not just buy an enclosure for the drive that's currently in the PC, put the drive into that and give her her own hard drive back with all her data on it?

[Geek-9pm]

camerongray,
Yes, you did. I am a slow learner.
I have asked thevendorsfor a refund.

EDIT: Please leave this thread open. It seems tahe eBay is awae of the issue and maybe I will get a refund.
Link to eBay:
http://www.ebay.com/gds/All-About-Fake-Flash-Drives-2013-/10000000177553258/g.html

Throughout this article, I will generally refer to USB flash drives, but most of the discussion also applies equally to flash memory cards (SD, MicroSD, CompactFlash, and others).  I am writing this in July 2013, references to specific capacities or speeds are as of this timeframe.  Technology will progress, and so will flash capacities, but it doesn't appear that the fake flash scam will end anytime soon.

Read this! It tells how to test either quick or fully. You can find a fake without the need to test for hours. Which is what I had to do untill I foujhnd there are quick tests. It alsotells how to get your money back.

Also, there are literally thousands of USB flash vendors in China. Not all are outright dishonest. You can find them is a search by looking for:
cheap USB flash China
You will find some on Amazon. 
And of course, many China USB drives on on eBay. Drives over 32 GB might be fake.  Be very alert.
Also, some b nad name 16 GB drivces are on sale at Wlamart in a three pack.

[Geek-9pm]

I have asked both vendorsfor refunds.
On drivce was said to be a 128 GB.
The other was said to be a 250 GB.
Both drives created errors when I tied to use them in Widnows 10.
Windows XP can not format them.
There is a quuci test program I found that can test a drive in about ten minuetes or even less. This is much better tahtn try ing to fill the drive with data, which takes hours. The program is a real swiss army knife. Yu have to look over the documentation before it will work for you. Unless you are very smart.
RMPrepUSB is the anme of the program.
http://www.rmprepusb.com/
I had to browse around and find the version needed.
The version is 2.1.732 and works in Windows 10.
You must quick format the fake drive before you test it.
 This is the only program I found taht can do a test in just a few minuetes.
It does not test every bytem instead it looks for cross-talk from one block to anohter block.