Reports
To see the reports we have available please go to the categories – left Column. They are currently filed under eBay Reports. The most recent are presented first.
http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/category/reports-ebay/
Current:
The most famous are the mugshot reports. They present all the sellers investigated, with counts and also the drive models as presented at auction. The reports are pdf files which you can download. For the mugshot report we indicate the current size as a consideration for those on low band width and dial-up.
If you want to see the drives by seller you will want to download them. They are updated once every 3 to 5 weeks.
For a guide you must write to sosfakeflashdrive@gmail.com – The guide is free and will be sent to the email address you request from.
Saykor said
Dear sir,
Yesterday i receive a fake flash drive from ebay user mpp*11226.
I buy 16GB and receive 1GB.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&item=150301386559
Regards,
Saykor
KittyFireFlash said
Thank you for responding to us. This is a new fake flash seller we are not aware of! We will be contacting you.
Saykor said
he refund me but have something strange. I receive a email from PayPal. Can you explain me this:
May Phyu (mova11226@yahoo.com) has issued a full refund for your payment.
This refund will remain pending until the funds have cleared from the sender’s account. You will receive an email notification once the funds have become available in your PayPal account.
why the funds is hold?he not have a money in his account or PayPal hold his money?
Thank you,
Saykor
zahid said
seller has listed them as private so is 100% guilty
Seller: lozzy_17( 8 )
USB 2.0 upgrade 500GB Flash Memory Drive
Item number: 260343016192
USB 2.0 upgrade 360GB Flash Memory Drive
Item number: 260343019545
USB 2.0 120GB upgrade Flash Memory Drive
Item number: 260343021770
USB 2.0 Brand New 64GB Flash Memory Drive
Item number: 260341270021
USB 2.0 Brand New 32GB Flash Memory Drive
Item number: 260343072543
sandy schroer said
seller 516erenkoy01, I bought what is supposed to be a 16 G flash memory drive.. it is actually 4G counterfeit. I knew it was messing up big time.. i learned more after posting my feedback on ebay yesterday. 2 different ebayers wrote me with good info, and recommended this site. They also recommending testing my flash drive with a program called h2testw. It is a free program, I believe German, but you can download it with English translation. I was just going to let it go, I had already just accepted that I had blown my money on a bad purchase, and didnt want to take the time and the hassle of even returning it. But these ebayers convinced me i needed to pursue it as this guy is gettign big bucks off of people , probably counting on them either not testing the drives that well before leaving feedback, or like me just to lazy or too busy to pursue it.
So, I actually took my first step this morn. I wrote to the seller that i was going to amend my feedback and explained all i had found out. I told him I wasnt going to return the drive, as i didnt want to take the chance of it being sold to anyone else. and i never asked for my money back.. just giving him a chance for input. He gave no explaination, but I got a message that my money had been refunded to paypal.. I am guessing that may be to try to keep me from bother to pursue it any farther??
FakeStopper said
To Sandy Schroer:
You right, most seller don’t like negative feedback. Or feedback which mention their product are fakes. Because if more buyers started to leave those kind of feedback, the chances of ebay investigating the seller is very high (if they report the item). When this happen, the seller will have a high risk of being removed from ebay. So they will try and refund to you to shut you up. Moreover, if the seller is a powerseller, this will affect their powerseller status if they receive so many negative feedback.
By shuting and refunding you back, they continue to sell their fake products. But if those buyer keep quiet, and few months down the track how many fake products reached those innocent buyer. That’s is why we always tell ebayer to leave feedback. It in our commmon interest we believe in honestly, and integrity. This is not the case if the seller stop selling immediately and refund the buyer (which I have seen in alot of cases).
bob said
New fake Kingston 32gb usb keys by seller abestpartner0 China. BEWARE! They are shipped without memory chip at all!
cpam said
http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?threadID=1100238296&tstart=0&mod=1240505580629
Eric said
Fake USB flash drive … 6gb not 16gb from seller: xprodeal
The media is likely to be defective.
5.8 GByte OK (12300008 sectors)
9.7 GByte DATA LOST (20435224 sectors)
Details:0 KByte overwritten (0 sectors)
0 KByte slightly changed (< 8 bit/sector, 0 sectors)
9.7 GByte corrupted (20435224 sectors)
0 KByte aliased memory (0 sectors)
First error at offset: 0×00000001775dd000
Expected: 0×00000001775dd000
Found: 0×0000000000000000
H2testw version 1.3
Writing speed: 6.62 MByte/s
Reading speed: 14.5 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4
Eric said
The money I spent on the usb drive mentioned above was refunded to me by PayPal … by a supervisor … it has not yet appeared in my account but it seems to be true …
also I am messaging 5 people a day to warn them about xprodeal.
I had the pleasure of dealing with an honest seller on Ebay who sent me a hacked video card … I imagine he did not know and had gotten it from his supplier in that condition … and he refunded me my money … including shipping … and did not ask for the item to be sent back … without PayPal having to intervene … but i had given him a bad feedback which I revised after he refunded me … so the lesson is to give bad feedback if u can … it seems to get the sellers attention.
KittyFireFlash said
To Eric and Everyone
Xprodeal is a nasty extortion is not to be taken lightly – powersellers like these are difficult to bring down. We are about to issue a very interesting story on one particular seller that will illustrate this issue.
LOL has been pretty smart as an independent fake flash hunter… confirming we will be releasing shortly.
On The Issue Of Changing feedback
We have seen too many people revise their feedback from negative when they get a refund from a fake flash seller in the last year. It has been growing. It could be the exhortion reported for example with fake flash seller Xprodeal.
It is very wrong to change feedback in exchange for a refund. The seller is not doing a favour. He is obliged to hand back the money. It is the high positives and revisions of feedback that have allowed so many more people to become the next victims of the same sellers.
A few people on the team wanted to quit the project recently because of this. They feel there is no point in working so hard to fight this problem if people just use the information the presented to get refunds and then turn around and stab everyone (all ebay victims) in the back by changing their feedback. Anyway… for now we have managed to calm them down. They are off to rest for this month, and we have given priority on the SOSFakeFlash Notice board to NOT to this.
So don’t revise feedback just for a refund or soon we will have the rest of the team deciding to stop. Not good.
Don’t forget, nobody gets paid to do this work – they use personal time. Some in their activities have to dig into their pockets to finance what they do. Why? Because they were victims. They care.
Excerise Judgement
What Eric says can be true of sellers – they did not know. The hard part is trying to determine the truth. Who is sincere? Who is lying with crocodile tears? Very Difficult some times.
So one of the good things about the fake flash sellers list is that you can review a seller’s history on negs and neutrals. Not exactly useful if the seller is new – many times the confirms we have on file are positiver FB not a negativer. And you would be surprised to learn some times people reach us months after they bought the item.
For the big time fake flash sellers you will see a long history of bad behavior and often intermittent periods of fake flash selling.
Use the tool to research. Does your seller immediately stop listing the fake flash devices as a result of your contact and negative? You may wish to wait a bit before changing to ensure that the seller is telling the truth. People do believe a fake flash seller and revise feedback, often keep a watchful eye on the seller to make sure he doesn’t return in a few weeks or months to begin again.
In Eric’s recent case of a video card the seller could very well be telling the truth. Did the seller stop listing the item Eric? That says a lot.
So the key as a victim is to be slow to anger (not easy if you lost data), slow to revise feedback and to observe and research the seller to see if he or she is a victim. About 5% are. Of these victims 1 in a 100 will contact all their buyers, offer refunds, warn them and apologize, 99% will just tip toe into the shadows after stopping their listings or run from eBay.
Finding the truely honest fake flash seller is difficult, but this one honest fake flash seller (victim) should not be punished if he or she will do the honourable thing and refund all buyers and warn them. You will find no reference to these sellers on the list, reports or alerts. There have been very very few, but they do exist.
We have stopped our outreach to sellers with good scores that appear to be selling fakes. With team members off to cool down about the feedback thing and others being sent to fake flash prison along with the fake flash sellers (yes, their crime was warning folks in ways we prefer not to mention) – we can’t spare people to do this right now.
If you see newbie sellers with suspect drives for sale on eBay (with very good feedback scores) you might like to warn them to TEST – so they don’t end up here or creating a lot of victims.
This might sound odd:
Save a newbie fake flash seller = save eBayers from being victims
But you have no idea just how many people did NOT become victims because of fake flash angel work inside of eBay!
Hacked Video Cards
That is a subject we have not examined. It is something we are very much afraid of. Anything using nand chips and a controller is vunerable to this hacking.
SSD solid state drives may be the next target soon. We just do not know.
Eric could you send in your info on the card to sosfakeflashdrive@gmail.com ? We will not post on the seller but FlashChipTutor is very interested in examining for his site. He don’t have anything on video cards and thinks it might be a good idea to do a generic article on video cards to warn people about them.
I don’t have any idea how one could test a video card, how did you find out Eric?
Eric said
RE: testing for a video card … I used a program called GpuZ which gives all the information about a video cards internals … my card was supposed to be a GeForce 9500GT which has a G96 Gpu (Graphics processing unit) … and in the case in question the fake GPU was a G72 (GeForce 7300) but it was hacked to read 9500GT under the name section … and all the other parameters were for a 7300 card also … so somehow they got it to read 9500gt in name only.
I am very happy to say that the seller is no longer selling these cards and has withdrawn them because they were hacked. An honest Ebay seller !
Alejo said
http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/zhongel/
Selling fake 16 GB pen drives
kittyfireflash said
Hi Alejo
Yes indeed!
Phil said
Bought one from UK seller who boasts about selling genuine flash drives & to be aware of Chinese fakes, pitty he didn’t test his own as his 100% feedback is now tarnished. http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/usbislanduk/
The media is likely to be defective.
995 MByte OK (2037760 sectors)
6.8 GByte DATA LOST (14313472 sectors)
Details:6.8 GByte overwritten (14313472 sectors)
0 KByte slightly changed (< 8 bit/sector, 0 sectors)
0 KByte corrupted (0 sectors)
64 KByte aliased memory (128 sectors)
First error at offset: 0×000000003e2e0000
Expected: 0×000000003e2e0000
Found: 0×00000001f2ff0000
H2testw version 1.3
Writing speed: 1.53 MByte/s
Reading speed: 5.11 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4
ncc1701dee said
to KittyFireFlash, (and other devoted members of this site)
I deeply value and respect ALL the TIME and EFFORT you have put into this ‘fight’ you find yourself waging, with (sadly) many others. i want you to know EVERY PRESS OF THOSE KEYS ON THAT KEYBOARD IN FRONT OF YOU IS WORTH IT ! I am a ‘fresh’ victim of this horrendous flash fraud nightmare, and i have learned and absorbed much from this very valuable site.. The fact that this site exists i find helps to calm the fury and rage i feel towards the fraudsters – and now ebay itself. (and i thought i hated ebay before !)
I would like to report the seller awei19888 as a fraudster of pushing FAKE FALSE CAPACITY 32GB SDHC SD cards. I won one of these about 2 weeks ago, only to stumble into this unfortunate mess. I have not payed for mine yet, however, i have been contacting and contacting as many other buyers to test with H2testw, and i have now heard back from one reporting their 32GB SDHC to be a fake (8GB) after testing with the software.
I wanted to wait longer for more reports from others i have contacted for a better sense of confirmation, but you are right, it only takes one report, and it is clear – quite clear that time is a huge factor in this fraudulent activity (the less time the better), and all the signs point to this being FRAUD.
For example, just a week ago, he suddenly became a ‘no longer registered user’ … he is back now, listing maaaaaaassive amounts of SDHC “32GB” cards on 1-3 day long auctions, with a low but positive feedback rating. Just yesterday, i saw he had 843 (!) SDHC supposedly 32GB cards all starting at $1.27 AU with free shipping, on his listings, including a couple ‘buy it now’ for $62 ?! obviously to try to encourage others (many others) to bid and ’snap up a bargain’ on the cards going at auction. i think i am going to be sick. Everytime i think about this, it is a mixture of anger and sickness, especially considering how ebay seem to be more a part of this problem than a solution.
I msged the seller last night, informing him to cancel our transaction, otherwise i would contact all his other buyers and take them through the process of testing their SDHC cards to ascertain their true capacities. He has not gotten back to me, and today i see he only has 47 on auction. i dont know though, whether these are simply the remainder of what he originally listed (ie the last of the 843) or whether what i said made any impact.
Actually, now those 47 left for auction are gone (unavailable), and they had another 20hrs till they ended. He has become an ‘unregistered user’ again ?!!? What the hell is going on !? Is this really how things work ?! Something needs to be done
update : another buyer has gotten back to me after receiving his “32GB” SDHC, the outcome !? His card DOES NOT FUNCTION AT ALL !!? These must be the reasons he has become unregistered now i suppose.
I hope you will continue the fight KittyFireFlash, many depend on it. I am no tech wizz, but i will do my best to help also, because i cant sit on the sidelines any longer and see people (and not just a handful of people) thousands and THOUSANDS of people getting ripped off, and the thought of allllllll that data going into data oblivion … :O !!!frightening!!! AND sickening
KEEP UP THE FIGHT
KittyFireFlash said
To ncc1701dee
We thank you! Our fingers may be worn to stubs and we do suffer exhausion as we have day jobs and a lot of other responsibilities. The economic times really are difficult for all. Dark circles under our eyes. Many different time zones too!
We are as horrified as you are. That is why we keep at it.
Please have the people you communicated with report to us at our email address sosfakeflashdrive@gmail.com
See the report a fake tab for details on the kind of information we need for the database so we can issue an alert on the seller. It can do amazing things on the internet. It does not matter that the seller is deregistered.
Make sure that you get the victims you found to file claims with paypal immediately! There is not a moment to lose.
As soon as we have data, we will issue an alert on this fraudster.
Your effort, ncc1701dee is very much appreciated. It is how we all began. You are growing your wings. Those who warn other ebay members are called “fake flash angels”. Why? Because they swoop in out of nowhere and rescue others. It’s a good deed and many have been spared from data loss. In fact some work on the project because they were saved in the nick of time. They also have an anger, as they know what “could” have happened to them and appreciate being lucky.
I often wonder…
While many do suffer data loss, many have not because of our work outside and inside of eBay. In helping others and creating awareness, there is no way to really know what we might have saved in terms of data. Perhaps something important. I travel and I like to capture memories. Okay I am still old fashioned and perfer film. But the thought of lossing all my photographs. My memories of far away places? The people I met, the countries I’ve seen? The animals that posed with me and chose not to devour me as a snack? The thought of lossing that is beyond nightmare.
You have no idea how heat breaking it is to hear that someone lost wedding photographs or a babies first birthday, due to a fake flash card. Not everyone is wealthy enough to hire professional photographers. And these days every penny counts! People didn’t expect this. Fake flash sellers take advantage of the fact that people do not know the real costs of nand flash drive chips. They exploit it. We feel that because of the economic situation they are making the most of the opportunity to advertise what can not be delivered.
Unfortunately people think eBay is the place of bargains. In the case of MP Players, memory cards and usb flash drives it is not true. The profit margin on true capacity devices is very small. Only if one can sell in high volume is there any realistic profit. Otherwise selling these items is useless. We have had many ebay sellers tell us this. They sold true capacity and gave up and left ebay because all of the fee’s – that includes paypal left them with no profit and often put them in the red. Only fraudsters make money, since they sell old devices with tiny flash drive chips.
eBay is Not the place to buy mp players, memory cards or usb flash drives! It is not safe. eBay just doesn’t want to make it safe either. If only true capacity was offered there would not be a lot available and few listings. There goes their hot money cow!
So, since awei19888 has done a houdini, once the alert is out, victims can leave their comments on the post! We will see to it. But the rules are the rules. We need people to report in. Innocent until proven guilty.
Frank said
I bought recently on ebay 16GB memory stick and according H2testw is only 1.9GB instead of 16GB. The seller name is upcomingtrend and he is selling fakes every day on ebay.
InspectorTech said
We know Frank. An internet alert was published on June 15 2009
http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/upcomingtrend-ebay-fake-flash-seller-alert-china/
jazib said
hi i have data traveler DTI/2GB and it not working properly when i save data to data traveler data shows correct and when removed and then connect there is nothing my has lost please tell me somthing or any software
ITGuy said
For Jazib
Your data traveler DTI/2GB shows the classic symptoms of a fake drive. Test with h2testw.
see: http://flashdrivefacts.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/guide-how-to-prove-a-fake-usb-flash-memory-pen-drive-stick-pen-to-be-false-capacity-%e2%80%93-a-visual-example/
also look at posts on this blog about contacting kingston to confirm counterfeit and how to deal with paypal
fightflashfraud said
Hi Jazib,
All the information you need is already here. There is a post with a link to the download site for the free program h2testw here: http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/h2testw-14-gold-standard-in-detecting-usb-counterfeit-drives/ – you can find the true capacity of the device using this.
Report in to sosfakeflash with your test results and transaction information – you will find the email address to send this information to here:
http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/report-a-fake/ along with what evidence we need.
Open a refund claim with paypal – see our refund advice – here is a start point: http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/paypal-how-long-do-you-have-to-claim-for-a-refund-in-disputes-a-guide-about-paypal-from-ebayers-experiences/
Please, everyone – read our blogs before asking for advice. I was a victim around this time last year. I read everything first and didn’t need any help. I joined the project because I was grateful that myself and my students did not end up losing data. This was because I learned from this blog about fake flash before I used fake capacity items I bought on ebay.
I tested with h2testw and followed the refund advice. I got refunds for every single fake. I started warning other ebayers as soon as I realised I had been conned – before some of my fakes even arrived! You can do the same!! It is only through your efforts as victims that we stand any chance of defeating the fraudsters in the end.
If you don’t act to warn others then the fraudsters, ebay and paypal simply walk off with their ill-gotten gains. It’s your call!!