3ToTrade – Don Of Fake USB Flash Drives In The Orient

3ToTrade sells counterfeit usb flash drives. This is no innocent eBay seller. Highly skilled at manipulating eBay, PayPal and Buyers – this Powerseller remains crowned as the “Don Of Fake USB Flash Drives In the Orient “. Offering the new generation of counterfeit USB Flash drives with enough genuine capacity to squeak past testing of even the suspicious buyers, he evaded detection for a long time.

Why we have given him the title “Don Of Fake USB Flash Drives In The Orient”, will be revealed in this article and others in this series. The depth of his fraud is astonishing.

Update September 2nd, 2009 – Read: eBay Fraud – Heng Fung House – Home To eBay Counterfeit Ring – Lei Sio Hong. Connected To The Don Of Fake Flash In the Orient – 3ToTrade. SOSFakeFlash Investigation.

3ToTrade sold drives advertised at 16GB and 32GB capacity. Not one drive investigated held more than 8GB of data!

 
• October 5th, 2008 – we have 103 eBay listings confirmed fake.

 

 

• September 27th, 2008 – we have 101 eBay listings confirmed fake.
• September 21th, 2008 – we have 99 eBay listings confirmed fake.
• September 14th, 2008 – we have 94 eBay listings confirmed fake.
• September 7th, 2008 – we have 90 eBay listings confirmed fake.
• September 5th, 2008 – we have 85 eBay listings confirmed fake.

 

 

Alert – eBay Patrol reveals on September 7th 3ToTrade is not listing anything for sale.  That was awfully quick. SOS FakeFlash only posted the series of articles on the “Don Of Fake Flash In the Orient” on September 6th, 2008.

We wonder if 3ToTrade is taking a break…

He was, back listing again, only not fake flash drives.

These are the models sold under the eBay seller id of 3ToTrade. All are confirmed as Counterfeit, recorded with eBayer ID and eBay Item Number – Standard Procedure. Presented as listed at auction. Counterfeit items tied to criminal activity enjoy no protection. If you bought one of these usb fake flash drives from 3ToTrade, you should test immediately with the software H2testw 1.4 . Do not store any important data on the drive until you can confirm you have 16 GB (minus formatting overhead) for the 16 GB Models or 32 GB for the 32 GB Models.

These are the 16 GB Models sold until we were able to prevent him from listing.

 

 

 

 

 

These are the 32 GB Models sold by 3ToTrade until August 13th, 2008. At this time we succeeded with enough complaints to PayPal and eBay (Negative Feed Back) to force him to stop listing.

. Should your drive not report the true advertised capacity:

1. Immediately attempt to move any data you have stored on the drive to another source. Be advised if you have stored more than the reported size from H2testw 1.4, you will not be able to recover it all – you can expect to see errors in the copy back.
2. Immediately report to eBay and PayPal to add your voice against this seller.

If the eBay Item number has disappeared from your won list. Please go to PayPal and search through your transactions for the approximate time frame of your purchase. You will find the details of your transaction and ebay item number. PayPal keeps this information for a long time. Use the email address:

Please include:

1. PayPal Transaction Number
2. Ebay Item Number
3. Date Of PayPal Transaction
4. Date Of eBay Item Listing
5. Your eBayer Id
6. Cite eBay Seller 3ToTrade
7. The results from your testing with H2testw 1.4
8. Any information concerning data loss and it’s value to you

You are to inform them you wish to be part of the investigation against this seller and are adding yourself to the evidence. You expect to be fully refunded for the purchase and shipping and if you can prove data loss compensation for it as well. Furthermore, it is a fact that PayPal and eBay are aware of cases pouring in. You are invited to copy:

on your correspondence.

This seller has sold hundreds of counterfeit drives. You will see little evidence of negative feedback until recently.

We first detected that 3ToTrade was selling fakes in May 2008. We tried to bring it to eBay’s and PayPals attention. Buyers began ringing in at the dispute console. As a result 3ToTrade crawled into his shell and stopped listing under this id, so there is little evidence for that time period – people only found out after the fact – once it was to late. Are you one of these people? It did not prevent him from continuing under other ids.

To see his negative feedback.

How did the negatives suddenly appear?

We were waiting for him to return. He did this before. He was studied. He was investigated. His behavior analyzed. The only thing that distinguishs him from other counterfeit sellers of fake flash is that he is more clever at evasion. Smoke and Mirrors. He controls, but gets others to do the dirty work – mainly out of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong addresses are different but his is not.

How did eBayers suddenly get wise and test their drives? We aren’t telling. But 3ToTrade knows.

As of September 3rd 3ToTrade changed his listings for his other ids to private auctions!

Now if this is not an admission of guilt we do not know what is. You see, the moment he stopped listing under 3ToTrade, we knew he would simply switch to selling the counterfeit drives to another id – one which had time to cool off. He was very nervous. And for good reason. The Negatives pouring in at eBay, the disputes rising.

When eBayers replied in several countries, that it was illegal to send the drives back because they were counterfeits (illegal to use the postal system in most countries to send or receive counterfeit merchandise), 3ToTrade immediately stopped shipping to these countries. Instead Buyers in these countries had their transactions refunded. Another sign of guilt. The problem for 3ToTrade was that he was not aware, we were aware.

The listings clearly stated worldwide shipping. Coincidence? No. We know the identity of the eBayers who reminded him that it was illegal. We also know the eBayers who had their transactions cancelled.

Typical behavior of fake flash drive powersellers sellers on eBay:

1. List a few counterfeit Drives
2. Increase listings if not detected
3. Sell other items to ensure the feedback is padded with positive
4. Stop if PayPal disputes rise to a critical level
5. Switch to the next eBay seller id to list these drives
6. Let the seller id cool off and return in a month or two to continue

Yes we said “switch” to another seller id. It is a round robin circle between Seller id’s. The objective is to build a score with other items to a level that can take some negative feedbacks. The moment things got hot that is exactly what 3ToTrade did. No surprise there, the behavior of 3ToTrade has been studied for several months.

We don’t know if eBay and PayPal know as much as we do. If they do, they are hiding the truth. Very bad press at a time when they both don’t need it. On the other hand and we suspect this is the case, they haven’t a clue of what is going on. At this point we would like to give them the benefit of doubt.

Please read the other articles in this series to see the full picture on The Don Of Fake Flash in The Orient – 3ToTrade .

Check back to see if the Tally increases. If you are a victim of 3ToTrade please follow the steps outlined above and do add your comments if you like.