Hong Kong Fake Flash eBay Sellers – How To Get PayPal Refunds
Posted by KittyFireFlash on September 19, 2008
ebayers with Fake Flash drives bought on eBay from Hong Kong or China, SOSFakeFlash asks that you use a new procedure to resolve claim issues and get your refund at PayPal.
The Government of China does not condone or promote the traffic in counterfeit Flash drives. Citizens of this country who choose to engage in the illegal reprogramming of Flash drives or knowingly persist in selling them, need to be reported. The Chinese law enforcement agencies need your assistance and cooperation to help them identify the sources.
The actions are very direct in addressing the fake flash seller. This method sends a clear direct message to an eBay Seller who has sold fake flash drives to eBayers. Early reports indicates it is having results addressing the refund issue.eBay and PayPal have done little to stop fake flash sellers or help eBayers who have become victims. Instead we have found buyers who try to get their refunds and who warned both companies are ignored.
Please read the following information carefully to pursue your claim and get your refund.
If you are an eBayer who bought a flash drive on eBay you believe is a fake, you must confirm it is a fake. To do this you need to test the drive. Please see the article found under the tools category, H2testw 1.4 – Gold Standard In Detecting USB Counterfeit Drives.
You are not to use the following procedure if you only suspect you have purchased a counterfeit flash drive from an eBay seller based in Hong Kong or China. You should only proceed with the following actions if you have PROOF.
SOSFakeFlash is not interested in inciting witch hunts against eBay Flash drive sellers in the Orient. We are victims of fake flash drives and have suffered the consequences. There are honest sellers in the orient. Not all sellers are aware they are selling fakes. This has been seen in the Orient, Europe and North America. Please read the article: eBay Sellers Can Be Victims – How Does This Happen? filed under the victims category, if you need to be convinced this is possible.
The actions outlined apply to sellers with a history of selling fake drives in Hong Kong. It could also be applied to mainland China.
Please review the eBay Seller using http://toolhaus.or/cgi-bin/negs and type in the seller’s name. This will assist you to decide.
This new procedure comes from an eBayer who holds the record for the shortest time to resolve a claim.
QuickFlash Reported to us:
I first opened a dispute claim AND sent 3totrade + the others an email stating I was opening the dispute with ebay + Paypal + HK police! via the address listed, I also said I would cc ALL emails received from the seller.
5 minutes later WHAM, REFUND !!!
Hope this helps other buyers who got stuffed.
Still waiting on 3 others for refunds.
QuickFlash has demonstrated patience and fairness in his actoins
Steps For Dealing with eBay Fake Flash Sellers in Hong Kong and China
There are three categories:
A) New Claims
B) Existing Claims
C) Expired or Closed Claims By PayPal
Please use the one that describes your situation.
New Claims:
1. File a dispute with PayPal, attach your output evidence etc. Stress the facts, counterfeit drive, fake, not the advertised capacity, the actual capacity it is. Ensure to highlight that this is not a defective drive but fraud.
2. Send an email to the seller. Use the eBay messaging from your won list item. Inform the that you are opening a dispute. eBay, PayPal and the HK police will be cc’d on all emails received from the seller. You will not hesitate to use the HK police at the address (see later in post for address)
3. Give a clear time window for the resolution. If you communicate close to a weekend, factor in time for businesses closing on the weekend. For example: by close of business Monday, day – month – year. Giving the fake flash seller an opportunity to respond during working hours.
If you are not refunded within a reasonable time, you must contact the Hong Kong police with the full details of the case. First email then if necessary with a letter.
If you do a search on this site and find any articles on the seller or if the seller is identified in the mug shot reports – ask the Hong Hong Police to google on the seller and also to visit SOSFakeFlash .
Existing Claims:
Using your won list item, send an email to the fake flash seller. Advise that if the claim is NOT resolved with payment in full (including shipping and handling) immediately and without delay you will:
- contact the Hong Police
- all previous communications will be forwarded to the HK Police. This will include the return address for the usb counterfeit flash drive (if you have received this from the seller).
- any current communication from the seller will have eBay, PayPal and the HK police cc’d
Expired or Closed Claims By PayPal:
1. Using your won list item, send an email to the fake flash seller. Advise that if the claim is NOT resolved with payment in full (including shipping and handling) immediately and without delay you will:
-
contact the Hong Police
-
all previous communications will be forwarded to the HK Police. This will include the return address for the usb counterfeit flash drive (if you have received this from the seller).
-
any current communication from the seller will have eBay, PayPal and the HK police cc’d
Add to this you have lost patience with their lies and deception.
If you are not refunded:
You are to contact the Hong Kong Police at the email address provided below. If necessary you should write a letter and enclose all the details of your case. Ensure you have a photocopy of everything you send.
You are not engaging in a battle of words or posturing with the seller. This is serious and it is real. Make sure to carry out your actions.
Also ensure to follow up your email and correspondance. We know what eBayers have been through with both eBay and PayPal.
Success comes from being persistent. We came to be in May 2008. This is the first site of several underway. It is only a few weeks old. It made it’s debut on August 29th 2008, much earlier then we had planed due to the urgency. There would be no rescue missions on eBay by Fake Flash Angels, no investigations, no website and no information for you if people did not persist.
If you are refunded by a fake flash seller:
- Leave negative feedback to warn eBayers. No exceptions. Otherwise more eBayers will be joining the misery you have experienced.
- If you left postive feedback, do a follow up to your original feedback. Indicate you discovered a fake. This record is needed.
- Monitor the seller on your watch list.
- Has the seller stopped selling the drives? If the seller continues, contact other eBayers who bought the drives to test. If they report results like yours and the seller has not stopped selling these drives contact the Hong Kong Police with the details. No exception.
- Has the seller switched to private auctions (see whatcools, kaho.chan)? This means the seller will now try to hide the evidence from eBay, PayPal and eBayers. This seller will continue selling counterfeits to eBayers. Such sellers are the worst of all. Contact the Hong Kong Police with the details. Also refer them to listings at eBay (past auctions open, current now private auction). If your fake flash seller is documented at this site, send them the url address. Do not spare such sellers.
Hong Kong Police have a Technology Crime Division
email address:
Full postal address:
Technology Crime Prevention Unit,
Technology Crime Division,
Commercial Crime Bureau, HKP,
22/F, Arsenal House,
Police Headquarters,
1 Arsenal Street, Wanchai
Hong Kong.
Telephone:
Team OC: Technology Crime Prevention Unit Senior Inspector
Deputy Unit Head: Technology Crime Prevention Unit Sergeant
Telephone: (852) 2860 5012
Fax: (852) 2328 7128
Website:
Be firm and be clear in dealing with your fake flash eBay seller in Hong Kong and China.
Use the steps outlined that describe your claim status. Do not hesitate to contact the Technology Crime Prevention Unit if you do not receive cooperation from the seller, if the seller continues to sell the fake drives to others or if the seller tries to hide by switching to private auctions.
Do not hesitate to contact us with your progress and results.
If a fake flash seller chooses to stop selling counterfeit flash drives let us know, continue to monitor the seller. These sellers often stop for a month or too and then restart. See 3ToTrade, ShopwithMela, Kaho.Chan and what cools, they are the best example – The Don Of Fake Flash In the Orient (3ToTrade) has many id’s at his finger tips.
We welcome the return shipping address you receive from either eBay or PayPal for a fake flash seller along with the seller id and contact name if listed. This information is critical to our investigations. It helped us realize that the id’s above were actually one and the same person.
The FrankenFlash Project is interested to learn of other sources for fake flash drives being purchased. For example, one of the biggest sources for distribution of Fake flash drives into the United States is liquidation.com. Ebay sellers in the United State who discover they are selling fakes report this as the major source for their wholesale purchases.
If we all work together we can begin to rid the world of this plague in counterfeit flash drives that is causing so much harm, data loss, damage to individuals and governments.
It begins with cleaning up eBay and rescuing eBayers from fake flash purchases.
File your claim – advise your seller of the actions you will take.
Do your part! But remember, operate strictly on evidence as we at SOSFakeFlash do!
SOSFakeFlash 
eduardo colonna said
chankaho1984@gmail.com
1sky1dream@gmail.com
whatcools@gmail.com
these 3 suppliers of fake flashpen usb are still in operation.
FakeStopper said
Yes it true these 3 suppliers are still registered in ebay. But 1sky1dream and whatcool is not longer selling anything. Do you by any chance have the physical address for 1sky1dream? We know for sure whatcools and kaho.chan is the same person (physical address the same).
I also ask you and everyone else who have previously brought from kaho.chan to report him to ebay. Click on the “report this item” at the bottom of the listing. Also write an email to ebay asking why he can list his item as “private” as this encourage the dealing of an illegal activities.
Whatcools was stop from listing because he was reported to ebay. He use to sell his product as “private” but the issue was raise and ebay stop his operation. If everyone do the same, kaho.chan can also be stop
ian said
Hello
this was just my response on paypal as today i make my first dispute on paypal (actually to anyone ever . These procedures I am told are all we have, and ebay and paypal do not help them selves as I have already been through rounds, 1, 2, and 3 with the supplier whatcools. Life can do without these things.
Hello
I clearly purchased a memory stick of capacity 32 gb capacity, it is not please see report below from tests I run
Warning: Only 31983 of 31984 MByte tested.
The media is likely to be defective.
7.7 GByte OK (16277472 sectors)
23.4 GByte DATA LOST (49223712 sectors)
Details:0 KByte overwritten (0 sectors)
0 KByte slightly changed (< 8 bit/sector, 0 sectors)
23.4 GByte corrupted (49223712 sectors)
0 KByte aliased memory (0 sectors)
First error at offset: 0x0000000000000008
Expected: 0x0000000000000011
Found: 0x0000000000000000
H2testw version 1.3
Writing speed: 9.73 MByte/s
Reading speed: 11.6 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4
This is one of the multiple test that I run, all exactly the same out come.
I was patient long enough with you prior to leaving negative feedback on ebay. You can see from my seller statisitics, i have always been well behaved on ebay
Please be aware, that should I not receive postive confirmation that you refund me my monies including shipping I will not only in parallel persue this further on paypal and ebay , but will pursue this on other web sites I have since found about you company and also the hong kong police.
Naturally the device works as I run the above test , but this is counterfeit , so this is fraudulent.
I do not understand why you do this, most people are fair and honest.
However I will continue this first step as indicated by paypal.
Should this issues not be reolved I will forward the details to this hong kong police fraud squad cpu-tcd@police.gov.hk, technoligy division.
There are many people and many web sites on the net I have since discoverd about your company.
I am very happy to wait here and have a courier come and collect this item as I indicated at your cost as I am yet unsure of the legal implications for me to be responsible for posting such a device in the uk. You are the first time I have had a bad expereince and left -ve feedback, these procuedures enforced do not help ebay or paypal, ian
hakan sevinc said
seller : pengsoloshow
32GB Key Pen Drive Flash Memory Stick USB 2.0 32G GO U8
Item number: 260283720781
Seller: gtim45378
32GB Key Pen Drive Flash Memory Stick USB 2.0 32G GO U8
Item number: 260283720781
Warning: Only 18002 of 31984 MByte tested.
The media is likely to be defective.
0 KByte OK (0 sectors)
17.5 GByte DATA LOST (36868096 sectors)
Details:0 KByte overwritten (0 sectors)
0 KByte slightly changed (< 8 bit/sector, 0 sectors)
17.5 GByte corrupted (36868096 sectors)
0 KByte aliased memory (0 sectors)
First error at offset: 0x0000000000000008
Expected: 0x0000000000000011
Found: 0x0000000000000000
H2testw version 1.3
Reading speed: 8.88 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4
The media is likely to be defective.
3.8 GByte OK (8121032 sectors)
27.3 GByte DATA LOST (57382200 sectors)
Details:0 KByte overwritten (0 sectors)
0 KByte slightly changed (< 8 bit/sector, 0 sectors)
27.3 GByte corrupted (57382200 sectors)
0 KByte aliased memory (0 sectors)
First error at offset: 0x00000000f7d59000
Expected: 0x00000000f7d59000
Found: 0x0000000000000000
H2testw version 1.3
Writing speed: 12.2 MByte/s
Reading speed: 9.48 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4
Comeon said
Don’t just complain to PAYPAL get your credit card issuing bank involved, they trump PAYPAL.
So if Barclays issued your card bitch to them, this way PAYPAL has to pay for chargeback fees, if you wanna understand how PAYPAL works understand that they work by percentage, if a seller costs them more then they earn from the seller then they banned the seller’s account. Actually PAYPAL aint even that dumb, they is a business, they’ll ban a seller before he or she starts losing Paypal money.
So BITCH TO YOUR CREDIT CARD COMPANY once the investigation takes places PAYPAL is charged, and yes they’ll initially just pass on the fees to that particular seller, but threshold baby, if one dude proves to be a liability then he’s gone.
And be an educated Consumer, think before you buy do your bloody research, Nothing comes for Free, if its too bloody good a deal there’s a good chance there’s something wrong.
kittyfireflash said
For anyone who paid by credit card, Comeon’s advice is excellent! SOSFakeFlash seconds Comeon’s advice.
As for “Too Good To Be True” – that is a fact. Please look at the category on Flash Dirve Education. We have designed two very interesting lessons and shopping trips for you to explore and learn from!
nembokid said
Hi everynody.
Also the Hong-Kong Police is ignoring the fake flashpen fraud.
I send them a detailed report, with information about fake flashpens, tests, name and adddress of sellers, that is the answer I have got.
“Dear sir/madam,
Thank you for your report dated 2008-OCT-29. You are advised to report
the incident to your local law enforcement agency. If there is criminal
factors detecting or Hong Kong connection found in your case, you law
enforcement agency will make a formal request to relevant judiciary
authority.
Technology Crime Prevention,
Technology Crime Division,
Commercial Crime Bureau,
Hong Kong Police Force”
What else could be done?
1-Complaint presented to the seller with info about test and attached copy of report for the Police.Seller offered 50 % refund (unfortunately not accepted by me).
2-Complaint to Paypal with all the info, test, even the fact that the seller (flogkingdom) was deregistered
3–Complaint rejected, Paypal asking a third party document, impossible to obtain,because would cost more than the value of transaction to be refunded.
3-Now waiting only in front of further escalation to second/third level of Paypal Complaint Report Offices.
Any suggestions???
Now I have other complaints in progress thru Paypal in similar conditions.
Saykor said
address:
Zhong LiSa
32B,XiaoFeng Building ,
29# YouYi Road,Luohu District,
Shenzhen,518001
GuangDong Province
China
Saykor said
The address above is on kaho.chan
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Leigh OConnell said
E-Bay finally removed the “haifter” seller over the weekend of 27/28th June 2009- I received one of my 2 paid for “16gb” USB drives that was actually a 2gb drive on Monday 29/06/2009.
As seller has been de-listed, so have the items. Cannot leave neg f/b or E-Mail seller but have lodged PayPal claim.
H2TESTW used to test drive – what a great program!!!!
Helen said
Hi Lee – hope you sent your test results etc to sosfakeflash – evidence is important!
David said
Hi,I recieved a fake game via a Chinese seller on eBay, but it is too late for me to get a refund via PayPal. So who do I contact? (His eBay account is gone)
Dan said
I got the same problem as Leigh. I raised a claim with Paypal and received a response from the seller as below.
I will try to get a refund without sending my MP3 back. This seller disappeared quickly from eBay after the purchase. We should argue with Paypal/eBay that we have no means now to trust/authenticate the seller. A refund is the solution.
========
Dear Sir/Madam
I am sorry I can’t get the reason why like this, that is too strange.
But please don’t be worried, please return that to me, I will send you a replacement then exchange with the factory
….
SHENZHEN GUANG DONG
CHINA
And pls write the item number
I will send you a replacement or refund as soon as I get your return item
Sorry again for any inconveniences
Best Regards
kittyfireflash said
To Dan
Who was the seller? Please report in to us using the report a fake tab. Don’t fall for the replacement routine, it is only to make sure you use up precious days to file a paypal claim. The seller will be happy to have the item back to send to a new victim and possibly claim they never received it from you. Besides being illegal to use the postal system for counterfeit items, our experience shows that victims frequently do not get a new item, loss their opportunity to file a claim and worse still – lose the only evidence they had.
David said
Well the e-mail was gameshopwang@hotmail.com and the user was gameshopwang743 or something similar. He didn’t say he would replace it, I just didn’t open it for a while as it was a gift. So I still have the game and box.
Ksopitan said
hi, this website is cool.
it protects and support honest ebay seller as well with its useful information.
im on board
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Mike C. said
USPS legal ruling on mailing counterfeit and/or fake items; http://pe.usps.com/FRN/Inert_Munitions_Final.doc
SS said
Mike C, thank you for this.. i was nearly ready to ship items back to China (4 fake d*** usb drives) for $108 refund.. but who knows if the address is even real and if paypal will really even track the ‘required tracking info’.. not sure of my next steps yet but thanks for the pdf.
SS said
Mike C, oops not pdf I mean the word document
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