SOSFakeFlash A Special Message From KittyFireFlash To Reader Jonno

Hi Jonno,

Your interest is keen on the subject of fake flash memory. This is good. The questions you raise are probably ones a lot of readers have. In answering you we have the opportunity to answer all readers.

1) Contacting buyers
2) Using tags in comments
3) Warning Listings On eBay – Do We encourage?
4) Reporting Fake Flash Memory Sellers
5) Final Notes And Important Thoughts

1) Contacting buyers

Before internet days, we had cookie cut message wording. In fact it always began a certain way. At one time we had a full guide. Pages and pages of exactly what to do, step by step. It was translated into several languages by software, and manually translated into Russian. Unfortunately it lead to a lot of questions and fake flash angels overloaded. It is one of the reasons we started internet sites in the project.

Why we don’t publish a special wording format for all to follow? To ensure that eBay can not easily search and filter through messages and block them. eBay is not your friend. They are driven by the bottom line, profit rules. Everyone is invited to be creative and have their own style when creating messages. Keep it short, be direct and “share” your eBay experience. Warn them to test for actual capacity. Use the key words “H2testw + SOSFakeFlash”. If your seller has a published alert, check that it shows in search engines. If so, you can skip adding SOSFakeFlash if you like. Never put www.sosfakeflash.wordpress.com that is a url address and eBay will look for it. You can say sosfakeflash.

We suggest people type up a message in notepad. A text file. Then copy paste each time into an eBay message. When people get used to it, it takes less then 15 minutes a day. Not a big sacrifice and even fun! Why? Because not only does a person have the opportunity to sting a fake memory seller, they have the chance to rescue someone from data loss, have them fight for their money back. As one eBay member can only send up to 5 messages with one eBay id, it takes many people to make a difference. When that happens, a fraudulent seller is suspended. When it doesn’t the seller just keeps on frauding.

2) Using tags in comments

That takes a bit of getting used to. There are hints at the bottom of a comment. So generally it is:

<tag>My something</tag>

The same tag ends it, but has a slash. The “/” is a signal to close. So for blockquote it would be:

<blockquote>My something to say goes here</blockquote>

3) Warning Listings On eBay – Do We encourage?

About your comment on finding the eBay listing warning and suggesting we encourage it. We do! eBay can be vicious . So people have to be smart about it.

We have been watching FakeFlash‘s work. We saw what was going on. Not a peep from us, why would we spoil the effort? It was also a relief, as it meant less victims, less incoming reports, less additional research, less back log on alerts. FakeFlash showed guts. A true fighter willing to meet the fake flash memory sellers on their own terms. Now this is not for the faint of heart or those who want to pacifistically sink to the bottom of the fake flash memory pit (it’s more of a black hole then anything else) with their virtue intact. This is a war with many battles. The objective is to kick fake flash sellers off eBay, period. Stop them from frauding buyers, stealing their money, destroying their data files and obliterating treasured moments photographs record.

Most people are best suited to be FakeFlashAngels, FakeFlashCommando missions are not for everyone. Unlike some sites, we do not disapprove of fake flash commandos. Without their assistance, even more people would be victims. We don’t ask for it, we don’t promote it, but we appreciate it! We’ve been on record before and we remind all readers again, FakeFlashCommands came before FakeFlashAngels. They were the pioneers that brought this problem into the spotlight and long before we existed.

People who place warning listings on eBay are the official soldiers. They do battle with listings warning people. It works. You found it and so you learned the truth. You do have to be careful, because eBay does not like it, it drives down sales. It also drives down the bid prices fake flash memory sellers get. You do have to sell “something”, it can’t just be a warning message.

So for more information on warning listings read the reply from FakeFlash to you and other readers.

We need more warning listings on eBay! It is the correct place to fight the battle. It is where the fake flash memory is being sold. It can save people from making the mistake of bidding and buying and becoming a victim. In 2008, it was the most effective weapon. It dropped in 2009 and now in 2010 there are so few. Warning listings are preventive, they also educate. One of the reasons people become victims is that they are unaware of the problem or the true prices for flash memory items.

Sell your reports, your personal experiences as a document or pdf file. Do include references to us at SOSFakeFlash and the testing software so people can get help and so you have additional proof to confirm what you are saying.

4) Reporting Fake Flash Memory Sellers

About reporting sellers. There is a queue. There are a lot of victims. Priory goes to new sellers. Information and data has to be collected and entered. New sellers require investigation. Information on them has to be preserved. Sometimes it is difficult. eBay is not going to make it easy.

Did you know we have people report in 8 months after an alert was issued on a seller? Even 18 months later? It happens. The information is long gone, disappeared on the internet. Usually it is not “disappeared” with us. In most cases we can reconstruct and validate the information. Preserving adds a lot of additional overhead in time.

About counts for sellers. We used to update them on alerts. We don’t anymore. In the beginning of the summer of 2009, SOSFakeFlash introduced a zero tolerance policy. One report was enough to issue an alert. There were several reasons for this: 18 months of experience accumulated, the growing number of fake flash memory sellers and the need to warn consumers. It is too time consuming to update individual alerts. Just see the Fake Flash Memory category.

Counts are also a moving target, they keep changing. It was one of the reasons for introducing the lists. To see negative and neutral feedback progress against a seller we suggest people use:

http://toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs

Type in the sellers name, bookmark the page.

We advise people keep reporting in so we can investigate, document and preserve. Unfortunately as there are so many victims we can’t respond to most people at the moment. There are too many victims. So we also suggest people leave comments on articles at this site too. The search engine spiders will pick them up and lead people here.

If we had more warning listings on eBay, there would be less sellers to document and less victims.

5) Final Notes And Important Thoughts

We are volunteers. No pay. There are day jobs and families to look after. Some sacrifice 4 hours a day, a few others up to 6 or 7 hours a day. Most are victims just like you. It is a concern for others that drives us along with the injustice and outrageous fraud eBay continues to allow, for eight years. We are over two years old now. This is not minor fraud, but in the hundreds of millions range.

Due to the steady increase in fake flash memory sellers appearing on eBay since the beginning of Winter 2010, we are under more pressure and strain to keep up.

The two major sources: A) eBay sellers in the orient B) internet wholesale sites in the Orient that Western eBay sellers import from. If we built a wall around China, the problem of fake flash memory chips would disappear overnight. We can’t build a physical wall, but we can build a “Wall Of Truth ” awareness, consumer education.

The solution is obvious, more help needed.

• more people taking action by becoming a fake flash angel
• more people with a fighting nature to be fake flash commandos
• more people to create warning listings on eBay
• more people to document their stories on the internet and link to us – in many languages!

How well we do depends on YOU!

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