About

We are part of the FrankenFlash Project and to do the work being invisible is important.  More information will be coming but the urgency for counterfeit flash awareness matters more. It is the priority.

Many people have lost money, some a lot.  But….

It does not matter what price paid for the drive – who can put a price on data copied to it?  Documents.  Photos.  Memories?   If the source data has been deleted – these files are gone forever.  The loss will mean different things to different people.

We are unable to reveal exactly what the data loss can mean or where it has occurred. A lot has to remain confidential.  People’s jobs are at stake.  Some could face court martials.  There is no reason to make people victims a second time – the experience was traumatic enough.

It is frightening to learn just who has been a victim of counterfeit flash drives. Causal users to the most savvy about technology, together they tumble  in the fake flash pit.  Quiet a few have been rescued by the fake flash angels. No, we can’t elaborate on what that means – only almost all are victims of fake flash drives.  It is not just buyers of fake flash on the warpath, sellers are too.  Both are working together.  Why?  If you are a victim of Fake Flash it would be easy understand.  If you have not been a victim, think of how you would feel if someone took a hammer to your hard disk or shredded or snapped all your data cd’s, dvds and old floppies – how would you feel about the loss?

See The post What is This Fake Flash All About?

What keeps us going?

“Never doubt that a small group
of thoughtful, committed people
can change the world.
Indeed, it’s the only thing
that ever has.”
-Margaret Mead

We have entered the third year of fighting fake flash memory chips, also known politely by resellers in Asia as “Upgraded Flash Memory”.  Recently there was debate about a seller.

A former victim,  The_Flash https://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/sinceritytrading-ebay-fake-flash-seller-alert-hong-kong/#comment-12661 explained why this issue is so painful.  eBay continues to be flooded with fake flash memory products. The fact that SOSFakeFlash started in 2008 is still here, is a testiment to the problem.

It was so bad our site was forced to introduce a zero tolerance policy. Sellers on eBay who do not research their products or test them before selling, pay the price.

There are those who feel they are not to blame or should be excused: https://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/sinceritytrading-ebay-fake-flash-seller-alert-hong-kong/#comment-12532

Reader Stephen says:

I bought an 8 GB Sandisk Extreme CF from sinceritytrading recently (big risk, I now realise) and it’s OK. There are no errors and transfer speeds are faster than my old laptop.

Do I trust sinceritytrading? Not 100%.

Would I buy from them again? Probably not.

Are all there products fake? I don’t think so. Sites like sosfakeflash, fake-memory.com are grossly unfair to traders who make just one mistake. Perhaps sinceritytrading’s supplier was at fault and they themselves didn’t know the product was bad. They must ship thousands and can’t test even batches, I think.

Was my purchase a good deal? Yes, but what if the card failed with htestw. Is it worth the trouble to test and then dispute over a fake card? Probably not.

Long time reader, commentator and former flash memory victim The_Flash countered:

Sites like sosfakeflash, fake-memory.com are grossly unfair to traders who make just one mistake.”

And fake flash media is grossly unfair to the new parent who uses it to take their irreplaceable first picture of their newborn; It’s grossly unfair to the person who, having paid for a once-in-a-lifetime trip, uses it to try to take pictures of events that will never in their life be repeated; It’s grossly unfair to the future of the youngster who entrusted their important course-work to it (and whose reason for not having the work is likely to be dismissed as a childish excuse!); It’s grossly unfair to people who buy them as thoughtful gifts, and people who receive them and lose files. And so on and so forth. There are plenty more reasons than that.

Now you know why we exist! Why we continue. SOSFakeFlash is about “YOU“, the consumer, the buyer.

It is about your pain, your horrible discovery. Sellers are responsible for what they sell.

Note that the “rules” SOSFakeFlash follows have been set by former eBay sellers of fake flash memory products, not by buyers on eBay. It is a co-founded project, eBay buyer victims, eBay former fake memory sellers.