So, I'm a member of a facebook group that buys and sells stuff, mostly it's used stuff like designer handbags and other things.
I was browsing and saw a post for "Brand New adata 128 gigabyte micro SD cards" for $35 a piece. So red flags are raised and I was thinking "How the hell can someone offer these for such a cheap price?" (Keep in mind that these retail for $54.99 + taxes.) I go online and ask the seller why they are so cheap - and she says that she bought them in bulk. That's reasonable, and I think that adata are a smaller brand, so there is less of an issue of getting faked cards.
We set up a meeting time, and I go and meet up with her at a local McDonalds. I pay $90 for three of the cards, and they came wrapped up nicely in foam/bubble wrap.
I finally get home after buying cold medicine and eating lunch at a pizza place, and I excitedly toss one of the cards onto the laptop. It is mounted as a separate drive, and boom - it shows up as 250 gigabytes. Warning, warning, warning. So I grab h2testw and start running it on the card. 16 hours later, it shows me that the card is just an 8 gb card faked into a full 250 gb card. Keep in mind that it's like 7:50 am in the morning when I find this out later.
I text the seller all morning and not a single answer. I'm getting mad because it's a waste of my damn time and my money and the seller still does not respond. I go out with my dad for lunch and we head to the library. All the time my phone is turned on - and I even phoned the seller three times normally from my cell phone. It's like 1:30 pm now. I finally get home again and I decide to file a police report online - my hometown as a great system, although it's unfriendly to those to don't read English. I took photos of the memory cards AND the h2testw results. Luckily, because these serve as evidence in my police report. So after all that, I end up filing the report, and I finally got in touch with the seller via facebook messaging. (I settle with ordering two 64 gb cards from Amazon to replace the junk I had.)
She asks me to check out the rest of the cards and I do. One of them reports as 32 gb, and the other was a 250 gb card. I tell her that I've filed a police report and she gets angry. She finally calms down when I tell her that she probably has been ripped off as well. I finish the testing of the "32 gb" card, and it reports that it's a single 16 gb card that again has been faked to report it as 32 gb on a computer. She uses my photo of the h2testw to talk to the wholesaler, and we conclude the conversation saying that we should meet up next week for a refund. She also removes the adverts from the "buy and sell" place that we are both using.
So Friday rolls around, and I get a email saying that my police report has been approved. I fill in a supplemental form that reports the rest of our conversation and now I'm just waiting for a bloody answer.
TL
R: I buy high capacity 128 gb adata cards from a local seller, and find out that they are "really bad fakes". I try to get in touch with the seller, fail and finally resort to filing a police report along with the photo proof of those awful fakes. We finally talk and the seller removes her advertisements from the site, and she gets in touch with the wholesaler. The police approve my case and actually give me a case number.
Pictures of the Cards in Question:
August 19 2016 Update:
Yes, I'm an idiot and didn't notice the SDHC thing on it. I blame the fact that I had the sniffles from a nasty ass cold (still sick, but medicine is making me feel...at least human).
So, we talked, and the idiot lady has tested her micro SD cards, and she was getting the 250+ gb results on her end. Problem is that she's just a cell phone tech, so that she just knows how to test with cell phone apps, which really don't do a good job on them. And she got stonewalled by the wholesaler (not surprised, because honey, they are a big time scammer - and I don't care how much positive feedback they have).
She's not shipping them back because it's hella expensive, but she's selling them locally (I'm going to be avoiding adata brand micro sds for a long while now). She promised me a full refund (because I told her that I modify Nintendo 3DSes for extra money), and that I can keep the shitty card I opened. Hooray, now I have a fake adata branded micro SD adapter. I don't know if I should cry OR cheer.
On the front with the police report, I added in extra information, that I've spoken to the seller and she promised me a full refund. And they emailed me back that they won't pursue the matter now. I feel like adding another form and asking them to check up on her. I just hope her other customers realize that they got scammed and go to the police.
You know what's shitty? She didn't respond me to until I threatened her with the cops. I still smell a scammer, but whatever...
I was browsing and saw a post for "Brand New adata 128 gigabyte micro SD cards" for $35 a piece. So red flags are raised and I was thinking "How the hell can someone offer these for such a cheap price?" (Keep in mind that these retail for $54.99 + taxes.) I go online and ask the seller why they are so cheap - and she says that she bought them in bulk. That's reasonable, and I think that adata are a smaller brand, so there is less of an issue of getting faked cards.
We set up a meeting time, and I go and meet up with her at a local McDonalds. I pay $90 for three of the cards, and they came wrapped up nicely in foam/bubble wrap.
I finally get home after buying cold medicine and eating lunch at a pizza place, and I excitedly toss one of the cards onto the laptop. It is mounted as a separate drive, and boom - it shows up as 250 gigabytes. Warning, warning, warning. So I grab h2testw and start running it on the card. 16 hours later, it shows me that the card is just an 8 gb card faked into a full 250 gb card. Keep in mind that it's like 7:50 am in the morning when I find this out later.
I text the seller all morning and not a single answer. I'm getting mad because it's a waste of my damn time and my money and the seller still does not respond. I go out with my dad for lunch and we head to the library. All the time my phone is turned on - and I even phoned the seller three times normally from my cell phone. It's like 1:30 pm now. I finally get home again and I decide to file a police report online - my hometown as a great system, although it's unfriendly to those to don't read English. I took photos of the memory cards AND the h2testw results. Luckily, because these serve as evidence in my police report. So after all that, I end up filing the report, and I finally got in touch with the seller via facebook messaging. (I settle with ordering two 64 gb cards from Amazon to replace the junk I had.)
She asks me to check out the rest of the cards and I do. One of them reports as 32 gb, and the other was a 250 gb card. I tell her that I've filed a police report and she gets angry. She finally calms down when I tell her that she probably has been ripped off as well. I finish the testing of the "32 gb" card, and it reports that it's a single 16 gb card that again has been faked to report it as 32 gb on a computer. She uses my photo of the h2testw to talk to the wholesaler, and we conclude the conversation saying that we should meet up next week for a refund. She also removes the adverts from the "buy and sell" place that we are both using.
So Friday rolls around, and I get a email saying that my police report has been approved. I fill in a supplemental form that reports the rest of our conversation and now I'm just waiting for a bloody answer.
TL
R: I buy high capacity 128 gb adata cards from a local seller, and find out that they are "really bad fakes". I try to get in touch with the seller, fail and finally resort to filing a police report along with the photo proof of those awful fakes. We finally talk and the seller removes her advertisements from the site, and she gets in touch with the wholesaler. The police approve my case and actually give me a case number.Pictures of the Cards in Question:
August 19 2016 Update:
Yes, I'm an idiot and didn't notice the SDHC thing on it. I blame the fact that I had the sniffles from a nasty ass cold (still sick, but medicine is making me feel...at least human).
So, we talked, and the idiot lady has tested her micro SD cards, and she was getting the 250+ gb results on her end. Problem is that she's just a cell phone tech, so that she just knows how to test with cell phone apps, which really don't do a good job on them. And she got stonewalled by the wholesaler (not surprised, because honey, they are a big time scammer - and I don't care how much positive feedback they have).
She's not shipping them back because it's hella expensive, but she's selling them locally (I'm going to be avoiding adata brand micro sds for a long while now). She promised me a full refund (because I told her that I modify Nintendo 3DSes for extra money), and that I can keep the shitty card I opened. Hooray, now I have a fake adata branded micro SD adapter. I don't know if I should cry OR cheer.
On the front with the police report, I added in extra information, that I've spoken to the seller and she promised me a full refund. And they emailed me back that they won't pursue the matter now. I feel like adding another form and asking them to check up on her. I just hope her other customers realize that they got scammed and go to the police.
You know what's shitty? She didn't respond me to until I threatened her with the cops. I still smell a scammer, but whatever...
