The frankenflash has been working with Kingston for some months to have listings for counterfeit Kingston flash drives removed from ebay. This is both for the sake of buyers and to help Kingston defend it’s well earned reputation for reliability. The sale of counterfeits undermines buyer confidence in brand names because when something goes wrong (as it inevitably does with counterfeit flash drives) it does not occur to most people to blame the seller – instead they blame the brand!
However (with all the other issues the long-standing members of the project deal with) we did not have the manpower to hunt out all those selling counterfeit Kingston until recently. However we now have a dedicated Kingston counterfeit hunter who has become very experienced at hunting down these and has developed a good rapport with Kingston. He now heads the counterfeit team at the fightflashfraud branch of the frankenflash project. As a result these counterfeits are being removed more quickly than ever before.
This fake flash angel (you know who you are!) has been awarded gold wings for his sterling efforts to warn sellers and buyers of fake flash items as well as his work with Kingston. Unfortunately sometimes we can’t get the message out quickly enough to stop some items being sold -if you find that a Kingston item vanished from your won list claim a refund through Paypal. Ebay knows it is counterfeit and there is no excuse for not refunding your money.
The frankenflash project is a worldwide coalition of ebay members who are former victims of fake flash fraud. We have a number of small teams working within the various branches of the project who work on different aspects of the problem. We have a dedicated team in the fightflashfraud branch who specialise in hunting out counterfeits.
What is a counterfeit?
A counterfeit anything is a cheap copy of a brand name item. Though counterfeits are always lower quality than the genuine article there is an additional problem with counterfeit flash memory items. A counterfeit fragrance, handbag, pair of counterfeit shoes, jeans or other such items may be poorer quality and less durable than the genuine article but at least they are useable and unlikely to cause damage.
Counterfeit flash memory is an entirely different story.
The user of a counterfeit Gucci handbag is unlikely to find that when she opens her handbag everything she put in it has either disappeared or turned to dust. The wearer of a pair of counterfeit Kalvin Kleing boxers is unlikely to find that his dangly bits have either vanished or shrivelled up and become unusable. The user of a counterfeit flash memory item is not so lucky.
Buyers of counterfeit flash memory, besides being defrauded financially, can end up with considerable amounts of lost and corrupted data. Anyone using a counterfeit will eventually find all their data (treasured photos or videos of the family, important business documents or whatever) has either been lost or corrupted. Why?
Because, as well as not being manufactured by the brand whose name they carry, they are also fake capacity. Once the true capacity (usually tiny in comparison with the capacity they seem) is exceeded – pouf – everything (or almost everything – depending on how much was “saved” to the drive) is gone or corrupt.
If you bought a flash memory item on ebay that bears the Kingston name and the item has mysteriously vanished from your won list it is no doubt because the item was counterfeit. Under pressure from Kingston, ebay has been forced to remove the item.
If you have not yet paid for it – do not do so!! If you have paid, claim a refund through paypal. Look at the refund advice on the sosfakeflash blog – this was written by previous victims of fraud to help you by giving you the benefit of their experience. Use it to overcome the barriers paypal often put in the way of victims of fraud. The knowledge you glean will arm you to deal with paypal’s tacticts to try and hang onto your cash.
Don’t forget to leave the calling card of “SOSFakeFlash” and “H2testw” in your feedback to help others. Do not change your feedback to get a refund – you will only create more victims. With Private Auctions the only way to defeat the fraudster is make your negative feedback count!
