What is the key factor that determines whether you buy a fake flash memory MP Player, usb flash drive or memory card?

How can you know if a mp player, memory card or usb flash drive is suspect? How can you quickly spot a fake – flash capacity! See TechChip’s recent article: How Can You Spot Fake Flash Memory Chips? What Is the Key Factor That Determines If MP3 MP4 Players, USB Flash Drives Or Memory Cards Are Fake Capacity?

Flash Memory Prices Are Rising – Digitimes Reveals Why.

The FrankenFlash Project has been reporting that prices for memory flash chips are going up, not down. A recent article published by Digitimes on 14 September 2009: Apple demand causing serious NAND flash shortage in Taiwan confirms this. Digitimes reveals why the prices are rising.

digitimes’s reported the following prices:

The average spot price of 16Gb multi-level cell (MLC) chips rose 0.85% to close at US$5.17 on September 11, and the 32Gb part was up 0.5% to US$7.13, according to DRAMeXchange. In the contract market, average pricing for 16Gb chips climbed 7.2% to US$4.48 in the first half of September, and 32Gb went up 4.3% to US$6.80.

For potential sellers and buyers this information is very important to know. Unfortunately a lot of older smaller capacity flash memory chips are being digitally altered to report a size much larger than the actual capacity.

Bit’s and Bytes Math

Memory manufacturers do not refer to memory chips in GB – Gigabytes, they use Gigabits. This confuses a lot of people. Is there a difference? Yes.

It takes 8 bits to make a byte. Therefore in consumer terms you must divide any size reported in Gb, by 8 – this will give you the size consumers are familiar with – GB.

What does this mean for prices?

16Gb multi-level cell (MLC) / 8 = 2GB chip. A 2GB chip costs $5.17
32Gb multi-level cell (MLC) / 8 = 4GB chip. A 4GB chip costs $7.13

spot prices on average are a little lower for “contracts”

16Gb multi-level cell (MLC) / 8 = 2GB chip. A 2GB chip costs $4.48
32Gb multi-level cell (MLC) / 8 = 4GB chip. A 4GB chip costs $6.80

Previously reported What Are The Real Costs For Flash Chips In China? Guide 2009

1GB = 3.38
2GB = 4.11
4GB = 6.61
8GB = 13.23
16GB = 29.41

This means:

2GB rose about 25% since April, 2009: from $4.11 to $5.17 US
4GB rose about 8% since April, 2009:$6.61 to $7.13 US

The April 2009 pricing reflected the increasing costs, much higher than 2008 for the same capacity. While information is not currently available for 8GB or 16GB, you can expect they also rose in price and as they are more recent chips, perhaps a great deal.

Consumers and potential resellers for usb flash drives, mp players and memory cards need to be extremely careful.

Only mentioned are the actual costs of the memory chips. The prices do not include the extras needed actually create a usb flash drive, mp player or memory card. The other parts, labour costs to assemble, modest profit of the manufacturing facility, modest profit of a wholesaling site – for genuine capacity items have been excluded.

If you are a seller thinking of selling please read:

So You Want To Sell On eBay For USB Memory Flash Drive PenSticks – MP Players – Memory Cards? Can You Make An Honest Profit And Sell Cheap? and consult other articles at https://flashdrivefacts.wordpress.com/

Please research and becareful. The FrankenFlash Project and it’s many sites are combating fraud for false capacity memory chips. These are chips reprogrammed to lie about their real size to operating systems. You should always inspect and test your merchandise for it’s true memory capacity prior to offering it for sale!

Read: H2testw 1.4 – Gold Standard In Detecting USB Counterfeit Drives at SOSFakeFlash . If you review the many comments you will know why this software is so useful.

Practice safe selling:

1. Research your intended product.
2. Find out what the costs are for memory chips.
3. Buy from reputable sources.
4. Test your merchandise!
5. If flash memory devices fail testing:

• If it fails testing with H2testw, take the item apart to inspect the memory chips.
• Visit http://flashchiptech.wordpress.com/ for link information to chip manufactures to decode the chips you found to determine the real size.
• If it is a brand name product report it to the brand name. Include the source of acquistion.
• Photograph, document. See http://fixfakeflash.wordpress.com/ and http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/ for examples.
• Take legal action against your acquisition source according to how you paid and the laws of your country.
• Please do not attempt to sell the false capacity items to reclaim your costs. You only make the problem grow. If you are reported to the project and they investigate, you could find yourself on the internet.
• You are welcome to report the source of your fake flash memory acquisition to sosfakeflashdrive@gmail.com.
• Feel free to leave a comment on an article at any of the FrankenFlash Project sites. Make sure to post your testing results along with your testimony for items purchased outside of eBay. This is important. It warns other potential sellers against purchasing from your source!

The FrankenFlash Project is a co founded effort. Fake flash sellers on eBay (victims) and eBay buyers together started the project. It was not founded solely by buyers who became victims of false memory flash chips. Avoid the potential nightmare that comes from buying false capacity memory. RESEARCH YOUR PROJECT. Test items by category before offering for sale. Periodically continue to randomly test your orders. You are quality control. Protect yourself. Protect your buyers.

You can earn money by selling, but expect a modest profit. If you are being offered unrealistic prices, you will receive false capacity items. Digitimes has given some of the current prices and has explained some of the reasons why they are increasing.

Producing high quality flash drive chips, is expensive. There is a lot of overhead – the inspection process for flash memory chips is repeated at various stages during the manufacturing process. It is not only carried out at the end! During the retesting, more and more chips are discarded as they move through the process. These are often the chips that some how end up in fake capacity usb flash drives, mp players and memory cards.

Both resellers and consumers need to be prepared to pay realistic prices. If either or both do not, expect false capacity memory to be the result and the nightmare of consequences that come with fake memory.

What Are The Real Costs For Flash Chips In China? Guide 2009

What are the real costs for flash chips in China? The average current prices for 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB and 16GB are here for you to review. This is your yardstick to judge if you are buying true capacity or a fake. Beware, protect yourself from fraud. FlashChipTutor reveals information both consumers and resellers need to know.

Why are many consumers and resellers ending up with fakes and Counterfeits? Outraged, they might be when they discover the truth. Have they really been cheated?

FlashChipTutor’s answer to this question is both no and yes. The sad reality is that buyers are getting a flash chip at a realistic price with a usual markup that includes the device: MP Player, USB Flash pen stick, memory card. They are being cheated in terms of what is advertised and what is actually given.

Supply and demand. If there is no demand, the supply in false capacity will stop. There is a demand for cheap prices, so flash chips are altered to present the desired capacity people want. Some call this upgrading, others call this changed. In any case the chips have been digitally altered to lie about their real size. For flash USB Memory drives and memory cards this leads to data loss. It happens when you exceed the real capacity of the flash chip.

This practise is no secret in the Orient, in fact it is common knowledge. In other parts of the world it is not widely known. Yes, everyone knows about watching out for used cars, or checking the teeth of a horse from a trader, but few expect this sort of thing to occur for recent technology. This naivety is exactly what fake flash sellers capitalize on.

Do resellers know the dirty secret for flash devices at unrealistic prices? Some do, others don’t. The ones to pay the heaviest price are consumers, not only do they lose money, they suffer the consequences of data loss and what that means. Do the fake flash sellers care? No. From their point of view, you are getting exactly what you are paying for! Note, the emphasis is – what you are paying for!

So everyone in the Orient is a crook, right? WRONG!

Honest businessmen in the orient are as frustrated as we are. They struggle to do honest business, to keep their integrity in difficult times. It is an almost impossible challenge as people race to the fake flash sellers blinded by the cheap prices. Knowing what will happen to these buyers there is little they can do. All they can do is promote awareness of the truth and hope someone will pay attention.

Recently yoyo22, published: about fake USB flash drive and memory card

yoyo22 explains:

Do you know what the fake USB flash drive or memory card means? over here,fake is not the copies or replicas.the chip is “upgrade”,which mean that the chip is only 1gb,it is shown on PC 4gb or 8gb even 16gb.

Fakes USB flash (whole same package to original)

1G changed to 2g -price same to real orignal 1GB
1G changed to 4g -price same to real orignal 1GB
1G changed to 8g -price same to real orignal 1GB
2G changed to 4g -price same to real orignal 2GB
2G changed to 8g -price same to real orignal 2GB
4G changed to 8g -price same to real orignal 4GB
8G changed to 16g -price same to real orignal 8GB

now i am in china,the memory chip’s price is not cheap ,actually.my supplier told me coz the economic crisis,most of the factories can not store too much products.unless get a order,they will manufacture it .

here i dont find the 32gb memory chip.so i feel,any chinese suppliers who offer 32gb usb flash drive ,whose price less than USD60,it must be a “upgrade” fake.

the price of 16GB is more than RMB200.00 (USD1.00=RMB6.80). as i known,1gb memory chip is more than RMB23, 2gb chip is more than RMB28, 4gb chip is more than RMB45, 8gb is more than RMB90. and the 16gb’s chip is not good enough,my honest supplier told me it is with many problem.

so every body ,take care of the fake usb flash and memory card.

yoyo22 has done his part to warn everyone with his information. The FrankenFlash Project recognizes his contribution to help the Global Community understand.

So from yoyo22’s information, in US Dollars these are the fair prices for flash chip by capacity:

1GB = 3.38
2GB = 4.11
4GB = 6.61
8GB = 13.23
16GB = 29.41

In some cases a flash based device can have two chips working together to give you a larger size under a controller. The information reported by yoyo22 is in line with the prices reported by Dave in USB Flash Drives Best Price Bargains Fair Value To Sell Or Buy 8GB 16GB 32GB

Currently it seems the 16GB chip produced in China is not considered completely stable, remember it is relatively new and like with any new technology it needs to be worked on – bleeding edge, is exactly that.

So are you a consumer who fell into the fake flash pit with a usb flash drive, memory card or MP Player? Are you a reseller now sitting on a large inventory you can’t sell without breaking the law and hurting buyers? Do you feel foolish?

Did you make the wrong assumptions about pricing, thinking it was “cheaper” because you were cutting out the middle men? Well you are NOT alone. Members of the Project fell into the fake flash pit before you did – it is why they are trying to do something about it. It’s getting too crowded down there! Standing room only now.

If you are planning to buy any flash based technology as a consumer or reseller, please use the pricing guidelines provided by yoyo22 and Dave.

Do not make the mistake of thinking prices for flash chips will go down. They will not. The manufacturing costs can not go any lower to produce a quality chip, they are already at the lowest they can be. Do not think because of the current economic issues world wide that they will drop. Because of economic conditions, manufacturers can not take any more losses. Production is stopping at many manufacturing facilities while the current stock pile inventory is being cleared instead.

See:

• New! NAND Flash Market: Spot Prices & Outlook 2009
• Toshiba to Adjust Production of NAND Flash Memory in Yokkaichi
• Toshiba, SanDisk to cut Nand flash production
• NAND flash memory market status worse than expected

If you are an eBay Buyer please use the pricing guidelines for size capacity and factor in the cost of the device and casing. If you are an eBay Seller buying from a wholesale site in the Orient becareful of low prices – you don’t want to join the sellers on the list at SOSFakeFlash.

Trade with honest businessmen and prepare to offer fair prices to receive genuine merchandise. The only Klondike is for fools gold – false capacity.

Genuine Verses Fake Counterfeit USB Flash Drives – A Guide – USB Flash Chips Used In USB Flash Drives – Grades A B C D

Is the quality or grade of a flash chip important to a usb flash drive, memory card or MP Player? Is it a factor in the wholesale and retail price? Does it really matter? What does a genuine usb flash drive from a brand name use, MP Players and memory cards. What do generic no name brands use? What do fraudsters and scammers use in their counterfeit fake false capacity items? Is it worth the effort to repair a fake counterfeit? If you repair a fake, what do you need to know? Why is this information important to buyers and resellers?