I bought an 8Tb disk on AliExpress for 21 dollars and I will explain the result to you.

TairikuOkami · Nov 3, 2023

antspants said:
That’s just generalising China. Why do people do that? We have Chinese members in here that might possibly take offence.

Indeed, the same happens on ebay and amazon. People keep forgetting that it is not a single shop, there are thousands shops and millions people selling stuff on each platform. It is just like buying a bad product in a legitimate store, you will blame the store?

zequion said:
So the Chinese company sends garbage and you keep it and nobody does anything.

Amazon and ebay ban the account and a minute later, they create a new one, thus it is important to buy from verified, long standing sellers, not from someone, who created an account a month ago. That seller has reputation 89%, anything bellow 98% is bad.

Fabler2 · Nov 3, 2023

TairikuOkami said:
Indeed, the same happens on ebay and amazon. People keep forgetting that it is not a single shop, there are thousands shops and millions people selling stuff on each platform. It is just like buying a bad product in a legitimate store, you will blame the store?

Amazon and ebay ban the account and a minute later, they create a new one, thus it is important to buy from verified, long standing sellers, not from someone, who created an account a month ago. That seller has reputation 89%, anything bellow 98% is bad.

Absolutely agree. It's a case of Caveat Emptor and always do your research.

HodorongTronc · Nov 3, 2023

fake, if you format this flash disk game over, not BUY !!!

Fabler2 · Nov 3, 2023

@zequion , see my post of 8 Oct about Validrive. It will check the true value of the drive and give a report. That will save you destroying it.

Validrive, Quickly spot-check any USB storage for fraud and errors.

A freeware that checks USB drives in a non destructive way. https://www.grc.com/freeupdated.htm Tested it on a Macrium and Data partitioned USB flash drive. Looks ok.

www.elevenforum.com

zequion · Nov 3, 2023

I just put the USB disk in and the disk LED turns on but the drive letter does not appear. The last thing I did was insert a thin tool through the small hole to pull and try to get the inside out. I don't know if it has been damaged or if the disk only lasts a week. I have already informed Paypal that it seems like a scam and, depending on what they tell me, if I have to keep the disk, I will make a video to open it and see the inside although I think it will be the same as the video that @Fabler2 contributed

zequion · Nov 3, 2023

Right now I have taken the USB cable out of the box and the connector has gone inside. As I said, this USB drive lasted a week without almost touching it and 2 days if you are using it. That's what they give 21 dollars for.

pparks1 · Nov 3, 2023

zequion said:
I bought an 8Tb disk on AliExpress for 21 dollars and I will explain the result to you.

I could have told you what the results would be prior to buying the drive. An 8TB external SSD (which are pretty rare at this point) should run you about $500.

$21 is an absurd price for an SSD, unless you are looking for a 256GB SATA SSD which you can get for around $17 to $20.. But that's not in an enclosure as an external.

zequion said:
I won't buy anything in China again.

Products from China aren't necessarily the problem here. Buying something for $21 that should cost $500 is the issue. A discount of 95% on a modern day product should immediately scream fake.

Almighty1 · Nov 3, 2023

Not sure what country you are in but not sure if there are laws on the credit card where you can dispute the charge with the credit card issuing bank directly because once it goes through the bank, the bank decides and PayPal cannot make their own decisions on the outcome of the case.
Also, being Chinese in the USA, I have heard China does offer social security and their retirement age is 45, not sure how true it is though.

zequion · Nov 3, 2023

pparks1 said:
Buying something for $21 that should cost $500 is the issue. A discount of 95% on a modern day product should immediately scream fake.

What has happened is that, when searching on AliExpress, 42 pages appear with similar products that offer up to 512Tb and it seemed to me that this was the reality. It's not that they offer an 8TB drive for $21, it's that all the ones they offer are scams. In addition, scammers write product reviews posing as customers and speak favorably, confusing the buyer. The fraud is of the greatest magnitude and no one does anything.

zequion · Nov 3, 2023

These are the images of the disk. The box connector has been pushed inside.

Bree · Nov 3, 2023

zequion said:
So the result is that the Chinese company keeps 100% of the money for a product that does not work and is surely a scam. I wouldn't be surprised to find a 16Gb MicroSd memory inside.

Your guess is correct. If you want to see inside one, this video will show you (case is opened at 7m 25s).

antspants · Nov 3, 2023

Bree said:
Your guess is correct. If you want to see inside one, this video will show you (case is opened at 7m 25s).

HA! What a scam lol

zequion · Nov 3, 2023

I HAVE OPENED IT!!!

This is what it contains. I have not been able to take a better quality photo of the microSD. Two sequences of numbers appear and below it it says "Made in Taiwan."

MisterEd · Nov 3, 2023

zequion said:
I HAVE OPENED IT!!!

This is what it contains. I have not been able to take a better quality photo of the microSD. Two sequences of numbers appear and below it it says "Made in Taiwan."

The fake size is reported by the controller on the board. If you plug the microSD card into a reader on your PC you will see its real size. You can also test how fast it is using CrystalDiskMark. For example, here is the test for a SanDisk Ultra 32GB microSD card.

2023-11-03 22_11_07-CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4 x64 [Admin].jpg

zequion · Nov 3, 2023

MisterEd said:
If you plug the microSD card into a reader on your PC

I don't think I have a MicroSD reader.

MisterEd · Nov 3, 2023

I used a reader like this that plugs into a USB-A port.

2023-11-03 22_36_12-Mini MicroSD USB Reader — Mozilla Firefox.jpg

zequion · Nov 3, 2023

I usually stay awake at night. Here in Spain it is now 4:30am but when it is 9am I will go to a mobile store so they can tell me the size of the MisroSd card.

zequion · Nov 4, 2023

In case the Chinese authorities wake up from their long sleep, I indicate the information of the selling company. I know them because they have demanded that Paypal return the disk to them, I pay the expenses, and Paypal has sent me a message indicating the address.

ALIPAY (EUROPE) LIMITED
Ruanjianyuansanqi A01dong 1003-2, Xiamen, Fujian Province, C2, 361000

I bought this disk at: https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005005075517208.html

I'm trying to send an email to the Chinese police in Xiamen but for now there is no way to find a valid email from the Chinese police. As I say, they are sleeping and don't want to be disturbed. You can contact us but from China and by phone.

cereberus · Nov 4, 2023

Any one with a modicum of common sense would avoid this like the plague.

Tne problem is common sense is an oxymoron.

zequion · Nov 4, 2023

It's not just this, it's that the prices of computer components are a scam because they have been artificially raised. For example, if a 32Tb mechanical disk should be worth 100 euros, then 4Tb disks should be worth 30 euros. Most people have a maximum of 1Tb of data. So they keep prices artificially high. The same thing happens with processor boards, memories... And of course, people don't buy because for years the same things have been cheaper and now they have to buy more expensive outdated technology like the i3 and i5.

Now it happens that having an i7 processor is a luxury when they may be 15 years old.