Thread: Diddled On eBay For The 1stTime...

My external HDD died on me last week - I can write from it, but not to it, so have put everything on the daughter's laptop for now.

I found one of these on eGay for less than a tenner including postage:



Yeah, I thought it was too good to be true an' all.

I had this message from eGay:

We're writing to let you know that this listing for an item you won or bid on is no longer available:

New 128GB USB 2.0 Flash Memory Pen Stick Thumb Drive

We understand this may be disappointing, but occasionally we need to remove listings. In this case, the listing was removed because the copyright or trademark owner of this product reported that the item may be counterfeit.

Then I had this message:

dear freind:
i am sorry to trouble you!This transaction was canceled through ebay

because my account appear something wrong.but you are sure i will send

the item to you and offer you the tracking number to you by china

post.if you are a usa buyer,i will you by EUB.thank you very much for

understanding !usa by EUB you can receive it for 15days.other country

need 15-25days to receive it.thank you!have a good day!


So it looks like for the first time in 9 years, I've been pooed on by eGay - or it's sellers who've obviously selling dodgy gear.

If the stick does come, I'm still going to try it. You might say I'm foolish for backing up my tunes on something so moody but I honestly can't see the point in spending over a ton on an external HDD with moving parts that can mechanically break when my tunes are backed up online anyway, so I think for less than a tenner, it's worth the risk.

Thoughts?

you don't need thoughts; you've already took the plunge and spent a measly tenner on something that could have cost you 100 pounds plus.....I think your statement says it all......let's hope it turn out bonafide then you can gloat!

you get what you pay for!

Be interesting to see if it turns up and works, but as said above... you get what you pay for.

I got fucked over a week ago on eGay too... I bought a 1TB slimline external hard drive for £25 with postage & i knew it was too good to be true as the same from other sellers was around £80... I thought about it long & hard then had a check & there was only 5 left (out of 100) so i thought fuck it & 'bought it now' & payed straight away.

The next morning i checked eGay & it wasn't in my purchase history & the listing had been removed due to breaking eBay rules & regulations, so i contacted eBay & they said they were sorry & i will get a full refund through Paypal... So i opened a dispute on Paypal & sent the seller a message, no response from the seller & after a week i raised the dispute thingy on Paypal so within the next 30 days i will get (hopefully) a full refund.

Fucking annoying though

Who ever was selling them has made a very fast £2,500!!!

In the end i bought a 2TB Western Digital external hard drive for £67, i got it 2 days ago & i'm currently copying all 200+ 4.7GB data DVD's that i backed my music to... I've done about 6 discs since yesterday but i'm correcting things as i put them on each disc, that way i won't have to spend months doing it after i've put the data back on

Think mine's a waiting game...

Originally Posted by swipezster

So it looks like for the first time in 9 years, I've been pooed on by eGay - or it's sellers who've obviously selling dodgy gear.

If the stick does come, I'm still going to try it. You might say I'm foolish for backing up my tunes on something so moody but I honestly can't see the point in spending over a ton on an external HDD with moving parts that can mechanically break when my tunes are backed up online anyway, so I think for less than a tenner, it's worth the risk.

Thoughts?

Sellers from China - be very wary of any hardware direct from China (no not our beloved leader ).
If it's from a trusted seller, all well and good, but there are so many dodgy ones out there selling extremely sub standard products.
I got a great usb stick (in the shape of a transformer), but the actual hardware quality inside is rubbish - think it worked ok for a couple of weeks and now it won't read or write data...

Sandisc is generally very good - usually get them from decent amazon sellers rather than ebay.

Originally Posted by Leonized

In the end i bought a 2TB Western Digital external hard drive for £67, i got it 2 days ago & i'm currently copying all 200+ 4.7GB data DVD's that i backed my music to... I've done about 6 discs since yesterday but i'm correcting things as i put them on each disc, that way i won't have to spend months doing it after i've put the data back on

I really hope it wasn't one of those black shiney plastic ones. If it was, just plug it in and use when you want to make an actual back-up. Don't leave it plugged in as it'll keep switching itself on and off and end up going wrong within several months.
WD Elements (old metal style with rubber feet) are the best ones I've found - but you can only get them 2nd hand now (usually on ebay) in a 1tb form.
I've got 3 of those ones now & have bought other people them as well - I wouldn't trust anything in a plastic case or with 'green' in the title due to many problems they have.

I was going to say the same as RG - NEVER buy from China

99% of the stuff listed on Ebay from China IS counterfeit

You may still get the product though Swipezster but i guarantee it won't be the real mccoy

It's probly only a 2 or 4G mem stick hacked to show it holds more in windows. It won't actually hold more than it's genuine physical size (4G) tho and give you errors storing and reading back from anything over that size/data allocation.
eBay.co.uk Guides - BEWARE of FAKE 128GB 256GB USB Flash Drives on eBay

If you get a memory stick you suspect is moody then write to it's full capacity and copy the data back from it, to test.

Originally Posted by RenegadeGenius

I really hope it wasn't one of those black shiney plastic ones. If it was, just plug it in and use when you want to make an actual back-up. Don't leave it plugged in as it'll keep switching itself on and off and end up going wrong within several months.
WD Elements (old metal style with rubber feet) are the best ones I've found - but you can only get them 2nd hand now (usually on ebay) in a 1tb form.
I've got 3 of those ones now & have bought other people them as well - I wouldn't trust anything in a plastic case or with 'green' in the title due to many problems they have.

Yeah it's a plastic jobby i've got another one (same as the new one but PS3 written on the front & formatted to FAT32) that i've got all my films on & i haven't had a problem with it yet. I only turn them on when i want to watch films or update or correct the data on them, other that that they're turned off.

The one that buggered up was a 1.5TB Seagate in a metal enclosure funnily enough i could format it & it'll be ok but i don't want to do that yet if there's a chance of getting a years worth of updates i did on it that i didn't back up to disc...

Can't stand those eGay fookers taking the piss though... I hope they DO get caught & given at least a 6 month custodial sentence at her Majesties pleasure

Originally Posted by msprim

I was going to say the same as RG - NEVER buy from China

he buys dodgy toasters on ebay ,then try to give them to everyone in the vip section

Seagate is basically Maxtor now (which is a sh1t brand) so I steer clear of both.

From my own experiences :

Had 2 maxtor drivers (many years back) - both died within about a week of each other (think just after they run out of warranty!).
Horrible clicking sound.

Samsung Story 1.5tb - died within about 6 months. Started getting read / write errors until it was completely buggered.
Problem - plastic case / not enough ventilation.

WD Internal 'Green' drive - died within 3 months. Started locking/freezing up the pc. I first thought it might be a virus or memory issue. Turned out to be this 'green' drive.
After then reading up about them, they turn themselves off after about 15 secs on non use. Then as soon as u do something to make them kick back into life, they come back on.
Then again, off after another 15 secs or so. This repeated 'on/off' process shortens the life of the drive, and therefore kills them off within a few months.

For internal drives, I now use this (of which I have 2 for a good year & about to get another one) :

Hitachi Hds721010cla332 3.5inch 1tb 32mb Sata 7200rpm Hard Disk Drive: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

For external (WD Elements 1tb Old Metal Style - you can only get these 2nd hand) :

western-digital-elements-desktop-black.jpg

I did find a site selling these very cheaply, but would only accept a bank transfer & had no contact details - turned out they were well dodgy, so beware if buying from any non-main online shops.
Always do your research before grabbing something that looks too good to be true.

An important thing to remember when buying from China (not me, the country obviously) as I have been there many times is that it is easier to buy counterfeit goods than it is originals.

if it does turn up i would think twice about sticking the thing in your machine. even if you've got all the latest and greatest antivirus stuff installed.

Originally Posted by haze

if it does turn up i would think twice about sticking the thing in your machine. even if you've got all the latest and greatest antivirus stuff installed.

Good thinking there Sy

Use the works computer Stu, that way if it buggers up you can get an IT bloke in to fix the computer at no cost to yourself

a work supplier started getting their machines made in china a few years ago. every single one delivered has to have the control pc erased and os reinstalled as they are absolutely crawling with nasties.

Forgot about this - it turned up a few days later and I gave it a close inspection after a bit of research elsewhere... Kingston USBs have a number etched onto the actual port that goes into the computer - this one didn't; apparently that's a big no-brainer straight away to tell if it's fake or not.

Anyway, I popped it onto my laptop upstairs which only runs my DJ software and it was pukka... until I started to transfer some files after a bit.

It re-wrote over files after it got to 32Gb

Mind you, like my mate said, 32Gb for less than a tenner is a bargain

Yes, yes, I did throw it away. Sleep better now forumers.... and don't buy shite from China (not Mark, the gaffer, like)

Like a few have already mentioned, avoid sellers from China like the plague.

Be interesting if the seller chucks in a free ringding.

I've always been a bit wary about ebay myself, never used it tbh - apparently payments are done via Paypal, who are able to resolve cases in terms of refunds?

Not sure how true this, especially if the transaction was a large one...

...Anyways, to get back on topic , I've got several 'data Cloud' accounts, though I prefer Mediafire and depending on the provider, once you upgrade to a paid account ( which 95% of us will never bother to), the amount of storage is unlimited, with fast upload speeds.

I can see the option of using a plug-in hard drive as being more attractive to some, as this negates the risk of losing data from a virtual, internet-based storage provider, in the event of a major system crash, or if the provider ceases to exist, or if you were no longer able to log-in to your account. I suppose there is also the issue of system integrity/security and bugs.

The first, most obvious upsides is that you don't to splash out on any (high-end?) physical storage hardware - nor do you need to worry about hard-drive failure. If you had masses of data, this might need more than one spare drive, whereas unlimited Cloud storage will cover this. Also, you can access your data from any internet-linked computer.

So I guess its horses for courses really and individual preferences, other considerations include comparing subscriptions versus hardware costs, total storage available and transfer speeds - which include

cloud-data provider specific rates
internet provider; connection-type/bandwidth/upload & download speeds
the speed of your pc
spec of storage hardware

hth