Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam • Hacker News Board

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#141

Post by bombcar » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 11:57 AM UTC

RajT88 wrote: post #120

bo1024 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You frame it as just thumb drives, but I would think something similar is happening with a huge fraction of Amazon products.

It is easier to detect with thumb drives. A fake (say) Gucci handbag is made with less premium materials, but only savvy consumers would notice once it arrived. You would not necessarily know from the product details on Amazon, but may have a clue based on price. Whereas 1tb thumb drives have been sold for years now on Amazon and Wish and what-have-you but only recently did real 1TB thumb drives come into existence.…

Assuming Best Buy hasn’t been plagued yet - https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sku/6421485.p?skuId=6421485

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#142

Post by jfengel » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:06 PM UTC

NavinF wrote: post #73

logifail wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's a mildly useful site, all diskprices' links are affiliate links, and I've not found an opt-out. I don't think we should share that stuff here on HN, it's a cancer on the web.

Disagreed. diskprices.com is a well known and invaluable resource in direct contrast to the "Best hard drives of 2022" affiliate spam that'll show up if you search for a website that does what they do. Affiliate links are indeed cancer, but that battle was lost years ago. Even reputable reviewers use affiliate links today.

Reputable reviewers were the target for the invention of affiliate links. It's hard to remember that there is any use except spam.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#143

Post by prvit » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:14 PM UTC

goodpoint wrote: post #131

RobertRies wrote: post #32

While I agree this is a problem - one which I have been the victim of as well - Amazon accepts the return with no questions and/or charges. This, of course, is not a great consolidation, especially for a novice who doesn't understand or encounters it too late. But I strongly disagree with "Amazon runs little to no risk selling the fraudulent products, but still makes money off of them." In the next paragraph the auth…

> Amazon accepts the return with no questions and/or charges No, this is true only in some countries. If there's no amazon store in your country you are in trouble.

I’ve had no issues with Amazon returns/refunds in multiple countries without their own Amazon store.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#144

Post by bombcar » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:15 PM UTC

schipplock wrote: post #124

It's really sad what Amazon has turned into :(. Nowadays I only buy products from brands / companies I know (and I do visit my local electronic stores to buy them). It's really hard to find a brand on Amazon that doesn't sound like its name wasn't generated :). Regarding these scam listings: I wouldn't buy a usb stick from a brand like "pullheart", "kiknin", "probuk", or "generic" (I'm not making these names up). Als…

Anything that gets infected with “marketplace” drops in quality substantially and quickly. It’s annoying.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#145

Post by bombcar » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:17 PM UTC

matheweis wrote: post #115

mwint wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that just “I got the wrong item”? The “item” you ordered was “8-pack of widgets”, you got “1-pack of widgets”, so it’s the wrong item.

Nope, tried that, they let me return the “1-pack widgets” but sent another “1-pack widgets”

When there is a mismatch like that you can only send it back for refund, sadly. They can’t understand the issue.

I ordered one of something and got a ten pack and it took me about an hour on the chat to get them to understand I wanted to send nine back. It was pretty expensive stuff so I’d’ve felt bad keeping the other nine but man it was getting tempting.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#146

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:17 PM UTC

mnw21cam wrote: post #129

agolio wrote: post #22

Seems to be a bug in this page FYI, may have to do with the fact I am trying to access from Germany https://i.imgur.com/5C8Kgq4.png

I just get a blank white page, viewing from UK. This might have something to do with the fact that the web page doesn't actually have any content in the HTML file, and even if it did, the CSS file has "display: block" so one wouldn't be able to see it.

[deleted]

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#147

Post by bombcar » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:19 PM UTC

Arch485 wrote: post #2

Are there any good alternatives to Amazon that don't prominently feature fake products?

Target, Best Buy, McMaster Carr, Home Depot. All have free or cheap shipping.

Walmart somewhat if you search store or shipped and sold by Walmart.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#148

Post by j-bos » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:20 PM UTC

When a store ceases to be reliable, isn't it time to stop shopping there? At least for USBs.

Feels like an inconvenience.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#149

Post by bombcar » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:21 PM UTC

idontwantthis wrote: post #88

Can anyone tell me if there is a program to verify usb drive size on Mac? F3 requires linux or windows (has instructions for mac but those require running linux in virtualbox). Edit: nvm, enough of it works natively on mac

You can do poormans by copying known large files (all your Linux ISOs) and then doing a shasum on source and dest.

Or repeated rsync set to verify each block.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#150

Post by genepope » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 12:30 PM UTC

Pretty much any tech product top search results on Amazon is a fraud (and it can go VERY deep into the results). I have been burned so many times I finally learned: DO NOT BUY TECH from Amazon! PS: Forget the Amazon Choice as it is mostly just based on how many buy the product so it tends to be self reinforcing, even for a fraud product.