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16 TB SSDs for $100 too good to be true

by on17 January 2023


Yeah, it is too good to be true

Amazon has been having problems with partners who insist on “supplying” well reviewed 16 TB SSDs on its site for just $100.

Samsung and SanDisk can only manage 1TB and 2TB drives for that price so it is not surprising that every 16 TB SSD shipped at that price is a scam, even if they’re shipped by Amazon.

Josh Hendrickson — Editor-in-Chief of Review Geek — bought one of the “16TB SSDs” and tore it down to reveal a generic 64GB microSD card on a USB 2.0 card reader. Adrian Kingsley-Huges, writing for ZDNet in May 2022, found the same thing. Different packaging and different case colours, but the same trick.

It is not just Amazon either we tested one from a Facebook advert which came from Hong Kong and contained a USB thumb drive inside a larger casing. The drive did not work.

The reason they have good reviews is third-party sellers take old listings and replace them with new items, leaving the reviews but changing everything else.

A fake 16TB drive listing showed five-star reviews for laptop chargers, basketball backpacks, stickers, screen protectors, Mardi Gras beads, and mousepads. The sellers gather good reviews for cheap generic products, swap in a more expensive fake, and then take it down when bad reviews start piling up.

In 2019, an Amazon spokesperson told Consumer Reports they’d spent over $400 million to address the problem. It appears they still have not cracked it.

 

Last modified on 17 January 2023
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