Almost Brand New OEM Fraudulent 8GB USB Drive / PEN / STICK Using high quality SAMSUNG flash memory

Description:

This auction is for a working 3.5GB USB flash drive.  This USB flash drive is a marvelous piece of Asian fraud that Australians and Americans are snapping up around the clock on eBay.  Since the supplier won't refund my money and is needlessly delaying even exchanging one drive for another,  I have decided to sell it to you!!  When I show you how sophisticated and clever the fraud is, I'm sure you'll want one.  Look, folks, this has not been such a great week for me.   (  'WHAAAT!!  You already gave them positive feedback??")   Please, buy this drive.  Highest bidder takes all.

Specification:

Support USB version 2.0 and 1.1 -- sure, we "support" the bus, but no flash memory can write at the full 50 MB/s Rev 2,0 bus speed (400 Mb/s).  7 MB/s is good for a thumb drive, and this one does about 1.5 MB/s.  Practically speaking, USB 2.0 support is a waste of money for any thumb drive.   Capacity: 8GB of SAMSUNG MEMORY -- mine are about 3.5 to 4GB, but, in all fairness, it is hard to say how much memory is present since the device has been re-programmed to act like it is copying files when it is not.   Plug & Play, hot-swappable -- the remaining specifications are specifications of the computing world, not of the product -- this is how USB is defined, that is how all thumb drives are made, the rest  is the capability of Windows XP, and other operating systems.   Yep, it's a great world.   Thumb drives use solid-state storage, which is durable. Most little USB devices can obtain the power they need over the 5V line of the USB bus, so no external power supplies or  wall-warts are needed  Windows ME, 2000 and XP have native support for all USB thumb drives; earlier opsys's require that you load a driver, which does not come with this hardware.   Linux kernel version 2.4 (2001) has a generic driver; don't know when support for the USB Mass Storage standard (e.g., thumb drives) went "native"  in the Linux world.   Mac OS 9X or later also has native support.

Package includes:

You get this  wonderful drive and a strap to keep you from loosing the cap.

Payment:

PayPal preferred.

Shipping and handling:

Free shipping!!   Take it, it's yours!!  Save my marriage !!  End this listing before my kid sees it.  ("Dad, are you kidding??")

Terms of sale:

All sales are final -- I told you it is fraudulent and you only get 3.5 - 4Gigs, so suck it up and don't come crying to me. No exchanges or refunds will be accepted. There are no exchanges, but here is how to do one.  Our terms are that all defective items must be noticed within 7 days of delivery confirmation.  You pay the postage both ways, but we won't tell you our address even after you request it three times,  for obvious reasons.   You want our address for a return?  How do we know somebody else didn't cheat you?  Can you prove you got this drive from us?  Please provide the delivery confirmation number from the original little package you threw out a week ago.  This is an auto-generated reply -- do not answer.  You will hear from us in 48 hours.     Please contact us within a month if the item is not arrived. Get it?  Good.

WHY THIS FRAUD IS SO CLEVER

OK, maybe it's not so clever, but I gave positive feedback before I noticed anything wrong, and I'm looking for a little  sympathy.  

FALSELY REPORT THE PHYSICAL SIZE

The drive falsely reports its size if you ask for PROPERTIES by right-clicking on its drive letter in a window such as MY COMPUTER.  Ditto if you ask for FORMAT (below).  


FALSELY LOOKS  LIKE COPYING IS WORKING

What's clever is the ability to fake writing to memory that is not there.   Copying:


FALSELY CREATES  DIRECTORIES OF FILES THAT ARE NOT THERE

See, it copies 8 GB of songs until it is full.  You'd give them  positive feedback,  wouldn't you?   See, here are all the files.  Or at least here are their names in the folder's directory.



Above we are looking at some classic jazz tracks on the hard drive (left panel of the screenshot above) which have been copied to the fraudulent thumb drive on the right.  The list of files in the two places match--the names and file sizes are listed correctly.  But we are using a powerful comparison utility.  That utility is BeyondCompare and I can't say enough good things about this shareware program gem.  So let's turn on some of that power.




Here are those same classic jazz tracks copied from hard drive (left) to fraudulent thumb drive (right).  We have asked the BeyondCompare utility to compare the files and not just their names.  A CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Calculation) checksum is calculated for each file, for the original on the hard drive and for the copy on the thumb drive.   None of the files match (red; "not equal" symbol in middle).  

The files are missing completely, or have small corrupted fragments of data (music) in them.   They don't play, and the garbage continues from "A" for Art Tatum through "B" for Benny Goodman that we saw being (seemingly) successfully copied in the COPYING. . .    screen shot above.  

Because I had already put about  about 3.5GB on it,  practically nothing from this additional folder copied successfully.  Thus, the actual capacity of the thumb drive is actually a bit under 4 GB.  

To reproduce this result, copy more than about 3.5 GB of data onto the drive.  Any files you add after that will look like they are copying, and will generate nice matched directories (the black ones), but the data are not there (red).  

CREATES BOGUS FILE NAMES TOO

To look like a full 8 GB drive, the files in the directories must always add up to 8GB.  The fraudulent firmware sometimes does some creative accounting to get the totals to come out right:



Above, one of the music tracks on my hard drive (left) has been copied multiple times by the fraudulently modified firmware of the thumb drive to create enough  files in the directory (right) to add up to 8 GB.   That's why the PROPERTIES photo (above, first one) looks correct -- 8GB, all accounted for.

But this directory is a fantasy -- that music is not stored anywhere, and no operating system would permit even two files of the same name to occupy any folder's directory. The operating system (Windows, whatever) was kept in the dark here,  while the thumb drive corrupted its directories all by itself.  

 

The fraudulent firmware seeks to maintain a fictional directory of non-existent files whose declared  lengths add up to 8GB. Sometimes strange 1-character file names of strange lengths are created.  The characters can be non-alphanumeric.
 
WHERE DO WE GET THE SPACE TO MAINTAIN THE DIRECTORY?

The user thinks he is adding data to a drive that ran out of physical memory gigabytes ago.   The user infers  all is well because COPY runs and the DIRECTORY builds up.  But even just a  directory  needs storage space.  Where will the fraudulent firmware turn to get this space if the drive is actually full at just under 4GB and now the user now wants to add a thousand or two  additional files to fill the remaining 4GB?  The answer is a disturbing one.  



Above we have an alphabetized list of pop music tracks copied from the hard drive (left) to the thumb drive (right).  These were the first data copied to the drive and all tracks were good (listed in black even after a CRC check).  About 3.6GB of capacity was used.  Then I took the drive up to 8GB.   Now, the files on the thumb drive no longer match the originals (above, red, "unequals" sign in the middle) and they won't play.  

The logical conclusion is that the  firmware on the thumb drive took space from previously written data areas -- killed the music but left the directory list intact -- in order have storage space in which to create a larger directory.    

So that is the disturbing thing here -- in order to maintain the fiction of an 8GB drive, the firmware reaches into the first 4 GB of storage that actually are present, and destroys data stored there, in order to maintain a fictional directory stretching out to 8 GB.  

The supplier  would do the world a favor to just sell 4GB drives that work.


The drive accepts  input files &  builds a directory until the directory list indicates 8GB is stored -- no sign of trouble when adding files.  Later,   pick a file copied after true capacity was reached & nothing or only a corrupted fragment is there.

The drive  fraudulently reports 8GB size to FORMAT & PROPERTIES.

Corrupted 1-character file names may be created.  One or two of your file names may be repeated 100s of times until fake capacity limit is reached.

Because it is programmed to create corrupted directories & bogus file names, it is  dangerous to rely on this drive -- go past the true limit, & you are  in Wonderland.

Please help -- I gave positive feedback &  there's nothing I can do.  

eBay blocks fraud complaints until 30 days after your auction.   After horse is stolen, you can find the barn door at http://crs.ebay.com/aw-cgi/ebayisapi.dll?crsstartpage  




You have to go through many screens thinking you can report fraud on eBay before you get the above screen telling you that you can't, so just mark your calendar now if you buy my drive and realize later that you were deceived.  The many screens:   

• Start screen  http://crs.ebay.com/aw-cgi/ebayisapi.dll?crsstartpage  
• entry question
• complaint reporting notice -- 411 words defining 
• conditions that make you ineligible 
• your non-coverage
• log-in with user name and password
• notice of non-support for any claims or reimbursement
• verification of personal contact info, item number of fraudulent auction
• the failure notice above after 6 prior screens and  411 words of eligibility and coverage requirements that now informs you that, oops, we require the fraud to run for 30 days before we will let you use this fraud-reporting facility.

Please make a note of that fraud-reporting link,   http://crs.ebay.com/aw-cgi/ebayisapi.dll?crsstartpage   to complain about my drive.  Ebay's own search facility does not find many pages  for customer input to the company, but, if you search Google for fraud reporting on eBay, you can find eBay's own customer input page.  Oddly enough, searching eBay's own HELP for reporting fraud does not find this page.  24 hits, 24  misses.  
Regards,
--jerry-VA

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THANKS to ALL  MY REGULAR  CUSTOMERS !

"Great communications. Lightening-fast delivery.  What more could you ask for?!!"
--GW, Virginia

"Great price.  Great Product.  Fast Shipping.  Excellent Communications."
--JR, Virginia

"I got the clips today, they're really high quality!  Not like the cheap stuff I've bought from radio shack, etc."
--RD, Texas

"Really nice seller.  Gave me second chance on item I wanted and needed."
--CK, Colorado

"Super quick delivery.  Great communicator with good suggestions.  Thanks!! A+++"
--DH, New Jersey

"Smooth international txn; condition of item better than described; very fast A+"
--JB, Vancouver

"This seller is one reason eBay has been so successful!"
--RW, Florida

"Pro seller!  Good communication! Unique item. Courteous.  Will deal again."
--SMcG, California

Problems happen--to you, to me, & with all the technology in between.  Please write or phone at once if you have any concerns.
--jerry-VA
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