Consumers are being warned to be cautious of things on Amazon that declare to point out 16TB moveable storage drives for $100 or much less.
Together with his suspicions raised by the low value and obscurely named firms that bought the gadgets, Evaluate Geek editor-in-chief Josh Hendrickson determined to take a better look.
Certain sufficient, after buying one of many listed gadgets and opening it up, Hendrickson discovered that it was truly nothing greater than a 64GB micro SD card slotted right into a circuit board.
However Hendrickson seen that the maker had made it exhausting for a buyer to identify, as his Home windows pc confirmed it as a 16TB drive, a trick seemingly carried out by the board’s firmware.
The product critiques, too, have been tampered with to make the drives look extra interesting. At first look, the general rankings for these gadgets look fairly strong, with many displaying round four-and-a-half stars. However they’re for different merchandise, not the drive.
This is called a “evaluate merging rip-off,” the place a product is faraway from a list and changed with one other one, whereas the unique critiques keep in place. That’s why, among the many critiques for the drive, you discover feedback on different objects equivalent to steering wheel covers, pillow covers, and ornaments.
The listings additionally present “shipped by Amazon” in one other bid to lull buyers right into a false sense of safety.
Hendrickson contacted Amazon for remark and to let it know concerning the rip-off. In an announcement, the e-commerce big stated that it doesn’t enable “product listings to be taken over or incorrect data to be listed, and we now have zero tolerance for pretend critiques.”
It added: “Now we have clear insurance policies that prohibit critiques abuse, and we droop, ban, and take authorized motion in opposition to those that violate these insurance policies and take away inauthentic critiques. The objects in query did violate our insurance policies they usually have been eliminated.”
Within the final couple of days, a number of the listings have reportedly disappeared, however their reappearance elsewhere on the positioning suggests Amazon faces an limitless recreation of whack-a-mole.
Consumers, in the meantime, might want to have their wits about them to keep away from falling for the rip-off. The recommendation is that if a product’s value appears to be like too good to be true, then steer clear. Past that, make sure you analysis the corporate in case you don’t acknowledge it, and to learn the critiques fastidiously.
On the lookout for a transportable exhausting drive that’s what it says it’s? Digital Traits has you coated.
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