Consumers are being warned to be cautious of things on Amazon that declare to indicate 16TB moveable storage drives for $100 or much less.
Together with his suspicions raised by the low worth and obscurely named firms that bought the units, Assessment Geek editor-in-chief Josh Hendrickson determined to take a more in-depth look.
Positive sufficient, after buying one of many listed units 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 laptop confirmed it as a 16TB drive, a trick probably carried out by the board’s firmware.
The product evaluations, too, have been tampered with to make the drives look extra interesting. At first look, the general rankings for these units look fairly stable, with many displaying round four-and-a-half stars. However they’re for different merchandise, not the drive.
This is called a “evaluation merging rip-off,” the place a product is faraway from a list and changed with one other one, whereas the unique evaluations keep in place. That’s why, among the many evaluations for the drive, you discover feedback on different gadgets akin to steering wheel covers, pillow covers, and ornaments.
The listings additionally present “shipped by Amazon” in one other bid to lull consumers 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 info to be listed, and we now have zero tolerance for pretend evaluations.”
It added: “We’ve got clear insurance policies that prohibit evaluations abuse, and we droop, ban, and take authorized motion in opposition to those that violate these insurance policies and take away inauthentic evaluations. The gadgets in query did violate our insurance policies they usually have been eliminated.”
Within the final couple of days, among the listings have reportedly disappeared, however their reappearance elsewhere on the location suggests Amazon faces an limitless sport 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 worth appears to be like too good to be true, then steer clear. Past that, be sure you analysis the corporate in case you don’t acknowledge it, and to learn the evaluations rigorously.
Searching for a transportable exhausting drive that’s what it says it’s? Digital Traits has you lined.
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