Thousands of fake memory cards and flash drives are flooding in the markets of Bangladesh and other South Asian nations, which are imported and sold by organized rackets of unscrupulous traders, who buy these products mostly from China. While using the fake memory cards or fake flash drive [pen drive], not only the customers are cheated with the shown capacity [for example, 2GB memory card mostly have maximum 256MB or 512MB memory in real], such fake memory cards and flash drives are extremely harmful for computers and PCs, as it always corrupt files and cause serious damage to the PCs. According to software experts, fake memory cards and flash drives are mostly having under performance of class speed. These also cause in losing files and data corruption. These are important signs for fake memory chips altered to lie about their true size.
They said, "A lot of people call it "Hacked Memory". The black market is strong, over 1,000,000 flash memory chips are upgraded and manipulated every month and many brand name manufacturers such as: SanDisk, Transcend, Sony, ADATA, Kingston Technologies, RITEK and Lexar have been impacted."
"Simply for saving few cents while buying memory cards and flash drives, people make a huge blunder by buying fake memory cards and flash drives, thus finally causing maximum damage to their PCs and laptops", they added.
A large number of cheated customers, who were supplied with fake memory cards and flash drives have become extremely vocal on various social sites, giving their own experience and warning people to refrain from buying such cards. It is even learnt that fake memory cards and flash drives are being sold by reputed websites such as eBay, Amazon etc, while thousands of unscrupulous traders of fake memory cards and flash drives are continuing such illegal business from alibaba.com site. It may also be mentioned here that, majority of the sellers on alibaba.com are frauds, including few of their "Gold Member".
Commenting on a fake memory card purchased from eBay, a cheated customer said, "I purchased a "SanDisk" 2GB memory stick on eBay directly from Hong Kong, and ran into the same thing. After putting about 225 pictures on it, the memory stick started to corrupt them. So I called SanDisk to get a replacement, as it gives 1 year warranty. When I told the SanDisk customer care the serial numbers of the memory stick that I purchased, he informed me that the card was a fake. There was no difference in packaging, no difference in the card whatsoever, even my PC showed the full memory capacity. But only after putting this card on special software, I was shocked seeing that the real memory of the 2GB memory stick was less than 100MB."
Jay Subramaniam, an IT expert in Bangalore, India told Weekly Blitz "W are definitely no strangers to counterfeit and fake products. In today's world, it's become commonplace to see an 'Appal' phone, here and a 'Nipe' shoe there. Piracy and cheap fake counterfeits have percolated into each and every segment of the market, so much so that there are extremely high chances that there's a fake to every original product you've seen in the market.
"In the gadget genre as well, we've seen tons and tons of them. From headphones, to chargers - to batteries to even complete phones! Now, we've got MicroSD cards to complete that list. They've been in existence, since quite some time, but only recently did we see a sudden surge when we spotted not one not two, but three 'stalls' strategically placed, selling these fake 'original SanDisk memory cards'.
"This imposter memory card you can see wants you to believe you've just purchased the cheapest memory card in the world. But, we'll warn you, your happiness will be short-lived, if you'll be drawn into its seemingly inconspicuous look. You'd rather not be fooled by its ridiculously low price, because you might not get anything close to what you're hoping for.
Here's how the modus operandi of these impostors works. Two guys - one at the stall, one waiting a little far off from the location. The first one shows off his brand new memory cards at a price tag of approximately Rs.100 [US$ 2.50] for a 4GB memory card and Rs.180 [US$ 3] for an 8GB one. They're all sealed and need a 'format' to start working on your phone. He'll show you an existing card and prove that it is indeed legitimate."
Demand for memory cards and flash drives within countries in South Asia are huge. According to IT experts, the total demand for memory cards alone is above 8 million, while the demands for flash drives are also significantly high. Considering the huge potential market, the large manufacturers, such as SanDisk, Transcend, Sony, ADATA, Kingston Technologies, RITEK and Lexar immediately need to appoint their authorized agents in all of the South Asian nations while put awareness advertisements in the local newspapers in order to educate the prospective buyers from not buying any fake memory card or flash drive, though the price might be slightly cheaper. By doing so, SanDisk, Transcend, Sony, ADATA, Kingston Technologies, RITEK and Lexar would not only save millions of customers, who are regularly cheated by the sellers of fake memory cards and flash drives – it would also help those large companies in having significant volume of business within the South Asian countries.
Software to detect fake memory cards and flash drives:
http://www.weeklyblitz.net/2424/fake-memory-cards-flooded-in-bangladesh-and-south
