Amazon... more like SCAMazon - Fake SSDs

At one point, Amazon was game changing and felt like the best place to shop online. Don’t have to worry about the scams and crappy quality on Ebay and Alibaba. But then something changed. Suddenly all you can find on the website is cheap garbage, or worse, complete scams. We take a look at one of the most prevalent scams on the platform, fake SSDs and hard drives. What do you get when you buy one of these, and how do they keep getting away with it?

Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

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MUSIC CREDIT
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Intro: Laszlo - Supernova

Outro: Approaching Nirvana - Sugar High

CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:37 What we Got
6:48 Going inside
9:45 How The Scam Works
12:08 How they get away with it
15:07 Why Amazon Can't Stop It
18:58 Outro

[LinusTechTips]

Have you purchased a “scam” product from Amazon before? How did your experience go? Let us know below!




Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

[emmasmith]

My sibling complained that I spent too much money when I purchased my parents an SSD for their photos. The same sibling owns a fake SSD 🤦‍♀️

[lfla]

Brazil has a reverse public auction where several Federal services (police, transport) make a request proposal, and several suppliers make a bid to become suppliers for the lowest price...

There was this bid for 8GB pendrives for the police, and the Police Officer brought his own drive and said: "I have a drive with eight 1GB video files, and if your pendrives fail to save them, I will put you under arrest."

Half of the bidders dropped their offers.

[fallouthirteen]

Amazon really needs to do something about it. Like a few months ago I was like "Eh, I could use another SSD", checked Amazon, saw tons of obvious scams, and then went "I don't feel like trying to navigate getting a good deal vs avoiding any subtle scams, I'm just not going to bother."

[cdbtheclaw]

Making it impossible to switch the product category might be one way to at least make it way harder to review merge, especially in the tech space.

[bouncersh]

Amazon tip: avoid product brands that sound like cans thrown down the stairs.

[SergirothGames]

A possible solution for “listing merging” could be to make sure that it stays in the same category, and if it changes too much after merging, disable it until reviewed by some human or software.

[Lolsashalol]

My gf's dad bought one of those 16TB drives literally today. He was trying to convince me its real. Thanks for saving me the trouble of explaining it

[deltasixgaming]

I'm glad I found this Video again my Coworker just fell for this Scam like 10 Times because he was trying to get a Cheap PS4 External Hard Drive and kept buying them but his PS4 wouldn't detect them so he thought it was his PS4 until he talked to me and I ended up giving him my Real 4TB External Drive from Seagate

[ezkymos]

Amazon doesn't let us easily report product. If they make it easier we could shut down those scammers easier.

[classicrockonly]

Amazon has gotten so dodgy. I can’t even find the legitimate name brands anymore on many product types. I’ve been spending less on Amazon because it’s gotten frustrating

[jaminova_]

Jeffe retired (he came back briefly during the pandemic) and Amazon hasn't been the same since Andy and the corporate dweebs have taken over. What bothers me most about scamming customers is they don't get it. Sears Roebuck was the Amazon of the 19th & 20th centuries and they died a horrible death because of terrible customer service and replacing quality with crap. So thank you for posting these videos and remember, "Buyer Beware". I do wish Amazon would try harder policing their website!

[finderskeepers]

Amazon also refuses to put up negative reviews about products. They usually say the review did not meet its guidelines or some nonsense.

[eusamuel]

Amazon can fix this by not allowing sellers to change the category of listed items, mainly when they have already been broadly sold. They can go even further in this and remove the ability to change titles when passed a certain length of time. Or they can keep older versions of the same item so buyers can go through what has been changed and what has not.

[Dampney_]

Amazon Prime is starting to become a joke - searching for everyday products like a fan is a tricky task. You’ll find a dozen fans with the exact same design but with a different brand name.

Amazon is taking us all for a ride here

[lonelyone]

One of the more terrifying parts of this is that contrary to popular belief these operations will often have massive financial backings with organised crime. Not only do these listings generate income for some really bad people but they can often be used for money laundering and even black market dealing.

[noahm]

I love how Amazon sells scam products in America but not in AUS. So glad to be here

[ids]

I think the biggest problem is that Amazon pretends to be a "safe" site, when it just isn't. Ebay isn't perfect, but at least it emphasizes that sellers could be any random people and you might want to look at their reviews to see if they can be trusted. Amazon does list sellers and have seller reviews, but it's very de-emphasized, particularly the difference between "sold by Amazon" and "fulfilled by Amazon". Despite the fact the latter may be a counterfeit, fraud, and possibly genuinely dangerous.

Or I see a review that says someone got a counterfeit... but the reviews don't show what seller someone bought it from, so does this tell me anything relevant, or do I just need to avoid buying anything from any third party seller I don't specifically know to trust?

[paulbrooks]

Please remember that returning a product is your greatest strength with Amazon. If you must issue a chargeback—and I wouldn’t recommend going that route with Amazon—use the option “product not as described”. This is useful with other vendors.

[joshmaday]

It seems like the fix for the edit hack would be to restrict the scope of edits that can be made at one time. Like, only allow 20% of the text of the product listing to be edited within a week. That allows for corrections, but prevents wholesale swapping out the listing.