Buying an sdcard that isn't fake

3fcrtecd

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Just to let you know that if you live in the USA you can get sdcards direct from shop.westerndigital.com

However, where else can I buy sdcards now that Crucial have stopped making them. I think the Endurance cards are worth it... but where to buy online that will ship them to me in Hong Kong.

There are LOADS of places to buy cards locally but AFAIK none of them will let me run tests on them before I pay, probably because there's so many fakes. Even the bricks and motor stores are like this.
 
I have always purchased sealed genuine packaged NAMED sd cards from Amazon UK and never had a problem.
 
If it's sold (or fulfilled) by Amazon AND shipped by Amazon it won't be fake. And if you have any problems their customer service in this department is simply the best. I've also never had problems buying directly from the Samsung store on Amazon.

Most people who get fake cards from Amazon either shopped on lowest price or searched for a card and were redirected to a different seller than was shown on the first page during the buying process- a nasty habit Amazon does to reward popular sellers sometimes. Verify the details before confirming the sale and you'll be fine :cool:

Phil
 
If it's sold (or fulfilled) by Amazon AND shipped by Amazon it won't be fake. And if you have any problems their customer service in this department is simply the best. I've also never had problems buying directly from the Samsung store on Amazon.

Most people who get fake cards from Amazon either shopped on lowest price or searched for a card and were redirected to a different seller than was shown on the first page during the buying process- a nasty habit Amazon does to reward popular sellers sometimes. Verify the details before confirming the sale and you'll be fine :cool:

Phil

I've actually bought several from Amazon that turned out to be fake (or falsely packaged)

Amazon did right by me and sent replacements, but those also turned out to be fakes

They worked fine for my basic needs, but I havent really been able to test them to their advertised standards

 
'Fulfilled by Amazon' is usually OK but the Amazon marketplace is flooded with fakes from what I've read.
 
Fulfilled by amazon generally only assure you a hassle free RMA process, it dont seem to do much for fakes, which seem to get worse and worse.
You probably should not go for the out right cheapest seller, on Amazon or among your local vendors.
 
When I bought my Samsung Evo's I looked at the Samsung site for authorised retailers and paid a bit more from Scan UK but both cards have been rock solid.
 
I've actually bought several from Amazon that turned out to be fake (or falsely packaged)

Amazon did right by me and sent replacements, but those also turned out to be fakes

They worked fine for my basic needs, but I havent really been able to test them to their advertised standards


Fulfilled by Amazon, if I understand, means a supplier has given Amazon a bulk supply of a product. No guarantees the product is genuine. However, Amazon is very good about standing behind a product. If there's a problem, Amazon has a very straight forward and easy return policy.

Moral here is to check SD cards upon receipt.
 
Fulfilled by Amazon, if I understand, means a supplier has given Amazon a bulk supply of a product. No guarantees the product is genuine. However, Amazon is very good about standing behind a product. If there's a problem, Amazon has a very straight forward and easy return policy.

Moral here is to check SD cards upon receipt.

In order to be assured that a memory card is genuine when purchasing from Amazon.com , it needs to say, "Sold By" as well as either "Fulfilled By" or "Ships From" Amazon.com. If is only says "fulfilled" by Amazon, you can't be sure what will show up upon delivery.

I've been purchasing memory cards for many years from Amazon this way and have never received a fake.

sold_by.jpg
 
@Dashmellow

Given @98 SNAKE EATER (having received a fake) and in response to @Kremmen (fulfilled by Amazon) comment, it is safe to say that @98 SNAKE EATER probably bought "Fulfilled by Amazon" and not sold by Amazon. Resulting in fakes.

So yes, I agree it is very important to look for Fulfilled and Sold by Amazon.

I had heard rumors that Amazon stopped co-mingling their own stock with 3rd party sellers because of high instance of fakes poisoning the supply chain. I believe they stopped doing that before 2020 though, when this thread was made, so it is somewhat unusual to see fake cards with shipped from and sold by Amazon.

With a 3rd party seller they just throw all the stock into one bin and say "good luck everybody" so one bad seller can poison the entire supply because unless the sellers use their own stickers to uniquely identify their item it's just into the bulk bin with everyone else
 
The other thing I've seen posted is to watch the Amazon Delivery times. If it's available the next day then it's probably in Amazon stock and usually OK. If it's on extended delivery then beware.

If you do use Amazon, or any other third party site, then use h2testw straight away to test it.
 
The other thing I've seen posted is to watch the Amazon Delivery times. If it's available the next day then it's probably in Amazon stock and usually OK. If it's on extended delivery then beware.

If you do use Amazon, or any other third party site, then use h2testw straight away to test it.

I believe a lot of the fake cards also use software to reprogram the microchip to display an inaccurate size. For a card sold as 256GB, in reality, it might have 16GB of memory. So a telltale sign in addition to running a program like h2testw is to try filling up the card with the actual amount of data listed.
 
I believe a lot of the fake cards also use software to reprogram the microchip to display an inaccurate size. For a card sold as 256GB, in reality, it might have 16GB of memory. So a telltale sign in addition to running a program like h2testw is to try filling up the card with the actual amount of data listed.
Yes this is correct. Many fake cards will show up as their advertised size on the computer but they are lying and will overwrite any data once they exceed actual capacity. Testing with H2TestW is a great way to find out if this is the case. I suspect that these days some fake endurance cards are just using lower quality memory and advertising as high endurance. The fake capacity is easy to test but the non genuine memory chip would require more advanced tools/knowledge (and possibly as far as card destruction to recognize) especially since some non-endurance memory chips are higher speed so they could test out fine for speed/capacity, but simply will not last as long term.

Example of safe and not as safe screenshots from Amazon. Note the important part is Ships From AND Sold By Amazon:

Screen Shot 2022-03-11 at 12.59.19 PM.pngScreen Shot 2022-03-11 at 1.02.09 PM.png
 
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@DrekiTech

I would think one way to check for inferior memory would be a read / write tests. If the memory really isn't genuine, than chances are you'll be noticing at least moderately reduced read and write speeds.
 
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