Kingston Technologies WebSite Introduces New Feature For Viewing Kingston USB Flash Drives To Verify Capacity Offered By Product Line
Kingston Technologies has introduced a wonderful new feature for searching their consumer usb flash drive products. You can select the capacity and see which product lines offer the desired capacity. It is a great search consulting tool and part of Kingston’s effort to combat those who would like to sell cheap imitations of their products or try to super boost older models to report wild unrealistic capacity sizes to operating systems. To consumers these are known as counterfeits and fakes!
Almost all major brand names are currently under attack from counterfeiters. Two companies, Kingston and Sony are fighting back. Kingston is applying additional effort to aid consumers world wide. They have a serial verification site and now have improved their search feature to show what are the capacity sizes they manufactured for a particular product line.
You are invited to try it out. We did. If you wish to purchase a Kingston usb flash drive on the internet you should always visit a Kingston website to verify they really make the product in the capacity being advertised to you by a seller. Your first step to being a smart and well informed consumer. If you don’t see the capacity offered by Kingston, you can be 100% sure that it is a fake counterfeit and potentially very dangerous to use. Digitally altered flash drives, lead to data loss.
http://www.kingston.com/flash/DataTravelers_consumer.asp
For example if you use the search feature to see which drives are 128GB
You will get this:
Nothing comes up. Why? As of June 10th, 2009 Kingston does not yet make a usb flash drive of 128GB. When they do, the search tool will show you the model that offers it. So if you don’t see anything, they do not make a 128GB flash drive. In fact nobody does right now. So any size beyond 64GB at the moment is an obvious fake!
If you search for 64GB:
there is only one usb flash drive that will come up right now, the DT150 64GB DataTraveler usb flash drive. That means any other drive or model is an Obvious fake!
If you are a potential reseller:
Do stay away from importing any drives like these from Chinese internet wholesaling sites. They were never make by Kingston. You can not purchase a usb flash drive at this price for resale at these capacities. There is no such thing as “Upgrading” a usb flash drive. You can not make a little usb flash drive chip magically grow to hugh capacity with some sort of software upgrade. The upgrade translated means “trick the operating system” into believing the usb flash drive is a bigger size than it really is or the data it can actually hold.
If you see any usb flash drives with 64GB stickers or any other sticker for size, understand this, Kingston does not put sticky labels to indicate the size of their usb flash drives. They offer quality usb flash drive products and are not so miserly as to cut corners with a sticky for the size of the flash drive product they offer.
If you search for 32GB:
You will see a number of different usb flash drives presented to you. Your next step would be to select the model you saw on an internet site to read up on the product.
This new quick reference feature will save you time and help you spot the most obvious fakes masquerading as Kingston usb flash drives.
For additional reference information on Kingston usb flash drive counterfeits see http://flashdrivefacts.wordpress.com/ there is a category devoted to Kingston. Also see the guide section for a lot of useful information to help you spot a counterfeit and how you can verify if your Kingston usb flash drive serial number is valid.
In if the seller is offering a usb flash drive that matchs at Kingston you need to exercise care. Read those guides.
If you wish to be safe consult: http://www.kingston.com/wheretobuy/Regions.asp and find a retailer near you. These are difficult times, support your local sellers and help your own countries economy.
Buyers who ended up with Kingston counterfeits and fakes regret it. Most found them on eBay. Others at internet sites that are not authorized distributors of Kingston products. Read: kingstonusbcf.com Said To Sell Counterfeit Kingston Flash Drives
Seller address: http://myworld.ebay.com/anson528168/
I purchased via PayPal a “Kingston” 16gig G2 flash drive from anson528168 on eBay, item #250433201989 on May 28, 09. Arrived on June 8 and upon first installation malfunctioned on my Mac. Called Kingston Technology whom confirmed without doubt that I bought a counterfeit product from unauthorized vendor. Kingston fraud case #195948937. Notified eBay and PayPal. Dealer has a history of bait and switch resolutions and not dealing with authentic products. Kingston has NO dealings at all with seller, yet seller is offering me Kingston drives as recompense. I am keeping a record of these proceedings to later file with http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/report-a-fake/ and http://ebay.totalh.com/ upon the resolution of my case.
James Greenidge
June 15, 2009 at 11:27 pm
James, It is time ebay and paypal started to live up to their buyer protection promises. Once upon a time (before we realised buyer protection was a fairy story) we thought that if we reported fraud to ebay they would do something to stop it.
Not a bit of it. All they do is try to sweep it under the carpet. They cannot continue to do this forever if they want to survive as a company. We have amassed a huge amount of evidence about the sale of fake capacity memory on ebay.
No one involved in the frankenflash project wants to take ebay down – but we will if we have to. We beg ebay and paypal to wake up and smell the coffee. Have you not noticed that genuine buyers and sellers are beginning to desert you? Do you really want to become a fraudsers’ paradise? If not you need to start acting more sensibly NOW.
fightflashfraud
June 16, 2009 at 7:19 pm
It would help swell our ranks if there was some way to have eBay issue emergency counterfeit flash drive alerts to all who purchased Kingston drives from anson528168 and all his weaselly seller friends on eBay. eBay should consider that these drives are falling into the hands of technicians or scientists and doctors and businessmen where the corruption of data may cost money — and even more — lives. It’d be interesting to know if eBay can be sued for such incidences. So it behooves them and PayPal to make good on our claims — and more!
James Greenidge
June 17, 2009 at 12:13 pm
We agree – but they seem to be too adicted to the profit they make out of this fraud to care about the terrible consequences that can result. Lives have apparently been lost already due to fake flash memory – not bought on ebay, but direct from suppliers in China.
fightflashfraud
June 18, 2009 at 9:18 am
I bought a counterfeit drive back in march from niuren2000@gmail.com
Paypal didn’t accept h2testw’s output nor Kingstone’s verify flash proof from their site, I posted pics of how the cn22 custom label had incorrect information and how the seller’s name didn’t match the label’s name but paypal closed my case today with a disrespectful automated reply “We have concluded our investigation into this case. Unfortunately, at this
time we are unable to decide this claim in your favor.”
What the hell do they want then?!
DS
June 20, 2009 at 8:58 pm
DS, I bought a drive from niuren2000@gmail.com as well!
My husband is a computer technician and verified the day we received it that it was counterfeit. PayPal also did not find in my favor because either the item was either stolen in transit back to China or this person gave the incorrect return address. Regardless, we were out the money and the item.
Currently I’ve done a chargeback on my credit card and I’m waiting out another round with PayPal.
DW
July 9, 2009 at 8:20 pm