Our story of counterfeit Kingston Flash USB drives begins in New Delhi, India. The famous lime DataTraveler at 2GB is being sold in magical sizes – from 16 GB to strange 40GB and even 80GB advertised capacities on eBay. These Sellers are trying disclaim the quality of goods by saying they are Chinese products and so can not take any responsibility. Most Kingston DataTravelers ARE MANUFACTURED IN CHINA, so how is it that major relate outlets around the world do not have dissatisfied customers storming their doors? Some of the most advanced and sophisticated technologies at reasonable prices are being manufactured in China. This is the 21st century, the “made in China” excuse does not hold water – for many Brand Name products.
Join SOSFakeFlash on an exploration of just how widespread counterfeit and fake flash usb drives are on ebay.
We start with nantibabu, recently identified as an eBay seller of Counterfeit Kingston Flash USB drives. Based in India nantibabu sold Kingston Datatraveler usb flash drives in 32GB, 40GB and 64GB. 40GB is a size SOSFakeFlash has not heard of until now. It does not compute with flash technology sizing and chips – but then false capacity flash drive sellers are not interested in that, only the money they make from frauding people. India is also suffering from the fake flash plagues haunting buyers around the world and destroying data. As we investigated nantibabu, we found a mystery appearing – more sellers and we became puzzeled. Will the first and real fake flash seller please stand up? Or is there a lot of counterfeit Kingston flash drives flooding India and victimizing buyers, creating data loss and stealing hard earned money?
When reports come in, we investigate and that means cross checking information. Sometimes there is more under the surface then meets the eye. In recent articles published by The FrankenFlash Project We have been releasing information on counterfeited Kingston USB Flash drives. A more detailed guide is coming out this week. We check Kingston’s official site to see what has been released for sale.
The images used by nantibabu for most his recent eBay listings were identical, small and difficult to examine. What is clear is that a genuine DataTraveler exists that matches the drive sold as 32GB, 40GB and 64GB, it is the 2GB DataTraveler. In enlarging the images we saw the faint detail of the green bordered DataTraveler – the 2GB. We’ve seen quiet a number of this model digitally altered to report higher capacities. Many are poorly reprogrammed. In sifting through nantibabu’s sales we see he first started by selling a genuine DataTraveler at 2GB.
The first drive he offered:
nantibabu doesn’t hestitate to leave negative feedback either. He complained about not receiving Kingston flash drives from two other eBay sellers in India: riteshlah and lahorir. So we had a look at what they had to sell. They are also in New Delhi.
riteshlah registered in Dec-30-08 sold the following:
16 GB Kingston Pendrive $ Quick Delivery $ Only Rs 699
32 GB Kingston Pendrive $ Quick Delivery $ Best Price $
40 GB Kingston Pendrive $ Quick Delivery $ Only Rs 850
64 GB Kingston Pendrive $ Quick Delivery $ Best Price $
80 GB Kingston Pendrive $ Quick Delivery $ Only Rs 1699
He described A 64GB Kingston as:
KINGSTON 64 GB Pen Drive Market Price Of The Pen Drive Is Rs.4000 But Here You Can Get It At Very Low Price You Must Agree To The Terms & Conditions Given Below Before Buying This Item Terms & Conditions:- We do not ship items outside India so don’t buy it if you are from outside India. This is an imported Chinese Pen Drive so does not carry any Manufacturer or Dealer Warranty so buy on your own risk. Item once sold will not be taken back. We will not be responsible for the performance of this pen drive. Please do not make bid if you have no intenssion of buying it.
and an 80GB Kingston as:
KINGSTON 80 GB Pen Drive Market Price Of The Pen Drive Is Rs.9000 But Here You Can Get It At Very Low Price You Must Agree To The Terms & Conditions Given Below Before Buying This Item Terms & Conditions:- We do not ship items outside India so don’t buy it if you are from outside India. This is an imported Chinese Pen Drive so does not carry any Manufacturer or Dealer Warranty so buy on your own risk. Item once sold will not be taken back. We will not be responsible for the performance of this pen drive. Please do not make bid if you have no intenssion of buying it.
riteshlah tried to wiggle out of responsibility by pointing a finger at China. We know that most Kingston DataTravelers are manufactured there and regardless of local warranty being valid or not, a genuine Kingston drive does not suddenly degrade upon entry into to India. If that was the case, many computers in India would not work as they are also using RAM (Flash Chips) manufactured in China and of course that is not happening. So there are no destructive import Rays at fault here, only more of those little lime DataTravelers being super sized somewhere.
We also checked another seller that nantibabu was not happy about.
lahorir registered on Nov-04-08 and is also based in New Delhi. He has sold more than the other two sellers combined. He offered:
16 GB Kingston Pendrive $ Quick Delivery $ Only Rs 699
32 GB Kingston Pendrive $ Quick Delivery $ Only Rs 750
40 GB Kingston Pendrive $ Quick Delivery $ Only Rs 899
64 GB Kingston Pendrive $ Quick Delivery $ Only Rs 1499
80 GB Kingston Pendrive $ Quick Delivery $ Only Rs 1699
lahorir described his 40GB Kingston as:
KINGSTON 40 GB Pen Drive Market Price Of The Pen Drive Is Rs.4000 But Here You Can Get It At Very Low Price You Must Agree To The Terms & Conditions Given Below Before Buying This Item Terms & Conditions:- We do not ship items outside India so don’t buy it if you are from outside India. This is an imported Chinese Pen Drive so does not carry any Manufacturer or Dealer Warranty so buy on your own risk. Item once sold will not be taken back. We will not be responsible for the performance of this pen drive. Please do not make bid if you have no intenssion of buying it. THIS IS A CHINESE MAKE AND DOES NOT CARRRY ANY WARRANTY.
lahorir also tried to wriggle from any responsibility by claiming a chinese product. In fact all three sellers did this. It is hard to determine if we have three eBay sellers buying fakes from a local wholesaler or from each other. We do know nantibabu tried to buy from the other too but did not get the merchandise. He also got drives from elsewhere as he sold to others. Sadly eBay members in India are victims, suffering the exact same fate as other eBayers around the world who bought usb flash drives on eBay. It demonstates just how far spread the problem is, there is no country where eBay members are safe from false capacity usb flash drive acquistion.
See the feedback for our New Delhi Trio of Kingston DataTraveler counterfeit sellers on eBay:
To see nantibabu’s negative feedback Please Click Here
To see riteshlah’s negative feedback Please Click Here
To see lahorir’s negative feedback Please Click Here
If you bought a Kingston DataTraveler from one of these sellers and it fails capacity testing please report in at: Http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/report-a-fake/ with the details required.
Additional Kingston Counterfeits Just Found on Ebay In India:
1. Picture shows package for 1GB but the listing clearly shows: 64GB Kingstone Pen Drive (Made in China)
2. Picture is for the lime DataTraveler which is a 2GB Kingston DataTraveler.
3. Kingston Data Traveller 32Gb, the slide USB (The DataTraveler 101) is only made up to 8GB by Kingston.
4. New 64 GB KINGSTON PEN DRIVE. The DataTraveler 101 is only made up to 8GB by Kingston.
When in doubt, please consult Kingston’s site.
Fake Flash News - Internet & eBay Fraud 
kittyfireflash
May 14, 2009
Hi Sam,
Fake or counterfeit kingston flash drives are a real problem in India. The FrankenFlash Project does not have anyone representing there. Awareness needs to increase. You may have bargained but you paid a lot of money.
These fakes are reprogrammed through their controller chips to lie about their true capacity to operating systems. The tools used are often same ones used to programme the flash chips for first use at a manufacturing facility – known as “fabs” in technical jargon.
I doubt you really were able to load 40GB of data on the drive before the corruption started. You should read:
then
and based on any information you get you could then try to see if you could find a software tool to perform a low level format of the usb flash drive.
At the moment which kingston you bought is unknown. Visit flashchiptutors site at http://flashdrivefacts.wordpress.com/
scroll down to the categories on the left menu bar to the kingstons and see if you can pick out your fake.
You can’t really correct a fake with windows or dos. The only way is with a low level format and it must be the right tool for the controller chip on the flash drive. Windows and dos only do high level formats and they are fooled by the reprogramming. Partition software is also not very good at fixing. You do need to be careful in the low level formating tool you use as the wrong one could damage the drive so it cannot be repaired.
We are trying to get the word out to India. You are losing data, getting viruses and losing money just like everyone else is. It is a global problem and a very bad one too.
Sam
May 14, 2009
I wish I had seen this website before I purchased a 500GB Kingston flash drive from Palika Bazaar, New Delhi. I had a feeling this was a fake but I had to try. I wasn’t 100% sure about buying this so I asked the seller to show me on his laptop. The seller plugged it into a laptop and showed the property of the flash drive and it showed 500GB. He was asking 4000 but sold it for 2200 Rs. I took it home and plugged it in and immediately noticed that the drive is filled with viruses (NewFolder.exe) and corrupted file system. They make it hard to format it in Windows and DOS. I still manage to format it somehow using some third party softwares. Now I am able to use the drive but once I copied over 40GB data, the drive showed the folders/files but nothing could be opened, all data was corrupt. Now I’m having hard time deleting the folder from the drive. I’m still trying to figure out how they manage to fake the size in Windows.
Karen
February 22, 2009
Fascinating reading. You provide a lot of information and evidence. I did not know the problem was so wide spread. Keep up the good work!
Vivek Nair
February 20, 2009
There are fake Kingston 32 GB pendrive being sold for 400-600 Rs. Do not buy them.Thy look real do not get deceived by them, they are being sold by websites.
If you have already bought them visit this website to know more and tips.
http://www.thefake32gbs.blogspot.com/