Hi guys
I’m in the market for a new flash drive, and I’ve been looking at ebay to buy one. I heard that 95% of the drives on Ebay are counterfeit, so when I saw this offer I was a bit sceptical. But I just can’t figure out the scam. This guy has all positive feedback, and the product looks genuine. I just can’t believe that he can sell a 1G drive for $30…
Maybe I should stop being so cheap and just get it retail :]
he probably buys them straight from the manufacturers for extra super cheap, then sells them on ebay. thats what most of em do anyways…
i say go for it, its only 30$.
I’m just concerned because of this article.
I’ve heard that many people would mess with the drives to make them appear to have a higher capacity, but fail once you load too much data on to them.
If that happens (1) if you use paypal as an option, make a claim and get your moneyback, and (2) obviously make a claim against the seller to get your money back, since the product isn’t as discribed, consumer law will be in your faith. (3) put bad feedback… ohhh scary 
If you get his mail address, say you thinking of paying by check, can you have his address upfront, dont accept a PO box, it’ll be less likly of a scam that way.
Also read through some of the feedback left for him. You can see some of the items people have bought from him and if they were pleased with it or not (ie. if it was what was described and works).
If you have someone with thousands of transactions and like 99% positive feedback, you are more than likely safe to buy from them.
If someone has 99% positive feedback, it’s worth looking through for that 1 or two negs, just to see what the worst-case is.
[edit]
All this guy’s negatives in the last month were from the one guy who bought several things, didn’t pay, and left a bunch of comments saying how the item was bad quality… the neutrals are mostly negative comments that were withdrawn due to misunderstandings. Seems safe to me.
Also, there’s no follow-ups in that month either, which are a good thing to look for too (consider: buy, test a bit, leave +ve, then have it blow up, leave follow-up… still marked as +ve though).