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@pjs04 wrote:

Just a follow-up.

 

I lodged an item not decribed case. Ebay doesn't give you much room to say what's wrong so my explanation was - truthfully - the drive was unreliable after a bit over 100GB was written to it.

The seller did not respond to polite emails or the case I raised requesting a return. ebay allowed the return and refunded my payment.

 

 

 

I think a lot of these drives are in circulation with buyers who think they got a bargain, and who will only find out later they were dudded. Short of leaving negative feedback - that most people won't see - I don't know of any mechnism that would raise the alarm for prospective buyers.

 

Yes, ebay provides some reporting mechanisms, but I suspect they won't or can't act without evidence unless the complaint comes from someone like a license holder, manufacturer representative, or a bunch of complaining buyers like myself.

 

For the record I think it's silly to suggest my actions help to support dishonest sellers. Failure to seek any redress might be construed as such, but I never had any intentions of letting the seller get away with supplying me with a dud product. If anything I'm trying to draw attention to this kind of deceit.

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Congratulations, I am glad you gave us a follow up and it is good news that you received a refund. I thought you probably would if you followed through.

I suspect you are quite right and ebay doesn't clamp down on ads unless there is some sort of outside pressure. That may come from licence holders, but we also saw it during the early days of covid, with those selling products such as toilet paper etc

Most of the time though, as long as the seller provides a product of some kind, there's no action and there are a lot of knock off items of every description on ebay.

Now that you have your refund, it is well worth leaving neg feedback. Be careful what you say so that you don't break the ebay rules. Maybe just state something along the lines that the hard drive was nowhere near the stated capacity and the seller did not reply to your messages. Maybe avoid the word fake as the seller might appeal to ebay to have the feedback removed.