Faux SSDs with nice evaluations are nonetheless popping up on Amazon

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In case you’ve looked for exterior SSDs on Amazon.com lately, you might have seen one thing bizarre: blended in with the 1TB and 2TB drives from manufacturers like Samsung and SanDisk are a bunch of listings for 16TB SSDs, largely round $100, and with surprisingly excessive person scores. Each single one is a rip-off, even when they’re shipped by Amazon.The Verge confirmed that a number of pretend 16TB drives confirmed up on the primary web page of outcomes for “exterior SSD,” and over half the outcomes for “16TB SSD” had been fakes — the remaining had been both 16TB enterprise laborious drives, multi-drive enclosures, and one precise 16TB exterior drive, which prices $2,400 and incorporates two 8TB SSDs. Whereas the highest pretend had a 3.6-star ranking, the subsequent two had been 4.8 and 4.2, respectively. How are such apparent fakes getting such excessive scores?It’s the rip-off Hendrickson calls “assessment merging,” and Shopper Studies calls “assessment hijacking.” As Hendrickson explains, some third-party sellers take outdated listings and exchange them with new objects, leaving the evaluations however altering every part else. A fast scan of 1 pretend 16TB drive itemizing confirmed five-star evaluations for laptop computer chargers, basketball backpacks, stickers, display protectors, Mardi Gras beads, and mousepads. The sellers collect good evaluations for affordable generic merchandise, swap in a costlier pretend, after which take it down when unhealthy evaluations begin piling up.Hendrickson says he reported the pretend SSD to Amazon and is awaiting their response. Whereas among the listings grew to become “unavailable” after linking Amazon to them, although, some had been nonetheless up. One was changed by a brand new product altogether.This isn’t a brand new trick. In 2019, an Amazon spokesperson advised Shopper Studies they’d spent over $400 million to deal with the issue in a single 12 months alone. “Final 12 months, we prevented greater than 13 million makes an attempt to depart an inauthentic assessment and we took motion towards greater than 5 million unhealthy actors making an attempt to control evaluations,” they stated on the time.And but, practically 4 years later, it continues to be a difficulty. “The outdated maxim stays true: if it’s too good to be true, it in all probability isn’t,” warns Hendrickson. “In case you’re not sure, examine the evaluations carefully. Do they match as much as the product? If not, run.”A 16TB SSD for $100? Too good to be true. However you will get a very quick 1TB exterior SSD for about $100. Simply follow respected storage manufacturers like SanDisk, Samsung, and Western Digital. And don’t overlook to learn the evaluations.

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