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I intentionally bought a 512GB usb drive from Taobao to see what would happen. It was something ridiculously cheap like $10, far cheaper than any other 512GB at

I intentionally bought a 512GB usb drive from Taobao to see what would happen. It was something ridiculously cheap like $10, far cheaper than any other 512GB at the time. Taobao said I needed to return the product to the seller in order to get a refund. I told them I would send it to Taobao corporate or the police, but under no other circumstances would I ship counterfeit materials through the mail, reinforcing the supplies of the scammer and perpetuating the fraud. I sent them a disk space audit demonstrating that there was in fact only 32GB on the device, showed them articles showing that there was only one other 512GB USB drive on the market at the time and that it cost well over 10x the amount listed. I invited them repeatedly to view the product itself, but I only ever got the same standard canned response to return the counterfeit products to the seller.

sandworm101 10y ago
Thats not a counterfiet good. It's fraud, it's claiming something is more than it is, but it isnt counterfeit unless they are abusing trademarks. Which marks were at issue? You might consider contacting them as they are as much a victim as you.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- guelo 10y ago
  It's sad that trademarks are considered a bigger issue than rampant fraud.
  - labster 10y ago
    Corporations are people, my friend. As for what the rest of us are, the jury's still out on that one.
- imjustsaying 10y ago
  You're correct, initially it was merely fraud, but counterfeit dimensions soon emerged. I should also mention that when I received the package, the USB drive was inside of Kingston USB drive packaging, which surprised me because they didn't describe it as a Kingston product on the listing page. I can suppose the rationale for Kingston packaging was that Kingston was the only provider of 512GBs at the time, and its addition was a way to sell the fraud's narrative should any doubt later arise, such as after getting mysteriously corrupted data whenever more than 32GB was used. I had live chats about the case with different customer service agents over a period of months. However, every time I spoke about the issue, it was like the previous hour-long conversations had never happened. Each time, I had to get the agent up to speed on the situation from the ground up, resending the images of evidence, re-explaining that I would be happy to return the item but only to the police or to Taobao corporate instead of resupplying and becoming the accomplice of a suspected criminal. As far as I could tell, there was no internal procedure for investigating the possibility of fraud or counterfeit. The customer service agents only ever viewed the case through a general return heuristic. The first and final recommendation was always to "return the product to the seller."
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    THAT's counterfiet. Im betting that the use whatevet cases they can get cheap out the back door of a factory.
rasz_pl 10y ago
chargeback
SMUx 10y ago
It's recommended to use an agent to verify your goods before leaving China for this reason. Alibaba has vested interest in removing fake vendors from their platforms. They have a few automated ways to find fake vendors but a large part of the process depends on community help (i.e. users, brand-name companies, etc.) Taobao is much more lenient than the international facing Aliexpress. However, reporting bad vendors does work & I do believe they incur hefty fees if they wish to return. One thing I've noticed is that banned & counterfeit sellers often move on to WeChat for sales.

sandworm101 10y ago

Thats not a counterfiet good. It's fraud, it's claiming something is more than it is, but it isnt counterfeit unless they are abusing trademarks. Which marks were at issue? You might consider contacting them as they are as much a victim as you.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
guelo 10y ago
It's sad that trademarks are considered a bigger issue than rampant fraud.
- labster 10y ago
  Corporations are people, my friend. As for what the rest of us are, the jury's still out on that one.
imjustsaying 10y ago
You're correct, initially it was merely fraud, but counterfeit dimensions soon emerged. I should also mention that when I received the package, the USB drive was inside of Kingston USB drive packaging, which surprised me because they didn't describe it as a Kingston product on the listing page. I can suppose the rationale for Kingston packaging was that Kingston was the only provider of 512GBs at the time, and its addition was a way to sell the fraud's narrative should any doubt later arise, such as after getting mysteriously corrupted data whenever more than 32GB was used. I had live chats about the case with different customer service agents over a period of months. However, every time I spoke about the issue, it was like the previous hour-long conversations had never happened. Each time, I had to get the agent up to speed on the situation from the ground up, resending the images of evidence, re-explaining that I would be happy to return the item but only to the police or to Taobao corporate instead of resupplying and becoming the accomplice of a suspected criminal. As far as I could tell, there was no internal procedure for investigating the possibility of fraud or counterfeit. The customer service agents only ever viewed the case through a general return heuristic. The first and final recommendation was always to "return the product to the seller."
- sandworm101 10y ago
  THAT's counterfiet. Im betting that the use whatevet cases they can get cheap out the back door of a factory.

rasz_pl 10y ago

chargeback

SMUx 10y ago

It's recommended to use an agent to verify your goods before leaving China for this reason. Alibaba has vested interest in removing fake vendors from their platforms. They have a few automated ways to find fake vendors but a large part of the process depends on community help (i.e. users, brand-name companies, etc.) Taobao is much more lenient than the international facing Aliexpress. However, reporting bad vendors does work & I do believe they incur hefty fees if they wish to return. One thing I've noticed is that banned & counterfeit sellers often move on to WeChat for sales.