If you have searched for external SSDs on amazon.com Recently, you may have noticed something strange: Mixed in with the 1TB and 2TB drives from brands like Samsung and SanDisk are a ton of 16TB SSD listings, mostly around $100, and with user ratings. surprisingly tall. Each one is a scam, even if they are shipped by Amazon.
the edge confirmed that multiple fake 16TB drives appeared on the first page of results for “external SSD” and more than half of the results for “16TB SSD” were fake; the rest were 16TB enterprise hard drives, multi-drive enclosures, and a real 16TB external drive, which costs $2,400 and contains two 8TB SSDs. While the main fake had a 3.6 star rating, the next two had 4.8 and 4.2, respectively. How come such obvious fakes get such high ratings?
It’s the scam that Hendrickson calls “review merger” and Consumer Reports calls “review the kidnapping.” As Hendrickson explains, some third-party sellers take old listings and replace them with new items, keeping the reviews but changing everything else. A quick scan of a fake listing for 16TB drives turned up five-star reviews for laptop chargers, basketball backpacks, stickers, screen protectors, Mardi Gras beads, and mouse pads. Sellers collect good reviews of cheap generics, swap in a more expensive counterfeit, and then remove it when the bad reviews start piling up.
Hendrickson says he reported the fake SSD to Amazon and is waiting for their response. While some of the listings became unavailable after linking to Amazon, some were still active. One was replaced by a brand new product.
This is not a new trick. In 2019, an Amazon spokesperson said Consumer Reports they had spent more than $400 million to address the problem in a single year. “Last year, we prevented more than 13 million attempts to leave an inauthentic review and took action against more than five million malicious people trying to manipulate reviews,” they said at the time.
And yet, almost four years later, it’s still a problem.
“The old maxim still holds true: if it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t,” Hendrickson warns. “If you’re not sure, check the reviews carefully. Do they match the product? If not, run.”
A 16TB SSD for $100? Too good to be true. But you can get a really fast 1TB external SSD for around $100. Just stick with trusted storage brands like SanDisk, samsungY digital west. And don’t forget to read the reviews.
