Memory cards

The seller refused to refund me in advance. I've now accepted a 50% discount to "keep" the item - the easiest and safest option for me.

It's not worth getting into a long fight for the sake of a tenner or the principle. It's not good for your mental health. A bit of bad publicity left for the seller should warn others, and hopefully after the complaints the seller will be more careful/honest in future too.

I will be more careful about buying from Amazon "merchants" in future, but I'm not totally put off Amazon by this trivial experience.

So would I, and so would most sellers. It's normal practice to return faulty or incorrect goods so that they can be examined and if the error is confirmed a refund given.

The alternative is to negotiate a revised price acceptable to both parties, which I would consider a satisfactory outcome, not a negative feedback one.

You John and most sellers would not have done what this seller did in the first place. This was not normal practice. The error was already confirmed. He admitted the goods were incorrect, and he knew they were incorrect all along.

I asked for a refund in advance because I had little trust in the seller after he deliberately used an incorrect brand name and image to sell a different product. Negative feedback was left to warn others.

If I was in the seller's shoes, I would have fully refunded the buyer PLUS a couple of quid for inconvenience, AND let them keep the goods as well.

I've not had time to do anything today Pete. I might ask him for £6 and I keep the card, I'll test it first though. I might as well put a warning about the scam on the Talk Photography Forum as well.

It's the oldest trick in the book advertise something that's in short supply and then send something else, most people will just accept it.

The problem for Amazon is far from over anyone searching for "Toshiba SDHC 4GB" gets taken to the page I posted previously showing Toshiba cards and the NAME of the card TOSHIBA.

Here it is again LINK if you compare the words at the top of the page with those at the bottom they are identical apart from the word Toshiba which he has now deleted from the bottom, obviously he has no access to delete the top line.

shim

Went on your link shim and I note your concerns, although his site as only a 3% negative feed back and many satisfied customers.
The main advertised product listing should have been amended, I to would have been mislead had I specifically wanted the Toshiba.
Hope you get some remuneration - best of luck.
I think the seller is liable under the "Trades description Act", never mind what he puts in the small print after, he clearly advertises ("invitation to treat" under the act) a Toshiba.
I would not accept anything off him other than, the card the you wanted, a Toshiba or a full refund with any postal costs to yourself.
Regards,
Rees.

That's right Rees the photograph alone is a description. I remember MFI getting caned by the ASA for advertising kitchens and showing a load of gear in the photographs that wasn't included in the price, even though they had small print bearing a disclaimer. Now look what happened to MFI. This sellers going to go the same way. I might buy another 10 of these cards and claim my money back on all of them and give him another 10 negatives Ha! Ha!

shim

A recommendation:

Toshiba white 4GB from http://www.dc-battery.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/13695 @ £13.49 including postage.

The card seems as described and was delivered from Hong Kong in 7 days. According to my Burst mode stopwatch test, it is faster than the 2GB version, and the same speed as a Sandisk Extreme III 2GB "20MB/s". By the way, an Extreme III "30MB/s" 4GB is slower!

Thanks Pete, that was the place you mentioned earlier on. I said I thought they would come from HK and that was why I ordered from Amazon. I'm going to order one of these this afternoon.

I sent the other one back yesterday, he confirmed again that he would refund. I didn't bother pushing about the postage it was only about £1.30

I bought a Transcend P5 card reader at a computer fair on Saturday, but its slower by 8% than my normal Singim reader that I have two of, but can't find anymore link

Here's a paste of all the tests I've done so far. The Singim reader was used on all but the last test on the Fuji 4GB

--------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
--------------------------------------------------

FUJI SDHC 133x 4GB

Sequential Read : 18.967 MB/s
Sequential Write : 9.196 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 18.664 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 2.100 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 3.782 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 0.020 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB
Date : 2009/04/27 11:01:05

--------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
--------------------------------------------------

TOSHIBA BLACK 4GB

Sequential Read : 19.065 MB/s
Sequential Write : 9.859 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 18.700 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 2.339 MB/s

Test Size : 50 MB
Date : 2009/04/28 18:48:21


--------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
--------------------------------------------------

TOSHIBA WHITE 2GB

Sequential Read : 16.853 MB/s
Sequential Write : 14.576 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 16.783 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 7.356 MB/s


Test Size : 50 MB
Date : 2009/05/08 18:15:11


--------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
--------------------------------------------------

Integral Pro 4GB Class 6

Sequential Read : 18.911 MB/s
Sequential Write : 9.558 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 18.773 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 2.271 MB/s


Test Size : 50 MB
Date : 2009/05/07 14:41:51

-----------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCEND CARD READER P5
-----------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 (C) 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
--------------------------------------------------

FUJI SDHC 4GB

Sequential Read : 17.484 MB/s
Sequential Write : 8.718 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 17.238 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 1.882 MB/s

Test Size : 50 MB
Date : 2009/05/10 19:12:02



shim

Can you just clarify for me whether these speeds are MB (megabytes) per sec or Mb (megabits) per sec?

MB (megabytes) per sec the test program is available free from
http://crystalmark.info/

There's no point in doing the 4KB Read/Write test, nobody writes
100MB of 4KB files to a card. 512KB could be small jpegs.

Just shows relative performance between cards. Copying and timing
200MB of PEF and JPGS from card to computer is a better test as
far as we are concerned.

shim

Strange things, these memory cards. Two Kingston Class 6 4MB cards failed to work properly in my GX10 or Samsung NV5. MyMemory.com happily replaced them with a Sandisk Extreme III 4MB and there have been no problems since then in either camera. Park, where I bought the GX10, recommended the Sandisk Extreme III and I should have taken their advice in the first place -- although, from other posts, there seem to be no guarantees in this game.

Al

My sandisk situation is still ongoing after about 3 weeks and 2 hours on the phone with someone who speaks very little english.

1st of all i explained the situation then he wanted photos of the cards plus the serial numbers.When i sent the pic via email he then wanted pictures of the other sides of the cards.Plus the serial numbers again.

Then he said he would finalize my case but havent heard from him since.

It's getting to the stage now where it can't be bothered

A letter & answer in Rick Maybury's "Technology" column in the Daily Telegraph (Saturday 15 Dec '12) made me think that this topic might be worth reviving. A reader complained that he ordered some 2 GB SanDisk SD cards from a firm in Jersey, only to receive fakes from Hong Kong. Maybury replied that fake SanDisk cards are frequently sold by scammers. There is a eBay page that gives useful info about spotting the fake SD cards.

An unusually low price and/or a delivery time of a week or more should sound alarm bells ringing.

Martin

Only buy memory cards from reputable sources. Amazon, 7dayshop, mymemmory etc.... I can't recommend anywhere else as most other stores are far more expensive. I no longer buy cards from play.com as they only have a 30 day guarantee period.

fake sandisks have been sold via Amazon so no guarantee with them