We have had the odd seller offering 4GB players popping up on trademe.co.nz which is the local equivilant of ebay and I usually leave a comment similar to this.
You may not be aware of it but Action chipset players such as the one you have listed support a maximum 2GB flash memory. Players over 2GB are fake with memory hacked to read larger than true size. To knowingly sell such a player is fraud. For protection of you & your buyers I suggest opening one of your players and checking the memory chip serial number on the Samsung or Hynix websites or with a Google search.
Unfortunatly any comments or questions placed are not visible until the seller replies, so if the seller does not like the question he can just ignore it. I also leave a community watch report with the same message but trademe seems to pretty much ignore them as well.
I decided to just buy the player and expose the fraud, if the seller does not stop selling them and give me a full refund plus return shipping my intention is then to file a fraud complaint with the NZ Police.
Friday I received the hacked player from a seller trading as
hotmale1616 on trademe.co.nz. 4GB Nano Clone with a hacked 2GB Samsung chip K9HAG08U1M.
I used testdisk to analyse the memory and it reported the drive as being too small.
I then loaded it with 3 folders each filed with 1GB of MP3's. The last 9 files in folder2 and the entire contents of folder 3 were corrupt so I was pretty sure it was in fact a 2GB.
I then opened the player to confirm the chip size, on Samsung chips the 4th & 5th characters (K9H
AG08U1M) define the chips density in this case 16Gigabit or 2GigaByte.
4GB label.
Capacity as displayed on player.
Capacity as displayed in Windows.
Test Disk Results.
Mp3 Player Disk Tool which is part of M3 Player Utilities displays the hacked size in the Format tab and the true size in the Partition Encrypt tab.
Chip Serial Number
Samsung Part number decoder
I am told by
hotmale1616 that a full refund plus return shipping costs has been deposited to my bank account but it will not be until about Tuesday that I will know if it has or not.
Edited 13-12-06
Full refund was received player was returned to buyer. He has now relisted more fake 4GB players on trademe.co.nz. I have spoken with the local Police and they have refered me to the Fraud Squad in Auckland. Have also contacted the Department of Fair Trading.
Have also posted Negative feedback as follows:
Do Not be Conned, I bought a 4GB player that turned out to have a 2GB chip hacked to read as 4GB. As soon as the player was returned he relisted them. Posted details here.
http://www.mympxplayer.org/viewtopic.php?p=14821#14821
This was his responce:
He got what he paid for. But obviously not good enough. Do not deal with this trader he is a bit psychotic. I suggest removing his bid, should he bid on your auctions.
I like the bit about being psychotic.
14-12-06
The following report was sent to TradeMe
I recently purchased a 4GB MP3 player Auction (#80254611). The player turned out to have a 2GB memory chip that was hacked to read as 4G. My money was refunded the player was returned. These players are fakes and the seller knows it and continues to list them. They use an ACTION brand chipset, one of the limitations of this is that they can only support a max 2GB nand flash memory. Details of my findings are posted here:
http://www.mympxplayer.org/hotmale16...nz-vt2786.html . Despite community watch reports etc you appear to do nothing to stop this seller or these players from being sold. I have spoken to Police about this matter and am waiting to hear back from the Fraud Squad. People are getting ripped off how about some action. This is a great site and I would hate to see it become a haven for fraudsters as eBay has.
TradeMe reply:
We appreciate you alerting us to this member's behaviour. I have looked into this for you and have taken the appropriate action. If they continue to behave inappropriately on the site we will take further action. Once again thanks for alerting us to this member. If you have any further questions or if I can be of any further help please do not hesitate to contact me.