Fake Sandisk Extreme Cards from Adorama!

Incidentally, Mihai, have you tried registering the Capture One serial number and the

RescuePro serial number?

 

For this to be a fake, the counterfeiter would have to know how to counterfeit the serial

numbers for those products as well, which would be under another serial numbering

scheme. (Probably from another company, in the case of Capture One).

 

If those serial numbers are merely duplicates, then online product registration for those

cards is highly likely to fail, as someone is likely to have registered the original from which

it is cloned.

 

If the card really is a fake, and the other serial numbers also check out, then there's

essentially only one conclusion: it's happening under SanDisk's nose somewhere.

 

From further reading, there is one concrete example of fake SanDisk cards out there: 4 gig

SD cards (not CF). SanDisk it seems never made a 4 gig Extreme III or ultra II card in the SD

format, only the new (differently branded) SDHC format. Search for '4 gig Sandisk SD' and

you'll see a fair few, but to my mind these are much more easily spotted.

>>> If the card really is a fake, ...

 

It appears that's been confirmed via the letter from Sandisk, in the original post.

Brad,

 

that is Sandisk saying it's a fake based on some images sent to them in an email

(incidentally, if it's a fake, so is my 1 gig sandisk extreme III that I bought from a reputable

dealer in london a month or so back). We don't have their reasoning.

 

If you look at the link I posted above, it seems that in at least one case SanDisk has

validated a card that they had previously called counterfeit. So they could actually be

hedging their bets where cards from eBay are concerned.

 

If it is not, here is what as a forum we need to know from SanDisk, from the representative

Mihai contacted:

 

- what in those images actually marks it out as counterfeit, and who made the decision? I

don't actually see anything conclusive at all, and the hallmarks of the fakes identified in

the ebay 'guides' are not present.

 

- do SanDisk make a clear distinction between 'counterfeit' and 'imported from another

market'? (This may sound stupid and obvious, but if you look at how media companies

classify grey-imported DVDs, it is far from it).

 

- if a counterfeit can have all the packaging and valid (unduplicated) serial numbers for

third party software applications, and can come from an authorized SanDisk dealer like

Adorama, why should we assume that we wouldn't get one from _any_ authorized dealer

or even from SanDisk directly?

 

Until SanDisk can answer these questions and confirms that it considers Adorama sold a

fake card and is going to take action, we should assume that no such thing has happened.

<p>Sandisk transcript: I am working on that. Most probably I will have to post somewhere a XPS document. Where can I post it. You will need .NET v3 to read it.</p>

<p>Edge pictures: Indeed it is hard to see any difference. Maybe I will post a zoomed picture of the SN on the edge. I see 2 things: 1) letters are less clear in the fake copy (but I will need to post a zoomed version for you to see it) and 2) the letters on the fake card have a gray with a blue tint while the SN on the geniune card are white (maybe I will leave 1 letter/digit in the geniune card for comparison purposes).</p>

<p>About what make it counterfeit: Who knows... Probably they do not want to reveal this because then we will see "perfect" copies. So I understand this.</p>

<p>Software SN: I do not know what to do... Downloading software from Capture One when I know that the card is fake... I just do not feel good about it. Who knows if it is legal too.</p>

<p>I will update tomorrow (sorry, no time today) with pictures of the goodies...</p>

And I absolutely agree with your last post.

If the letters on the card are not as gold as the letters on the box or what you see on the sandisk's website (they have product pictures there) then you may want to consider sending pictures of your cards to sandisk for evaluation. If you do, please post back here so that we could learn something from this.

"Could have given Adorama a chance to take care of it first, just the nice thing to do.

 

Over 30 years photographing and I never got a fake roll or box of Kodak, Ilford or Fuji film."

 

37 years ago I bought a $50 kit of Kodak E-6 chemistry from Adorama. When I opened it, every bottle had been opened, drained and filled with what seemed to be tap water. When I complained, they wrote a nasty letter suggesting I was (1) a liar (2) neurotic and (3) one-of-a-kind since no one had ever made such a complaint before(!).

 

That's why I don't do business with Adorama -- I've had an occasional foul-up with B&H over nearly four decades, but they have never deliberately cheated me and then insulted me for complaining I had been cheated.

 

The difference in behavior is reflected in the two store's resellerratings.com ratings.

Re:Capture One: You can just download a trial enter the serial number afterwards. (It's

quite good software, too, worth trying out).

 

Do bear in mind that the only comparison you have made so far is between an older one

gig card and a new four gig card. Many things could have changed, apart from the 'don't

chuck it away' logo and larger CE mark that the newer card - and my new one gig card -

has. To be sure your new card is not a fake, you'd need to compare it against another

(known good) four gig card.

 

As for a transcript, just export it as plain text or html, if possible. If it's too big to post

here, maybe discuss with Emre, who I think moderates this forum, and who might be able

to help with hosting it for discussion purposes?

<p>I talked to Adorama. Whithout any question/doubt etc. they send me a shipping label. They will replace it with another card (hopefully a geniune one). When asked how can this happen they replied that all they do is to get the stuff from distributors. (The question remains: "what distributors")</p>

<p>I was able to install both RescuePro as well as Phase One LE and activate it using supplied SN/activation codes which means that this is costing the Phase One as well. I am attaching a picture showing the success of the activation. Interesting is that on the card from Phase1 it says that the offer expires in March so it should not have activated anyway...</p>

<p>This possibly means that SanDisk lost complete control over their production process in China.</p><div></div>

The package and goodies:

A zoom of the serial numbers of the cards. See how sloppy is the writting on the upper (fake) card. Pay attention to color as well.

<p>On the other hand, if fake and geniune cards are produced at the same facility, why would they use different tipographic quality. They could really make <i>perfectly</i> identical to geniune cards with some bad quality chips inside or maybe fill them with malanine.</p>

<p>Somebody above wrote that I should be comparing 4GB (fake) with 4GB (geniune) cards and not with a 1GB geniune. True, but ... Unfortunately, I do not have a geniune 4GB card and cannot afford buying a second card. Ask Sandisk to put a page on their website about fake cards. Even though the web is full with news about fake cards - no mention about this on the Sandisk's website.</p>

<p>I think Sandisk should act somehow on this counterfeiting matter. And they should also have some info about this on their website.</p>

Actually, it is only the offer to upgrade the included Capture One LE to Capture One Pro at

a discount which expired in March - the bundled C1LE is free, just like the copy of

rescuepro.

 

I have to say, I see absolutely nothing in your photos which makes me remotely convinced

it's a fake. OK, the lettering ink is a bit smeared, but that could easily just be a quality

control failure. I also can't see what in the photos SanDisk have picked up on to make

them sure it's a fake either, so I suspect it is simply their policy to play it safe and say it is

a fake unless they can be absolutely sure.

 

All the stuff you have there looks exactly like the bundle I got from a dealer in London, a

month or so back, for a 1 gig card, except the serial number lettering is not smeared on

my card. If they are both fakes, I would be exceptionally surprised.

Update: Mihai has sent me a PDF screengrab of the response from the SanDisk web

helpdesk which offers us only one extra piece of information: the helpdesk person's name

was Segundo.

 

My gut feeling is that they are blowing this off by trying to pass it back to Mihai so they

don't have to do anything involved.

 

Taking them at their word, there are serious questions that need to be asked about a) their

supply chain and authorized dealer programme and b) their lack of useful customer

information about how to spot fakes.

<p>I've got a replacement card from Adorama that looks exactly the same as the first card received from Adorama. Moreover, it has the same serial number!</p>

<p>I have called Sandisk customer support again and told them about this. I told them that the letters on the card that I have received have a color similar to the letters on an Ultra II card and are not golden as on my old 1GB Extreme III card. Their answer:</p>

<p> "Hello Mihai, <br>

<br>

Actually I did find out some new information for you. Basically

the newer product codes and newer cards has this "newer"

silverish look to them. The place you bought the cards from do

sell original sandisk cards. You have nothing to worry about.

<br>

<br>

Thank you for contacting SanDisk Technical Support.<br>

<br>

Sincerely,<br>

Clay H. <br>

SanDisk Technical Support"<br>

</p>

<p>For some reason this thread was removed from the list of topics on this forum and I had to google it to get back here. Maybe the moderator could fix this.</p>

Good to know all is well, but you should have refrained from accusing Adorama before you had all the facts.

<p>Dear Mr. Emre Safak,</p>

<p>What do you mean by "all the facts"? I based the title of the thread on the response that I have received from Sandisk customer service: "Unfortunately the card in the photo is not an authentic Sandisk card." - please read my original post. I believe that, at the time of the original post, I had enough information to believe that I have got a fake card from adorama.</p>

<p>If the information from the Sandisk is not "all the facts" then what would be "all the facts"?</p>

It's in the post immediately above mine.

<p>The second conclusion of the Sandisk "experts" is based on the same old picture as I did not want to unpack the "blister packed" replacement card to send them another picture of the card (Sandisk knows this).</p>

<p>The original post was based on the opinion of the "experts" from Sandisk. It is not my fault that one has to bombard Sandisk with the same question to get the "right" answer (for you). To me the first answer from them was good enough. For the second answer the Sansisk's "expert" found some "new" information (which, for unknown reasons, was not available to the first "expert").</p>

<p>Again, I believe that at the time of the original post the asnwer from Sandisk "expert" seemed reasonably convincing especially because the card did look different to me from everything I saw before and even the 4GB cards that sell at from Best Buy right now. Therefore, I do not believe that the title of my post was unfounded, but I will let others to judge this.</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

The reason I am saying this is that Adorama's reputation is at stake. When people do a Google search, they may find this thread. If they do not read it in its entirety (likely, given its length), they will come to the wrong conclusion. Surely we would not want that.

Quote: I've got a replacement card from Adorama that looks exactly the same as the first card received from Adorama. Moreover, it has the same serial number!

 

What did Sandisk have to say about the fact that two cards have the same serial number?

<p>I fully understand your concerns about Adorama's reputation, though I am inclined to believe that in the end it may be more about the Sandisk's reputation that that of the Adorama because:</p><p>1) their "experts" arrive at 2 different conclusions;</p><p>2) the "new" information pops-up unexpetedly...</p><p>3) the product photos on their website do not reflect the "new" information that they have - they should post pictures of their Extreme series with silver letters (in that case I wouldn't have suspected anything to begin with);</p><p>4) Sandisk should provide some effective means to the customers to distinguish between geniune and fake cards (maybe some kind of serial number that could be extracted using software...).</p><p>While it is true that the thread is somewhat long for a phono.net forum (compared, for example, with a dpreview typical thread) hopefully people who do searches on google will have enough patience to read the whole thread if interested in the subject.</p>

<p>Quoting Marika Buchberger:<i>"What did Sandisk have to say about the fact that two cards have the same serial number?"</i></p>

<p>On the phone, Clay H. from Sandisk said that it is "normal" for some cards to have identical serial numbers, especially if they are from the same batch. I would believe that the batch numbers should be the same - not the serial ones! What is the meaning of the serial number then?</p>

<p>Were these fake Sandisk cards an anomoly, or are counterfeits still finding their way to reputable dealers today? I noticed a flurry of internet posts about this around this timeframe, but not much recently.</p>

<p>T.Masp</p>

<p>There have been no other reported problems that I am aware of, but if you have an issue that you feel needs investigating, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.</p>

<p><strong>Helen Oster<br />Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador</strong></p>

<p >http://helenoster.blogspot.com<br>

<a href="mailto:helen.oster@adoramacamera.com">helen.oster@adoramacamera.com</a></p>