If you’ve recently searched for external SSDs on Amazon.com, you may have noticed something odd. Mixed with his 1TB and 2TB drives from brands like Samsung and SanDisk, there’s a long list of 16TB SSDs, most around $100, with surprisingly high user ratings. Everything is a scam, even if it is shipped by Amazon.
The Barge The first page of “external SSD” results showed multiple bogus 16 TB drives, confirming that more than half of the “16 TB SSD” results were bogus. The rest is a 16TB enterprise hard drive, a multi-drive enclosure, and one physical 16TB external drive. It costs $2,400 and includes two 8TB SSDs. The top fake was 3.6 stars, while the next two were 4.8 and 4.2 respectively. Why are obvious fakes so highly rated?
This is a scam Hendrickson called “review consolidation.” consumer report It’s called “review hijacking”. As Hendrickson explains, some third-party sellers take old listings and replace them with new items, leave reviews, and change everything else. A scan showed five-star reviews for laptop chargers, basketball backpacks, stickers, screen protectors, Mardi Gras beads, and mouse pads. Sellers collect good reviews of cheap generic products, replace them with more expensive counterfeits, and remove bad reviews as they pile up.
Hendrickson says he has reported the fake SSD to Amazon and is awaiting a response from Amazon. After linking Amazon, some listings became “unavailable” while others were still working.
This is no new trick. In 2019, an Amazon spokesperson said: consumer report They spent over $400 million in one year alone to address this issue. “Last year, we thwarted his attempts to leave over 13 million inauthentic reviews and took action against over 5 million bad actors trying to manipulate reviews.” they said at the time.
But nearly four years later, the problem still persists.
“The old adage is still true. If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t,” warns Hendrickson. “If you’re not sure, double check the reviews. Do they match the product? If not, run away.”
16TB SSD for $100? Too good to be real. But for around $100 you can get a very fast 1 TB external SSD. Stick to reputable storage brands such as SanDisk, Samsung, and Western Digital. And don’t forget to read the reviews.
