If you happen to’ve looked for exterior SSDs on Amazon.com just lately, you’ll have seen one thing bizarre: blended in with the 1TB and 2TB drives from manufacturers like Samsung and SanDisk are a bunch of listings for 16TB SSDs, largely round $100, and with surprisingly excessive person scores. Each single one is a rip-off, even when they’re shipped by Amazon.
The Verge confirmed that a number of faux 16TB drives confirmed up on the primary web page of outcomes for “exterior SSD,” and over half the outcomes for “16TB SSD” have been fakes — the remainder have been both 16TB enterprise laborious drives, multi-drive enclosures, and one precise 16TB exterior drive, which prices $2,400 and incorporates two 8TB SSDs. Whereas the highest faux had a 3.6-star ranking, the subsequent two have been 4.8 and 4.2, respectively. How are such apparent fakes getting such excessive scores?
It’s the rip-off Hendrickson calls “evaluate merging,” and Client Reviews calls “evaluate hijacking.” As Hendrickson explains, some third-party sellers take previous listings and exchange them with new objects, leaving the evaluations however altering every little thing else. A fast scan of 1 faux 16TB drive itemizing confirmed five-star evaluations for laptop computer chargers, basketball backpacks, stickers, display screen protectors, Mardi Gras beads, and mousepads. The sellers collect good evaluations for affordable generic merchandise, swap in a costlier faux, after which take it down when dangerous evaluations begin piling up.
Hendrickson says he reported the faux SSD to Amazon and is awaiting their response. Whereas a number of the listings turned “unavailable” after linking Amazon to them, although, some have been nonetheless up. One was changed by a brand new product altogether.
This isn’t a brand new trick. In 2019, an Amazon spokesperson instructed Client Reviews they’d spent over $400 million to deal with the issue in a single 12 months alone. “Final 12 months, we prevented greater than 13 million makes an attempt to go away an inauthentic evaluate and we took motion in opposition to greater than 5 million dangerous actors trying to govern evaluations,” they stated on the time.
And but, practically 4 years later, it continues to be a problem.
“The previous maxim stays true: if it’s too good to be true, it most likely isn’t,” warns Hendrickson. “If you happen to’re not sure, test the evaluations intently. Do they match as much as the product? If not, run.”
A 16TB SSD for $100? Too good to be true. However you will get a extremely quick 1TB exterior SSD for about $100. Simply stick with respected storage manufacturers like SanDisk, Samsung, and Western Digital. And don’t overlook to learn the evaluations.