Should you’ve looked for exterior SSDs on Amazon.com not too long ago, you might have seen one thing odd: 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 consumer rankings. Each single one among them is a rip-off, even when they’re shipped by Amazon.
The Verge confirmed that a number of pretend 16TB drives appeared on the primary web page of outcomes for “exterior SSD” and over half of the outcomes for “16TB SSD” had been pretend – the remaining had been both 16TB enterprise exhausting drives TB, multi-drive circumstances and one actual. 16TB exterior drive that prices $2,400 and comprises two 8TB SSDs. Whereas the highest pretend had a three.6 star score, the following two had been four.eight and four.2 respectively. How do such apparent fakes get such excessive rankings?
It is the rip-off Hendrickson calls “evaluation merging” and Client Stories name it “evaluation hijacking”. As Hendrickson explains, some third-party sellers take outdated listings and change them with new gadgets, leaving the opinions however altering every little thing else. A fast scan of an inventory of faux 16TB drives confirmed five-star opinions for laptop computer chargers, basketball backpacks, stickers, display screen protectors, Mardi Gras beads and mousepads. Sellers accumulate good opinions for affordable generics, commerce in a dearer pretend, after which take it down when the unhealthy opinions begin piling up.
Hendrickson says he has reported the pretend SSD to Amazon and is awaiting their response. Whereas a few of the listings grew to become “unavailable” after I linked Amazon to them, some had been nonetheless out there. One was changed with a brand new product.
This isn’t a brand new trick. In 2019, an Amazon spokesperson stated Client Stories that they had spent over $400 million to repair the issue in only one yr. “Final yr, we prevented greater than 13 million makes an attempt to go away a pretend evaluation and took motion in opposition to greater than 5 million unhealthy actors attempting to govern opinions,” they stated on the time.
And but, almost 4 years later, it continues to be an issue.
“The outdated maxim stays true: If it is too good to be true, it most likely is not,” cautions Hendrickson. “Should you’re undecided, test the opinions rigorously. Do they match the product? If not, run.”
A 16TB SSD for $100? Too good to be true. However you may get a really quick 1TB exterior SSD for round $100. Simply follow respected storage manufacturers like SanDisk, Samsung, and Western Digital. And do not forget to learn the opinions.