MeMOry card bargains... MAKE THAT FAKES, NOT BARGAINS!!!

Having spoke to SanDisk I'm informed these cards are likely to be fake. Read thread through to the end.

Anyone looking for a decent SD card for a bargain price, check ebay.
Seller name, "e_cell".

I ordered a Sandisk Extreme III 2GB SD Card for just £29.98 including p+p. These are RRP about £80 and tend to be over £50 online. Jessops £130!

Fast cards, New and sealed, and comes with recovery software.

The sale's nothing to do with me but just a heads up.

They also have CF and Pro Duo cards, though I've no idea how the prices compare.

 

Wow. Just as a reference MyMemory have them at £43.99

 

Just to confirm, MO - have you actually received your card?

 

Yes, recieved very quickly.

One thing. I requested special delivery (£10 rather than the £5 for recorded). The card ended up being sent recorded (still arrived within a couple of days).

I emailed the seller saying overall very happy, but any chance of having the £5 extra I'd paid for special delivery refunded. No reply recieved, so a follow up email sent repeating it.
Refund recieved this MOrning.

I'd order recorded next time. I only went for special to make sure it was in time for the festives, but recorded got it here anyhow.

Like I've said though, I'm nothing to do with the listings, so if things don't go as well for others I'm sorry, but I found it a bit of a bargain! As Greg says, the cheapest elsewhere if over £40. Play .com have them for about £50 (I've ordered other cards from play and found them to be very well priced). Prices go all the way up to £130!

A couple of people have the 4GB version listed. I'll wait for it to become MOre widely available and see how it's priced. I'd rather split over several 1 or 2GB cards though should I ever need masses of space. The 4GB Ultra II is listed, but not sure how it compares for price to other places.

Also, make sure your camera supports larger sizes.

 

Great price, but be sure to check that it's the genuine thing when you get it; I bought a Sandisk Ultra II card off ebay at a very good price (or so I thought) about 6 months ago, and it arrived in sealed and very authentic looking packaging. Since then I had several issues with the card not keeping up with the camera when taking movies, and eventually looked into replacing it. I happened across several 'guides' on ebay that suggested that up to 95% of the ultra II cards on ebay are in fact fake, and when I went through their list of 'what to look out for on a dodgy card' my card ticked pretty much all the boxes. I bought a new and thoroughly genuine one from Maplin in their sales, and it's a lot faster.

I'm not saying that yours is iffy, but worth checking to make sure, faking branded cards seems to be big business, especially on ebay!

Just a thought anyhoo..

 

How would I go about checking?

The packaging looks genuine, as does the literature included. There's also a mini-cd for the recovery software, and the "travel case" for the card.

The label on the card appears genuine.

Not sure how I'd check? There's a printed number on the back of the card "BB0547300604W MADE IN CHINA".

Certainly seems genuine and have had no problems in the limited use I've given it so far.

 

Try looking here for info:

http://search.reviews.ebay.co.uk/_Digital-Camera-Memory-Cards_W0QQucatZ18871QQuqtZg

If your card is working fine then it's probably OK, mine was definitely on the slow side - but still was effective enough in storing my photos.......just slower than it ought to be.

A couple of giveaway characteristics on mine was the label on the card had visible dots under a magnifying glass, it had no serial/product number, and on close inspection the small notch at the base of the card had been tidied up with a scalpel or similar. But if I hadn't had problems with movies I probably would never had known, as it's a pretty good likeness and stores to its stated capacity! I'm going to keep it as a spare regardless.

 

Right then....

To anyone planning on making a purchase I'd hold off for now. The cards may very well be genuine, but I'd wait till it can be confirmed. Having read several articles I'm unsure either way.

The packaging and label on the card seems to match up.
All the accessories are included.

I'm unable to locate a serial number to activate the rescuepro software though.

The sellers feedback lists at least one buyer claiming they're fake I've emailed them for details, and also emailed Sandisk for information.

Bleh!

 

Having spoke to SanDisk, I'm informed these cards are likely to be fake. I'm unable to find any product code.

I'll be in touch with the seller....

 

To be fair Amazon have 2 gig cards at the mo for 15 quid, not the super fast ones but there does seem to have been a price crash recently.

 

Yep. I had a 1gb Viking card off Amazon for around a tenner a few months ago and its been fine.

 

No doubt prices have come down, and will continue to with higher capacity cards coming. The reason I wanted the extreme III was the lifetime warranty it comes with. At that price it seemed worth it.

 

Of course it depends what you're doing with them too... If you're using a DSLR a faster card can have a significant effect on buffer clearing and consequently on shooting speed, whereas if you're using it for a music player or PDA then the difference between a basic card and something like an ultra II or extreme III is essentially irrelevant.

There's no money to be made in NAND flash now... prices are too low, margins are infintesimal.

 

The card does seem pretty fast, but I've nothing to test it against other than a dirt cheap card.

Is there a way of testing it's speed?

 

Seller agreed full immediate refund.

Still not recieved after a couple of follow up emails and the return of the card.

Just opened my first ebay dispute. Twunt!

For anyone still in the market for the Extreme III. I ordered the 2GB SD from play.com for £36.99

Some of the Extremes are meant to come with an offer with Capture One (RAW software), where you get a free product key for the program. There's nothing on the packaging to indicate if the Card carries the activation code and sellers don't seem to really know much about it. Nor do, either sandisk or phase one actually Both passing you to the other.

Anyhow, the one I recieved from play has the capture one offer for anyone interested.

 

if you paid via paypal then I can't see any issues...

annoying all the same!

 

Damn it - I've been sold a fake too. My Sandisk Ultra II 1GB SD card is very clearly a fake based on the eBay guide (no 'notch' on bottom, no serial number, no hologram on packaging). It seems to work perfectly well however and I'm outside the time limit to claim so there is little point in doing anything. eBay seller name is "yang-z-yang".

Tony.

 

I've just checked and have recieved a reply from the seller (e_cell) saying Payment not recieved!

Strange eh? I always pay instantly with paypal and why would he have sent the card to me if I hadn't paid!

Avoid e_cell!!!

 

Thought the following link to play.com may interest those after one of these cards (I assume the ones from play.com will be genuine...):

http://www.play.com/Search.aspx?searchtype=ELEC&searchstring=III&page=search&pa=search

At the time of posting this, the Extreme III SD 2GB is priced at only £17.99. Compactflash types are very cheap, too.

 

Kingston Technology

I have just paid £10.97 for a Kingston Technology 2Gb SD card through Amazon(£6.47 + £4.50 postage) for my mother,which i thought was extremely cheap.She isn't interested in how fast they are,just wants to take more picture pictures than the 16Mb card that came with the camera.

On the other hand,last year i bought an Olympus type H,1Gb Xd card for my Olympus camera for £22.00 inc.postage(around £50.00 here in Kendal) only to find that i can't even format it as my camera isn't up to it.Ho hum.I suppose i could always spend a couple of hundred quid on a new camera,which defeats the object of buying cheap cards!

Best wishes

Ian