I have decided to see how much attention I can give to this fraud. Even though the item is less than $50.00, I feel this is owed to these scam artists. Please take the time to read the correspondence sent to ebay in the dispute, and the repeated emails to the vendor BLOWN-Z below.


Subject: You paid but your item wasn't as described Received: Jan-28-07
From: ikegilbert Expires: Mar-29-07
To: eBay

Item number: 200066427526
Payment Method: PayPal
Date of Payment: 01/08/07
Dispute Resolution: None used
Seller Contact: No-The seller?s phone number is incorrect

Customer concern: Dear customer relations manager,

You can see that the item referenced was clearly described as a 1GB MP4 Player. The item was shipped, but after running diagnostic software on the drive due to other issues it was found to be only 256mb. This is only 1/4 the advertized capacity.

The seller is very aware of this, and is running a high volume SCAM online. This constitues FRAUD and should be prosecuted. Again, I maintain that this IS INDEED FRAUD.

Information is being gathered by others online who have been victims of this scam in the past. Here are the links to other verified scammers, notice that the user I purchased from "BLOWN_Z" is number 3 on this list:

http://www.mympxplayer.org/63-ebay-traders-known-to-sell-hacked-players-vt3556.html?highlight=mp4+hacked+drive


Please consider the email exchanges to the vendor below:
From: "Supreme Solutions" <supremesolutions> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To: "Ike Gilbert" <ike>
Subject: RE: ATTN: Memory card and MP4 player customers
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:19:36 -0600
From: Ike Gilbert [mailto:ike@woodenpicks.com]
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 5:19 PM
To: Supreme Solutions
Cc: support@ebay.com
Subject: Re: ATTN: Memory card and MP4 player customers


Hello,

I recently purchased your MP4 player with 1GB of memory. I have NOT posted any feedback on Ebay as of yet. Here is what I have found out about this SPECIFIC player, and CONFIRMED about what you shipped:

would you like me to offer you a deal with this item. please state amount yo u think is fair for this item. jen

It IS NOT a 1GB player.
When properly formatted it only has 256MB of flash memory.

This means that the memory was deliberately HACKED to show more than what the actual capacity is.

I am certain that you will want to ship a REAL 1GB player to me now that I have this FRAUD documented.

I am holding off on further action until I hear back from you on this account. I am hoping that you are also just as SHOCKED as I am about the product you are selling, and that YOU have been scammed as well. In either case, I would appreciate a refund or replacement at absolutely NO CHARGE to myself.

The transaction here: New 1 Gb 1Gb Mp3 Mp4 Video-Movie-Audio Player Black

Please see the online petition here:
http://www.mympxplayer.org/how-to-removing-memory-hack-vt2400.html?highlight=mp3+player+format+error

And also be advised that I would like resolution quickly so that I will not have to file a dispute with Ebay and Paypal.


Sincerely,

Ike Gilbert
-----Original Message-----
From: Ike Gilbert [mailto:ike@woodenpicks.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 10:36 PM
To: Supreme Solutions
Subject: RE: ATTN: Memory card and MP4 player customers


Just checking to see that you got my previous email?

Supreme Solutions <supremesolutions> wrote:
i can make a deal with you if you would like? please state amount you think is fair for this player. jen


-----Original Message-----
From: Ike Gilbert [mailto:ike@woodenpicks.com]
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 5:19 PM
To: Supreme Solutions
Cc: support@ebay.com
Subject: Re: ATTN: Memory card and MP4 player customers


Hello,

I recently purchased your MP4 player with 1GB of memory. I have NOT posted any feedback on Ebay as of yet. Here is what I have found out about this SPECIFIC player, and CONFIRMED about what you shipped:

It IS NOT a 1GB player.
When properly formatted it only has 256MB of flash memory.

This means that the memory was deliberately HACKED to show more than what the actual capacity is.

I am certain that you will want to ship a REAL 1GB player to me now that I have this FRAUD documented.

I am holding off on further action until I hear back from you on this account. I am hoping that you are also just as SHOCKED as I am about the product you are selling, and that YOU have been scammed as well. In either case, I would appreciate a refund or replacement at absolutely NO CHARGE to myself.

The transaction here: New 1 Gb 1Gb Mp3 Mp4 Video-Movie-Audio Player Black.

Please see the online petition here:
http://www.mympxplayer.org/how-to-removing-memory-hack-vt2400.html?highlight=mp3+player+format+error

And also be advised that I would like resolution quickly so that I will not have to file a dispute with Ebay and Paypal.


Sincerely,

Ike Gilbert

----------------------------

Supreme Solutions <supremesolutions> wrote:
ATTN Customers that purchased an item from blown-z on ebay. I had to leave
because of a family emergency. I will be back on Sunday to resume business.
Please email us back then if the response below doesn't answer your
question. We apologize for any inconvience this has caused.

1) Do you combine shipping?
Sorry we don't combine shipping.

2) Have you received my return yet?
our returns dept will process returns as they are received. You will be
notified when they arrive

3) Can I get tracking for my shipment?
sorry we don't have tracking for shipments. You will receive a notice from
ebay saying your item was shipped. If you don't have it within 12 business
days from the time you receive that message please email us back

4) Help with your mp4 player.
-Please make sure you don't save the supplied disk to your mp4 player this
will damage it. If you format the player you can usually fix the problem if
you downloaded the cd to the player.
-The mp4 player will only play unprotected media such as mp3 files. Music
downloaded from Wal-Mart or itunes or windows media player usually will not
work because they are protected. See below on more tips for mp4 players

Mp4 Player Keeps shutting down?

If have any partial mp3 files installed the player it will automatically
shut down, make sure to delete these partial files and restart the Mp4
Player.

To add music:
Plug MP4 into usb, open "my computer" then copy and paste your music into
MP4 drive, most likely drive "e".

To add Video:
Install the MP4 software, then use the conversion tool to convert your video
files to amv format, then just copy and paste into MP4 drive just as you
would with your music files. If your having trouble with the supplied
software, you can download from this site
http://www.brothersoft.com/dvd_video/video_conversion/amv_convert_tool_50890
.html



Trouble finding MP4 drive in "my computer"
If you can't find the MP4 drive in "my computer" unplug MP4 from usb, then
plug back into usb and you'll see the new drive appear in "my computer".
Also, for computers with two usb ports, if one doesn't recognize the MP4,
try the other.

Change display from Chinese to English:
Turn MP4 on, hit the left arrow once, hit menu, hit the right arrow 2 times,
hit menu, up in the right hand corner of the screen you will see a
number/25. Make sure it says 2/25 then hit menu.
Turn the unit on. HIt right 4 times till you see the gears on the screen.
HIt M
Then hit left button until you see 4/11 in the upper corner. Then 2/25 is
English


Increase battery time:
Go into system setup
Hit LCD set
Go down to Black or darkle and change it from 0 seconds to 5 or more
seconds. This will turn the lcd screen off when the unit is idling.

Yup yup same fraud happened to me... I sent you a PM ikeg with my whole situation but just for others to see:

These are the e-mails I traded with blown-z before he went incognito with the "family emergency" excuse:

my first e-mail:

Quote: › Hello, after winning the bid, I was reading your feedback and saw to my surprise that several eBay members complained that you sell hacked mp4 players to show more memory than they really have. Please do not send one of these such players to me. I am either expecting a GENUINE 1gb mp4 player or an immediate refund. If I find upon receiving the player that it is hacked, I will immediately file a paypal claim. Thank you.

their reply:

Quote: › you will recieve a 1gb. jen

My response to make it crystal clear that I wanted a 1 gigaBYTE player:

Quote: › I am writing once again to clarify in case my last message wasn't clear: The only mp4 player I want you to send is a geniune ONE GIGABYTE. None of your deceeitful "GIGABIT" gibberish. If you plan on doing so, please just refund my money immediately. If you still choose to send a hacked player, I will contest your deceit to the full extent of the law. Thank you.

Their response:

Quote: › yes this is a one gigagyte player. jen

(I'm assuming that "gigagyte" was a typo for gigaBYTE and they won't use this as a loophole for their lies)

My e-mail after receiving the player and discovering the hack:

Quote: › Are you kidding me? You blatantly lied to me after I specifically wrote you TWO SEPARATE E-MAILS to tell you that if you were not going to send me a GENUINE, 1 GIGABYTE mp3 player, not to send one at all and to refund my money. You assured me that it was a one gigabyte player (see your own words below). So I was EXPECTING a 1 gigabyte player. And what did I get when I received it today?! A 256 MEGABYTE PLAYER. I want a full refund or some sort of compensation. If you do not reply to this message within 48 hours I am filing a paypal claim. The nerve to lie to me and expect me not to notice!

... and my last e-mail to them

Quote: › Oh, and don't try to excuse yourself by saying that I got too good a deal for a 1 gigabyte player. THAT IS NOT THE POINT. I won a 1 GIGABYTE player and that's what I should have received! Why do you insist on cheating and lying to your customers?

Their generic response:

Quote: › ATTN Customers that purchased an item from blown-z on ebay. I had to leave because of a family emergency. I will be back on Sunday to resume business. Please email us back then if the response below doesn't answer your question. We apologize for any inconvience this has caused.

Very interesting indeed... I read your post again and saw that blown-z REPLIED to you DURING the same time period they told me they would be away on a supposed "family emergency." I KNEW they were making that up!

Hey all,

Just F.Y.I., the return address on the package sent by blown-z with the falsely advertised memory:

Supreme Solutions
P.O. Box 193
Anoka, MN 55303

This is a P.O. # in the United States, which makes this transaction subject to the Anoka, MN authorities. Actually, there is a website where you can report fraudulent activities to the Minnesota Attorney General so that they can be investigated and impose the proper fines or imprisonment. Fraud still is illegal in the United States, if it can be proven.

It may be a good idea to send a complete copy of all correspondence to this office so that they can gather information, at the same time you might want to cc: Mr. Blown-Z at the above address just to let him know how serious it is for him to settle these matters in a timely fashion with us all...

I wonder if sending a copy of this to the US postal service would do any good? They probably would like to know that there is alleged MASS fraud being carried out from that P.O. box. That is to say if this individual is such a shallow thinker as to give his REAL return address?

Sorry for the repeated messages all,

A direct link for reporting business fraud online in Minnesota:
http://www.ag.state.mn.us/consumer/

Hope this will help us all. I really do not care about the money at this point, I am just trying to stop this kind of activity by this individual in the future.

Hello,

Before last week I never owned an MP4 player. I watched Ebay auctions and the completed listings searches on the players and won two auctions at liquidation.com at a price I sould had been able to make maybe a 8% profit from after ebay fees and such.

Learning about hacked players by buying 62 of them realy sucks!! The site is a broker between bussiness and they have a two day time limit from the time your packages arrives to open up a dispute over damaged or misrepresented items. This realy is not much time for a buyer to investagate something of this nature.

If you go to thier site you will likely find at least a dozen CASES of hacked mp4 players that will be auctioned this week. Many of these players will make it to Ebay im sure.

After I found problems with the one player I was going to keep for myself I found this fourm and then went to a computer store and had a tech. go through the prosses posted on this fourm for removing the hack so I have a statment from a third party that my lot of 42 4GB players are realy 109mb players and my 20 8GBplayers are realy 2GB players.

I think if people on this fourm also called liquidation.com and conplained to them they are a source of hacked players that make thier way to ebay maybe it would help the big picture a little.

I am faxing my dispute to them on monday along with my statment from the computer store because I was told they may still investagate even thoe its past the two day limit do to the nature of my dispute.

I know many people on this fourm look to Ebay sellers that ripped them off but these sellers are getting the players from someplace and Liquidation.com is one of them.

I borrowed 3500.00 dollars I do not have to buy these players and I couldnt hardly pay my bills before this. I dont know what will happen with this comming round of bills. If I had not started my little search for truth I could of had them listed, made my money, got a little bad feedback, and got on with my life like nothing happened but Know I know.

If you want to help clean up Ebay and help me at the same time call liquidation.com and ask them to stop selling hacked players or offer a longer time to dispute mp4 player sales. If Ebay sellers did not get stuck with cases of junk they would be less likly to pass it on to ebay buyers maybe.

Greg

Greg, Might be helpful to add this info here:
http://www.mympxplayer.org/blacklist-of-suppliers-and-manufacturers-vt3859.html

I purchased a 2GB player from blown-z and got it last week. After I re-formatted it correctly, I have a 256MB MP4 player (1/8 of 2GB). I did open a dispute. I think I may come out ahead, because he/she (I think this is a she) sent me the wrong color, and I think I can return it for that. I did notice that all the way at the bottom of the auction, they state the memory capacity will be reported wrong to windows. OFF WITH THEIR HEAD! The ebay auction I won is: 200067051133

Hey there magatron,

You might want to read the return policy before you ship it back. According to the information from blown-z YOU will pay ALL shipping costs (shipment for replacement, and cost of shipping the replacement).

I am posting the information from my auction with blown-z, please follow up and let me know if your MEMORY statement was like this. Notice the bolded words that CLEARLY state my memory would be 1GB (not 256mb hacked to look like 8, and I'm not buying the gigabits/gigabyte crap either. The math still does not add up in the conversion, it is DELIBERATE false advertising) One bit of advice, clearly affirm in any dispute with Ebay or Paypal that your allegation is FRAUD, this makes the issue not simply a POLICY debate but a LEGAL issue and must be handled differently by the department.

Here is a cut & paste from my transaction, I am sure this is probably standard:

RETURN AND WARRANTY: 7 day warranty, warranty will be avoided if any crack, split occured on mp4 body, no warranty on any accessories.
Return: Returns on defective and/or damaged items: You must notify us within 7 days of receiving an item, Items returned will be tested by our technicians: 1) If Found defective- Buyer will be shipped a new replacement unit immediately. 2) If Found not defective- Item will be sent back to buyer(at buyers expense). RMA Authorization number must be obtained before returning any item and be visible on the box or label it is being returned in. Items returned without RMA number will be refused and returned to the sender. Buyer is responsible for All Return Postage and Shipping Charges
Please note: Buyer is responsible for additional shipping costs for items that are returned refused and/or undeliverable. If the buyer is not happy with the product we will offer a 20% restocking fee. Buyer is responsible for the accuracy of the shipping information in their eBay

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE: This product has one gigabits of internal memory; however, the memory will register as eight gigabits. The manufacturer programmed the device so that the memory will register as eight gigabits when read by an external device such as a PC or other memory reading device. This device does not have eight gigabits of internal memory. By common industry standards all memory is converted into megabyte (s) or gigabyte(s). The conversion for gigabit to gigabyte is one gigabyte for every eight gigabits. The conversion for gigabit to megabyte is one gigabit for every one hundred and twenty five megabytes. Because of common industry standards the internal memory of this device will register in megabyte (s) or gigabyte (s). This product is sold "As-Is." If the buyer is not happy with the device, please refer to the return policy in the auction.

Just so I'm not confused on the math either, this was taken from wikipedia on byte conversion:

1 gigabit = 1,000,000,000 bits (which is equal to 125 decimal megabytes)

Using this equation it is easy to see that the intention is NOT to sell a 1Gb player, but it would make the player a 125mb drive instead.

My player is 256mb.

I suppose the next argument will be that we owe THEM more money since WE should have KNOWN that we were getting more than we bargained for?

CLEAR and SIMPLE false advertising...

Hi all,

Here is a cut&paste from the exact auction I won on ebay:...


"(PLEASE TAKE NOTICE: This product has two gigabits of internal memory; however, the memory will register as sixteen gigabits. The manufacturer programmed the device so that the memory will register as sixteen gigabits when read by an external device such as a PC or other memory reading device. This device does not have sixteen gigabits of internal memory. By common industry standards all memory is converted into megabyte (s) or gigabyte(s). The conversion for gigabit to gigabyte is one gigabyte for every eight gigabits. The conversion for gigabit to megabyte is one gigabit for every one hundred and twenty five megabytes. Because of common industry standards the internal memory of this device will register in megabyte (s) or gigabyte (s). This product is sold "As-Is." If the buyer is not happy with the device, please refer to the return policy in the auction."

I will probably keep the player. It will cost more to deal with this than it cost. And after all the players are cool, I'll just buy a few more to get the capacity I need...LONG LIVE DIGITAL!

magatron002, If the scumbag had any decency he would correctly list his player for 256MB which is what they really are. He has also only started listing the disclaimer to cover his sorry arse.

While the list is no where near complete and growing all the time here are 70 traders to avoid if you decide to spin the eBay Roulette Wheel again. As they say in Las Vagas the house always wins.

http://www.mympxplayer.org/70-ebay-traders-known-to-sell-hacked-players-vt3556.html

I have considered opening a little store here in my city, and calling it MP3 World. I bought stock in MP3.com...I remember when MP3 files were first showing up on the web. I used to think that it would be really cool to own a solid state device that can play these files. I thought they would be more popular than the walkman. They have potential [these awesome devices], but these worthless scumbags that sell hacked crap need shot. Its very pleasing to see the support shown here, while learning about the scammers. PROPS to this site.

Anyway...the oddest part of my MP4 player is that the firmware date (revision) is dated AFTER the auction closed...strange indeed...

FINALLY a response from blown-z regarding my mp4 player. I had to start disputes with Paypal & Ebay to get a response. Here it is, along with my reply. (I am having too much fun at this point, now I just want to prove a point)...


Supreme Solutions <supremesolutions> wrote:even though the item was as described.
If your not happy with the player the best deal i can give you is $10 back
otherwise
Please send it back with this email to:
Supreme Solutions
p.o box 193
Anoka, MN 55303
Your RMA number is the auction number. If your returning a defective memory card dont send it in a regular machinable envolope. This will damage the card or the card will get lost.
thanks

My reply:

Hello,

Thank you for your response. Please understand that my position is that you deliberately described the product in a way that disguised its true capacity. Therefore, it is FRAUD. Even using the description you provided, it does not add up correctly. Please understand that I AM fully aware of how to convert 1Gb into megabytes:

1 gigabit = 1,000,000,000 bits (which is equal to 125 decimal megabytes)

Using this equation it is easy to see that your intention is NOT to sell a 1Gb player, but the player you are trying to disguise is only a 125mb drive instead. Why did you not just say that it is a 125mb player??? Because NOBODY WOULD BID ON THAT!!!

My player is 256mb.

You are a scam artist, and I want $25 back. That is what 1/4 of the memory that you falsely advertised is worth.

You have 1 day to put the $25 into my Paypal account or I will just take the player to a third party to be verified and fax the information to Paypal. I know you already have SEVERAL of these complaints pending, so maybe they can just CLOSE DOWN your account.

$25 - 24 hours... That is the DEAL

Hmm.. my situation was a bit different... I got fed up with blown-z's BSing and finally decided to file a claim against them, demanding at least a $15 partial refund. How surprising, they responded to THAT in less than 2 hours! Thought they were away on a family emergency?... Anyway I got my 15 bucks back which means I paid around $14 for a 256mb player. Not bad. Can't really do anything with 256Mb but I'll probably just give it to my little brother and take it as a lesson learned.

Oh and another funny thing, blown-z started responding to my numerous e-mails AFTER the claim and partial refund asking what the problem was. What a loser. I don't have any more time or energy to waste on him.