We have had the odd seller offering 4GB players popping up on trademe.co.nz which is the local equivilant of ebay and I usually leave a comment similar to this.

You may not be aware of it but Action chipset players such as the one you have listed support a maximum 2GB flash memory. Players over 2GB are fake with memory hacked to read larger than true size. To knowingly sell such a player is fraud. For protection of you & your buyers I suggest opening one of your players and checking the memory chip serial number on the Samsung or Hynix websites or with a Google search.

Unfortunatly any comments or questions placed are not visible until the seller replies, so if the seller does not like the question he can just ignore it. I also leave a community watch report with the same message but trademe seems to pretty much ignore them as well.

I decided to just buy the player and expose the fraud, if the seller does not stop selling them and give me a full refund plus return shipping my intention is then to file a fraud complaint with the NZ Police.

Friday I received the hacked player from a seller trading as hotmale1616 on trademe.co.nz. 4GB Nano Clone with a hacked 2GB Samsung chip K9HAG08U1M.

I used testdisk to analyse the memory and it reported the drive as being too small.

I then loaded it with 3 folders each filed with 1GB of MP3's. The last 9 files in folder2 and the entire contents of folder 3 were corrupt so I was pretty sure it was in fact a 2GB.

I then opened the player to confirm the chip size, on Samsung chips the 4th & 5th characters (K9HAG08U1M) define the chips density in this case 16Gigabit or 2GigaByte.

4GB label.



Capacity as displayed on player.



Capacity as displayed in Windows.



Test Disk Results.



Mp3 Player Disk Tool which is part of M3 Player Utilities displays the hacked size in the Format tab and the true size in the Partition Encrypt tab.



Chip Serial Number



Samsung Part number decoder





I am told by hotmale1616 that a full refund plus return shipping costs has been deposited to my bank account but it will not be until about Tuesday that I will know if it has or not.

Edited 13-12-06

Full refund was received player was returned to buyer. He has now relisted more fake 4GB players on trademe.co.nz. I have spoken with the local Police and they have refered me to the Fraud Squad in Auckland. Have also contacted the Department of Fair Trading.

Have also posted Negative feedback as follows:

Do Not be Conned, I bought a 4GB player that turned out to have a 2GB chip hacked to read as 4GB. As soon as the player was returned he relisted them. Posted details here. http://www.mympxplayer.org/viewtopic.php?p=14821#14821

This was his responce:
He got what he paid for. But obviously not good enough. Do not deal with this trader he is a bit psychotic. I suggest removing his bid, should he bid on your auctions.

I like the bit about being psychotic.

14-12-06

The following report was sent to TradeMe

I recently purchased a 4GB MP3 player Auction (#80254611). The player turned out to have a 2GB memory chip that was hacked to read as 4G. My money was refunded the player was returned. These players are fakes and the seller knows it and continues to list them. They use an ACTION brand chipset, one of the limitations of this is that they can only support a max 2GB nand flash memory. Details of my findings are posted here: http://www.mympxplayer.org/hotmale1616-selling-hacked-4gb-players-trademeconz-vt2786.html . Despite community watch reports etc you appear to do nothing to stop this seller or these players from being sold. I have spoken to Police about this matter and am waiting to hear back from the Fraud Squad. People are getting ripped off how about some action. This is a great site and I would hate to see it become a haven for fraudsters as eBay has.


TradeMe reply:

We appreciate you alerting us to this member's behaviour. I have looked into this for you and have taken the appropriate action. If they continue to behave inappropriately on the site we will take further action. Once again thanks for alerting us to this member. If you have any further questions or if I can be of any further help please do not hesitate to contact me.

Hey tadad,

Good work.
I now hope that Trademe is going to take your comments seriously.

It's things like this that start to ruin the trust and reputation of a site. Hope TradeMe and take it seriously otherwise it's just going to get worst.

I also tested my 4Gb player with testdisk and I had the same results. I also had the same Samsung chip as you. I to have asked for a full refund and I will not send back the players either unless they send me the cost of P&P to do this. They have little time left to respond to Paypal so lets see what happens.

steveandali62, Good luck in your claim, I received a full refund today plus the cost of return shipping from the seller. I think it is typical that eBay should just shut you up rather than deal with the problem.
How hard would it be to have a popup warning on flash memory based products prior to bid confirmation advising buyers how to check their products on delivery. It would quickly deter the crooks, but then I suppose ebay might miss a few commisions.
Perhaps we should start an on-line petition.

yes im new to this stuff and i went on ebay and bought a 4gig player and i posted on these forums to find out i have been riped off i spent alot of money on this item for it to crash i am very up set i sent him a email today saying he sold me a lemon and that i am mad i asked for him to make this right i will see what happends his ebay name is blown-z i will file a fraud suit on him with my state attorney general and ebay and paypal if he refuses to comply with terms of selling a hacked item hope this helps in a small way is any

Hi Tadad,
great reply to the CAOFAX i to have not had a reply from him and have also posted a comment on his profile. I have also informed Trademe and they said they will be contacting him. I i have to i will take him to court.

calibrakiwi, I bought the 4GB player to expose the fact that he is selling hacked players. looking at other feedback he is also in breach of copyright as his players display the iPod logo which as you know is a registered trademark so i have emailed Apple as well.
This is one conman that will wish he was never born.

Great work Tadad! These scammers need to be taught a lesson. So if I've ordered a 1GB player [with both GB capital] it should be written as 8G right? or will it be 1G?

I'll get this post on my blog [with attribution] to warn others if you don't mind.

geekwrestler, There are no rules on how they are advertised but a 1 GigaByte player you expect to be advertised as 1GB. If a seller is advertising 8Gb (Gigabits) for a 1GB (GigaByte) player is is most likely trying to con people into thinking it is an 8 GigaByte player.

tadad, Well he advertised it as 1GB. I was aking about what should be written on the Chip [its a smasung from description], should it be 8G or 1G for a 1GB chip? Thanks.

geekwrestler, Sorry I misunderstood you. On Samsung chips the 4th and 5th characters of the serial number denote the chip density so a K9K8G08U1A chip is 1GB, all 1 GigaByte Samsung chips will have the 8G code. The other codes are as follow:

1G=128MB
2G=256MB
4G=512MB
8G=1GB
AG=2GB
BG=4GB

Tadad, thanks. I got my MP4 Player just an hour ago. Checked for any hacked memory, found none. It's a genuine 1GB player even after doing lattesurf's method and even filling it up to the brim. I've come of better in both deals. Thanks to you guys as well. Only problem is the screen size - 1.2" instead of the 1.5" advertised. Shot off an email to the seller and expect a reply.

It's not much problem though, but I'm going to leave negative feedback anyways. I paid for it! [I got a 512 MP3 player for $8, and an MP4 for $15 not quite bad although he sure should have got some from the shipping I take it. ]

Thanks tadad and MPxPlayer!

geekwrestler, Shame about the screen size 1.2 is not very common these days are you measuring it from corner to corner on the diagonal. But sounds like you did a good deal and fast fast fast

Enjoy your player and have a great festive season.

Tadad, I was measuring it corner to corner HORIZONTALLY & VERTICALLY. Measured diagonally and yes it is 1.5". Me stupid. Thanks for the tip. I'll try to make a donation to this great forum if I can, if I can't I'll at least feature you guys and the good work you do on my blog for my readers.

Thanks very much. Time to give the MP4 as a gift... Recon I'll get one for myself soon but with a BIGGER screen. Btw, the seller Etectonic has listed all of the contents just the same as I found from a Uxcell seller Best4buydeals or something. No problem since the thing performs great.

Thanks tadad! Merry Christmas!

hi tadad1, you mentioned that Samsung chip with 8G has memory size of 1GB. I have a fake 4GB MP4 player with Samsung K9G8G08U0M chip but I can copy over 1GB of mp3s just fine but once it reaches over 2GB, then corrupt files start to appear. So, does that mean I have a 2GB memory?