Amazon FTW

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Sun Feb 02, 2014 11:29 pm

so after playing w/ my new gopro 3 black camera, i kept having problems with it freezing up, randomly deleting files, or basic video corruption. i was worried that the camera was defective, but knew from previous experience with my gopro 2, that they are extremely picky with sd cards. the gopro 3 uses microSD, and i bought one that they recommend on their site, a Samsung 64GB Class 10.

anyway, i go through all the motions and test the card with a few different apps, as well as throw it in my phone and use a handy sd card tester called "SD Insight". it will read manufacturer info and other hardware specs from any card in the phone. well, turns out it's a fake/counterfeit card. speed tests came in at nearly 1/10th the rated speed, along with the phone app showing "NULL" for most of the data. throw in a known good card and it reads it perfectly.

i contacted Amazon via online chat and in less than two minutes, i have a pre-paid shipping label in my inbox. nice.

oh, and shame on me for mistakenly ordering the card from a reseller other than Amazon. it was "fulfilled by Amazon", but not sold by Amazon. ugh. now to leave them some feedback...

ZYFER · Post by **ZYFER** » Mon Feb 03, 2014 11:29 am

Ya, I would be careful about buying that stuff from the sellers on Amazon. Make sure to mention that it was a counterfeit SD card, they tend to take matters pretty seriously and will slam their sellers accordingly.

Do note, you won't run into these issues that often, so it is probably a big surprise that it even happened. Also somewhat of surprised it was a counterfeit Samsung one. They tend to counterfeit Sandisk and Sony memory cards more than anything.

Amazon customer service is pretty good. I haven't had an issue in which they where unable to resolve in a satisfying way, even sometimes giving me a credit they didn't have to do. Amazon Prime has gotten more worth it too, with the Streaming service it includes now. It isn't so grand I suppose, but it shares a decent amount of stuff with Netflix and has things Netflix doesn't have as well. Got an opportunity to watch The West Wing on there from start to finish.

I do like the Sandisk Extreme memory cards. A little more pricey, but for pictures and video, the extra speed is more than worth it in my opinion.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Mon Feb 03, 2014 1:34 pm

Yeah, I'll do my best to let Amazon know about the fake. I dug a bit deeper and even side-by-side comparisons are off. The printing on it is shifted way to the right compared to the authentic, and it scrapes off with my nail. lol it came in legit looking packaging (blister pack), with all the usual paperwork and plastic holder, etc. all that effort...

Err · Post by **Err** » Mon Feb 03, 2014 2:50 pm

I recently ordered a USB flash stick but they accidentally sent a 32 GB micro SD card. To be fair, the bar-code for the correct item was pasted over the one for the SD card. I contacted customer service, printed out the return postage, and just as I was about to send the card back I received an e-mail from Amazon stating they were sorry for the mix up and that to keep the SD card.

On another occasion, I had a warped vinyl record. They accepted it back with no questions asked.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Mon Feb 03, 2014 2:52 pm

Another thumbs up for Amazon. I bought some car polish, and when I opened the package, there was leakage inside the box. Did not really lose that much of the polish, but I contacted Amazon anyway and sent them a picture of the messy box. I had a new bottle the next day at no charge.

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Mon Feb 03, 2014 4:15 pm

oh, and shame on me for mistakenly ordering the card from a reseller other than Amazon. it was "fulfilled by Amazon", but not sold by Amazon. ugh. now to leave them some feedback...

I do that fairly often but I've also had bad experiences by some of those sellers in the past.

Was it suppose to be new and sold by a seller with good feedback?

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Mon Feb 03, 2014 4:25 pm

EvilHorace wrote:I do that fairly often but I've also had bad experiences by some of those sellers in the past.

Was it suppose to be new and sold by a seller with good feedback?

it was my mistake for not selecting the "sold by and shipped by Amazon". I researched the product ahead of time, but when I went back to add to my cart, this one came up and I failed to double check the seller field on Amazon.

it was listed as new from them. it is possible that the seller doesn't even know it's a fake, since the blister pack looked OEM legit. who knows...

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Mon Feb 03, 2014 7:46 pm

Although it's a hassle, at least Amazon's always good at fixing problems like that. If you don't have to, don't return it to the seller so that he can re-sell it.

Usually Amazon ships you a replacement right away and asks that you return the bad item to the seller.

Anyway, now that you have that camera, I suspect that you'll be trying to break that free fall record (recently posted) with it?

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Mon Feb 03, 2014 9:49 pm

It's going back to Amazon directly, but I am making sure they know it was a fake. They didn't offer to cross-ship a replacement, which is fine, as I'm just going to get a higher-end SanDisk and be done with it.

Freefall...oh yeah!

That reminds me of a quadcopter crash test I watched. They were trying to destroy the quad, but the guy said he was more concerned about destroying the GoPro attached to it (but it survived...). haha

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Thu Feb 06, 2014 11:21 pm

Result: item returned via pre-paid UPS label on tuesday afternoon...already received and credited back to my VISA today. wow!

ZYFER · Post by **ZYFER** » Sun Feb 09, 2014 4:16 am

I've had experiences where a disc in a TV series wasn't playing right even though it was legit and looked fine. They sent a replacement first so I could just use the new disc and swap them without having to test the entire set.