{"id":5526,"date":"2020-07-24T21:03:12","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T21:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aviancetechnologies.com\/blog\/blog\/amazon-sells-customer-16tb-external-hdd-with-an-8tb-drive-installed\/"},"modified":"2020-07-24T21:03:12","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T21:03:12","slug":"amazon-sells-customer-16tb-external-hdd-with-an-8tb-drive-installed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aviancetechnologies.com\/blog\/amazon-sells-customer-16tb-external-hdd-with-an-8tb-drive-installed\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Sells Customer 16TB External HDD With an 8TB Drive Installed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

[responsivevoice_button rate=”1\u2033 pitch=”1.2\u2033 volume=”0.8\u2033 voice=”US English Female” buttontext=”Story in Audio”]<\/p>\n

Amazon Sells Customer 16TB External HDD With an 8TB Drive Installed<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n \t \t \"https:\/\/www.extremetech.com\/\"<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

When you purchase a pre-owned or refurbished item from a company, you\u2019re essentially trading on trust. Because these products often have short warranty periods (or no warranty periods) and similarly limited support options, customers are often wary of being taken advantage of. Knowing this, companies will often offer various guarantees of inspection or support like \u201c7 Day Return Period, \u201cPre-Owned Certified,\u201d or \u201cDefinitely Not Full of Wasps.\u201d<\/p>\n

(If you haven\u2019t seen that last one, it\u2019s because you shop in boring stores).<\/p>\n

Amazon sells a selection of used merchandise via its Amazon Warehouse division, including refurbs, pre-owned, and open-box products. All such products come with the \u201cAmazon Renewed Guarantee,\u201d which guarantees you a no-hassle return within 90 days. As warranties go, that\u2019s not much. But it does at least give you a window to test the product.<\/p>\n

As one customer discovered, Amazon\u2019s claims to inspect the products it ships out may not be worth a lot. Visual effects artist Ashuri: Fujoshi-hime (@BlissWallpaper) bought a new 16TB drive advertised on Amazon Warehouse Deals. Said drive arrived with a prominent \u201cInspected\u201d sticker\u2026 and turned out not to be.<\/p>\n

\n

Oh cool, my Amazon Warehouse 16TB HDD from @amazonca<\/a> is here. Oh look, it has the tell tale scars of having been opened by the user. \u2026And yup, the last person bought this 16TB, swapped the drive inside for an 8TB, then returned it with the 8TB inside for a full refund. pic.twitter.com\/I9rjNgl8xU<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Ashuri: Fujoshi-hime (@BlissWallpaper) July 23, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inside the package was a 16TB external drive casing with a highly tell-tale mark on the outer edge.<\/p>\n

\"https:\/\/www.extremetech.com\/\"<\/p>\n

Image by Ashuri. No spudger? Kyle Wiens will be so hurt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

After CrystalDiskInfo confirmed the drive is just 8TB, Ashuri reached out to Amazon, which will presumably honor its own policies. That\u2019s not the problem. The problem here is companies selling products with giant \u201cInspected\u201d stickers on them that are nothing of the sort.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, I bought a 50-inch television refurbished on Newegg, where company policies indicate that refurb goods are always individually inspected. The display was intended for a friend with limited mobility, and while I didn\u2019t have a lot of money to throw at the problem, I wanted to be certain of a quality refurb. I\u2019d purchased from Newegg\u2019s refurbished department before, though it\u2019d been years.<\/p>\n

Imagine my surprise when the \u201crefurbished\u201d TV showed up a week later on my friend\u2019s doorstep with a badly damaged screen. Imagine my further<\/em> surprise when I checked Newegg and realized one of the reviews for the TV that had rated it poorly had the same damage as the one I\u2019d bought.<\/p>\n

Exactly<\/em> the same damage as the one I\u2019d bought. In the same place.<\/p>\n

When I called Newegg and asked about this problem, I was told that the company didn\u2019t actually inspect all of its large refurbed products and had instead just shipped the TV out again without ever looking in the box. As in Ashuri\u2019s case, Newegg dealt with the problem, but these stickers are all too often a lie. Either hardware is not being inspected, or it\u2019s not being inspected by people who know what counterfeited goods look like, making the inspection worthless.<\/p>\n

If anyone had bothered to boot the hard drive to test it, they\u2019d have seen it was an 8TB unit. If they\u2019d inspected it, they\u2019d have seen it had been cracked open. The implication here is that the reason Amazon doesn\u2019t deal with these problems is that it\u2019s cheaper to take stuff back within a 90-day window than it is to pay someone to inspect it in the first place. Hat tip to our sister site PCMag for spotting this one.<\/p>\n

Now Read<\/b>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n