Fake Micro SD Cards Exist, and They're Dangerous 

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find reliable products on Amazon as it is becoming a dumping ground for dodgy and even dangerously shoddy products, all of which have a load of 5-star reviews. Reporting these products has no effect either as even the potentially dangerous products still don't get removed when they are proven to be dangerous.

Walmart's online shop is exactly like Amazon's with other retailers selling through their site and warehouses, hence how fake cards also get sold through them. In person is a different story.

Reasons to not buy off of Amazon. The total lack of quality control and the ability for companies to pay to get to the top of the search results leads to the customers getting stuck with garbage.

2:46 I never knew that scam SD cards also had such a deep backstory, kind of explains their reasoning for lying

This is kne of the reasons I cancelled my amazon prime subscription. The final straw was buying a "surge protector" that was extremely cheaply built and had no circuit breaker or any protection at all, just 2 bent copper bars, a switch, and no functioning ground. Reported to amazon that it was a ticking time bomb, they did nothing. The seller changed the listing within a week and got my review deleted for being not related to the product. I was looking for RC cars and the first 55 results were ALL sponsored and they were all chinese knockoffs of actual brands. I've seen sellers have their accounts and revenue given to chinese sellers because they convinced Amazon that they actually owned the brand. Ridiculous.

Amazon has turned into a drop shippers paradise and honestly, it's filled with counterfeits. It's a shame I try to avoid amazon as much as possible.

Storage devices are the main thing I will EXCLUSIVELY buy name brands of. If I want an SD card for cheap, I get a Micro Center brand. I will never trust my files on a drive or card of a non-established brand with how rampant drive scams are.

Amazon Marketplace is a problem in general. It can be that you are ordering and shipping with Amazon from a known brand but you get a fake one. Other sellers who sell fake ones are also shipping with Amazon which means they ship their fake stuff to Amazon and it ends up on the same pile as the original ones from where it gets delivered to you.

Yup. Don't especially fall for the 1 tb that's only 20 bucks.

2:29 I would never have expected this bit from Alex in 100 years and I cannot stop laughing

Fun fact: Walmart's website, Best Buy's website, etc all work exactly like Amazon marketplace. They only fulfill the order, and if someone returns the fake SD card to a brick and mortar store then its just gonna end up right back on the shelf (especially in cases like walmart). Honestly let this be a good reason to support those local mom and pop shops instead of giant box stores when it comes to buying your games and acessories.

This is why you only buy electronics from trusted brands, I wouldnt expect sandisk, kingston, or samsung to swindle buyers like this

That's why I buy micro SD's straight from the source.

imagine that someone is selling "10tb" microsd cards and then when you plug it in it actually shows up as 10tb but can only hold 128MB lol

Amazon has become really bad at sponsoring dodgy products. It's worse than eBay now. There's so many scammers.

Amazon should just ban selling storage devices unless directly from a reputable company.

IT guy here. Although nothing is foolproof, Samsung makes the most reliable flash memory, period.

as useful as H2test is, the one drawback is how bloody long it takes to complete. I've found an easier way to get to the bottom of it, and it's actually by using an unpatched switch. When you go to the final setup step of installing atmosphere, you can have it scan the SD card. It'll come back as "fake" pretty quickly

This has been a thing for forever. Same goes for USB sticks, etc, basically anything you can put into a personal device for storage purposes, it can be malicious. Assume it's malicious until you can verify that it isn't. Buy from reputable places, from reputable brands, and for the love of god DON'T STICK A USB/SD CARD INTO YOUR DEVICE IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS OR WHAT'S ON IT.

If it’s a legit card you’ll also be able to register the serial number through the website for the brand of card you bought 😊

Agreed be careful buying 1.5 tb cards.

SD-Cards are like money. You only think about them, when you need them. I needed one for my 3DS, it was on my mind for so long, but as soon as I got it, I have not thought about it unless I am considering taking a picture while playing the 3DS (you cannot take a picture without a SD-Card)

As someone who regularly works with computers, I am very familiar with the fake SD card plague (which also affects USB flash drives and even external SSDs). I've been lucky so far and never come across one of these fake-capacity devices, though I have had a few cheap USBs and SD cards just stop working altogether after a short time.

By the way, validrive is a much better program to validate if a usb drive or micro sd card is actually how big it says it is. It's better, because it shows where data can be added, and it doesn't overwrite amthe files already on the drive.

The Boblov is a true mark of quality

I was SO pissed when this happened to me. I’d never heard of it, I thought I was going crazy when my games kept corrupting.

Thankfully I avoided this sort of mess. I purchased my Micro SD card directly from Best Buy.

Good storage brands include SanDisk, Samsung, PNY, Verbatim, Western Digital (Hard Drive/SSD), amd Seagate (Hard Drive/SSD), Kingston, Transcend, and ATP

It's always going to happen. No matter how hard you try to remove and get rid of these fake storage devices and sellers listing they always seem to return.

If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Best to buy from your local electronics store

It's a jungle out there... especially the Amazon

Thanks for talking about this, people need to know this if they dont already. I bought one recently for a new 3ds I just got and found out the hard way when everything I was playing for a few weeks got corrupted.. Get trusted brands and buy retail. And dont forget to format your cards too

Yep, and I'm angry that Amazon doesn't vet their "con"signees.

Very well reported. I knew about the fake cards and was not sure but suspected old data would become corrupted when you reached the true capacity.

Another issue that isn't mentioned from what I've seen so far is that this is the cause of the Pokémon Sword and Shield, as well as Smash Bros memory corruption. My guess is that the overwritten files lead to a corruption of the data saving coding and leads to Switch-side save data getting corrupted and messing up a bunch of stuff.

I'm curious, when Amazon refunds your money, does it come out of Amazon's pocket, or do they take it from the seller? The reason I ask is that if Amazon takes it back from the seller, maybe people could organize a campaign to buy bunches of these cards, report them to Amazon and get refunds without sending the cards back. That way the seller is out both the money and the cards. Granted, it's probably not a big expense for them to lose the cards, but still, wouldn't it be satisfying to know that basically they're the ones getting ripped off? Plus, if enough people were reporting them, maybe Amazon would take the listing down. Personally, i wouldn't mind having some 64GB cards for free. Yes, I watched the whole video and heard all the warnings about using them, but if you only use it for copying files to, and make sure to stay well under the limit, it's possible to use them safely. At least under Windows, and especially with a third party file manager that isn't doing anything else behind your back.

Had a fake micro SD card (I think? Could've just been bad though, but it's very close to Alex's description.) Files kept getting corrupted, pictures would become unreadable, and if they were readable, they'd get miscolored or lines would be pixelated (likely the small bits of data being broken over time). Copying/moving files on a computer was impossible (as in error messages), but for some reason, I was able to upload them to Google Drive, and then download them from there. So if you get in the same situation I did, try that.

There are a few products I will not buy “off brand” versions of no matter what the cost and SD cards are one of them.. I always buy them in person also.

They also do it with computers. Some will sell you a great deal with increased storage or ram or both, and the moment you don't like it and return it, they charge you a re-stocking fee, so they always get a cut of the sale.

This is the main reason I always wait for sales on a name brand card.

Effing crazy that they not only allowed the scam, and then proceeded to remove your review that describes this scam.

Thank you for explaining this like I am the tech-illiterate dummy I am. What a blatantly greedy thing to do bro

This has already been a longstanding issue with ordering online, but I'm glad this is getting more attention! Make sure to buy name brand ones and avoid nobodies you've not heard of. All and all, do your research, as even what I said isn't foolproof

If only there were protections for this that were greater than "I can just return this for a refund". Unfortunately, for marketplace sites like Amazon, it is so decentralized that unless Amazon themselves are selling it nothing will happen... but for this to also be a sponsored listing I'm stunned that there hasn't been news of attempts at lawsuits over this.

About 20 or so years ago, I bought my very first USB Flash drive from Amazon. It was a no-name one that promised 8GB for a good price. After getting it, I discovered that any time I put more than 4GB on it, I got errors in the files. It took me a while to figure this out, and I never returned it. I still have it. I was very careful about how much I put on it, and since I only ever copied files to it myself under Windows, there was no real extra usage of the drive, beyond the small overhead that each file takes. I forget what was called, but I once downloaded a program that would not only test Flash drives, but claimed to be able to somehow be able to "fix" the drive to report the true size. I'm not sure how it was supposed to do this as it never worked on the one I have. No matter how many times I told it to fix the drive, it always showed as 8GB.

My uncles a wildlife photographer and bought what at first looked like a SanDisk micro SD however when it arrived he noticed the D in disk was a printed zero, he just returned it and got a refund, the seller claimed they were low ink cards lol yeah I believe them 🤣

The reason why they sell them so cheap is because for some people, there is no such thing as free returns. The price to return one of these cards is almost as much as the card itself, so people won't return it. Amazon will give you a refund (maybe), but this seller for whatever reason keeps on selling like they are the only source.

Nice video. I had forgotten the name of that H2testw utility since it's a bit silly. If you happen to use Linux there is a command line utility called f3 (fight flash fraud) that works quite well. I had a very authentic looking SanDisk card that came it the standard cut-the-thing-apart package but my Steam Deck would fail while initializing it. F3 saw it as defective but I'm not sure if it was a fake card or just a bad one. Either way you should treat all storage devices as suspect and run some sort of utility on it just to be sure. It may take awhile but if you are going to stick a card into your phone to capture those precious memories then it absolutely is worth the time 🙂

In an attempt to avoid getting one of these fake cards, I always try to buy a trusted brand, like SanDisk. There have been reports of fake SanDisk cards being sold online, but that is still less likely to happen than buying a brand I've never heard of. Also, if I'm buying it from Amazon, I always check to see who it is being sold by. If it is actually Amazon itself and not just a company selling it through Amazon then I usually feel safe buying it.

Not only on amazon, here in the philippines there is a e-commerce called shopee that there is too many fake sd card for cheap prices

It's Amazon, what did you expect? They mistreat employees and customers alike.

Poor Alex going the trouble to report these fake cards to Amazon thinking they actually care. Dude, they probably get a cut by these scammers.

The same thing applied for USB sticks 10 years ago. I would never buy storage media from an unknown source. I usually get them in stores. Besides getting a fake card you could also get free Malware on your card. Just avoid shady sources or ebay and buy from someone you can hold accountable for that. Edit: lol I used the same tool when I learned about this the hard way. xD

Thats why you dont buy a random no name company lol. 😅

The first 1 minutes and 30 seconds is the reason why I absolutely love Alex's videos. His charming personality really brings a smile to anyone's face. Love you my man!

That Grizzco light in the background is amazing.

Dang Alex, the comedy is on point in this video! Great job! (Also thanks for the advice, shall definitely be weary next time i buy a micro SD card)

Use Diskpart to limit the size to what it is in reality, that will prevent issues of overwriting the storage to more than actual.

another problem is, the card itself handles fragmentation and what not so the storage doesn’t wear out really fast and because it’s lying to the device, it could place files in an area of the card that simply doesn’t exist

I bought a £35 1TB card for my Steam Deck. It never formatted properly. A replacement card had the same issue. So I thought, “Okay, it’ll be a new Switch card” and set toward copying data from my 128GB SD onto it. Left it working overnight, and when I woke up it still had ~50GB left to copy. Got returns easily, at least. And bought a 512GB Sandisk.

Was expecting this to be a fake card that would contain a virus or something. lol But yeah, stick with well-known name brands.

I've seen horror stories right her eon RU-vid of MicroSD cards not only lying about the size but being full of software that can damage your computers. Seen one, which I remember where, with Malware on it that someone tested on a near dead laptop and bam, it was locked up and demanded payment. Of course, it was from Amazon. I just go to the hardware store near where I live. if I can't Physically hold the card before I buy it then I don't want it and even then only if I know for a fact the seller is trust worthy

Always go with main brand SD cards. If it's not, don't bother.

Isn't most the stuff sold on Amazon dodgy?

I bought a fake USB drive from OFFICE DEPOT of all places. It is really crappy that this stuff keeps happening. It's terrible.

This has certainly happened to me. I bought one just like this. There are just too many scams on Amazon it's just sad.

Incredibly insightful Name brands can be faked.

No wonder why i always got an error while downloading archived games, it was because of the fake 128 gb card🤦

Walmart is the same deal as Amazon. They allow 3rd party sellers, so just gotta check who it's sold by. Same with Target. Best practice is to buy a reputable brand, like SanDisk, Samsung, etc

I was really tired one day and my dad told me he bought two 1TB SD cards for $20 each and didn't process it. When I slept the next night I was thinking "...oh man a 1TB SD for $20 is a rea-WAIT A GODDAMN SECOND". He learned what I had been telling him almost each time online shopping comes up the hard way to say the least.

I think for North American customers (sorry, I'm a Brit), Walmart's Bricks and Mortor stores will be selling the real deal, unlike their online stores which can be compared to Amazon's market place. Obviously, other well known retailers such as GameStop or BestBuy will stock real cards too.

I tried replacing my Switch SD card with a Samsung card, sadly it didn't work. The Switch is pretty finicky and only accepts a small range of cards. Stick to Sandisk.

Great video. I like your style. It's amazing that Amazon are still letting this happen. It's almost like though only really care about profits...

Now fake USB flash drives are easier and worse

that really is true about the price of that card a 64 GB card in the US usually doesn't cost no more than 12 bucks

Thanks for reporting on this. I was told to buy from a reputable company website. Like Toshiba or Sandisc.

Another problem is Amazon's return policy. They only let returns through UPS here where I live and that office is like 3 hours away. :(

This was a thing decades ago with flash drives. It’s not just $20 ones. I got one that was just a little bit cheaper than a bigger brand one and had figured out the problem pretty early on and got it refunded.

4:15 Acshually(🤓) you 'lose' almost nothing to formatting and most to the 'ibi' to 'ilo'/'iga'/'era'/'eta', etc. conversion. The difference is the base of (decimal) 1000 instead of 1024. Kibibyte = 8000=10³×8 Bits ↔Kilobyte = 8×2¹⁰=8192 Bits (as 1 Byte = 8 Bits). This happens at every unit conversion hence the like using Gigabyte or Terabyte where possible. The discrepancy becomes huge (~7%) starting with Gigabytes and already insane 9.05% for Terabytes. Basically that small 'i' before the Byte is a cheat-code for manufacturers. Windows always reports the smaller number other than for plain Bytes.

Great PSA, I wish there was a way to fix the reporting on the SDcards so at least you only loose part of the money and not all of it.

Honestly use that way to know if my SD cards are real it’s kinda funny having the name like that🤣😅

I still remember three years ago when I bought a 512 gb SD card for cheap. After transferring everything I remember watching it start corrupting my data

I bought a 64 GB thumb drive from Amazon that was supposed to be genuine Hewlett Packard branded. It was only $10. My system tells me it's 134 GB. I should've known something was up when it said Hewlang Packard on it.

Definitely got one of these before and it started spontaneously deleting files. sucks for sure

Just a little experiment, my friend bought a 128gb usb drive , in reality was like 32 gb , however when he used the usb drive as a windows backup and restore point device , it failed and then onwards the usb drive reports as 32 gb

I understand people not being able to afford a name brand but definitely look into it before buying. My thoughts are if the offer is too good to be true it probably is. I has to fight Walmart for a book from a third party seller and it took me over 3 weeks and talking to 6 different representatives that were no help. Then on the 6th i finally found one that helped and even gave me a discount on a future purchase for my troubles. Amazon is definitely better about taking care of the customer if you call them sometimes you try to refund it and the system rejets it. I say if possibly just buy it in store if you have to buy online which i definitely have look into your purchase maybe even do a google review serach on the third party company and that usually will say yes or no on if you should buy for them. Because Amazon reviews are bought and paid for or recycled from other products that aren't even the same products you are buying. So buyer beware.

This is why I buy name brand only

You can partition the card to its actual size and then other devices will only use the space you allocated to that partition, so that solves the "devices think it's bigger than it is" issue. Like you said though, the QC on these things isn't very good. I once ordered a USB drive from eBay that I knew was a fake, because I knew I'd be able to partition it to its actual size, and figured I'd be able to get a refund on it-likely keeping the product, like you did-after testing it and finding that it's fake. The drive ended up failing though, where I could no longer write to it. (The OS thinks it successfully wrote to it, but when I read the file back, it'll either read the data I just wrote from the OS's cache, or it'll read it back as it is on the drive, which didn't actually save it.)

10 years ago in my country this was already normal. You just had to buy it through a large online store and it was always pirated Micro SD.

A fake 1 tb micro SD card starting failing not even a couple months after I bought it and made my Steam Deck unable to properly turn off.

The amazon basics sd card are actually servicable

Because of fake TF cards, i generally prefer to buy them in person at major electronics retailers because I know they are real although I will still inspect the TF card and its packaging before buying.

Well... Just get a 1TB Lexar Play card and you are good to go. It's the cheapest option for 1TB and that's perfectly fine, because Switch can't make use of the performance of high spec cards anyway.

I never buy anything from Amazon unless it is both dispatched from and sold by Amazon.

I only buy Micro Center-branded cards from Micro Center just for this reason. Even big brands like SanDisk from Amazon tend to be crap.

i looked for it myself, as of 3:41am gmt, 14th march, its still up on amazon but it doesnt say sponsored, and the price is now £15.99

This is why I buy in person. Online shopping is too nebulous

Just found this after buying a 512GB SanDisk microSD card on eBay for about $20 and now I'm really worried that it won't work or might be a fake. Comes from Canada and seller has 100% positive ratings.

Tbh when is about storage I always prefer to buy thing on store like best buy, and test them and it exsist the risk like you say because i have seeing fake "brand" sd cards that sell where I live