Over the past few weeks, I've noticed a growing number of "1024GB MicroSDXC" cards being offered by sellers on the likes of eBay or Amazon for ridiculously low prices.
But what's the worst that can happen? You buy one, find you're getting about 22GB of storage, and lose out a few bucks?
No, worse things can happen. Much worse.
Must read: Top 10 Google Chrome plugins for 2020[1]
Fake microSD card[2] SEE FULL GALLERY[3]
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NEXT [4] PREV [5]Working in conjunction with my local trading standards office (a UK government service that works to protect consumers from unfair trading), I decided to take a look. So, I bought a couple of the fakiest looking microSD cards I could find on Amazon to take a look. They cost me about $15 each, but I got my money back, so the people selling them didn't profit, and I also passed on my information to my local trading standards office.
For reference, a genuine 1TB microSD card[6] (not these things listed as 1024GB), will set you back about $200.
They were exactly what I expected.
Low-quality, low-capacity cards reprogrammed to give the impression they are bigger, and then a bit of nasty screen print added on top.
For testing microSD cards, I recommend two tools. The quick test offered by RMPrepUSB[7] is good, but if I'm still suspicious, I'll go a much more thorough -- and much longer -- test using H2testw[8].
But things took a turn for the worse. I popped them into a camera to see what would happen (I'm not going to pop them into a phone, just in case), and