Buyers beware! Fake / Knockoff 2GB SanDisk Ultra II SD Cards are being sold on Ebay by the following seller:

Ebay ID	blown-z
PayPal ID	( -- removed -- )
Email Address	( -- removed -- )
"Real" Name / Aliases	( -- removed -- )
Shipping Address	( -- removed -- )

The knockoff SD card was purchased off EBAY from the above seller, from auctions such as the following:
http://cgi.ebay.com/SanDisk-Ultra-II-2GB-Secure-Digital...
The auction describes the item as "Brand New 2G SanDisk Ultra II SD Card". To the typical consumer, one would not notice the subtle differences of these counterfeit SD cards. They look the same, and they work. However, with extensive comparisons performed between the FAKE SD card and an authentic, retail SD card purchased from a reputable chain store, we reveal the differences found...
Below are some detailed macro-shots of the two cards. Click on the images for the hi-resolution image.

Retail Knockoff

Note the differences in label quality. The knockoff labeling illustrates clear signs of

• low resolution dot-matrix print
• imperfect hologram logo print (notice the white edge artifact, a result of printing over the original scanned duplication)

As well, obvious differences include the manufacturing print on the back, the contacts (clearly used - but was listed as brand new), housing, etc. With the obvious visible flaws revealed, we now examine some of the lesser visible differences!
Below is the card info for the two cards. Note the discrepancies in the manufacturer info, serial numbering convention (serial numbers here are masked), and even space available. Clearly, this is NOT a "SanDisk", not even an OEM version.

Retail	Knockoff

Finally, where it counts the most:
Performance - The below benchmarks were taken with Sandra 2005. While the knockoff seemed to perform fairly well in terms of peak initial throughput, it falls short for sustained throughput of larger files...
Reliability - SanDisk guarantees their products for a lifetime. If your memory card goes defective, they will replace it. If your knockoff goes defective, you are outta luck!

Memory Cards: Fake vs. Real
As fake memory cards have now proliferated throughout the marketplace, it is very important to know how to spot a fake card when it comes down to it. So, today we're going to go over some methods you can use to spot fake memory cards and I will also show you some examples of what they look like. Let's get started!

Why You Should Care
1.) Inferior quality card – You’re not getting what you paid for.
2.) No warranty – When the card fails, you’re out of luck.
3.) Fake memory cards sometimes have invalid partition sizes, making it likely to fail on a regular basis.
4.) It will drive up costs of genuine memory cards.

Spotting a Fake
Unfortunately, there is no software available that will test the card to ensure that it’s genuine, so you must manually scrutinize your card (both visually and by testing its performance) to get some idea of how genuine it really is.

Presentation Quality and Differences
Here's an example of a fake and a real 1 GB Sandisk SD Card:



This particular card is also missing a notch, which makes it quite easy to spot:



Here's an example of a fake 2 GB Sandisk CF Card:



Note the faded red print on the back and the "TM" next to the "CF" on the top right side on the fake card:



Also, there is no serial number on the bottom of the fake card (the serial number is blurred on the real one):



Take note that the fake box has no hologram on it:



Here's another example of a Sandisk 2 GB CF card. See the poor print and alignment of the label?



Note the poor quality workmanship on the edge of this one, as well as, the print quality and the alignment of the text
:


The SanDisk card manual was different from the real one too (note that the manual on the right hand side is from a Sandisk Ultra II, whereas the manual on the left side is for a flash memory card):



Below is a picture of a fake Sony Pro Duo 2 GB card. Notice that the fake card has poor quality printing and it does not have the same various extrusions and intrusions as the genuine card. With the number of lips and dips on the genuine card, it's not difficult to spot the fake card:





When it comes to this kind of thing, you can never be too safe and now you know exactly what to look for when you're shopping for memory cards for your digital camera. Oh yeah!

As fake memory cards have now proliferated throughout the marketplace, it is important to be able to spot a fake. This page includes methods to spot fakes, and examples of fake cards.
Why should you care?

• Inferior quality card - you're not getting what you paid for
• No warranty - when the card fails, you're out of luck
• Fake cards sometimes have invalid partition sizes, making it likely to fail
• It will drive costs of genuine cards up

Spotting a fake

Unfortunately there is no software which will test the card, and ensure that it's genuine. You must manually scrutinise your card, (both visually and by testing it's performance), to get some idea of it's genuinity.
Presentation quality and differences
First thing to look for is poorly printed labels and material; most fake cards have slight differences from the real deal. Most manufacturers have a page where you can download high resolution pictures of their cards. Below is a list of manufacturer image page links:



(Click here for high resolution image)
This particular card was also missing a notch, making it quite easy to spot:

Example of fake 2GB

Sandisk CF Card - courtesy of mpot's Fake SanDisk CF article



Note the faded red print on the back, and the "TM" next to "CF" at the top right side on the fake:



Note there is no serial on the bottom of the fake (serial blurred on the real one):


Note the fake box has no hologram:


Another example of Sandisk 2GB CF Card - courtesy of Mark Tranchant

:

Note the poor print and alignment of label

Note the poor quality workmanship on edge, print quality and alignment of text:



Fake Sony Pro Duo 2GB

Note that the fake card has poor quality printing and does not have the same various extrusions and intrusions as the genuine card. With the number of lips and dips on the genuine card it isn't difficult to spot the fake.
Fake Sony Pro Duo 2GB Ultra II courtesy of OCAU forum user Slugoid


Note there is no hologram sticker



Note the incorrect corporation name of 'Sorry Corporation'



Note the incorrect serial number

Note that the front of the card looks very similar to a real card.

The SanDisk card manual was different to the real thing as well (note that the manual on the right hand is from a Sandisk Ultra II, wheras the manual on the left is for a 'flash memory card'):

Performance issues
The second thing to look for is performance issues. Sisoft Sandra is a suite you can use for testing, with our example card, :



we got a less than stellar performance The fake 1GB SD Card card is a green line, and the red lines are similar specced cards.

Disk capacity and formatting

With most faked cards, the capacity is overstated by the disk being prepared with incorrect parameters, when partitioned. It is quite difficult to detect fake cards, by just the size of the partition, but sometimes the card will fail, if we do a format from the command line. The sandisk card from above failed thusly:



If you try this, and your card fails it will be unusable. To reformat it with the original parameters, you could try and put it in your camera, as it will not do as thorough checking as the format command does, (of course this won't make a fake card good).