Fake SanDisk Compact Flash card
author: Martin "mpot" Pot
date: 22 May 2006
updated: 3 June 2006 with new photos
This page details a fake SanDisk Compact Flash card that I purchased from eBay,
and provides information to allow you to easily identify fake SanDisk cards.
The Purchase
I bought the card on eBay, from a seller who has been a member of eBay for nearly 5 years,
and with about 140 positive feedback ratings.
The item was labelled as "Sandisk Ultra II 2GB compact flash card", with the
description saying it was a
"brand new sandisk Ultra II 2GB Compact flash cards complete all with retail packaging, manafacturers warranty etc".
The price was very good....in fact, too good to be true, as I found out.
The card turned up in the mail several days after payment was made,
and came in a retail box, complete with a piece of paper labelled
"SanDisk Flash Memory Card User Guide", which mentions a 5 year warranty policy
(although the box mentions a "Lifetime Warranty").
The Realisation
The day after the card arrived in the mail, I saw a post on the
Overclockers Australia forums
warning about fake SanDisk Compact Flash cards being sold on eBay.
After some further reading, and a closer look at the card I had purchased,
I came to the realisation that it must be a fake.
Confirmation from SanDisk
I emailed SanDisk about determining if a SanDisk Compact Flash card is genuine,
and they responded within 15 minutes, confirming my suspicions.
If only all other companies were so speedy responding to queries...
Subject: Re: determining if a SanDisk CF card is genuine?
Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 05:28:48 -0400
From: Sandisk Customer Support <asia_support@sandisk.com>
To: Martin
Hello ,
Thank you for contacting Asia Sandisk Technical Support.
All Sandisk products have their unique Serial number either on the side or
back of the card. If it does not show no where, then that is not Sandisk
product. Also, I suggest you to purchase Sandisk product from our
distributor in the future.
Should you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us.
Best regards,
Christy
Asia Sandisk Technical Support
This email confirmed that the SanDisk Compact Flash card was not genuine, as there
is no serial number anywhere on the card.
I later purchased a genuine SanDisk Ultra II 2GB Compact Flash card from a store,
and have taken photos of the fake and genuine cards, to identify differences between them.
Photos
Here are some photos comparing the fake SanDisk Compact Flash card to a genuine SanDisk card.
Most photos can be clicked to view a larger version.
front of the cards
(click image for larger version)
back of the cards
(click image for larger version)
The product number shown on the back of the card is incorrect, showing "SDCFB" instead of "SDCFH".
The fake card also has an extra "TM" logo next to the "CF" logo at the top right of the
back of the card, as well as having different patent numbers, and
slightly different font for the copyright date.
bottom edge of the cards (serial number has been intentionally blurred)
(click image for larger version)
The serial number is normally printed in small white text on the bottom edge of the card.
As the photo above clearly shows, the serial number is missing.
Other people have reported fake SanDisk cards as having labels with lower-quality
printing (such as this site).
The fake card came with what appears to be genuine-looking packaging, as shown below.
the boxes
(click image for larger version)
The genuine SanDisk boxes have a hologram logo sticker on the front of the box, in the
bottom left corner, just above the SanDisk logo, but this fake box is missing the sticker.
The "SanDisk Ultra" text on the genuine box is also much more embossed and glossy, and
the "II" text to the right of the "Ultra" on the fake box doesn't line up with the rest
of the text.
the protective cases
The protective cases for the cards are also different, with the case for the fake card being
slightly smaller. The fake card didn't actually fit into its protective case properly,
as the case appeared to be slightly too small.
front of the user guides
The genuine card had a user guide with the "Ultra II" name on the front, while the
fake card came with a generic user guide (which contradicted the box, and mentioned
a 5 year warranty).
The fake user guide was just a photocopied piece of paper folded up, while the genuine
user guide consisted of several papers stapled together.
back of the user guides
The back of the user guides was also different, with slightly different details, and
a different layout.
Performance
I compared the performance of the genuine and fake cards by
putting them into my Canon EOS 350D camera, with the following configuration:
- manual mode
- exposure set to 1/4000 seconds
- manual focus
- raw mode only
- the lens cap on
- burst mode
I then took 6 photos in burst mode, and timed how long it took the camera to
flush the buffer to the compact flash card after the last photo.
The genuine card took approximately 6 seconds, while the fake card took
almost twice as long, approximately 10-11 seconds.
This clearly shows the write speed of the fake card is much slower than that of
a genuine SanDisk Ultra II Compact Flash card.
The capacity of the fake SanDisk Compact Flash card was tested by writing some large
files (totalling ~2GB) to the card (using a USB memory card reader),
and then reading them off the card again,
using md5sum to check the files before and after the copy operations.
No data corruption or errors were encountered.
Apparently some fake cards do not have the full capacity that their label specifies
(ie, a card labelled as 2GB may only be able to store 1GB), but
this fake card can hold a full 2GB of data.
Warranty
This fake card came with a piece of paper which specifies the card has a 5 year warranty,
but this is contradicted by the "Lifetime Warranty" logo on the box.
As specified on their website, SanDisk offer a
lifetime warranty
on their Ultra II Compact Flash cards.
This fake card isn't covered at all by any warranty.
In fact, it can't even be registered on SanDisk's warranty registration page on their website,
as it requires the serial number to be entered, and this card doesn't have a serial number at all.
Conclusions
Be careful when purchasing items like this on eBay. Always read through the seller's feedback,
as it will give you a indication of their reputation.
However, in some cases, the seller may not even be aware that they are selling
counterfeit cards, but might be under the impression that they're selling genuine cards.
A few quick searches on the web indicates fake and counterfeit Compact Flash cards,
SD cards, USB memory sticks, etc, are encountered far too regularly by many people.
According to this eBay guide,
more than 95% of USB flash drives listed on eBay are counterfeit items.
While this particular fake Compact Flash card has the correct 2GB capacity, and appears to work fine,
its write speed is much slower than it should be,
it's not covered by any warranty, and its reliability and robustness are unknown quantities.
I purchased a SanDisk Ultra II Compact Flash card because I know they are a reputable
and reliable card with good performance.
However, I ended up with a fake card with no warranty and a much slower write speed...
In other words, if the price is too good to be true, then it's probably a fake card.
Footnotes
Other people are
reporting
fake SanDisk Compact Flash cards which look much more like
the genuine SanDisk cards than the one shown in the photos above.
As a result, it can be more difficult to identify fake cards.
Lack of a serial number is still a very telling sign of a fake card.
However, some fake cards have a fake serial number, and one
method which should still allow you to identify a fake card is
to call SanDisk's technical support phoneline, and ask them to verify the
authenticity of the serial number on the card.
The eBay seller who I bought this fake card from agreed to provide me with a refund if I
returned the card.
I mailed the fake card back to him, but he is no longer responding to emails,
his eBay account has been cancelled, and I haven't received the refund he promised.
As a result, I am now approximately $100 out-of-pocket, and I no longer have the fake card.
If you found this page useful, you are welcome to
make a donation to help cover my losses.
A reader emailed me to warn about using fake SanDisk cards. Due to the larger and less accurate
positions of the holes in his fake card, he ended up with some bent pins in his Canon 300D camera.
As a result, not only was he out of pocket due to purchasing a fake card, but he also had
to pay for repairs to his camera!
References
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