order was made. The next day, a courier brought four boxes of holographic stickers. And from that moment everything did not go according to plan.
Below the cut is a short story about how everything was done gracefully by scammers, and what you should pay attention to in order not to get into a similar situation.
The holograms are in place, but ...
Yes, the boxes that arrived were not all the same. Three of them are in the factory film, and the fourth is not. But on all boxes, the lids were sealed with holographic stickers without any signs of opening or plywood. And, as it turned out later, they really didn't stick together.
The first to go was the disc, which came without a tape. After connecting to USB, Windows announced that it sees a brand new 6 terabyte drive. To check, Seryoga threw a film on him, which successfully migrated there. Then he unplugged the disc and opened the plastic box. Then everything became interesting - the HDD inside did not have a standard sticker with the model name, or indeed any identification marks.
Seryoga plugged it into SATA and started to study the contents of SMART using Viktoria HDD. In fact, it turned out that this is some kind of ancient Seagate with a capacity of 320 GB, but with edited firmware and smart data, posing as a brand new 6 terabyte device.
At the same time, Windows 10, represented by the disk manager, did not notice anything suspicious, displaying one 6 TB partition (alas, Seryoga did not think to make a screenshot).
After the partition was deleted and recreated, it already had a capacity of 320 GB. The "carriage" has turned back into a "pumpkin".
This is how a summary from Victoria HDD looks like now:
And so on a normal 6 TB from another box:
Please note that the models and firmware versions are listed differently.
And here is what the fake disk looks like next to the original one from another USB box:
In the photo - disks with USB controllers and blue mounting pads.
As for the exterior, the sizes and weights of the disks also differed noticeably. Six terabyte taller and heavier.
Actually, exactly two questions arose: how the scoundrels managed to keep the hologram sticker on the cardboard box, and what to do with it now.
For some reason, the head quickly played out the basic scenario in which an unsuspecting customer would use it as a USB drive. In this case, he would have to be carried to the guarantee after he would give a write error when trying to fill in more than 320 gig there. How this story would have ended is unknown. The main problem, again, would be that it is impossible to prove that the plastic box was not opened by the buyer. There are no protective stickers on it! I think they would send the buyer in the guarantee, saying that he himself changed it.
Store reaction
Note that the store where the purchase was made is by no means small. Only for the main legal entity in 2018 it had a turnover of 4.5 billion rubles. However, he behaved "classically" - in response to the claim, he did nothing. And it turned out to be quite cynical. I'll put the details of this story under the spoiler so as not to clutter up the page. It's a shame that I have known this store since 2003, when it was our good partner in one of the projects.
Mess and infallibility
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What's the conclusion? If the company has a complaints handling service, which is written about on every page of the website and in every letter, it may not work at all. Those. to service only some standard cases like "call the warranty, high-tech goods cannot be returned." Well, if something more serious happens, they will no longer be able to help. Although it would be logical if there was a system of escalation to the top of cases that could potentially bring a lot of problems for the company, including lawsuits or loss of image.
But what is more important is that in their company, the crooks remained unpunished, which will continue to throw customers. But maybe this is not in their company? ...
Who exactly threw
The story turned out to be confusing. I started by studying the check and was surprised to notice that it had been pierced by a certain individual entrepreneur from Serpukhov (although the store was Moscow and the goods were delivered to Moscow).
At the same time, the order form and marketing information in the check - as if from the main office. Helpful to see who punched checks on my previous purchases. It turned out that these are always different legal entities, mainly individual entrepreneurs, but the design of papers and checks is the same for everyone. Further punching of legal entities through rusprofile showed that one of them is the store itself. And all the rest, relatively speaking, from the category of "delivery trade".
There was a version that checks are made through by third-party delivery services, however, “delivery providers” usually do this in front of the client, and the check is always their own. The second version is that some kind of muddy scheme is used here, and I no longer wanted to understand it.
In general, at that moment there was an unambiguous impression that the store or one of its partners was to blame.
What the store could do
I am sure that the store has data on the entire chain of people who came into contact with these boxes. And if you wanted to, you could go for a run, talk with individual comrades. Surely a lot of interesting things would have turned out. At the very least, it would be possible to report to the buyer that we were trying.
And if everything is suddenly bad with the logs, at least two people are already in sight: the same individual entrepreneur who punched the check, and the courier Sergeev, stickers with the name of which were on all the boxes. Moreover, on the one without polyethylene, it was glued directly onto the cardboard.
By the way, this is proof that one box was handed over to the courier without the film.
While I was thinking about how I can replace goods in a box in a large store and warehouse, the thought came up that it would be more profitable for scammers to fake 10-12 TB drives with a price tag of 20k. Although, probably, people, hitting 20 thousand, can write a statement to the police with all the ensuing consequences. True, it will again be difficult to prove something, since there are no seals or stickers on the plastic box of the disc itself (Seagate, what the hell?).
And what kind of store is it?
Initially, I didn't want to name the store. There are two reasons: so that they do not needlessly be accused of revenge (although I am generally in this story as an outside observer); in addition, the problem might not have been store-specific (other than a lack of support in the support service). Then it turned out that there was a smell of "epidemic" here. For example, I was given links to DNS, where the reviews to Seagate USB drives for 6 and 8 TB are full of similar stories. And along the way, they began to accuse that I was covering up the villains. In general, my story above is about pleer.ru.
UPD. 09/29/2020 : the store itself reconsidered my complaint, and the courier brought a new disk for a replacement. The old one took it. They say that it was not a return, and they will deal with their supplier.
How to change without tearing the stickers
I repeat that the hologram sticker did not re-stick. So the box was opened in some other way. And, voila, the "chest" opened simply - as it turned out, using a ruler, you can easily open the tight lock on the bottom of the box.
And to do it so that even wrinkles will not remain. That is, in fact, all (here is one more hello to Seagate and other manufacturers who use similar boxes - at least a drop of glue so that the package tears or crumples upon opening).
Who exactly threw it. Version 2
A couple of days before the publication of this post on Habré, I posted it in my other blog. A day later, I received a personal message from a certain Sergei Tyulyaev, who just works in retail and observes such stories alive. I will quote:
« . « ». // , . Seagate 6/8/10 . « ». . , . , .
, , . , « », .. . .
I wrote to the mail of hundreds of other stores in our network, and until the end of the working day they wrote that the swindler is trying to hand over this grief once again. "
How does it usually end?
In my case, a friend hit the cost of the disc. For others who are stuck, it is the same. But I found one successful case, although there are few details: in the DNS reviews, a person writes that he gave it to the service (probably talking about the store's service), where he was confirmed that the disk was "wrong" and was offered a replacement with the same or similar software price.
conclusions
The main thing is not to be lazy and check what is inside the package with the courier. Especially if the box was delivered to you without a factory sealed film. At the same time, the intact hologram on the lid does not give you any guarantees.
Would this help in the described case? Yes, provided that the disk is connected to the PC and any information utility is launched. And given the fact that there are a lot of stories on the internet about flashed flash drives and fake USB drives, I would check it at the slightest suspicion.
Well, if you are connected with retail, just warn your colleagues at the return and start accepting them back using your passport or with a status check. Then, perhaps, the country will soon recognize its "heroes". Well, if not, then because of the general publicity, this whole epidemic itself will soon be blown away.
PS and if you are a manufacturer, please glue the locks on the boxes and put seals or stickers on the cases.
UPD. 09/30/2020: As it turned out, the story with these Seagates is not new - there was a case on the Picabu already in 2017. It is a pity that the manufacturer scored on this. Surely they are aware of all these stories.