Memory Stick Pro Duo

YES! It is absolutely awesome how many Memory Stick Pro Duo's you see on eBay... some postage prices are INSANE, others are pretty nice.. either way, you could be walking away with a 2gb Memory Stick Pro Duo for about 30.. TOTAL!

So whats the catch? Oh BOY there are catches!

A couple of them -

The majority of these are imported from Hong Kong, and are usually FAKES! There are a bunch of guides on google (type in memory stick fake or something like that to see for yourself).

You could be waiting for up to a month to get it (if you ever get it that is!), and also you will never be covered for any faults by sony (or sandisk etc etc).

So, you are willing to take the chance right? well here is some other newsfor ya!

1) Fake Sticks have extremely SLOW write speeds! 1gb file might take about 20 MINUTES to drag on there!!

2) the integrity of these cards are RANDOM, one card might be fine, others might die within a month!

3) the capacity on the cards can be RANDOM aswell, whos to know? All they do to make fakes is stick fake outer casing on them! (this is why sandisk make see through ones, so you can see inside if the colour is fake (of the chip)) Some cards can be advertised as 1gb (etc) but only be 16mb!!! Imagine that! It's hard NOT to believe though, you don't think these fakes went through quality control do you?

Remember to check the sellers feedback! Some people might of left a negative saying "card wasnt as advertised! it was supposed to be 2gb but I got 512mb even thought it SAYS 2gb on the box!". The seller will usually robotically say "seller didnt contact us, bought wrong item we tried to help but they left negative".

Of course, they can send you a crappy card knowing full well what they are sending, but here is where they can shaft you; If you are unhappy, you give them a negative feedback after trying to contact their robotic messaging service, they give you some wierd address to return it to (so they can say "we didnt recieve any item!". So what option do you have if the card isn't as you wanted it to be?Well, you claim against them (refund through paypal (of which they will deduct 14 for the cause!) and then finally leave them a negative feedback warning the others, and hopefully getting them removed or suspended from eBay.

BUT YOU HAVE NO CHANCE!! As most sellers on eBay who sells cards like this sell one of these cards every like 20 seconds or something! The feedback might seem positive (like 98.8% or something), but if you check you can see numbers like 12031 positive, 3589 negative, 890 neutral.. or something like that. If you leave them negative, it wont make a difference as their positive rating is so high from those who actively KNOW they are buying fakes (or they are happy with the fake and dont even know!).

But the catch is that if you leave them negative, they will ALWAYS leave you negative. You paid upfront, you were patient. You played your part. If you say "seller failed to refund, had to claim" they will simply leave you negative saying "we tried to sort with email, but seller did not respond" etc etc lies lies etc etc..

meaning humble little sellers get a BIG FAT negative, whilst their negative gets fogged out by the vast amount of items that they sell!! Evil isnt it! But thats eBays laws for you! I would hope that ANYONE with 3 negatives in a row would get a suspension, but I guess this is over looked when you list hundreds of items per day... :(

4)The durability and design of the cards will vary, you might get some ones which are too fat and you have to really shove inside the psp (or other sony device), the card might be a bit BENDY... too bendy perhaps... all the writing might rub off of the card!

But the strange thing is, not even SONY can actually tell if these are fakes!! The packaging of the fakes are usually chinese with a round FOR PSP on it, and the packaging is sealed with small dots, the original is sealed with lined marks (but the fakes can change!!)

Also, because not even game stores OR sony can actually tell the difference between a fake, and a real one... some shifty eBayers might of stuck the fake inside the REAL packaging... kept the real one and sold it off!

So be sure to check check and check again before buying. Otherwise you might just as well take that 30, and burn it up right now! :(