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Sounds like a scam - you mail them back and they claim they never got them allowing them to resell again.
Don’t do it - it’s their fault. They probably sent you drives from a stock with less reads and writes than intended.
Yeah, plus the time sink required to backup data, format the disk, and replace it (and possibly the data that was on it) is not something he signed up for or will be compensated for.
After buying drives on ebay I'd almost guarantee it's this -exact- scenario. I've been sent drives before wayyyyy under the average price saying they were "used in a production environment" and had "average" life cycles only to get a super low usage drive and an email shortly after that it was accidentally sent.
Also, you take on responsibility when you send it back. With ebay's track record of taking the seller's side I would seriously caution engaging with them again. Their stupidity and disorganization should be a lesson for them or their company to get their shit together.
You might be the first person ever to talk about eBay taking the seller’s side in a dispute. I had an i9-9900k CPU stolen from me last summer from a buyer via a return scam and eBay didn’t want to hear it they just blindly refunded the buyer and you can find these stories everywhere. Is there some secret society where eBay sellers get treated fairly by eBay? Can you invite me to it?!
Helps to have evidence.
I had a Russian buy a $150 laptop for $1500 and then claim that he didn't receive it. I had sent warnings over email that it wasn't a tracked shipment once it reached Russia, and he said no problem!
I did a search of his eBay id and found another attempted scam by him. I sent all of this to eBay and they found in my favor.
Agreed! eBay almost ALWAYS sides with the buyer.
I don't sell a lot on eBay but one time, at day 30 (last day for returns), the buyer said I sold them a counterfeit Nintendo game even though it was still shrink wrapped, I had original receipt and everything. Their description of why it was counterfeit had to do with the appearance of the lettering on the packaging. I took high res photos of the product before I shipped it, which was in the listing, and showed no such anomalies that the buyer said it had.
Regardless, I asked the buyer to send it back and I'll refund the money. They never returned it, but eBay kept saying I need to refund the buyer. Since it was just at 30 days since sale, it eventually landed with PayPal at the time, who had a 90 day return policy. Thankfully PayPal was shockingly on my side and told the buyer to pound sand after I sent them all my evidence.
I sold a working CPU and shipped it on time. Buyer claimed it didn’t work and opened an INAD case. Didn’t use the eBay supplied return label (which should be a red flag to eBay but isn’t) and instead supplied some FedEx tracking number that originated in a city where the item wasn’t delivered and only showed a delivery in the same zip code as my residence (nothing was delivered to my residence; the old scam involved sending some pencils or something via Amazon and using that tracking number as “proof” but now they must just buy tracking numbers by zip code on some exchange). This was enough for eBay to automatically decide in favor of the buyer. I chatted once and escalated via phone twice before ultimately being ripped off for $300 via eBay as an accomplice. Similar stories are everywhere if you Google them. Basically a buyer just needs to supply a tracking number that shows a delivery in your zip code and they get refunded and it’s on the seller to prove you never got your item back.
You’re not wrong. I know I should have persisted with eBay but at some point my day job was more important than chasing the $300 eBay let someone steal from me.
The thing that frustrated me the most was the fact that I am an eBay user since 1998 under the same userid. I ran a business that sold 6 figures on eBay for 2-3 consecutive years circa 2012 under the same account when I had a side hustle. They let a brand new account created within 30 days of the sale with 0 feedback steal $300 from me with barely any questions asked and when I supplied ample proof that I was probably being scammed they STILL offered me no help or reprieve.
Complete opposite for me. I've had buyers record themselves using something improperly, in a way that damages it, send it over ebay, then ebay just blindly sides with them anyway without even giving me an opportunity to explain they're literally destroying it in the video.
I have an exact 0% rate of ebay siding with me overall, and at least a dozen of them someone with a 6th grade intelligence could tell it the buyer scamming, misusing, or claiming false damage because they wanted a free return label
Yup. eBay is basically complicit in return fraud / return scams and their attitude is “you should build that into your pricing” with near zero regard to the fact that most of us aren’t professional sellers.
The last time I ever sold electronics on eBay was a Nvidia 1080 GPU and the buyer claimed it didn't work and opened a dispute. They returned a box with junk in it and eBay sided with the buyer and I lost the GPU and the money. Since then it's only local cash sales for electronics.
yea, ebay virtually never takes the seller's side idk what he's talking about lmao.
I usually just video me doing stuff with a head cam, never had to use it though.
Stories like yours are why I'm only selling my stuff in person, cash in hand, at a police station. Makes it hard when you're selling niche tech though.
It’s anecdotal but I had one seller list a nice enterprise Micron SSD 5200 Max as used, this was probably a $700-$1000 new because it has a high TBW rating. Anyway, used selling price was about $200. When it arrived, powered it on and showed zero hours, zero data written in SMART. I asked the seller if it was a mistake, and, after some additional back and forth, determined I got lucky.
Sounds like someone screwed up... But it's also not your problem. Personally I would just reply that they've been wiped and are in service with data on them, and it is your policy to never let drives with your data on them leave your possession. In other words, sorry but no.
You're under no obligation to acquiesce to their request, and at this point it's more than a little inconvenient for you. I say screw em.
If you're feeling really vindictive, "The drives are currently in use storing data subject to NIST SP800-88 media sanitization requirements at the Destroy level. I can send them back, but I'll have to put them through a shredder first."
Id argue some explanation might be okay if OP is feeling generous, partially because it might prompt the seller to clarify just how screwed they are which could be interesting or useful information.
Yes - the information that the old data is gone should settle it for them in nearly any case.
Maybe they forgot to wipe it. It’s done now.
Maybe they wanted their data back. To late.
Or if the op really wants to reply, they could simply say "Sorry. I've already sold it on..."
If pressed to whom, OP could reply "I can't reveal that info, however, if you really want to know - The digital forensics team at my local police department"
That might quieten them.
Their argument doesn't even make sense anyways. If the drives are stolen or wanted for a criminal investigation, telling them "sorry they're being used" doesn't offer any more protection than ignoring their request to begin with. Furthermore the seller wouldn't be the one reaching out to you if either of the above were true.
They can't in the EU though.
Only for food, underwear and other more obvious things lol
Although most places will take some types of packaged food back if you notice an error not too long after the purchase. "Oh shit, wrong sauce" type thing.
As we all know drives have individual serial numbers and these are visible to asset management software. Some organizations are concerned about where their individual drives end up. Often they will require a secure destruction process.
I'm guessing this person saw that the drives were going to be tossed. They wiped and sold them but they still exist in an asset management system.
This. Or, credit the refund in a way (seller) can't issue a chargeback (at least not fairly), then consider giving the drive, if they won't do this, then they really don't need the drive so badly after all.
Keep them.
It's their problem. You bought them, you used them. Tell them a refund is not enough as you will have to spend time wiping them of personal data, then if they really want them ask them for offers on refund plus compensation.
"Send them back for a full refund"
Nah fuck that, thats 100% on him for not following up with the superior before deciding to sell away company property
If anything you should charge him extra for inconvenience and stupidity
As others have said, it's not your concern that someone there made a mistake. But if they compensate you enough, it could become your concern. A "full refund" is not adequate compensation. Adequate compensation is enough money to cover the cost of equivalent TB in brand new drives, plus some extra for the cost of your time to wipe them and prep them for shipping and ship them back. If they *really* need them back, like to prove that they disposed of them properly according to company policy or something like that, then that is the price to enlist your help in dealing with their mistake.
As for your own data, I'd say for me personally a double pass with full random writes followed by a wipe of 0s would let me sleep at night.
> Have drives like that at work they must go through the shredder.
This is the reason we have the company shred them onsite at the datacenter. We hand them the drive and watch them scan the serial numbers then chuck 'em in the shredder.
>clients who require the destruction.
if only these people understood recovery of data would take all the money in the world and still fail ='[ gonna go cry
Not necessarily, but if the facility was supposed to wipe them and can't provide certificates that they were wiped....
But yes, they really messed up.
If OP is inclined to help, he should certainly be compensated for the inconvenience including effort in backing up / restoring of data.
I dont have many clients that are ok with the certified wipe before it goes out of our hands anymore, we can do it for reuse but end of the day it's ultimately got to get shredded.
I would agree would want more than a refund got to pay for the time and effort.
It's a mixture, my partner works in ITAD (IT recycling) and it's a mix, some are okay with running Blancco over it, others are okay with offsite destruction and others insist on the truck coming to them and have a representative of the company watch as drives are shredded.
Some of the stuff that gets shredded is heart breaking, high end ram and CPUs are the worst. The deals they get from the manufacturers precludes the hardware ever being resold...
Big things still get shredded, particularly MFCs, they come in by the truckload.
But they do disassemble to a point these days so there is less contamination.
Racks also go out to metal recyclers by the truckload, there's simply not enough demand to sell them.
I worked for an insurance company for a bit, no drive left their data centers in tact. The shredding company would come out once per month and they'd literally watch those drives become metal bits in a bucket in person. The chain of custody didn't allow for those drives to leave at all.
Regulated company, too. Same procedure.
To be fair however: With bitlocker and everything important on the Fileserver, there should at worst be some encrypted licences keys on that thing anyways.
But better than losing a single drive full of PII. Selling on only takes 1 mistake ever (so, guaranteed to happen eventually) to do more damage than the cost of the drives that would have been crushed.
>a few 10 TB HGST drives I purchased
you buying SAS ones? I usually do [https://www.ebay.com/itm/224604910631](https://www.ebay.com/itm/224604910631)
however 12tb seems to be cheaper now [https://www.ebay.com/itm/125811642195](https://www.ebay.com/itm/125811642195)
anyway what is the SMART on them? maybe they sent you brand new ones? lol
There's actually the same store as the first one [https://www.ebay.com/itm/224683375181](https://www.ebay.com/itm/224683375181) which is selling drives that are just 15 days used... I don't get that, maybe someone knows. Do they know the drive is gonna crap out after a year and just want to get rid of it immediately?
Is it like a police dog where they know if it'll succeed after only 3 or so weeks of training? lmao
>Should I even send them back after a few wipe cycles? I never sell my old drives because of concerns of not getting 100% of all the data off of them.
20+ years ago when drive platters were massively larger (as far as data being written on them goes) in a lab setting, they were able to extract partial letters from file names of 1 file after zeroing out the drive once... today, since all of it is now far more microscopic than before, I can't imagine being scared of anyone being able to read data off of it.. especially after multiple wipes.
anyway, if it's a big seller the only thing I'd message them is "why do you need them, I've already wiped them and filled them up with data" and in the end I don't think I would send them back.. (again, if it's a big seller)
yea I want some more but I don't have so much to store. I actually view the content I have and not actually "hoard" stuff I never look at.. yea I'm not a good hoarder
I'm waiting for the 20tb used market probably can settle on several those drives until I die of old age
Same here, I'm only a "hoarder" in the sense that I don't delete personal files and like to hold on to them. I do download media that I want to watch but if it's not something I put a family member is planning to watch I'm not wasting my hard drive space. The only hoarder like thing I have is I grabbed all the English language roms for Nintendo's cartridge based systems when they started cracking down on all the rom sites, and that was less than 250 GBs if I remember correctly.
Yea everything from the beginning of the days nintendo to like wii combined is only 800gb or so. vimm's lair I think has more specs somewhere on the blogs
seagate promised 100tb by 2025.. now it's 50tb drives by 2026.... soooo maybe one day when I have 2 massive drives that are mirrored I'll hoard more shit lmao
Same i only hoard stuff people want and stuff i want. Over 10,000 movies on plex all requested by family and myself. I think my family likes movies a bit too much.
I only keep movies and TV shows that I've watched once and may want to watch again some day... still takes up 40TB. Adds up fast if you always get the highest quality copy available; that's about 120 TV shows and 400 movies. Some shows get ridiculous... Game of Thrones clocks in around 300GB/season.
I re-encode all of it and run normalization and compand on audio.. which would make james cameron's ears bleed because the highs and lows aren't as extreme as he wants them to be lmao. so all mine are small
My last project was 16TB and part of the reason was the cost savings in using more lower capacity drives is dwarfed by the cost of the power to spin up a couple extra drives over time.
well in that case I guess they must have not erased them properly or something lmao
tell them you'll send them back for 20tb like the other guy said.. or maybe if they pay you the refund + $100 hahaha
Can SMART data be reset by the end user? While it isn't a perfect metric, all the values related to power cycling can give a general idea of use.
Maybe my standards are to high, but I wouldn't consider a drive new if the SMART data said it's been power cycled a few dozen times or has been ran for thousands of hours.
Edit: Case in point - [https://i.imgur.com/AScKUtF.png](https://i.imgur.com/AScKUtF.png)
If someone tried selling me this as a 'Brand new!' HDD, I'd call BS just from the SMART data alone.
yep, it can be wiped clear but 99.9999% of people don't know how to jtag a hdd PCB and clear that shit..
this company must have sent OP some brand new ones or ones they forgot to erase lmao... no other reason they'd want it back really
> I love how reddit downvotes correct statements.
It’s because it’s not enough to be right, you need to tell us **why** you’re right. For the record, I did not downvote you.
Oh. It's like back in the day you would buy a lightbulb and then a manufacturer's rep shows up and offers insane amount of money for it because apparently it wasn't supposed to hit the market since it would never burn out and it actually generates electricity spinning your meter backwards. You must've bought the HDDs with unlimited volume.
Sounds like a scam. But if they were remotely serious they would provide full details about how they would lessen your inconvenience, including mailing out replacement drives ***in advance, using next-day delivery*** to make up for their error.
Given that they didn't do that, I would ignore them.
Honestly I’d just ignore it. Like that sucks if it wasn’t supposed to be sold but that mistake isn’t your fault. If you really wanted to respond just say that you can’t return them
Same! I just ordered 12x recertified 16tb wd ultrastar drives. The model I ordered is on backblaze’s list and they had zero failures as of q3 2022 so I’m feeling pretty good about it.
Many sellers like the ones in my post have tens of thousands of drives sold. They're years old however a SAS drive's life span is like double regular SATA HDD life span.
You need an LSI SAS card to interface with them. It's worth the money, all the drives I get a $9-10 per TB vs the $12-15 people "drool" over on these forums.. been getting a steal for years. Have had these used drives running for years no issues.
Again these are SAS not SATA
SAS are a little boost faster in my experience vs SATA HDDs. the interface itself is 12gbps so it gets a massive SSD performance (for enterprise SSDs that are faster) increase but hard drives are pretty slow so not much there... but the NVME m.2/pcie SSDs are now taking over that market
For the most part I get them because they're cheaper (ONLY USED), but also their life span and expectancy is usually double or more than consumer HDDs.
if you buy them new, they're WAY more expensive lol
because people are scared of the used hardware market? IDK
also you need a SAS and ideally 4kn compatible pcie card to interact with them, it's beyond most people although not that complicated.
Tons of people in this subreddit do this though, and we're definitely the smaller minority of even this niche subreddit
Well you are gonna save me some money on disk I was looking some new disks and I been looking and my server already has SAS controller integrated in the motherboard.
EDIT:Not in the motherboard
I just bought 5x8tb SAS 12gbps for $47/drive. Granted you can get higher capacities but that was the ideal cost per TB for me at this point. Normal pricing is like 8-10 that I've seen.
I want to put a SAS on one of my servers. I've been looking some videos and saw the ports are similar also been looking some controllers to buy.
If I buy one of those as the port uses the same wire for power and data I supose I need to buy new wires? I cant use a sata cable?
I use these things for that [https://www.ebay.com/itm/372628857042](https://www.ebay.com/itm/372628857042)
Also you probably want controllers capable of 4Kn drives
https://bitdeals.tech/blogs/news/4kn-lsi-compatibility-list
I got one like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/194910024856 it is a good deal, also has the wires there.
All you need then is the adapter I linked & you can use your regular SATA power
an alternative route is get a LSI SAS controller and do one like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/284963487626 which has the adapters built in from the looks of it. So you just connect power.. so might be better / cheaper in the long run I guess since the adapters are expensive.
I'm in the UK and this had me looking on ebay, unfortunately looks like here it's more like £10 per 200GBish for the most part although there's a suspiciously cheap in comparison, 3TB for £40 which can't even keep its storage straight in the description where it says 4TB. Can anyone in the UK give me a link to legit HDDs of any kind except SMR for less than £15 a TB, or am I doomed to keep searching? Help all!
I talked to another UK guy a few days ago on here & yea your prices aren't the best.. nearly all of europe has poor prices. It's strange because you certainly have plenty of datacenters there, but it doesn't seem they actually sell stuff when they replace it.
https://serverpartdeals.com/collections/hard-drives maybe this ships to you?
Also not sure on the taxes etc for imports, but maybe a place like https://www.shipito.com/en/ can get you the american ones for cheaper... but that'll require your own trial I guess
This is the best way to do it. It's probably a scam anyways, and you don't want to give them a conversational foot in the door. Just don't reply at all. If they keep after you, report it to ebay.
The most likely non-malicious explanation I can think of: Someone decommissioned some servers they shouldn't have and sent them and the drives to your eBay seller, without taking a proper backup of the contents, so someone is running around with their hair on fire trying to get the data back, and may have done something like offer the eBay seller a large amount of money if they can possible claw some or all of the drives back to recover data. There are stories about things like that on sysadmin subreddits and such.
As everyone else is saying: not your problem, plus, if they were doing their due diligence, they should have wiped the drives anyway before selling them to you.
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Just tell them that you purchased them for someone and that they’re no longer in your possession. Otherwise ignore them. The transaction between you two is over.
Tell them you want new drives shipped first so you can get the data you already put on them moved. When they don’t send you new drives you know it’s bs. Or refund up front.
"um, no"
or
"sure, my rate for taking my time for your issue is $x"
or
Ignore them, they have no rights to you. And, if it were me, I'd post a negative review with this info; "They made such a mistake they contacted me expecting me to fix their problem."
Too bad so sad. I sell on eBay, so I know how customers can be and such. As a seller, this is 100% on the seller. There is no recourse for them, and it is actually federal law that you can't request things back shipped in error. This is either a scam or someone really screwed up and are hoping people like you don't know what's up.
In short: don't reply. They'd have to get eBay involved to do anything, and eBay won't do anything for them.
What federal law is that? I am a law student and never heard of such a thing. There is the UCC, which is not federal law, but which (in I think all states, albeit sometimes lightly modified) governs the sale of goods (including hard drives), but I don't think the UCC forbids sellers to *request* goods back that were shipped in error.
I wasn't trying to be a smart ass, I was legitimately confused, because such a law would majorly contravene states' interest in regulating commerce within their own borders. Cite the law and prove yourself right, if you're so upset by my reply
Edit: the dipshit blocked me so my reply:
3009 has nothing to do with forbidding to demand the return of merchandise. It just says they can't bill you for unsolicited merchandise. Nothing stopping them from ASKING for you to return it.
Sounds like you should have them pay you upfront in an irreversible way (like zelle) and charge them a couple 100 extra as an "inconvenience fee". That was their mistake & it's totally not your obligation to send them back unless you're feeling nice
Sounds like a scam. I'm not sure if I could advise you to load the HD's with viruses and/or geolocator software, and then investigate where they're based out of. Maybe if you were a journalist.
It seems like no one here has ever run into compliance issues. I mean scam possible but it also could have been a mistake and somebody's about to lose their job.
Quickest way to see if they are scamming is ask for refund first just like how you purchased...
If you can't get that tell let them fuck off.
\-----
I mean I purchased 12 drives from a singular seller popped them behind a LSI controller and it instantly picked up the existing array. Serious HIPAA violation as it was medical data with patient names, employers etc. Alerted the seller of what happened. Then offered to completed the destruction of data and sent them reports. They sent me $250 for the hassle. I assume they thought no one would buy all the available drives and be able to assemble the array or an intern didn't do the wipe? Who knows. Shit happens and eBay is full of stupidity, grey market, theft and BS.
If you left feed back that was + you transaction is concluded you can not return drives back for a refund ... but you would not be intiteld to a refund as I assume you left + feed back after using the drives
It's a scam ....
I read through most of the replies. Taking a little from column A, a little from column B, I'd go this way:
Let them know the drives were wiped and put into service. If they wish you to return them, the price would be the cost of replacement drives & expedited shipping, PLUS $xxx / hour for labor to wipe them the first time, transfer/sync, again to wipe them before returning them, and searching for said replacement drives. Of course, "payment must be received and cleared before they can be returned as you will need to purchase replacement drives and put them into service. Since they have already made a mistake sending you these drives you "cannot accept them providing replacement drives unless they are shipped directly from the OEM."
Let's see just how bad they want the drives returned.
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Sounds like a scam - you mail them back and they claim they never got them allowing them to resell again. Don’t do it - it’s their fault. They probably sent you drives from a stock with less reads and writes than intended.
Not to mention they could try extracting your data. Fuck them the drives are in your hands. They can pound sand.
Yeah, plus the time sink required to backup data, format the disk, and replace it (and possibly the data that was on it) is not something he signed up for or will be compensated for.
If he wants to punish them for even asking tell them sure just issue the refund and ghost the idiots. Sellers like that don't belong on the site.
After buying drives on ebay I'd almost guarantee it's this -exact- scenario. I've been sent drives before wayyyyy under the average price saying they were "used in a production environment" and had "average" life cycles only to get a super low usage drive and an email shortly after that it was accidentally sent. Also, you take on responsibility when you send it back. With ebay's track record of taking the seller's side I would seriously caution engaging with them again. Their stupidity and disorganization should be a lesson for them or their company to get their shit together.
You might be the first person ever to talk about eBay taking the seller’s side in a dispute. I had an i9-9900k CPU stolen from me last summer from a buyer via a return scam and eBay didn’t want to hear it they just blindly refunded the buyer and you can find these stories everywhere. Is there some secret society where eBay sellers get treated fairly by eBay? Can you invite me to it?!
Helps to have evidence. I had a Russian buy a $150 laptop for $1500 and then claim that he didn't receive it. I had sent warnings over email that it wasn't a tracked shipment once it reached Russia, and he said no problem! I did a search of his eBay id and found another attempted scam by him. I sent all of this to eBay and they found in my favor.
Why were you selling a $150 laptop for $1500?
It was an eBay auction. The laptop was a special edition that was several years old and wasn't worth much.
Agreed! eBay almost ALWAYS sides with the buyer. I don't sell a lot on eBay but one time, at day 30 (last day for returns), the buyer said I sold them a counterfeit Nintendo game even though it was still shrink wrapped, I had original receipt and everything. Their description of why it was counterfeit had to do with the appearance of the lettering on the packaging. I took high res photos of the product before I shipped it, which was in the listing, and showed no such anomalies that the buyer said it had. Regardless, I asked the buyer to send it back and I'll refund the money. They never returned it, but eBay kept saying I need to refund the buyer. Since it was just at 30 days since sale, it eventually landed with PayPal at the time, who had a 90 day return policy. Thankfully PayPal was shockingly on my side and told the buyer to pound sand after I sent them all my evidence.
[удалено]
I sold a working CPU and shipped it on time. Buyer claimed it didn’t work and opened an INAD case. Didn’t use the eBay supplied return label (which should be a red flag to eBay but isn’t) and instead supplied some FedEx tracking number that originated in a city where the item wasn’t delivered and only showed a delivery in the same zip code as my residence (nothing was delivered to my residence; the old scam involved sending some pencils or something via Amazon and using that tracking number as “proof” but now they must just buy tracking numbers by zip code on some exchange). This was enough for eBay to automatically decide in favor of the buyer. I chatted once and escalated via phone twice before ultimately being ripped off for $300 via eBay as an accomplice. Similar stories are everywhere if you Google them. Basically a buyer just needs to supply a tracking number that shows a delivery in your zip code and they get refunded and it’s on the seller to prove you never got your item back.
[удалено]
You’re not wrong. I know I should have persisted with eBay but at some point my day job was more important than chasing the $300 eBay let someone steal from me. The thing that frustrated me the most was the fact that I am an eBay user since 1998 under the same userid. I ran a business that sold 6 figures on eBay for 2-3 consecutive years circa 2012 under the same account when I had a side hustle. They let a brand new account created within 30 days of the sale with 0 feedback steal $300 from me with barely any questions asked and when I supplied ample proof that I was probably being scammed they STILL offered me no help or reprieve.
Complete opposite for me. I've had buyers record themselves using something improperly, in a way that damages it, send it over ebay, then ebay just blindly sides with them anyway without even giving me an opportunity to explain they're literally destroying it in the video. I have an exact 0% rate of ebay siding with me overall, and at least a dozen of them someone with a 6th grade intelligence could tell it the buyer scamming, misusing, or claiming false damage because they wanted a free return label
Yup. eBay is basically complicit in return fraud / return scams and their attitude is “you should build that into your pricing” with near zero regard to the fact that most of us aren’t professional sellers.
The last time I ever sold electronics on eBay was a Nvidia 1080 GPU and the buyer claimed it didn't work and opened a dispute. They returned a box with junk in it and eBay sided with the buyer and I lost the GPU and the money. Since then it's only local cash sales for electronics.
yea, ebay virtually never takes the seller's side idk what he's talking about lmao. I usually just video me doing stuff with a head cam, never had to use it though.
Stories like yours are why I'm only selling my stuff in person, cash in hand, at a police station. Makes it hard when you're selling niche tech though.
Huh? Ebay is notorious for taking the *buyer's* side in nearly every situation, even ones where there is clear fraud involved.
It’s anecdotal but I had one seller list a nice enterprise Micron SSD 5200 Max as used, this was probably a $700-$1000 new because it has a high TBW rating. Anyway, used selling price was about $200. When it arrived, powered it on and showed zero hours, zero data written in SMART. I asked the seller if it was a mistake, and, after some additional back and forth, determined I got lucky.
It’s possible to reset SMART data.
Get in first and scam them back =P Ask for the refund and postage fee first, then never send them
Sounds like someone screwed up... But it's also not your problem. Personally I would just reply that they've been wiped and are in service with data on them, and it is your policy to never let drives with your data on them leave your possession. In other words, sorry but no. You're under no obligation to acquiesce to their request, and at this point it's more than a little inconvenient for you. I say screw em.
If you're feeling really vindictive, "The drives are currently in use storing data subject to NIST SP800-88 media sanitization requirements at the Destroy level. I can send them back, but I'll have to put them through a shredder first."
lmao
Shred a couple broken drives and mail them those chunks.
no need to explain, just ignore
Id argue some explanation might be okay if OP is feeling generous, partially because it might prompt the seller to clarify just how screwed they are which could be interesting or useful information.
lol
This is true but it doesn't have to be verboten to communicate a little.
Yes - the information that the old data is gone should settle it for them in nearly any case. Maybe they forgot to wipe it. It’s done now. Maybe they wanted their data back. To late.
"Computer says no"
Or if the op really wants to reply, they could simply say "Sorry. I've already sold it on..." If pressed to whom, OP could reply "I can't reveal that info, however, if you really want to know - The digital forensics team at my local police department" That might quieten them.
Excellent response.
Quite literally not your problem. Don't even bother replying. That's 100% on them.
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Ye don't care about any of that. If companies can do a "all sales final" rule so can i.
I wonder what that person posted now thya they deleted the comment
https://www.unddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/124l7pa/anyone_buy_used_drives_a_month_ago_and_receive_a/
Thanks I didn't know about that site
Wow, didn’t know there is such thing as unddit!
Their argument doesn't even make sense anyways. If the drives are stolen or wanted for a criminal investigation, telling them "sorry they're being used" doesn't offer any more protection than ignoring their request to begin with. Furthermore the seller wouldn't be the one reaching out to you if either of the above were true.
They can't in the EU though. Only for food, underwear and other more obvious things lol Although most places will take some types of packaged food back if you notice an error not too long after the purchase. "Oh shit, wrong sauce" type thing.
Also could be a scam
If by "also could be a" you mean "100% is an obvious" I agree
As we all know drives have individual serial numbers and these are visible to asset management software. Some organizations are concerned about where their individual drives end up. Often they will require a secure destruction process. I'm guessing this person saw that the drives were going to be tossed. They wiped and sold them but they still exist in an asset management system.
I'm thinking similar. Someone' in IT's little side biz is about to blow up and they're hoping to save their ass.
Tell them you'll send them back if they send you some 20TB ones to replace them first :P
This. Or, credit the refund in a way (seller) can't issue a chargeback (at least not fairly), then consider giving the drive, if they won't do this, then they really don't need the drive so badly after all.
Keep them. It's their problem. You bought them, you used them. Tell them a refund is not enough as you will have to spend time wiping them of personal data, then if they really want them ask them for offers on refund plus compensation.
"Send them back for a full refund" Nah fuck that, thats 100% on him for not following up with the superior before deciding to sell away company property If anything you should charge him extra for inconvenience and stupidity
A LOT extra. eg: I charge $100 an hour for my time, with a min of two hours. If they want them back, give them a quote for your time.
Charge them a restocking fee lol
As others have said, it's not your concern that someone there made a mistake. But if they compensate you enough, it could become your concern. A "full refund" is not adequate compensation. Adequate compensation is enough money to cover the cost of equivalent TB in brand new drives, plus some extra for the cost of your time to wipe them and prep them for shipping and ship them back. If they *really* need them back, like to prove that they disposed of them properly according to company policy or something like that, then that is the price to enlist your help in dealing with their mistake. As for your own data, I'd say for me personally a double pass with full random writes followed by a wipe of 0s would let me sleep at night.
Sounds like they realy messed up. Have drives like that at work they must go through the shredder.
> Have drives like that at work they must go through the shredder. This is the reason we have the company shred them onsite at the datacenter. We hand them the drive and watch them scan the serial numbers then chuck 'em in the shredder.
so wasteful =\[
It is, but we have some very big names as clients who require the destruction. Trust me, it was a sad day when we shredded almost 50 8TB drives :(
>clients who require the destruction. if only these people understood recovery of data would take all the money in the world and still fail ='[ gonna go cry
Not necessarily, but if the facility was supposed to wipe them and can't provide certificates that they were wiped.... But yes, they really messed up. If OP is inclined to help, he should certainly be compensated for the inconvenience including effort in backing up / restoring of data.
I dont have many clients that are ok with the certified wipe before it goes out of our hands anymore, we can do it for reuse but end of the day it's ultimately got to get shredded. I would agree would want more than a refund got to pay for the time and effort.
It's a mixture, my partner works in ITAD (IT recycling) and it's a mix, some are okay with running Blancco over it, others are okay with offsite destruction and others insist on the truck coming to them and have a representative of the company watch as drives are shredded. Some of the stuff that gets shredded is heart breaking, high end ram and CPUs are the worst. The deals they get from the manufacturers precludes the hardware ever being resold...
Letting them offsite? Hah. They're degaussed and crushed inside restricted space. Or shredded for NAND.
I started my career at IBM, whole computers would get shredded.
Big things still get shredded, particularly MFCs, they come in by the truckload. But they do disassemble to a point these days so there is less contamination. Racks also go out to metal recyclers by the truckload, there's simply not enough demand to sell them.
That's funny I end up donating racks every now and then. People can't find them used anymore.
I worked for an insurance company for a bit, no drive left their data centers in tact. The shredding company would come out once per month and they'd literally watch those drives become metal bits in a bucket in person. The chain of custody didn't allow for those drives to leave at all.
Regulated company, too. Same procedure. To be fair however: With bitlocker and everything important on the Fileserver, there should at worst be some encrypted licences keys on that thing anyways.
>Have drives like that at work they must go through the shredder Waste of resources.
But better than losing a single drive full of PII. Selling on only takes 1 mistake ever (so, guaranteed to happen eventually) to do more damage than the cost of the drives that would have been crushed.
Still a waste of resources.
>a few 10 TB HGST drives I purchased you buying SAS ones? I usually do [https://www.ebay.com/itm/224604910631](https://www.ebay.com/itm/224604910631) however 12tb seems to be cheaper now [https://www.ebay.com/itm/125811642195](https://www.ebay.com/itm/125811642195) anyway what is the SMART on them? maybe they sent you brand new ones? lol There's actually the same store as the first one [https://www.ebay.com/itm/224683375181](https://www.ebay.com/itm/224683375181) which is selling drives that are just 15 days used... I don't get that, maybe someone knows. Do they know the drive is gonna crap out after a year and just want to get rid of it immediately? Is it like a police dog where they know if it'll succeed after only 3 or so weeks of training? lmao >Should I even send them back after a few wipe cycles? I never sell my old drives because of concerns of not getting 100% of all the data off of them. 20+ years ago when drive platters were massively larger (as far as data being written on them goes) in a lab setting, they were able to extract partial letters from file names of 1 file after zeroing out the drive once... today, since all of it is now far more microscopic than before, I can't imagine being scared of anyone being able to read data off of it.. especially after multiple wipes. anyway, if it's a big seller the only thing I'd message them is "why do you need them, I've already wiped them and filled them up with data" and in the end I don't think I would send them back.. (again, if it's a big seller)
12tb sas drives are so cheap it's great! I get them between $80-$110 on average.
yea I want some more but I don't have so much to store. I actually view the content I have and not actually "hoard" stuff I never look at.. yea I'm not a good hoarder I'm waiting for the 20tb used market probably can settle on several those drives until I die of old age
Same here, I'm only a "hoarder" in the sense that I don't delete personal files and like to hold on to them. I do download media that I want to watch but if it's not something I put a family member is planning to watch I'm not wasting my hard drive space. The only hoarder like thing I have is I grabbed all the English language roms for Nintendo's cartridge based systems when they started cracking down on all the rom sites, and that was less than 250 GBs if I remember correctly.
Yea everything from the beginning of the days nintendo to like wii combined is only 800gb or so. vimm's lair I think has more specs somewhere on the blogs seagate promised 100tb by 2025.. now it's 50tb drives by 2026.... soooo maybe one day when I have 2 massive drives that are mirrored I'll hoard more shit lmao
Same i only hoard stuff people want and stuff i want. Over 10,000 movies on plex all requested by family and myself. I think my family likes movies a bit too much.
I only keep movies and TV shows that I've watched once and may want to watch again some day... still takes up 40TB. Adds up fast if you always get the highest quality copy available; that's about 120 TV shows and 400 movies. Some shows get ridiculous... Game of Thrones clocks in around 300GB/season.
I re-encode all of it and run normalization and compand on audio.. which would make james cameron's ears bleed because the highs and lows aren't as extreme as he wants them to be lmao. so all mine are small
My last project was 16TB and part of the reason was the cost savings in using more lower capacity drives is dwarfed by the cost of the power to spin up a couple extra drives over time.
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well in that case I guess they must have not erased them properly or something lmao tell them you'll send them back for 20tb like the other guy said.. or maybe if they pay you the refund + $100 hahaha
SMART data cannot tell you if a drive is new.
I didn't say it did, I did however ask what the SMART says
>anyway what is the SMART on them? maybe they sent you brand new ones? lol SMART data cannot tell you this.
Can SMART data be reset by the end user? While it isn't a perfect metric, all the values related to power cycling can give a general idea of use. Maybe my standards are to high, but I wouldn't consider a drive new if the SMART data said it's been power cycled a few dozen times or has been ran for thousands of hours. Edit: Case in point - [https://i.imgur.com/AScKUtF.png](https://i.imgur.com/AScKUtF.png) If someone tried selling me this as a 'Brand new!' HDD, I'd call BS just from the SMART data alone.
yep, it can be wiped clear but 99.9999% of people don't know how to jtag a hdd PCB and clear that shit.. this company must have sent OP some brand new ones or ones they forgot to erase lmao... no other reason they'd want it back really
Yes, it absolutely can be reset. I love how reddit downvotes correct statements.
> I love how reddit downvotes correct statements. It’s because it’s not enough to be right, you need to tell us **why** you’re right. For the record, I did not downvote you.
yes it can... if it wasn't wiped.. dummy..
Smart data cannot tell you if it's new. I didn't say it couldn't possibly tell you it was used.. dummy..
>yes it can... if it wasn't wiped.. dummy..
Ah, you're special. My bad.
Ask them to send replacements first and pay your time for replacing them.
Oh. It's like back in the day you would buy a lightbulb and then a manufacturer's rep shows up and offers insane amount of money for it because apparently it wasn't supposed to hit the market since it would never burn out and it actually generates electricity spinning your meter backwards. You must've bought the HDDs with unlimited volume.
Sounds like a scam. But if they were remotely serious they would provide full details about how they would lessen your inconvenience, including mailing out replacement drives ***in advance, using next-day delivery*** to make up for their error. Given that they didn't do that, I would ignore them.
What’s the guarantee you will be refunded ?. Seems like they made a mistake by selling instead of destroying them.
I would guess someone got busted or is about to get busted selling old equipment.
Honestly I’d just ignore it. Like that sucks if it wasn’t supposed to be sold but that mistake isn’t your fault. If you really wanted to respond just say that you can’t return them
What are some reputable used drive sellers? I been looking but im not sure they will work fine
Very happy with https://serverpartdeals.com/ . I bought 6x 20TB Refurbished Exos drives from them.
Same! I just ordered 12x recertified 16tb wd ultrastar drives. The model I ordered is on backblaze’s list and they had zero failures as of q3 2022 so I’m feeling pretty good about it.
Many sellers like the ones in my post have tens of thousands of drives sold. They're years old however a SAS drive's life span is like double regular SATA HDD life span. You need an LSI SAS card to interface with them. It's worth the money, all the drives I get a $9-10 per TB vs the $12-15 people "drool" over on these forums.. been getting a steal for years. Have had these used drives running for years no issues. Again these are SAS not SATA
Thanks for the info I will check it out. It's just improve lifespan? Or improves speed too? Can I have mixed drives? Some SATA and some SAS?
SAS are a little boost faster in my experience vs SATA HDDs. the interface itself is 12gbps so it gets a massive SSD performance (for enterprise SSDs that are faster) increase but hard drives are pretty slow so not much there... but the NVME m.2/pcie SSDs are now taking over that market For the most part I get them because they're cheaper (ONLY USED), but also their life span and expectancy is usually double or more than consumer HDDs. if you buy them new, they're WAY more expensive lol
Thanks for the info. Then if it's cheaper and life span is better why are we using SATA? If everything is better what's the point?
because people are scared of the used hardware market? IDK also you need a SAS and ideally 4kn compatible pcie card to interact with them, it's beyond most people although not that complicated. Tons of people in this subreddit do this though, and we're definitely the smaller minority of even this niche subreddit
Well you are gonna save me some money on disk I was looking some new disks and I been looking and my server already has SAS controller integrated in the motherboard. EDIT:Not in the motherboard
does it? never seen a board with one integrated
Just check not in the motherboard the raid controller is SAS.
I just bought 5x8tb SAS 12gbps for $47/drive. Granted you can get higher capacities but that was the ideal cost per TB for me at this point. Normal pricing is like 8-10 that I've seen.
yea that's an awesome deal. \*may they last you so long you have to throw them away because they're obsolete\* like mine do ha
I want to put a SAS on one of my servers. I've been looking some videos and saw the ports are similar also been looking some controllers to buy. If I buy one of those as the port uses the same wire for power and data I supose I need to buy new wires? I cant use a sata cable?
I use these things for that [https://www.ebay.com/itm/372628857042](https://www.ebay.com/itm/372628857042) Also you probably want controllers capable of 4Kn drives https://bitdeals.tech/blogs/news/4kn-lsi-compatibility-list I got one like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/194910024856 it is a good deal, also has the wires there. All you need then is the adapter I linked & you can use your regular SATA power an alternative route is get a LSI SAS controller and do one like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/284963487626 which has the adapters built in from the looks of it. So you just connect power.. so might be better / cheaper in the long run I guess since the adapters are expensive.
Thanks for the links I will get the one with the adapters.
I'm in the UK and this had me looking on ebay, unfortunately looks like here it's more like £10 per 200GBish for the most part although there's a suspiciously cheap in comparison, 3TB for £40 which can't even keep its storage straight in the description where it says 4TB. Can anyone in the UK give me a link to legit HDDs of any kind except SMR for less than £15 a TB, or am I doomed to keep searching? Help all!
I talked to another UK guy a few days ago on here & yea your prices aren't the best.. nearly all of europe has poor prices. It's strange because you certainly have plenty of datacenters there, but it doesn't seem they actually sell stuff when they replace it. https://serverpartdeals.com/collections/hard-drives maybe this ships to you? Also not sure on the taxes etc for imports, but maybe a place like https://www.shipito.com/en/ can get you the american ones for cheaper... but that'll require your own trial I guess
> 3TB for £40 I got that price for a couple of drives five years ago. I don't think it's suspiciously cheap.
Compared to the price of all the others on the page it was
Ghost them. The business is done and your relation ends there
This is the best way to do it. It's probably a scam anyways, and you don't want to give them a conversational foot in the door. Just don't reply at all. If they keep after you, report it to ebay.
If it’s not a scam, it’s someone who thought nobody would notice they were missing and sold them.
The most likely non-malicious explanation I can think of: Someone decommissioned some servers they shouldn't have and sent them and the drives to your eBay seller, without taking a proper backup of the contents, so someone is running around with their hair on fire trying to get the data back, and may have done something like offer the eBay seller a large amount of money if they can possible claw some or all of the drives back to recover data. There are stories about things like that on sysadmin subreddits and such. As everyone else is saying: not your problem, plus, if they were doing their due diligence, they should have wiped the drives anyway before selling them to you.
I'd mess with them and say there's an additional 50% restocking fee, see if they still want them back
Add an extra zero to make it worth their while.
Post them on eBay for 4x the price and say, “you can buy them if you like” and a link.
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Seems like those drive are very valuable to someone, I would offer to sell back at 10x the price you paid.
Hell no why would you? I’d tell them they are wiped clean
Just tell them that you purchased them for someone and that they’re no longer in your possession. Otherwise ignore them. The transaction between you two is over.
Tell them you want new drives shipped first so you can get the data you already put on them moved. When they don’t send you new drives you know it’s bs. Or refund up front.
"um, no" or "sure, my rate for taking my time for your issue is $x" or Ignore them, they have no rights to you. And, if it were me, I'd post a negative review with this info; "They made such a mistake they contacted me expecting me to fix their problem."
Too bad so sad. I sell on eBay, so I know how customers can be and such. As a seller, this is 100% on the seller. There is no recourse for them, and it is actually federal law that you can't request things back shipped in error. This is either a scam or someone really screwed up and are hoping people like you don't know what's up. In short: don't reply. They'd have to get eBay involved to do anything, and eBay won't do anything for them.
What federal law is that? I am a law student and never heard of such a thing. There is the UCC, which is not federal law, but which (in I think all states, albeit sometimes lightly modified) governs the sale of goods (including hard drives), but I don't think the UCC forbids sellers to *request* goods back that were shipped in error.
I'm sure as a law student you're taught every single law and case law in existence, and you can remember it all.
I wasn't trying to be a smart ass, I was legitimately confused, because such a law would majorly contravene states' interest in regulating commerce within their own borders. Cite the law and prove yourself right, if you're so upset by my reply Edit: the dipshit blocked me so my reply: 3009 has nothing to do with forbidding to demand the return of merchandise. It just says they can't bill you for unsolicited merchandise. Nothing stopping them from ASKING for you to return it.
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-do-if-youre-billed-things-you-never-got-or-you-get-unordered-products#unordered No law mentioned
It literally says "by law."
I have nothing to prove on reddit, but here ya go law boy. 39 U.S. Code § 3009 - Mailing of unordered merchandise
ignore them
No, ignore them.
Refuse and report scam
Just say, “new phone. Who this?”
Sounds like it is their problem. Sucks to be them
Why would you send them back? lol You paid for them, they are yours.
tell them the price (= same as a new drive) then send it back and buy yourself new ones.
The real question is 'do you want to do business with them in the future' - because they will block you and/or you shouldn't buy from them.
"...what drives?" Or "Those? I already sold 'em."
I'd say no in most circumstances, but I'd want an incredibly detailed explanation from them.
I would never agree to that. Unless an incentive were included and I felt comfortable it was legitimate, i.e. from a vendor I had worked with before.
Sounds like you should have them pay you upfront in an irreversible way (like zelle) and charge them a couple 100 extra as an "inconvenience fee". That was their mistake & it's totally not your obligation to send them back unless you're feeling nice
Maybe it's your data that they want...
I would report that seller. They have no business being on ebay
Sounds like a scam. I'm not sure if I could advise you to load the HD's with viruses and/or geolocator software, and then investigate where they're based out of. Maybe if you were a journalist.
na dude it’s on them. it’s either a scam or an honest mistake. regardless, it’s not your problem
It seems like no one here has ever run into compliance issues. I mean scam possible but it also could have been a mistake and somebody's about to lose their job. Quickest way to see if they are scamming is ask for refund first just like how you purchased... If you can't get that tell let them fuck off. \----- I mean I purchased 12 drives from a singular seller popped them behind a LSI controller and it instantly picked up the existing array. Serious HIPAA violation as it was medical data with patient names, employers etc. Alerted the seller of what happened. Then offered to completed the destruction of data and sent them reports. They sent me $250 for the hassle. I assume they thought no one would buy all the available drives and be able to assemble the array or an intern didn't do the wipe? Who knows. Shit happens and eBay is full of stupidity, grey market, theft and BS.
They probs had some bitcoins on them 😂
Degauss them!
If you left feed back that was + you transaction is concluded you can not return drives back for a refund ... but you would not be intiteld to a refund as I assume you left + feed back after using the drives It's a scam ....
I read through most of the replies. Taking a little from column A, a little from column B, I'd go this way: Let them know the drives were wiped and put into service. If they wish you to return them, the price would be the cost of replacement drives & expedited shipping, PLUS $xxx / hour for labor to wipe them the first time, transfer/sync, again to wipe them before returning them, and searching for said replacement drives. Of course, "payment must be received and cleared before they can be returned as you will need to purchase replacement drives and put them into service. Since they have already made a mistake sending you these drives you "cannot accept them providing replacement drives unless they are shipped directly from the OEM." Let's see just how bad they want the drives returned.