A massive of influx of defective hard drives sold on Lazada and Shopee have recently boomed in numbers growing from a few sellers to now populating the overseas listing. The hard drives are from both WD and Seagate and are expected to include other storage brands as well. The easiest way to reveal them is search for “hard drives” and sorting them by price. The other way is by search for “WD Red” or “Seagate drives” and sorting by price. In the case of WD, they flood the whole listing for these categories while Seagate manages to be on the safer side with their authorized local sellers populating higher in the search.
In a direct attempt at deception, the hard drives in question are listed with official details and capacity. With their unbelievably low price, who are not familiar are likely to bite the bait of a lower price. The hard drives arrive repacked in sealed anti-static bags much like an original is further continuing the deception and fooling unfamiliar users that they’re drives are defective.
Most of these drives come from overseas seller and predominantly offer WD drives but Seagate hard drives are also listed. The drives when used are either unreadable or their capacities have been limited due to extended use. Some users are also reporting bad sector count reports prompted by the SMART info on the drives themselves asking the user to replace the drive immediately suggesting these are used drives. Regardless, the drives are practically useless as reported by some of the feedback left in these listings.
B2G is trying to track down the source of these drives but with most of these listings commonly featuring NAS or CCTV-use hard drives, we’re assuming its from a cloud-storage operation dumping their old inventory to scrap buyers with the scrappers selling them off as legitimate storage media for low prices.
This follows another recent trend that plagued the PH hard drive market with 2nd-hand drives making their way to obscure 2nd-hand buyers and these buyers selling them off as cheaper drives. Though the drives operate somewhat, bad sectors are still occasionally found or worse, the drives suddenly shutting off. The difference here is that these local scrap drives, even though they might share the same source, are screened by their initial bulk buyers first. The bulk buyers then test each drive and weigh the prices accordingly and sell them off as per their discretion with a personally warranty.
As of this posting, there are still numerous listings and we believe this has not reached both WD and Seagate’s attention. This article is aimed to warn the public to avoid purchasing hard drives from non-authorized dealers.
You can read-up on our guide on how to spot fake items in Lazada and Shopee to get more details if you’re not sure how when to doubt.
UPDATE 07/13/2020 – Seagate has responded to our request to comment. Seagate advises everyone to purchase from their retail partners and authorized dealers. If you purchased a Seagate hard drive and want to verify, just scan the QR code on your drive and it will automatically bring you to the Seagate verification portal site and you can check there.
Seagate insists on buying original to enjoy the assurance of warranty coverage, promotions and support. Unverified drives will not be honored.
