Warning: hargaretchimee is an eBay scammer, selling hacked memory devices.

The Scam
An eBay member using the profile name "hargaretchimee" advertises a variety of products including MP3 players, USB drives and SD memory cards of varying capacities. You successfully bid on an item and pay using PayPal. Around a month later, the product arrives from Hong Kong. You connect it to your PC to test it, and copy files over to the device to its full capacity. All seems to work. You leave positive feedback (usually ignoring the fact that it's taken a month to arrive). Shortly thereafter, you notice that half or more of the files you've stored on the device are corrupt. You've just been scammed.

How it Works
The devices are "hacked" to appear to the host operating system to be a larger capacity than they actually are. For example, the 4GB SD card I purchased from hargaretchimee on eBay was actually a 2GB card that reports to Windows that it has a 4GB capacity.

To the casual observer, it looks, feels and acts like a 4GB card. It even has a professional looking sticker, which looks remarkably like an official SanDisk product sticker. With a reported 4GB capacity, the device supplied by hargaretchimee appeared to properly accept a full 4GB of files. The device, however, only "stores" 2GB of data, with no error messages reported back to Windows during the copy. Later, when you try to retrieve any file stored beyond the first 2GB, Windows will report that the file is corrupt.

Short of reformatting the device back to the original capacity, the devices supplied on eBay by hargaretchimee turn out to be close to useless, as unless you very carefully monitor how much data is transferred onto the device you run the very real risk of losing data due to it "overshooting" the true available capacity.

What does "hargaretchimee" say about this?
In a word, hargaretchimee says "sorry". No denial. The user is as blatant as can be. If you request a refund, in broken English you'll be told to send the product back to a Hong Kong address, and you'll be refunded "without delay". This is rubbish. You will have paid for the return postage, lost the evidence, and will be told that the product "never arrived back". If you demand a refund first, you'll be told that it's "against the policy of our company" to refund first. Obviously the policy says nothing about commiting fraud.

What does eBay say about this?
In short, expect a run-around. When you initially complain, you'll be informed that it's a PayPal issue, since this was how payment was made. PayPal will open a case, tell you to post the product back, then promptly close the case. I'm still awaiting a "human" response.

Are all products sold on eBay by hargaretchimee fraudulent? Have all customers been scammed?
I can't tell you with certainty that all products sold by hargaretchimee are hacked units, however many eBayers have reported that they were also scammed. If you were lucky enough not to be conned by hargaretchimee, count yourself lucky.

Here's just a couple of links to other victims:

http://www.mympxplayer.org/hargaretchimee-needs-a-swift-kick-vt8133.html

http://www.mympxplayer.org/hargaretchimee-continu-sell-hacked-mp4-player-drive-sdcard-vt8922.html

http://www.procopy.com.au/ugoogle-mp4/2006/12/11/ugoogle-scam-message-board.html?currentPage=6 (search for "hargaretchimee")

http://blogs.ebay.com/frogs96/entry/dont-trust-ugoole/_W0QQidZ60699017 (search for "hargaretchimee")

Spot the Fake
The hacked unit supplied by hargaretchimee	A real SanDisk unit. Notice the similarity?

Why doesn't hargaretchimee receive all negative feedback? There seem to be some genuinely satisfied customers there.
There's two main reasons for this: ignorance and fear. Unless you're particularly savvy, this can be a difficult con to spot, at least initially. You can copy files to the device without any errors reported, the device appears to be real, heck you've even got a 50-50 chance of successfully opening a file once you've filled a device. It's only later, sadly, that you realize your prized MP3 collection, your University thesis, or newborn child's photos are gone forever.

The second reason, fear, relates to fear of receiving a negative rating in response from hargaretchimee, or of not receiving a refund. In the exchange of emails sent to me from hargaretchimee, I was asked to remove the negative feedback if I wanted to get a refund. Many users that catch out this scammer leave positive feedback because they think they'll get a refund this way. Google "hargaretchimee" and you'll see that even buyers that have followed every step hargaretchimee has told them to do still haven't received a refund.

Even taking these two reasons into account, there has still been more than 215 negative feedback responses against hargaretchimee at the time of writing this.

To see just the negative responses to hargaretchimee on eBay, click here.

Who is "hargaretchimee"?
hargaretchimee is an individual based in Hong Kong. On parcels sent, the return address will be listed as:

MR FONG SIU KUEN
FLAT A,9/F  CHEUNG HING BUILDING ,
43-45 CHEUNG SHA WAN ROAD,
SHAM SHUI PO, KOWLOON,
HONGKONG

The address I was asked to return the item to was:

FLAT C, 4/F BLOCK 30, PARC OASIS KOWLOON TONG, KLN HONG KONG

If someone visiting the Hong Kong area would like to meet an eBay scammer face-to-face, I'd suggest knocking on one of these doors.

hargaretchimee's email address is margaretchimee@gmail.com

hargaretchimee's eBay profile can be found here: http://myworld.ebay.com.au/hargaretchimee/

A listing of products this eBay scammer is trying to offload to an unsuspecting public may be found here: http://search.ebay.com.au/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZhargaretchimee

I've been conned! What do I do?
Firstly, DON'T return the product. It will cost you money in return postage and it still won't provide you with a refund. Instead, contact eBay and PayPal (just keep jumping up and down until you get their attention), then contact your credit card company and request a chargeback.

It's can difficult to find where to report a problem to eBay. They take the approach that if they don't know, they're not responsible. Here's how to contact them:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/contact_us/_base/index.html

Select the option for reporting a "Listing Violation". Then ignore the next screen where they try to fob you off with a help file. Towards the bottom of the page is a link labelled "email". Click this, log in, then fill out the form.

If you're in Australia, you can fax them on (02) 9475 0517 or mail to: Locked Bag 10, Australia Sq PO, Sydney NSW 1215