Three strikes and your out - strike one.

Apparently bad things happen in threes - well, these aren't that bad (so I may have more to come), but they are worth sharing:

Over a month ago I came across this advert on eBay:

usb_16gb

The price was unbelievable, a must have - so I bought one (I was tempted to buy more).  Within a week I was the proud owner of a 16GB pen drive.  30 minutes later, I wasn't.  Even though the device reported to have a 16GB capacity, as soon as I copied more that 4GB onto it, it corrupted everything that was already on it.  Formatting failed, chkdsk failed, everything I could do failed.  I had a 4GB pen drive that was clever enough to pretend to be 16GB.

In my anger (at being duped), I raised a dispute on eBay (I was sold something that's description was nothing like the goods sold).  Anyway, after nearly a month of back and forth - me stating I was sold a 16GB drive & I therefore would not be happy until I got one, and the seller offering me my money back - I gave in a took my refund.

Lesson learned - things on eBay that are too good to be true, probably aren't.

Dave.