I got blindsided by the 32GB SDHC memory card I just bought for my brand new Marantz PMD620 digital audio recorder. It should have let me record 54 hours of continuous stereo 44KHz WAV (i.e. - CD quality) audio.

It was a Fake! An eBay seller with a perfect record, who runs a reputable landscaping business in Montana, sold 25 of these beauties on eBay. And has already got nearly a dozen great feedback comments from the other 24 buyers. I wonder how long it will be before any of those 24 realize that they got stung.

I'm not so smart. I only happened to contact Kingston because the packaging with my card was obviously intended for sale in Asia, so I was worried about my warranty, after the "Grey Market" warranty issues of the '90s. I was shocked when I was told it was a fake.

How to tell: no engraved/printed info on the back of the card; no Authentication Code and other info on the back of the paper packaging inside the container; packaging opened without damaging the plastic container.

But the label on the front of the card was an identical clone of the real label you'd find on the real Kingston card.

This is not about someone making the same product, just using the Kingston name to increase sales and prices. This is about a product that is not what it appears to be. I didn't have a chance to check, but what I've read says that it really was a 1-2GB card that was modified so that it reported to the operating system of the computer (Windows, Mac OSx, etc.) that it was 32GB.

Here is what I know about mine: it wrote very slowly, finally speeding up to less than one-third the speed of a real Kingston card SD4 card; reformatting failed, leaving me with a 0 byte card with 0 bytes of remaining space, and nothing I could do to change that fact.

On the up side of all this, although the eBay seller sounded skeptical that it was a fake card, he promised a full refund if I returned it to him. Innocent me, I sent it first class mail to avoid a huge postage bill for something trackable, so we'll see what happens. I also read elsewhere that I technically broke the law, as it is illegal to transport counterfeit products through Canadian or American postal systems.

Also to protect myself, I filed a Dispute with PayPal a couple of days before the deadline, which gives me several weeks to receive my refund before time runs out on making it a formal complaint, and getting my money back from PayPal/eBay.

I'm also wrestling with the question of the 24 other suckers who bought one of these. Obviously, I won't do anything until I get my refund or PayPal pays me off, but what then? I do feel considerable responsibility for making eBay a safer place for Buyers.

Based on Googling I did at the time I originally made the purchase, I believe this seller innocently bought these 25 cards from a "wholesale clearance centre" web site where you have to buy a minimum of 25. They were $24.95 each plus shipping. He sold them for $64.95 each with free shipping.

Recent searches -- actually I saw them in Google ads -- no longer show this clearance centre site.

Bottom line: check items out to be sure they aren't fake before it's too late to do anything about it. Even if you trust the seller, he/she may have been fooled by a wholesaler.

And, please, don't give me that old "if it's too good to be true" nonsense. It just isn't true with technology. USB and Ethernet cables have been selling locally for $22-$30 Canadian for a decade now. But go to MemoryExpress, BCom or your local equivalent, and prices start at $2.50 for better quality cables!

Plus, in these troubled economic times, goods are being picked up for 10 cents on the dollar when companies, especially retailers, go bankrupt. So, 80-90% discounts off retail are easily possible. A simple closing of a local Office Depot store had 40-80% discounts on stock, even though they could have just transported it all to another of the still-open Office Depot locations in the same City.

And on eBay, lots of people got stuff for free, and are glad to recover 15% of an item's value. Admittedly, I could also be describing "hot merchandise" that was stolen from a truck or warehouse.