Buying stuff online for less....

[Richard Healy]

My gast is well and truly flabbered!

I just picked up a great deal: 32gb of Sandisk Extreme SDHC Class 10 memory for £20.40 free postage from Ebay

I was in town earlier in Jessops and the equivalent memory was £90!

I also picked up two (TWO!) spare Lithium batteries and the total bill still didn't top £30.

It's so good, it's almost suspect.

Have you ever found a killer deal online?

[Glenn NK]

There are deals, and there are "deals"

Example: there are knock-off CF cards available at greatly reduced prices.

One is OK dealing with a reputable online dealer - but there are scams galore.

The results pop up on other forums quite regularly.

Many use this source as a guide:

http://www.resellerratings.com/

Glenn

[Manfred M]

Memory cards bought on line (other than from reputable dealers) have been identified as one of the highest level of counterfeit goods that are sold online. You might have gotten lucky, but on the other hand you may have a card relabelled as Class 10, when it is really Class 4, the card might be a reject what will loose data, etc.

In my experience, when it comes to consumables like memory cards or batteries, you do get what you pay for, and the bargains out there often end up not being so.

[Brocken]

My gast is well and truly flabbered!

I just picked up a great deal: 32gb of Sandisk Extreme SDHC Class 10 memory for £20.40 free postage from Ebay

I was in town earlier in Jessops and the equivalent memory was £90!

I also picked up two (TWO!) spare Lithium batteries and the total bill still didn't top £30.

It's so good, it's almost suspect.

Have you ever found a killer deal online?

I don't know about 'killer deal' Richard, but the price you paid for the memory is pretty much the going rate today. You can find similar prices offered by Amazon, with their own no-quibble money-back guarantee.

Here, for example: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...tronics&sr=1-1

I don't know what batteries you bought, but you can buy perfectly good Nikon DSLR battery clones for about £7 on ebay, and I don't know anyone personally who would even think of paying the full 'genuine Nikon' price for them.

Here is a database of memory card performance tests. Just enter your camera type, and scroll down through all the different makes and varieties. http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/mul...e.asp?cid=6007


Jessops is in free fall, closing branches left right and centre, because shop overheads don't allow it to compete with online traders and supermarkets.

[Donald]

I think I'd be wanting to test these things really hard before I started using them on anything serious and trusting that they'd deliver for me.

I know we're sounding like boring old ***** and doom-mongers, but, as they say, if a deal looks too good to be true, ..............!

What you don't want is to have captured the greatest photograph ever made, only to find that you haven't.

[Manfred M]

I don't know what batteries you bought, but you can buy perfectly good Nikon DSLR battery clones for about £7 on ebay, and I don't know anyone personally who would even think of paying the full 'genuine Nikon' price for them.

I for one would. I simply would never consider putting a £7 battery into a £2400 camera. While the markup from Nikon may be higher than we would like it to be, at least I know that they will stand behind their products. I'd hate to have an in-camera catastrophic failure from a Li-on battery.

I have used some third party Li-on batteries in some other electronic equipment, and frankly the problems, performance issues and overall life span from the 3rd party suppliers was not good. One of the cells went undervoltage within a few months of my buying it, but that is better than it going the other way. In photography, as in life, you do get what you pay for.

[ajohnw]

I used to buy all of my cards from a dealer in the channel isles. I have never had any problems with them but now the duty free limit has dropped from £18 to £15 when really it out to be more like £40 now I don't think they sell on ebay any more. They were much cheaper than any one else. I've had one in an old sony compact for at least 10years and have even cleaned the shots out of it several times. That's what wears them out.

Thanks for reminding me I need another card. I bought something a little less aggressive. 16gb, 30mb/s scandisc, retail package and 5 year guarantee. Authorised scandisc dealer too. I usually look for comments like that on ebay. Not the cheapest but not much extra either. About £12. I don't think even that amount of speed is needed really.

Lenses and cameras usually have a catch. No guarantee. I have mixed feelings on that. I did buy a panasonic 45-200 for my pen very recently ( from comments on image stab you can guess why ) The seller offered 12 months with it. Hope I don't have to claim. As to quality I tested against a black on white GB sign on our caravan at about 25m. Blacks jet black in raw without demosaicing and very little fuzz. About what I would expect from technical lens tests. Blacks better actually, It's a rather severe test. The lens was so much cheaper than other sellers that he put the price up shortly after I bought mine. They were selling like hot cakes. There has always been people who import camera gear and stick it on there sideboard and sell it even directly from Japan. Profit margins are high so there is always scope for that sort of thing. If I decide I must have the 100-300 at the moment with the £50 cashback deal I would buy of Jessops maybe even without it as the difference against ebay is small.

John

[Richard Healy]

Well thanks for all the caution guys. I do take it to heart and will check these things out - if I think I've got counterfeit good you can bet ebay will be hearing from me. Possibly the police too.

I did what due dilligence I can checked the seller's profiles looked at the "rated sellers" and star ratigns they'd received, read the negative reviews and so on. I can't rule out I've been defrauded with something third party relabelled or knocked off but I'm for now reasonably confident I've got a decent deal. But I do take all your words to heart.

I was surprised at that Amazon Link. Funny I could have sworn that when I looked the other day I didn't see that otherwise I'd have got it from there without bothering to go via Ebay- then again maybe my mind is playing tricks ',:^.


So moving on from worrying about it - the things turn up - how do you propose I go about testing 'em to see if they are legit?

I suppose I could find 32GB of files I can dump onto the card to see if it has the capacity for example - but I'm taking suggestions.

[MrB]

Anyone else use this web company? -
http://www.mymemory.co.uk
They often have very good special offers.

Philip

[russellsnr]

Hi, If you bought from Ebay and there fake there is not a lot you can do as Ebay have a large article warning about fake cards and telling you how to spot them, also there terms and conditions policies are there to read.
Russ

[Donald]

So moving on from worrying about it - the things turn up - how do you propose I go about testing 'em to see if they are legit?

I suppose I could find 32GB of files I can dump onto the card to see if it has the capacity for example - but I'm taking suggestions.

It's not so much about what capacity the card has, as about whether it actually properly records and then properly allows uploading. All cards eventually pack up. The question is, if this is not the real deal (and we do not know that), will this card do what it's meant to do - store file information and allow you to transfer it onto a computer, consistently and for a reasonable amount of time? That's why you want to shoot lots of everything and anything to make sure that it actually works.

[Richard Healy]

Mymemory is who sold it to me on Ebay!

[Richard Healy]

Hi, If you bought from Ebay and there fake there is not a lot you can do as Ebay have a large article warning about fake cards and telling you how to spot them, also there terms and conditions policies are there to read.
Russ

For future reference - where?

[Brocken]

I use a flash card memory test program called H2testw, which works with windows 7 and which you can download free here:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/.../H2testw.shtml

By way of illustration, I have just tested the 8GB Sandisk Extreme HD Video Class 10 30 MB/s card out of my D90, and here is the result I got when using a USB 2.0 card reader.




Read and write speed is typically 30% higher in USB 3.0 readers, which still leaves it short of the claimed 30 MB/s, though well within the Class 10 specification. Does this mean that my card is a fake? Unfortunately not. Thorough tests like this never produce speeds of the order claimed by the manufacturers, who usually explain the shortfall by blaming the reading method and reading device.

The shortfall of capacity is also normal and to be expected. Small print technical specifications of flash cards often refer to 'consumer usable memory' which is always less than the GB on the label, and is due in part to the space taken by file system metadata.

[Richard Healy]

Does it work with a mac (I'm guessing not)

[Brocken]

Does it work with a mac (I'm guessing not)

No, Richard, it's a Windows application.

[AB26]

Hi Richard,
If you are happy with your purchase so be it - be happy! You do pick up good stuff at good prices on the net. We all know we have to be careful to check out the seller first. I have also picked up what I would consider a bargain on the net. I am happy with it and I will do the same again.
So what if it is a dud at that price, not too much school fee to pay anyway.
Good luck.

[DanK]

My rule of thumb is that I only buy things that I think can't do damage from unknown dealers--e.g., flash cords. Even that can be risky. E.g., I bought several tripod rings from unknown dealers on eBay because Canon's are ridiculously expensive, but one night I realized that one of them was flexing while my camera was mounted on it, and then I read of some breaking while in use. In the case of electronic components, I just don't think it is worth the risk. I buy brand-name cards from authorized dealers. I do buy non-OEM batteries, but only from sources I trust. (I have a pair of Pearstone batteries from B&H that have worked just fine for a year.)

[russellsnr]

For future reference - where?

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policie...unterfeit.html

Looked for the instruction on how to spot a fake card but came up blank, it used to be there but can't find it now. Sorry.

[jcuknz]

I used to buy all of my cards from a dealer in the channel isles. I have never had any problems with them but now the duty free limit has dropped from £18 to £15 when really it out to be more like £40 now I don't think they sell on ebay any more.
John

Yes it is tough when those tax men up the rates and previous allowances get smaller ... think of it this way it is helping to promote employment in your country With NZ it used to be $400 with GST at 12.5% .... now at 15% ...URRGH!

I suppose putting a $7 battery in a $2400 camera is a NO NO to some who value by price and not performance. I suspect much of the warnings you find in manuals is self protection. I don't expect much of a $7 batteries but I can buy ten for them instead of the $70 version and it is a matter of seconds to change a battery. The curse I find of batteries is keeping them all charged up despite the freedom of Li-Ion to top-up