07.27.08

Fastmemoryman account deleted from ebay?

Posted in fastmemorymanscam at 12:22 pm by blog

Well, it seems the ebay account “fastmemoryman” has gone…

However the guy behind it is still very much active, and just now trading under different accounts, for instance “emartbuy” is still very much alive.

If you google for fastmemoryman, this site is the first hit, which i’m sure was bad for business under that name.. On the other hand, if you google for emartbuy this site comes up third behind his .com and .co.uk sites.

To those of you who bought items from this guy and paid, only to see the account you bought from disappear – file a claim, you should get the money back immediately if the account has been deleted, and if not just file a dispute with your card issuer. It’s fairly common for african scammers to create accounts and then delete them again very quickly, i’ve been in a similar situation where the account i bought from or sold to has disappeared. For once, ebay/paypal seemed quite happy to refund, since they don’t stand to make any money from a deleted account.

As for fastmemoryman, I’m sure he will continue to defraud people under his many and varied aliases. We can only speculate as to what happened to his fastmemoryman account…. Did ebay finally do something due to all the complaints and bad feedback, or did he himself delete the account due to all the negative publicity?

It’s also worth noting that he lost his power seller status on the fastmemoryman account because the feedback dropped below 98%, and considering how many thousands of items he sold a month that’s an insane amount of unhappy customers/victims. This could also have made him want to drop the account.

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06.12.08

In Response To Bob

Posted in fastmemorymanscam at 1:31 pm by blog

I received the following post a few days ago:

Bob Latchford
 | 

I bought some memory off him – emartbuy UK and it’s fine. As for you calling him a scumbag seriously grow up. Works fine, was here fast and I’ve had no trouble with anything what so ever. Some people will just moan about anything I guess.

And I came across this site as I was trying to post some positive feedback on seller emartbuy.

From FastMemoryMan is also known as EMartBuy, 2008/06/08 at 8:48 PM

 

Out of interest, Bob…

How much memory did you buy, and what did the listing say? Could you post a link to the actual ebay listing you bought from?

I ask because, not everyone gets screwed… This guy sells a large number of products, and it is this volume plus the technical nature of the products that allows him to slip in garbage (on which he makes a much higher profit margin) while still maintaining a relatively good feedback profile. What percentage of people in the world do you think are…

• Technically competent enough to see through FMM’s lies about compatibility
• Bothered enough to kick up a fuss, considering the relatively low cost of the items
• Not taken in by his non technical lies, eg him trying to make you wait until its too late to file a paypal claim or leave feedback.

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05.20.08

In reply to a comment from “John”

Posted in fastmemorymanscam at 9:11 am by blog

 To quote someone who posted here: 

John |  | IP:

To put things in perspective: I ordered and got delivered exactly what I wanted within 10 days. This shop had more than 16.000 transactions last month. Still, 98% of the feedback is positive. But with such large quantities, only 2% of unsatisfied customers is still 320 people, which is a lot so that’s why a weblog like this gets a lot of input.

May 20, 7:57 AM

Fastmemoryman may have 16,000 transactions per month… But that’s still very few compared to a reputable memory vendor such as Crucial. I’m sure if some of the larger and more reputable vendors were selling junk, then they too would have hostile websites written about them. 

You also have to consider that he sells technology products, and the vast majority of people wouldn’t be sufficiently technically literate. Most people would believe his lies about their motherboard compatible, he tried to claim that my “MSI K8T Neo” motherboard doesn’t use the VIA K800 chipset, and that it actually uses a VIA 8xxx chipset, which corresponded to the part number of the IDE controller, the average customer is likely to believe his lies assuming he knows better than they do, and then they return the item at their own cost having paid for overpriced postage, leaving fastmemoryman with profit from the shipping costs and the original item to sell to the next unsuspecting victim.

Then there’s items which work, but poorly… A lot of people who have contacted me or posted to this site have bought flash cards advertised as branded goods, only to find that they’re fakes, many people wouldn’t notice this…

And some of the items perform poorly, such as the flash cards just mentioned… Many people have purchased cards advertised as a certain speed, only to find them to be laughably slow.

Some people have even received memory cards which are actually of a lower capacity, and have a corrupted FAT table to make them look bigger… Such cards corrupt badly once you reach the actual capacity point. Many people will take quite some time to fill a large card, and won’t notice the problem quickly. 

Then there’s over clocked processors, very few people will notice these unless they fail and they try returning them to the original manufacturer. 

Regarding postage costs, i ordered 3 strips of memory and was charged GBP6 per module for shipping. He claimed he couldn’t provide a postage discount because they were all processed separately. When they arrived  the 3 modules were in the same jiffy bag with GBP1.20 postage attached, assuming the jiffy bag cost GBP0.20 which is a very high estimate, thats GBP1.40 for shipping of all 3 items, yet he charged GBP18. 

You say you got what you wanted within 10 days…. Most of fastmemoryman’s listings make false claims about the item location. A lot of people have bought items that were supposed to be in their own country, only to find they were sent from a foreign country. You got you’re memory in 10 days, when i order from a reputable vendor it arrives next business day, 10 days is a ridiculous delivery time unless you live in the arctic or something.

The fact is, while he may occasionally get stocks of genuine decent quality items, the vast majority of what this guy sells is cheap unbranded or fake garbage, which he gets away with largely based on on the lack of technical knowledge among the majority of customers. He is perfectly willing to lie about what he’s selling in an attempt to rip off customers,  he massively overcharges customers and will try every dirty trick in the book to wring a profit out of unsuspecting victims.

So 2% of unsatisfied customers is already quite high, certainly higher than other memory vendors… Then you need to take into account the way the feedback system works and how he deals with it…

If you post a negative feedback against fastmemoryman he will respond in kind and then offer you a bribe to remove the feedback. Some people will take the bribe and cancel the feedback, many more won’t leave him negative for fear of having negative left for them (but isn’t ebay changing this system?). Some people have even been told to cancel disputes or leave positive feedback if they want to get a refund (which invariably they don’t get, since having cancelled the dispute they now have no comeback).

So what is his true percentage of unsatisfied customers? I would imagine it’s massively higher than the feedback numbers would suggest… 

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10.05.07

FastMemoryMan is also known as EMartBuy

Posted in fastmemorymanscam at 9:30 pm by blog

So FastMemoryMan has another ebay account called “EMartBuy”, most probably to make it harder for all the people who search for “fastmemoryman” and find sites like this one. More than a few people have either posted here, or emailed me separately to say they won’t be doing business with him having read this site.This second account is registered as being in the UK, which seems highly suspicious. Perhaps this account has something to do with the UK operation that he falsely claims is just his “shipping agent”.I also found some more information on him, this time written by an “ebay trusted reviewer”, you can read it at:
http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/FASTMEMORYMAN-scam-cpus-amd-intel-memory-computer_W0QQugidZ10000000004009354?ssPageName=BUYGD:CAT:-1:SEARCH:2  
Also while doing some other digging, it seems that his domain emartbuy.com is registered with the following details:

      EmartBuy Ltd
      Chetan Saraf
      135 N MAIN ST
      WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE, OH
      43160      US
      Phone: 614 5898253
      Email: sarafchirag@blueyonder.co.uk

Interestingly, that email address is a UK ISP. I’ve not checked it, but it’s strange that an american would have an account with a UK cable provider. 

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09.30.07

Dealing With FastMemoryMan

Posted in fastmemorymanscam at 8:46 pm by blog

So judging from the number of hits and comments I get, far too many people have been screwed over by FastMemoryMan…So here is the best of my advice to dealing with him…

•  Don`t send defective goods direct to his US address

If your in the UK send it to their UK address, despite his claims the UK office will forward the package on to him. Similarly, if your in Europe and shipping to the UK is cheaper than the US. The address for the UK office is:210B The Big Peg120 Vyse StreetBirminghamB18 6NF

•  Send the goods back BEFORE you file a PayPal dispute

PayPal’s system is very inflexible and favours the seller, it requires that you ship defective goods to the registered address, and using online tracking, all at your own expense. The PayPal terms of service state that tracking is only required for items over $250, however if you don`t use tracking, they will cancel your claim and give you no recourse. Similarly, all the forms on their website are only geared to accept a tracking number, there is no “this item is under $250 so i didn’t use tracking” option.

•  File negative feedback!

I cannot stress this enough, he HATES negative feedback. Often by filing negative feedback, he will ask you to remove it and often make you an offer. I and several other people managed to get full refunds this way, but perhaps you can screw him for more. If you do, we’d all love to hear about it! Also when you leave feedback, someone suggested that you should wait until the very last few minutes before the ability to leave feedback expires, and thus he’l have no chance to leave negative for you. 

•  Don’t believe his lies

This is the most important of all. FastMemoryMan is a compulsive liar, and he will try every trick in the book to screw you out of your money. For instance, he tried to trick me into believing the motherboard for which i purchased memory doesn’t have the chipset he listed as compatible, but infact has a completely different incompatible chipset, and thus it is my fault the memory does not work. Checking with the motherboard manufacturer’s website quickly exposed this lie.He does not run a big company, his name is Chetan Seraf, and he is a one man band in the US. He is also associated with a small company in the UK.When you return defective goods, he will give you an RMA number, this is always “RMA D4”, and is not in any way unique to you. There is no returns department, it is just the one guy. He will often mail you under different names claiming to be someone else, so don’t fall for it.

•  Report his listings to ebay

They probably won’t do anything, but enough complaints may have some effect against him.

•  Report his fraudulent listings to manufacturers and the relevant authorities.

Quite often he will make false claims about a branded good, this is fraud and should be reported to the proper authorities and the manufacturer he is counterfeiting. Most reputable companies won’t take too kindly to a fraudster like this selling cheap unbranded goods and trying to pass them off as theirs. It harms their reputation and they need to know about it.

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06.05.07

Fast Memory Man SUCKS

Posted in fastmemorymanscam at 8:19 am by blog

It looks like fastmemoryman now has his own “sucks” website, set up by one of the many people he has defrauded:

http://fastmemorymansucks.com/

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04.23.07

More people screwed by fastmemoryman

Posted in fastmemorymanscam at 10:27 am by blog

I stumbled across the site:

http://www.crap-companies.co.uk/ebay.htm

This lists fastmemoryman and details some of his fraud, and how useless ebay/paypal are at responding to them.

Permalink 146 Comments

04.21.07

Fastmemoryman also sells overclocked processors

Posted in fastmemorymanscam at 8:02 pm by blog

Reading through:
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:y7SFs1uPM3IJ:forums.amd.com/lofiversion/index.php/t48618.html+fastmemoryman&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=61&client=safari
It seems that fastmemoryman has also been taking lower clock rate AMD processors, and then overclocking them and trying to pass them off as faster (and therefore more expensive) chips.

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04.19.07

More lies from fastmemoryman?

Posted in fastmemorymanscam at 4:47 pm by blog

As you can no doubt see, it is possible to post comments against my posts to this blog. These comments then come to me for moderation, mainly to prevent spam, and the great majority of comments received have been supportive and from people similarly screwed over by fastmemoryman.

Well, now i got a post from someone called “Jack”. Now jack posted using the email address “jack@tiscali.co.uk”, which is not a valid email address. He also posted from the IP address 69.210.209.137 which resolves to dsl-69-210-209-137.dsl.wotnoh.ameritech.net, that is: an american ADSL line.

Now i thought it rather fishy that someone from an american IP would be posting claiming to be from a UK email address, so i checked the mail headers in some of my correspondence from fastmemoryman:

Received: from unknown (HELO elmobile5) (fastmemoryman@sbcglobal.net@69.210.209.137 with login)
by smtp108.sbc.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; 16 Apr 2007 14:17:17 -0000

As you can see, the IP address is the same, so fastmemoryman is trying to post lies to my blog supporting his fraud. So here is what he posted:

The seller has about 98 feedback and sells memory cheaper than anyone
else. Try talking to the customers service instead of emails and you’ll
get the best explaination to your problems. These high density modules
that you’re talking about seem to have better performance than Branded
Kingston as we use them in our systems. Yes – they have limitations –
but so do Kingston memory. Would you blame Kingston if your computers
did not work with their memory against working with FastMM’s stuff? Get
your facts straight!

And here is the reply which i tried to send to his email address, which bounced:

Your submission contained a UK email address, but came from an american IP
address which looks very suspicious to me.

He has this level of feedback because most people are technically
illiterate and are easily fooled. For instance, he tried to claim that my
K8T Neo-FSR motherboard contains a via 8237 chipset, when infact it
contains a K8T800. He clearly lists the K8T800 as being compatible, so he
was trying to con me into thinking i was using a motherboard he hadnt
claimed was compatible (and thus the incompatibility was my own fault).
Many people would have been taken in by this, and assumed themselves to be
in the wrong.

You mention Kingston memory, if you buy a module from Kingston, then it
will be a branded Kingston module, and it will also be compatible with all
the machines Kingston claims it to be compatible with. Contrast this to
fastmemoryman’s memory which:

Is NOT compatible with my K8T800 board, despite his claims

Is NOT branded Micron memory (micron do not make high density memory), it
is instead an unbranded module built using some Micron components.

As for performance, when you are comparing like for like (same clockrate,
same timings) high density memory will always be slower due to it’s basic
design. If your branded Kingston memory is slower, then it’s almost
certainly running at a lower rate, or with more lax latency settings.

And you mention speaking to customer service. I have done this, they have
repeatedly lied and tried to con me:

They initially claimed my K8T800 based motherboard *WAS* compatible.

They later claimed my motherboard (an MSI K8T Neo-FSR) uses an incompatible
chipset, when infact it uses the VIA K8T800 listed on their original
listing.

They claimed i could not send the item to the UK address, and yet when i
called up the UK company they were happy to accept it. This was clearly
designed to discourage me from sending it back, by artificially inflating
costs.

They claimed the item was not defective, but refused to disclose the
procedure they used to determine this.

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04.10.07

The plot thickens

Posted in fastmemorymanscam at 8:49 pm by blog

So still having no luck getting my money back from “fastmemoryman” aka emartbuy, i decided to do some research.
It turns out, that he has defrauded many more people, the evidence is all over the internet… A quick google for “fastmemoryman” reveals several people who have been ripped off by him.

It would seem that he bulk buys tech items, computer memory and memory cards etc, which varies wildly in terms of quality and source. Some of it is good quality branded goods, while other stuff is cheap generic garbage. He attains his high ebay score by selling some of the quality goods at a minimal profit, while also selling cheap unbranded garbage and sometimes masquerading it as branded goods. In my case, he got hold of some DDR SDRAM modules which happened to use Micron branded components.
Now these particular components in question, are intended by Micron to be used to construct 512MB memory modules, some unethical and nameless company has bought a bulk load of these modules, and double stacked them to produce 1GB “high density” modules. Now this is all well and good, cheap unbranded generic memory with poor compatibility has it’s place and if he sold it as that it wouldn’t be so bad. The problem stems from his method of selling, he claims this memory is manufacturerd by Micron, who are a reputable memory manufacturer. Now while some of the components may have been manufacturerd by Micron the final module is not, and the components are being used outside of Micron recommendations. To use a car analogy, A Ford is still a Ford even when it has Michelin tyres fitted. It does not become a Michelin car simply because some of the components were made by Michelin. Ford assemble the various components into a cohesive unit recognised as a car, and Michelin could not be held responsible if the tyres Ford selected for use on their car were intended for different uses, for instance if Ford put Michelin branded tyres intended for use on pedal bikes on the car.

A good description of what high density memory is, why it is almost always unbranded, and why reputable manufacturers such as Micron or Samsung would never put their name to it can be found here:
http://reviews.ebay.com/Myth-Low-Density-vs-High-Density-memory-modules_W0QQugidZ10000000001236178

Another way he scams unsuspecting buyers, is in the postage.
I bought 3 memory modules from him, and he charged me £6 (6 British Pounds) per item for the postage, even tho i purchased 3 items at once. These items arrived in a single envelope (he saved money on packaging) and with postage stamps attached to a value of £0.95 (the cost to ship a single module in the same way is also £0.95). Thus, he reduced his shipping costs by two thirds by sending the three items at once, and yet passed none of these savings on to the purchaser.
Also, £6 is rather an unreasonable cost shipping, considering that the padded envelope can be worth no more than £0.30, and let’s add in £0.75 handling – a very high estimate. This makes the shipping cost to be £2 for a single item, and £2 for 3 items. Yet he charges £6 for one item, and £18 for 3 items, netting himself £16 profit at no extra work.

Add to this his “returns policy” which states that seller pays for return postage and does not receive their original shipping costs back. Thus, even if the buyer returns the item and receives a refund according to this policy, fastmemoryman makes a profit of £4 on each defective memory module sold and returned, while still having the defective module to use against another unsuspecting buyer.

Incidentally, this policy is illegal under the UK’s “Sale Of Goods Act” which states that a merchant selling an item must cover any and all costs associated with repair, reimbursement or replacement of defective goods, for the protection of consumers.

So back to my case, despite repeatedly requesting to send the item to the UK address, fastmemoryman insisted that i must send it internationally at my own cost. However, i called up the company he uses for distribution in the UK and they were more than happy to accept a return. So why would he say otherwise? The only reason can be, that he wants to discourage people from claiming refunds or replacement by hiking up the shipping cost.

So i sent the item to the UK address, and it got forwarded back to fastmemoryman. I then receive an email stating:

Your returned item was received, tested, and determined to be in working order. It seems there is a compatibility problem since the module is working on our end. The
module you ordered is high density (dual in line 128×4). Your motherboard only supports low density modules (64×8).

Your Dell Dimension 3000 has an INTEL 865 chipset, your Dimension 3100 has and INTEL 915GV, and your MSI K8T Neo-FSR has a VIA 8235/8237 chipset that only support low
density memory. The specs may be right but you ordered high density and you need low density. Below is the compatibility list from your auction. You can see that
these chipset are not listed:

Known to work with:

VIA P4X266A,
VIA KT266 (except ASUS KT266)
VIA KT333 (except ASUS KT333)
VIA KT600 (except ASUS KT600)
VIA PT800
VIA PT880
SIS 645
SIS 648, 648FX
SIS 746FX
SIS 756
VIA KM400
K8T800
K8M800
KT 880
KT 400 (except ASUS KT400)
KT 400A (except ASUS KT400A)
SIS 661FX
SIS 655
SIS 650GX
SIS 650
NFORCE 3 250GB
ULI Chipsets
Intel 915
Geforce 6100
NFORCE 4 SLI

You can either upgrade to a compatible low density module for an additional $18 USD each which includes shipping, or receive a refund according to our refunds policy
(see Ebay) for your returned item. Please make payment at the link below. In the payment for box we need “PAYMENT FOR 1GB LOW DENSITY UPGRADE “.

So here he tries to claim that the machines in which i have tested the memory are not compatible. He claims that the Dimension 3100 has an Intel 915GV chipset, and yet the Intel 915 is listed as being compatible, you’d think these chipsets would be close enough together as to be virtually the same. He also claims, that my MSI K8T Neo-FSR uses an incompatible chipset, in this case a VIA 8235/8237. Now, someone less stubborn or with less technical knowledge may simply accept this, and pay him extra or claim a partial refund (and therefore he profits via his extortionate shipping and gets to sell the lowgrade memory to some other unsuspecting victim). But i thought i’d dig into it further. It turns out, that the VIA 8235/8237 chips are not full motherboard chipsets, and that they are “South Bridge” chips, which are the motherboard components that controll USB, IDE, SATA and the like. As opposed to the “North Bridge” chips which are what interface between the CPU and Memory.
So, i find the MSI specs page for my K8T Neo-FSR motherboard, which is at:
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K8T_Neo-FSR
Now if you look closely at that spec, you will see it uses a VIA K8T800 chipset, the same VIA K8T800 chipset which is clearly listed as being compatible on his original listing.

So he has tried to trick me into thinking my motherboard is not among the machines listed as being compatible, even tho it is.
He has also failed, despite repeated requests, to detail exactly how he tested the memory and came to the conclusion that it was not defective. I already stated that the memory would in some cases function for several hours before causing a crash, if all he has done is inserted the memory and let the machine do the usual crude memory test most PC’s do at startup, then of course it would appear to be working.

I will make more posts as and when there is progress, for now i will make one last request for a full refund, before reporting this to UK Trading Standards.
I have also taken it upon myself to report fastmemoryman’s fraudulent listings to ebay, that is the listings where he is mislabelling a low grade unbranded high density memory module as having been produced by a reputable brand, and i am in the process of contacting these memory manufacturers to inform them of how this guy is misrepresenting their brands with low quality goods.

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