Warning.. WD HC530 14Tb at too good to be true pricing

[tjsgifan]

Hi All,
I don't know if this is permitted here on the forum or not, but I have recently been offered a number of Western Digital WD 14TB DC HC530 SATA Data Center Hard Drive WUH721414ALE604 / P/N 0F31156

If you check the serial number on HGST website Warranty/RMA and they show up as Invalid Serial, then there is a very good chance they are stolen goods.

There are a number of Ebay outlets for the drives and the manufacturer is taking action at this time to recover the goods.

I was in the process of buying a large QTY and raised a support query with my local WD office and was advised of the situation. They are an odd SKU with an approximate manufacture date of late April 2020.

I have incident number at WD if you wish to follow this up.

Please be warned!

 

[sparx]

How much is too good to be true nowadays?

 

[i386]

If you check the serial number on HGST website Warranty/RMA and they show up as Invalid Serial, then there is a very good chance they are stolen goods.

Not necessariliy stolen; oem drive serial numbers are also reported as invalid because the waranty is handled by the oems.

Edit: fixed a typo

 

[tjsgifan]

Your right i386 - not necessarily stolen, but i'm just passing on the information I have confirmed. Some manufacturer's report drives as OEM drives, and something along the lines you should refer to your original vendor on Warranty pages, which I'm familiar with seeing and may purchase despite the lack of warranty, but in this instance as I was looking at buying 1000 of them, I wanted to be 100% certain they were legitimate rather than just OEM drives as there is no OEM part code showing on the labels.

When I checked with WD with one of the batch i'm referring to, manufacturing date between of April 24th to 28th April 2020, and only part code WUH721414ALE604 / P/N 0F31156 (This is quite a unique SKU, not many stockists of them other than a lot of Ebay vendors selling from the same batch).

The response I had from WD in writing is :

We have received a response from our headquarters.
We have checked some of these devices and all of the devices warranty has been voided due to theft.

I strongly suggest you to not purchase these drives.

They are going on Ebay for typically $250 - $330.00 which is a good retail / broker price for a 14Tb SATA DC drive.

I'm just offering some words of warning - if anyone is happy to take the risk on handling stolen goods then that is their own choice to make, but for those who aren't I'm just suggesting they check or ask the vendor for verification on this model of drive with these specs.

If the guy's who did steal the drives get $250.00 for all 4000 units that were stolen, then that's a $1 million bucks going into the wrong hands as far as i'm concerned.

 

[Rand__]

Interesting - I wondered why there were so many 'new' ones for relatively low price - was looking for the catch

 

[rickliu2000]

Thanks for the info

 

[modder man]

That is unfortunate. I had been eyeing up a group of these to expand my primary array.

 

[nemesishere]

I just assumed if they’re new and super cheap they’re knock offs somehow. They’re cheap hard drives inside with a case on the outside from a junked drive.

 

[Dreece]

So, what should one do once they realise they have in their hands a stolen drive? who refunds you?...

I'd hate to be in the shoes of those capitalists who like to grab everything in bulk at discount rates to then make a profit by reselling... karma can be a real b***h.

 

[BlueFox]

I just assumed if they’re new and super cheap they’re knock offs somehow. They’re cheap hard drives inside with a case on the outside from a junked drive.

That's not really possible on helium drives that are welded shut and still not particularly feasible on regular drives.

 

[Dreece]

@BlueFox aint half wrong on attempting to open them, looks a royal nightmare...

 

[MountainDew]

I just came home and passed on these drives as they were reported as invalid serial numbers. Last thing I want to worry about is not being able to RMA a drive when it happens. Thanks OP and others that have shared insight on this.

 

[Samir]

Interesting. I ran into someone on reddit selling similar drives with an 'invalid serial number' and they were sealed. Probably part of the same batch somehow.

 

[Samir]

If the guy's who did steal the drives get $250.00 for all 4000 units that were stolen, then that's a $1 million bucks going into the wrong hands as far as i'm concerned.

Isn't it illegal to sell stolen goods on ebay? Why didn't WD ask you for more info on this to get the listing pulled?

It seems that companies don't do enough to fight the fraud. I remember back when I was looking for an Intel NIC on ebay and found tons and tons of fakes, even sealed fakes that used legitimate Intel markings and numbers, but not in the right order so when I contact Intel they knew it was fake. And yet, Intel never asked for the seller name or anything to have the items pulled from ebay and to take action against the fake makers. I don't get it.

 

[ashpro242]

In the US market, I have seen that for a short period of time the price dropped and actually I take advantage of the deal instead of being suspicious.
I bought 3 of those hard drive and I enjoy it. If you care about the warranty, then you have tow pay double to buy from BestBuy any other places.

 

[zack$]

Isn't it illegal to sell stolen goods on ebay? Why didn't WD ask you for more info on this to get the listing pulled?

It seems that companies don't do enough to fight the fraud. I remember back when I was looking for an Intel NIC on ebay and found tons and tons of fakes, even sealed fakes that used legitimate Intel markings and numbers, but not in the right order so when I contact Intel they knew it was fake. And yet, Intel never asked for the seller name or anything to have the items pulled from ebay and to take action against the fake makers. I don't get it.

Boils down to cold hard dollars and cents. For Intel, it probably doesn't hurt their revenue so why throw money away pursuing one guy when ten more will pop up?

 

[madbrain]

Could they simply be drives that were shucked out of enclosures ? I think the serial on the enclosure is the one that is used for warranty. There may be a way to tie the external S/N to the internal one, though.

 

[BlueFox]

Could they simply be drives that were shucked out of enclosures ? I think the serial on the enclosure is the one that is used for warranty. There may be a way to tie the external S/N to the internal one, though.

No, WD only sells white-label drives with a different model number as externals now.

 

[Nom]

I was looking at buying 1000 of them

I'm amazed that anyone spending a quarter of a million dollars on hard drives would even consider the idea of buying them from anywhere other than the official distributor

 

[tjsgifan]

I'm amazed that anyone spending a quarter of a million dollars on hard drives would even consider the idea of buying them from anywhere other than the official distributor

Generally it's excess inventory from trusted sources with full warranty. This was thought to be the same, but still like to check.

Say you need 4500 drives at price from the manufacturer of $100.00 each, but was told by the sales rep who is trying to hit his target for the month that if you buy 5000 (the next price break point) the price would be $90.00 each.

What would you do? The cost is the same and you get 500 more. You then go sell the other 500 that in effect cost you nothing compared with what you had budgeted to buy the 4500 drives and the 500 drives would be fully legitimate with full warranty and can be resold without issue.

It's not always that simple of course, but there are companies around the world doing this all day long.