2016-09-26 
       
       Improve the World by Complaining 
       
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       I've bought recently lots of cheap trinkets from mainly Chinese
       eBay sellers. In about 1-3 cases out of 10 there is something
       objectively wrong with the item or it doesn't fit the description,
       so I send a reclamation and typically get my money back.
       
       "Well, what do you expect?" I expect to get what I pay for. What it
       says on the tin. "Why waste your time?" Firstly, I have time, and
       secondly, I enjoy it. The small act of calling bullshit and taking
       a few dollars worth of stuff from a seller who wants to spread the
       gospel of "bullshitting is fine, caveat emptor" makes the world a
       tiny bit better place. If I'm scammed, it's not only my right but
       my responsibility to all who might follow me to do something about
       it.
       
       [edit: The rest of the post details the process of buying
       specifically a fake 64GB thumb drive. This is a waste of time:
       although the drives have 16GB of working memory, it stops working
       after a while. If you want to do it anyway to waste the time and
       money of the sellers, hats of to you of course.]
       
       If you don't want to buy anything specific and still want to better
       the world by complaining, here's my tip: USB thumb drives . A small
       step by step guide:
       
       * Go to eBay, and search for "64GB_metal_USB_drive". You can pick
       anything you like, but I like the simple ones about halfway
       through the results. Remember to sort by price, and buy something
       that is too good to be true. No point in buying a 64GB drive for
       the price of a 64GB drive... you'd risk getting a real one, heaven
       forbid! Buy it,[Don't] wait for a few weeks.
       
       * Before you plug it in, make sure you've disabled_autorun,
       because some of these drives contain a
       virus_that_sends_your_secrets_to_China or something similar.
       
       * Analyze the drive with h2testw, a program that gauges the actual
       capacity of a thumb drive by writing and reading test data. I
       consider this step important to maintain your moral high ground:
       maybe, due to some freak accident, you actually get a 64GB thumb
       drive, in which case, congratulations!
       
       * Format your drive to have a partition that is slightly smaller
       that the size reported by h2testw. Voilà, you have a 8/16/32GB
       shiny pretty thumb drive!
       
       * Ask for a return, stating the problem. You will probably get a
       copypasta requesting a picture of the product, which of course
       doesn't make any sense, but humor them, or not. When asked if you
       want a refund or a new one, get a refund to keep the cycle in
       control: your case will expire if you wait for the replacement and
       want to complain about it.
       
       * When you get the refund, leave a negative feedback. There is no
       need to pretend being ok just because you got a refund — they tried
       to scam you and put your data and possibly privacy in jeopardy.
       After this they might send a sob story about how life is hard in
       China and the employee will get a salary cut for negative feedback,
       which is, true or not, just all the more reason to give a negative
       feedback. If they don't send a refund in sensible time, escalate to
       eBay or Paypal within time limits.
       
       * Rinse and repeat until you start to get actual 64GB drives, or
       drown in fake ones.