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G5 Drive Bracket - SCAM WARNING!

cb911

cb911

macrumors 601
Original poster
Mar 12, 2002
4,134
4
BrisVegas, Australia
Sorry for the long post, this is just the same content as I posted on my site...

It was early in the year - I had big plans for a new G5 PowerMac setup that would break the 1TB internal storage barrier. I chose to use a G5 Drive Bracket. At $59 the price is good, but being in Australia the price for shipping wasn't. So I started looking around for somewhere that I could get it a bit cheaper... oh - there's one on eBay!

Early March and I'd paid for the item, recieving it soon after.

Fast forward to mid-April. I've finally gathered all the necessary hardware, and I even had a 4-day weekend to get everything installed! :D* Things were looking good... until I decided to test-fit the drives into the bracket before installing it.

g5-drive-01.jpg


g5-drive-05.jpg


Oh. My. Goodness. This bracket was a real shocker. Quality testing? I think a 5 year old child 'manufactured' this bracket! :eek:* It was loose, there was no tight fit as was described in the installation manual. One side had even been cut short, cutting into a screw hole. This called for a stern email.
g5-drive-03.jpg


g5-drive-04.jpg


You can see the precision manufacturing... :rolleyes:

I had a funny feeling about the bracket since I got it. The G5 Drive Bracket team promptly responded to my email in which I included pictures of the bracket I'd recieved. Now here's the important part - G5DriveBracket.com does not manufacture brackets from white/opaque polycarbonate! All of their brackets are made from a transparent/clear polycarbonate. The G5 Drive Bracket team also does not ship or use silver screws to mount the drives in the bracket. So - the bracket I'd been sold was a big FAKE! I've confirmed*these details*with them via email.

Obvoiously I was just a bit mad at discovering this. Straight away I ordered a genuine G5 Drive Bracket from the online store, I'd already lost too much time messing about with this fake. I'm in the process of attempting to obtain a refund for this imitation bracket.

So - things to watch out for include:
  • Brackets manufactured from White/coloured/opaque plastic
  • Brackets that are loose-fitting
  • Kits that include silver screws

There was also a business card size CD included in the package that was sent to me with Fantasia on it apparently. Great way to get exposure - team up with the racketeers. :mad:
Actually, to be fair, I'm not sure if they're in league with the scammers, but still - this is an unfortunate bit of exposure for Redux Films.

g5-drive-02.jpg


I haven't mentioned the eBay user's ID, because I really don't know how they are involved in all this. But their non-response to my Item Not As Desicribed complaint isn't going down too well...

I really hope this isn't a wide-spread operation & that others haven't been sucked-in by this. But leave a comment if you can shed any light on this. Hopefully this post will help make others aware of this scam.

I'll post an update when this is resolved one way or the other.
 
cb911 said:
Now here's the important part - G5DriveBracket.com does not manufacture brackets from white/opaque polycarbonate! All of their brackets are made from a transparent/clear polycarbonate.
Click to expand...
Um, explain to me how a lack of colorant in plastic makes it a fake? White or transparent, it is made out of polycarbonate. If you ask me I would say the factory that produced it skimped on the colorant. If that is all you have to go on, well, to be nice I'll just say good luck on that...I would say the screwhole however is just cause for complaint. To call them scammers would be a bit harsh, IMO. Just shoddy product dealers.
 
jadekitty24 said:
Um, explain to me how a lack of colorant in plastic makes it a fake? White or transparent, it is made out of polycarbonate. If you ask me I would say the factory that produced it skimped on the colorant. If that is all you have to go on, well, to be nice I'll just say good luck on that...I would say the screwhole however is just cause for complaint. To call them scammers would be a bit harsh, IMO. Just shoddy product dealers.
Click to expand...


I would say that great CD of fantasia makes it a fake. Though maybe Apple will incorporate this type of advertising soon? :)
 
Ouch on the scam. Hope you can get your money back.

And the problem was the fake has colorant in it where as the real should not. It is hard to accidentally ad the wrong amount of colorant when you don't use any!

There was also a second clue to being fake, the screws were not the right kind.

The chances of both those nearly impossible manufacturing mistakes means it is almost definitely fake.
 
jadekitty24 said:
Um, explain to me how a lack of colorant in plastic makes it a fake? White or transparent, it is made out of polycarbonate. If you ask me I would say the factory that produced it skimped on the colorant. If that is all you have to go on, well, to be nice I'll just say good luck on that...I would say the screwhole however is just cause for complaint. To call them scammers would be a bit harsh, IMO. Just shoddy product dealers.
Click to expand...

It's a fake because there are no product dealers. There's only one place that manfactures G5 Drive Brackets - G5DriveBracket.com. And I emailed them, they have confirmed that they only use clear/transparent polycarbonate. They have also confirmed that they do not supply silver screws with their brackets.

This is a scam - someone has obviously been trying to make these brackets in their garage and pass them off as the real thing, failing miserably in the production process. And if someone did actaully use one of these - I'd just hate to think what the Hard Drives would be going through flopping around inside the computer.

Also something to keep in mind - if these 'scammers' have realised the mistake of using a coloured plactic, they could now be using a clear one instead! So watch out for loose-fitting brackets! If it's anything as loose as this one was, believe me, you'll know something's not right.

The genuine Bracket I ordered should arrive today, I'll install it tomorrow night and let you know exactly what kind of 'tight fit' it should have.
 
I'm a satisfied user of the G5 Drive Bracket, and I can too vouch for the fact that the eBay version that you got is fake. The actual G5 Drive Bracket product is far superior to the shoddy eBay rip-off! The rip-off is so bad, it's almost funny.

Don't worry CB911, once you get your genuine G5 Drive Bracket kit, you'll be pleased with it.
 
well, the genuine Bracket arrived, and I've got it all installed now - everything was a great fit, there's no movement at all in the drives or bracket.





Only thing that sucks is that the eBay user who sold me the bracket hasn't responded to the Item Not As Described Complaint. I could escalate this to a claim, but then there's a US$25 fee so I'd only get US$11.96 back out of US$55.91 (including postage). This is really just a hassle to deal with people like this, I'm not really worried about getting all the money back.

But is there anything else I can do to see if this guy will give me a refund? Any ideas - appreciated.
 
cb911 said:
well, the genuine Bracket arrived, and I've got it all installed now - everything was a great fit, there's no movement at all in the drives or bracket.





Only thing that sucks is that the eBay user who sold me the bracket hasn't responded to the Item Not As Described Complaint. I could escalate this to a claim, but then there's a US$25 fee so I'd only get US$11.96 back out of US$36.96. This is really just a hassle to deal with people like this, I'm not really worried about getting all the money back.

But is there anything else I can do to see if this guy will give me a refund? Any ideas - appreciated.
Click to expand...
Instigate a claim over a PayPal for a chargeback or whatever?
 
actaully, scratch that - it's been more that 45 days after payment so it doesn't look like I can do anything through PayPal. :(

One thing I did notice though, is that the payment was made to DSP Films, Inc. which are the people who've registered and run reduxfilms.com. So it looks like they're crappy "redux's" weren't selling well enough so they've had to setup shop in someone's garage and scam a few people with imitation G5 Drive Brackets! :mad:

$11 is better than nothing, but if anyone's got some other ideas...
 
cb911 said:
well, the genuine Bracket arrived, and I've got it all installed now - everything was a great fit, there's no movement at all in the drives or bracket.





Only thing that sucks is that the eBay user who sold me the bracket hasn't responded to the Item Not As Described Complaint. I could escalate this to a claim, but then there's a US$25 fee so I'd only get US$11.96 back out of US$55.91 (including postage). This is really just a hassle to deal with people like this, I'm not really worried about getting all the money back.

But is there anything else I can do to see if this guy will give me a refund? Any ideas - appreciated.
Click to expand...


Good gracious, how much storage is that?
 
well that's 1.4TB all up. not too bad. :D But it's setup in RAID 10 so effectively I have ~600GB of redundant storage plus the 200GB boot drive that's in the #1 Apple drive bay.
 
Well I've posted more details about this now to hopefully warn others about this...

The eBay user involved goes by the name macjunkiecom. Watch out for this user!

Also involved is DSP Films Inc. who I'm guessing that "VJ DMCA" works for as he was the one I corresponded with when I had questions about the item. The payment was made through DSP Films using PayPal. Also be aware that DSP Films are registrants of their various child sites and ReduxFilms.com. I don't think that any of their sites, or anything they say is to be trusted.

Get the full details here:
http://www.postpixel.com.au/2006/05/02/g5-drive-racket/
http://www.postpixel.com.au/2006/05/11/g5-drive-racket-part-2/
 
jadekitty24 said:
Um, explain to me how a lack of colorant in plastic makes it a fake? White or transparent, it is made out of polycarbonate.
Click to expand...

It's a scam to the extent that it claims to be the product that this G5DriveBracket.com makes.... Because it seems pretty clear that it is not authentic. Of course, "G5 Drive Bracket" is a pretty generic name...what else are you going to call it?

So in all likelihood, unless they said that it was the same bracket as sold on that website, sadly, the people who sold the OP this can probably make a good case that they delivered on a "G5 Drive Bracket," and made no claim to quality which was violated by their shoddy product....
 
check the eBay listing -
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8770219207

If I really wanted to be picky I could have filed a dispute on the fact that the colour is significantly not as described.

But the main thing..

Extensive testing/system monitoring for temperature/heat issues have shown NO problems. No heat or power issues have been detected during our testing or in the hundreds of real world installations even under 24/7 full work load. This item is brand new with a one year warranty.
Click to expand...

1 year warranty? Who will give me the warranty? The seller has not responded to my emails, G5DriveBracket.com did not make this bracket. So that leaves me with this fake bracket. I'm pretty sure that they didn't test in hundreds of real world installations either.

So there you have it. Scam.
 
mkrishnan said:
It's a scam to the extent that it claims to be the product that this G5DriveBracket.com makes.... Because it seems pretty clear that it is not authentic. Of course, "G5 Drive Bracket" is a pretty generic name...what else are you going to call it?

So in all likelihood, unless they said that it was the same bracket as sold on that website, sadly, the people who sold the OP this can probably make a good case that they delivered on a "G5 Drive Bracket," and made no claim to quality which was violated by their shoddy product....
Click to expand...

You can see the photos on the eBay Auction that they are of the actual "genuine" G5 Drive Bracket (clear polycarbonate, etc) - and that they don't match the actual product shipped. And the genuine product has been around for a while. I also believe that the documentation that can be seen in a photo is also a copy of the genuine product's. What the OP got was not what was shown in the auction photos.

A google search will bring up the genuine product, so you can argue that the auction was misleading at the least, and defrauding.
 
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