Aug 30 2012, 02:16 PM, updated 14y ago
Maybe some here call me stupid or just laugh their ass off, but I think this can help others to avoid being fooled. So let me tell you guys my story and how I wasted a whole weekend, to buy a phone and almost lost RM 2500.
The plan was to buy new phones for our little company. We are three and all of us are using Android phones. But all have one in common, they are fairly old. The plan was to be "always online", with new postpaid contracts and better phones. The combo offers from Digi, Maxis and Co suck - so we decided to better buy the phones separately.
The Galaxy SIII sounded interesting, but might be more phone we need to a price between RM 1890 to RM 2199. A Galaxy SII would be fine too, or even better the Galaxy Nexus. It matches with some specs with the Galaxy SIII and is about RM 150 cheaper than a Galaxy SII. I found a good shop in Subang via Lelong, the Nexus was offered for RM 1198,- with some freebies. So I suggested to my partner (it was Thursday) to go Friday evening to the Shop and get three Galaxy Nexus for RM 1200 a piece. But he was busy and heard, that a friend of a good friend, bought a Galaxy SII for RM 750. I was surprised, the lowest I was able to find was RM 1350. Suddenly the Nexus looked like an expensive option for him and I agreed to go on Saturday Morning to Digital Mall. The place where he believed the IT guy of one of our customers, also bought his SII weeks ago for also stunning RM 900.
It is Satuday around 11:45 and we arrive at Digital Mall. I ask in every shop about the Galaxy SII and the Nexus. Nobody had the Nexus in stock and the price for Galaxy SII was between 1350 and 1480. Not a surprise I thought and told my partner, that his friend bought a whatever Samsung Galaxy, but not a SII. But he was still convinced. I started to get fed up of that and told him to get the guy on the phone. It took some time to get the guy who new the lucky man with the RM 750 Galaxy SII. He provided him the phone number and t hat guy confirmed, its an Galaxy SII and he didn't buy it at digital mall. He explained us, he bought it at the entrance of petaling street. Next to a bridge, there is a shop with a big SAMSUNG sign. He also told us, that he is very happy with his SII. But the manual was french, so maybe thats the explanation for the low price. It might be, that its meant to be for the french market.
Around 1:30pm we arrived at China Town and with the help of this guy over the phone, we managed to find the shop. I thought this is a big mobile shop, which must be crowded with customers. Selling re-imported or reconditioned mobile sets for insanely low prices. But it was just a small mini shop in front of a mall. The whole ground floor of the mall full of mobile phone shops.
So we asked the guy for the price of a Galaxy SII. He replied "Just RM 650". We booth looked at each other. My partner and friend smiling, I rather in disbelief. He was right, I was wrong. I asked about the Nexus and he has stock for RM 800. Another surprise. So my partner dared to ask for the holy mobile phone grail: "How much is the Galaxy SIII?" "The Galaxy SIII is RM 1100, Hari Raya Promo", wtf? "And if we buy three?", my partner responded. "Then I can make RM 1000 one set". In disbelief, I asked to try one set. He came back with a Galaxy SIII in a Samsung box. I switched on the phone after inserting the battery and was greeting with the typical Samsung splash screen and boot sequence. The screen contrast look great and the display high resolution. Android felt snappy and fast, all checks on the phone proved its a real Samsung SIII. But the case looked cheap. I never checked out the SIII so much, I was looking for the Nexus before. I also asked for a Nexus set, which started with its typical boot animation and all info through settings was correct. I asked "Is this a real SIII?" The salesman responded "Friend! Come on lah. Not to worry. All original... you see or not?" Then I noticed no 16GB internal memory, but the salesman destroyed my concerns and showed me that no memory card was yet inserted. I was sceptical, the set had a charger from a company callled "Anycom". We found out a South American mobile phone provider, some labels on the box were in spanish. We left with 3 Samsung Galaxy SIII for RM 1000 and a receipt. The conversation while driving back home was, why it was so cheap. Maybe some grey imported stuff meant for the south american mobile provider. Maybe fake? But how can he have three different Samsung models looking like real one, we thought thats impossible. At about 3pm, I reached my place.
Back at home, the first thing was to connect to my wifi and install a benchmark from the market. I used the quadrant benchmark and I noticed even without doing the full test, that something is wrong here. The screen resolution was 854*480. The SIII has an HD display with 1280*720 pixels. After running the benchmark, it became evident, that the phone just gets a third of the originals performance. Also the internal memory was already full, after installing 5 programs from the market. It became more than clear, that this is a fake. (http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2012/07/10/hdc-galaxy-s3-fake-is-not-real-samsung-model/)
I called my partner and explained to him, we decided to go back and have a serious conversation with that guy. At about 5pm I was again in a car, heading to china town...
Ok, as this is getting long, let me say thats the end of Part 1. Let me know if you like to hear the rest of the story. It ends on Sunday at about 7pm :-)
This post has been edited by HolgiB: Aug 30 2012, 02:24 PM
My bad experience wth fake Samsung Phones
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