Is my new 4TB My Passport drive a counterfeit

Portable Drives My Passport
1

Hi guys, I thought Id posted this yesterday, but I now cant see it, maybe as a new user I didnt post it correctly, so Im posting this below again.

Hi, Can you help me?
I’ve bought a Western Digital 4TB My Passport Drive off a seller on eBay, now that I’ve received it I’m highly suspicious that it may be counterfeit.
A month ago I bought a similar item off John Lewis and that came in a White and Yellow box. Then a few days after that I purchased a similar drive off an eBay seller and that also came in a White and Yellow box. Both of these drives had various leaflets inside giving user and warranty information. I believe these two drives are genuine WD products.
BUT the one I’ve received today looks highly suspicious. It came in a Brown box about twice the size of the WD White and Yellow boxes. It had no user or warranty instructions with it. All that was in this Brown box was a White drive in a polythene bag and a cable. On this polythene bag there is a label off which I give you the following information. There is no country of manufacture mentioned all that it says is recertified in Vietnam Then it says PN: WDBYFT0040BWT-)A 4319V R/ND8B EAAGJA WD NLB.V.,Taurausavenue 1-39 SN: WX91D68EVL3A NL-2132 LS Hoofddorf On the outer Brown box it has more information as follows: WD Model Number WDBYFT0040BWT-WESN UPC CODE 1071803784935 Work Week 43 Package ID FSIT426063 Drive Serial numbers WX91D68EVL3A

From the information I’ve given you, do you think this is a genuine WD My Passport drive, or do you suspect, as I do, that it’s a counterfeit?

Kind regards

2

First thing you should never do is post Serial Numbers on a Public Forum.

Serial Numbers are for your Warrant/Status/Claims. If you post them on a Public Forum they can be stolen and used for fradulent purposes.

The very first thing to do to determine if you have a fake … is to check the warranty status by typing in your Serial Number. (link below)

Fake hard drives won’t have a valid Serial Number.

https://support.wdc.com/warranty/warrantystatus.aspx?lang=en

In closing … if you’re concerned about buying hard drives that may be fake, then don’t buy from Ebay.

Buy them from a reputable retailer or from the WD Store.

3

Hi JoeySmyth,

Thanks for the heads up about posting serial numbers, Im a newbie to this foroun so didnt realise that could be an issue, BUT fake drives can have fake or seemingly genuine serial numbers, because all the person wanting to commit fraud has to do is, buy a genuine drive and then use the serial number off that on all the cloned drives he sells! For instance I`ve checked the SN from my White one on the link you gave and it doesnt report any problems.

Thanks

Steve

4

HI thanks to Joey, for giving me an answer, in the meantime Id also asked WD about this and after sending two messages they finaly came back to say the drive Id purchased was a refurbished unit, which Im not going to touch with a barge pole. It wasnt advertised as refurbished`, but new and unopened, so I have already contacted ebay to arrange for return and full credit. Thanks everyone, this matter is now closed.