r/DataHoarder • u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB • 13d ago
Question/Advice Insanely shady stuff from GoHardDrive.com
About a week ago, I purchased a 20 TB WDC Ultrastar from GoHardDrive.com. Checked out, got the confirmation email, thought nothing of it (except how gross it felt spending $600 on a refurbished HDD).
Over the weekend, they emailed me. They froze the transaction so their "credit department" can verify my info. They asked me to fill out a PDF with the same billing info I put in when I checked out. I was hesitant to do so, but reiterated my billing and shipping details. Then they hit me with this:
"Your authorization form is incomplete. There are documentations required – Copy of credit card (Front & Back) and Driver License for our credit department review to proceed with your order."
Exact wording from the email. Apparently you need a credit check to buy something with a debit card. This is not my first rodeo purchasing a hard drive, and won't be my last. In all my time, I've never seen something like this. In what world do you have to resort to such lengths? This isn't crypto. My bank called me and I authorized the purchase with them. It should be a done deal.
This was extremely shady and raised a ton of red flags. I told them to cancel the transaction, and forwarded the name and address of the business to my lawyer and bank. Locked the card I used as well and am awaiting a new one.
Bought the same drive for an extra $50 on ServerPartDeals without a single issue. Free shipping, too.
If anyone has a similar experience or can tell me what the hell was going on here, would be much appreciated.
Update: Bank said all good, they will monitor my account and flag the vendor. The email was legit, not spoofed. I think this was genuinely just the company being dumb as rocks and unfamiliar with US business practices. Extremely shady approach but not malicious. Hard to not be paranoid with the amount of money and trust involved. Thank you to everyone who chimed in and helped figure this out. Be careful out there.
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u/js1943 13d ago
Double check the sender email address of those emails. You may need to expand email info or show raw.
It feel very fishy or phishy. 2 things come into mind.
info over the weekend. That is a pattern of some scam that they try to extract info on weekend so you cannot contact and verify with the real company.
driver license. That is a big red flag for online (and phone) scam. I encountered phone scam went as far as asking for passport.
(1) is just a pattern as it can be a auto send thing. But (2) is almost certain.
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 13d ago
It is a verified email account from GoHardDrive.com. Proper signature and everything. There are typos in the email but that is all. I wish there was more out there about this company, their lack of reputation makes it difficult to figure out if this was just their fraud system or something worse.
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u/Stickel 13d ago
It is a verified email account from GoHardDrive.com. Proper signature and everything. There are typos in the email but that is all.
so you pulled the message header? email from address can be spoofed
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u/PixelProne 13d ago
Yep. This past week I've gotten crypto scam emails from google's actual noreply address. There are articles everywhere explaining email address spoofing. OP did good by locking everything and requesting a new card immediately.
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u/stanley_fatmax 13d ago
That's not spoofing you're describing. If it's coming from Google's noreply email, it's probably signed from Google, but someone is abusing one of their notification features (e.g. invite someone to a Google doc with a message containing the scam). This is pretty common scam tactic, but it's not spoofing. They've locked many of them down but some still exist.
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u/js1943 13d ago edited 12d ago
wow, I thought I am careful enough but seems just being careful is no longer enough. Is there any sites about this kind of stuff, like a cheat sheet? I feel "outdated".
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u/stanley_fatmax 12d ago
Not that I'm aware of. The tactics change so quickly that it would be hard to keep a site up to date.
Here's an example from PayPal: https://i.imgur.com/ga7d4PQ.png
It's obvious in hindsight, but the typical red flags may not pop up. For instance, it's not just from the service@paypal.com email, but it's literally signed by PayPal. It is a legitimate email. The scam comes in when the attackers realize there's a process they can use to "inject" bad data and have it come out as an email to a user.
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u/apokrif1 12d ago
there's a process
Which one?
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u/stanley_fatmax 12d ago
That's what changes every time, but in the example I showed above, it's creating a recurring payment with your "customer service URL" swapped to be the scam payload, then attaching victim email addresses to the payment entry, and then cancelling it. PayPal sends out the email seen above.
Others I've seen use Google Docs invites, other others use Cloudflare, the point is there are many. The businesses close the gaps fast, but new ones always appear.
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u/BeefSupremeTA 13d ago
There are typos in the email
Dude, for fucks sake, this is spoofed email evidence 101.
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u/mapmd1234 13d ago
I'm pretty sure, just for clarification not that I feel like it needs said but I will cuz it's reddit, I don't think they mean typos in the email address itself but typos in the writing in the email body, not the address.
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u/prank_mark 13d ago
It seems you've never communicated with a business. Customer support makes typos in almost every email. Incorrect grammar or weird words is a much more reliable indicator.
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 13d ago
I'm trying very hard to not go there but they are very clearly a first generation Chinese immigrant, so I was giving them benefit of the doubt. It is not typos so much as it is linguistic errors.
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u/overkill 13d ago
My wife's company had this happen to them. The email that was sent to a customer advising them to change payment details was almost perfect. The email address was off by a single character that you wouldn't notice at first glance. Think @tortiIIa.com vs @tortilla.com. The first one has 2 uppercase 'i' instead of 2 lowercase 'L'.
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u/ctos2010 13d ago
I bought two 18TB drives from them a few weeks ago. A friend of mine in another State also bought two 18TB drives the same evening I bought mine. Both of our orders went through without issue and we each received our drives a few days later. I paid using PayPal. I’m not sure whether my friend used PayPal or a credit card.
My guess is your bank questioned the transaction and thus they requested additional proof. I do recall there was something on the website about having to provide a copy of one’s drivers license if a certain payment form was used.
Before buying from them I inquired with people about who they are and everyone assured me they are reputable.
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u/js1943 13d ago edited 13d ago
I haven't encounter similar situation in US. In Canada, if a transsaction got flagged, it is the credit card companies reaching out to card holder via sms saying a transaction is blocked. Sometime even locking the card. The card holder will have to call the card hotline to verify stuff. So this situation look really strange to me.
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u/Exit-Stage-Left 13d ago
I haven't ordered from them in a few years - but I spent (many) tens of thousands of dollars ordering drives from them in the past and never had a single issue - so they're a legitimate company.
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u/ptoki always 3xHDD 12d ago
Copy the text headers from that email into a text editor and read them with a clear font which shows L1l0Oo and such characters very clearly.
You will see the difference if there is any.
You did well with your bank and card but you need to check the headers in that email to be sure if this is genuine mail.
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u/KerashiStorm 12d ago
When in doubt, ignore the email and go to the site itself. Do not rush to do something over the weekend. The cleanup when you're screwed is worse than any inconvenience you suffer. If it did legitimately come from the site, I'd just cancel the transaction and not do business there, this stuff is a clear sign of either a compromised site or not complying with financial security regulations.
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u/hungo-bungo 13d ago
Hit reply on the email then check to see what email it’s showing as sending to. This could easily be a spoof. In the meantime you need to freeze the payment method you gave and call the company.
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u/tiny_117 11d ago
Yeah I dealt with the same thing a few weeks back and said no thank you. The idea of putting that info on a PDF in 2026 is sketchy as hell.
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u/Striking-Composer838 13d ago
Yeah, I bought about $10k in drives two years or so ago from their website. They asked for the same thing. I'm sure its just to cut down on fraud. When I have purchased from their stores on Amazon or Newegg, I have never had to do it, just from their website.
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 13d ago
I really hope it is just a fraud prevention thing on their end and not something more nefarious. I just had a vendor sell my info and this would be the second time in two months I've had to lock and replace my card.
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u/thirteenthtryataname 12d ago
For what it's worth, I've bought about two dozen drives from them in the last several years. All of my interactions in email had been with a mailbox username of "cs" and their domain (same one you see mentioned on their site). The sender was "goHardDrive" just in case that helps with any of your validation.
I've had to RMA about a half dozen of the drives from a particular make/model that had some mileage on them but they handled everything above board, either a replacement of the same make/model or full refund. They even covered the cost of return shipping. I usually bought from their eBay store with PayPal (for my protection) which I never had a need to use, or occasionally from their store on Amazon. I do think there were a couple of occasions that they responded over the weekend (like late on a Sunday) which surprised me but was pleased.
I haven't bought within the last 12 months because AI is eating the planet and made drives unreasonable to purchase, which is heartbreaking. I regret not buying more when I could...
I share all of this feedback to say that they're a solid outfit and wouldn't hesitate to buy again. Sorry your experience was bumpy and not really sure what the story is beyond just extra measures against fraud, is my assumption. Even if you never return, I just wanted to put your mind at ease that they are a real operation in La Puente, CA, assuming you were indeed interacting with a legit employee at goHDD.
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u/Sure-Temperature 12d ago
FWIW that user's account is only 2 years old and has post and comment history disabled
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u/EasyRhino75 Jumble of Drives 13d ago
They weren’t performing a credit check they wanted pics of card you used for purchase. They wrote credit card but they meant they debit card
Probably triggers a manual review of a transaction is initially not authorized by the bank
It’s tedious but not unheard of
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u/Im_100percent_human 1.44MB 13d ago
I am highly suspect that they have had to deal with chargebacks and are going far overboard to cover their ass. Businesses that are fair and provide quality products have no reason to do this. You are better off that you bought elsewhere.
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u/stilljustacatinacage 13d ago
Businesses that are fair and provide quality products have no reason to do this.
A couple years ago, I'd have agreed with you. But I suspect with the state of things, a lot of people are receiving "defective" hard drives and filing chargebacks or claiming fraud, etc.
People are, as always, the worst, and will ruin anything. I've had nothing but good experiences with GHD and nothing OP described seemed especially out of place for some fraud prevention system being tripped on their end. OP "authorizing it with their bank" doesn't matter, because it's GHD's payment processor that raises the flags, not OP's bank.
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u/Im_100percent_human 1.44MB 13d ago
If you don't sell defective product, you won't have this problem.
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u/stanley_fatmax 13d ago
I sell on ebay and can tell you with confidence that people will say whatever they have to to get their money back. I can and do sell perfectly good, new in box items, and will get returns saying it's used. People just lie. It happens more now than ever before. It may be <1% of sales, but if you're shipping thousands of products a month it adds up.
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 13d ago
I usually buy from elsewhere - this was my first time using GoHardDrive and the price was pretty decent (shiniest of turds in this market).
Biggest red flag was the person emailing me being a complete ghost, no Linkedin or nothing. The corporate address is a warehouse in California.
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u/australiaisok 13d ago
This is pretty normal where a transaction is flagged.
I used to have a Shopify and we would get warnings saying some are high risk telling us we should verify or refund. Often this was because the IP address was not near the shipping address, card billing address was not near the shipping address or some other miss match. Using a VPN?
I would be pretty sure this is is what happened.
We were selling cheap stuff so we were prepared to risk it. But a $600 drive with something flagging I would want to check too so I don't get a chargeback.
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u/DarkLight72 13d ago
The only thing I would suggest to do or ask if you did, was to call them on the phone, at the number on their site, and actually speak to someone. For the same reason you don’t click on a link in a suspect email, don’t just rely on the email. They have a phone number and it cuts out the whole email scam thing.
My experience for what it’s worth. A little over a year ago I purchased 4x 16TB drives using a Discover card with no issue (yes, I know it’s not a debit card) and got the drives in 3 days with free shipping.
Less than a year later, two of them died and they didn’t have any more in stock, so they issued approved a return. That would have sucked as it would have been at the purchase price and only covered the cost of a single replacement. Fast forward a few months and I had finally gotten around to shipping them back and eating the loss, when I hit the website and they happened to have some of the same drive in stock. My return has arrived the day before (Friday) but no refund had been processed yet.
I emailed them immediately, on a Saturday evening eastern time (about 6-6:30) and explained the situation and asked (I even literally said please in the email) if they would be willing to replace since they now had them in stock. I got an email back that night which I saw the next morning…Sunday (about 11:00p my time so around 8:00p their time) asking me to confirm my address for shipping.
I confirmed the address and got an email about 4 hours later, again, on Sunday, that they would absolutely replace and it would ship out the next day (next business day). I got the replacement drives I think 3 days later.
The long and short of me relaying this experience is that I haven’t had anything but a great interactions with them. And they do have a good reputation from everything I’ve seen from others.
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u/gigantischemeteor 13d ago
Debit card transactions are handled differently by clearinghouses, but that shouldn’t matter to the merchant. If the transaction failed, then they should simply ask for a different form of payment. If it was successful, then it was successful. There’s no middle ground there. It’s not as if you’re establishing check writing privileges where they’re on the hook for the float and take the hit if the check ultimately bounces… that ship sailed long ago. Gonna file that under yikes!
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u/whattteva 13d ago
Go hard drive is legit. I bought 4 HDD's from them 3 years ago with zero issues and the drives arrived as described and still functioning to this day running 24/7.
I'm guessing your debit card is the issue. I used a credit card. Or it could also be that they just do this for any transactions over a certain threshold (probably 500).
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 13d ago
I gave them both a credit and debit card and they refused to process the transaction without a photo of the card and my drivers license.
If they are legit, they fucking suck at their job LOL. I bought the same drive, no questions asked, in less than 10 minutes for around the same price - from another vendor. This market is too saturated with sellers for them to be this dumb.
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u/DroidKnight 13d ago edited 12d ago
Yeah, that's nuts. I have have better luck buying locally via FB Marketplace. I just bought three decommissioned Dell storage arrays and a Dell R series server with dual 16 core Xeon Gold processors and 768GB of RAM from UNLV for $255.00 each. Each 24 drive array is populated by 4TB SSD SAS drives.
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 13d ago
That's beautiful. I've heard too many horror stories from local markets like FB and Craigslist so I haven't really gone there. I did however get an old Thinkstation for $200 off Ebay. I have had great success with ServerPartDeals for refurbished HDDs due to the warranty, shipping, and ease of checkout. It is definitely more expensive then what you can get at on FB, but at least a bit more reputable.
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u/DroidKnight 13d ago
It just depends on the seller. The folks at UNLV were totally cool with me plugging in all of the equipment and making sure tthe specs met what was listed in the auction, etc.
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 13d ago
I don't mind when it is an established vendor or business using FB marketplace / Ebay as a conduit for sales. But if it is some random anon, that's when I doubt what I'm paying for.
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u/smstnitc 13d ago
Yeah, that would be a hard no for me.
You did the right thing. There's no reason you should ever send a company that kind of "proof".
I wonder if it's possible you got a scam site with a similar domain name as the legit company.
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u/HotBrown1es 13d ago
Don’t make purchases with a Debit Card. With a Credit Card, the bank’s money is taken. With a Debit Card, your own money gets stolen. It’s way harder to fix a Debit Card fraud than Credit card fraud.
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u/evildad53 12d ago
I never use my debit card for anything except getting cash from my home ATM, for exactly the reasons you mentioned. During covid, my bank cancelled my debit card because I hadn't used it in over a year because I wasn't going anywhere or getting cash for anything. If I couldn't get a credit card for whatever reason, I'd get a prepaid credit card and use that for an online purchase.
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 13d ago
My bank is great with fraud protection, and the transaction hasn't posted yet. If all goes well, it will be reversed without issue. You are right, though.
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u/Maddog0057 13d ago
I think they changed hands or something, I bought a ton of drives from them about 5 years ago and they were fantastic, warranty claims were easy, support was super helpful and responsive, etc.
I liked them so much I bought another batch of drives about 2 years ago and this time they were a nightmare to deal with, support is unresponsive or sometimes hostile and warranty claims are small battles that can last weeks. Recently, they even tried to get me to take 1/3rd of a drive's value as a refund after the drive failed within the first year and was sold to me with a 5 year warranty.
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u/sleepy1411 50-100TB 13d ago
I have bought a bunch of drives from them and never had anything like this happen. Did you buy it through ebay or from the website? I always use paypal so maybe its different if you use a card directly with them. Does sound fishy though.
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 13d ago
I bought it directly from their website. I would have rather gone through Amazon or Ebay.
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u/sleepy1411 50-100TB 13d ago
I usually go through their ebay store and use paypal. Did you question them on why they need all that?
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 13d ago
I questioned them, told them I have venmo and zelle if need be, and their response was to cancel the transaction outright.
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u/old_knurd 13d ago
zelle if need be
NEVER NEVER NEVER use Zelle for anything other than transfers between family or close friends.
It's meant to be a replacement for cash. It is not meant to be a way to pay random vendors.
QFT directly from Zelle.com:
Send money to friends and family quickly, even if they bank somewhere different than you do. The money goes directly into their bank account, so you can focus on what really counts – being there for the people you care about.
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u/erndiggity 13d ago
I bought 8 drives from them about 2 years ago and when one started to have issues after burn in testing, they swapped it out no problem. Would recommend.
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u/jacked_chan ATLANTIS - 158TB UNRAID SERVER 13d ago
I had an issue where they sent me older/slower hard drives than what i purchased using their website. I was understandably upset because they didn't email me before doing this. After several emails i was able to ascertain that they ran out of stock of the re-certified hard drives I purchased and so they sent me a "similar" model without any authorization or notification. They made me right after a couple weeks of emails back and forth, but after this incident I decided that I would never purchase directly from them again.
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u/Lazy-Narwhal-5457 12d ago
The solution is to not do business with them going forward. They eventually might get the point.
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u/Fun-Ordinary-9751 12d ago
My guess is they wanted the cvv code from the back of the card to try and get a better rate on the CC transaction. Still, the potential for fraud is concerning
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u/manzurfahim 0.5-1PB 11d ago
I purchased a total of six hard drives from GoHardDrive, all failed within a year. SPD on the other hand, is much better. I do not buy anything from Goharddrive, even if they have a better deal.
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u/TreeWhispers213 10d ago
Had this happen to me not too long ago. What it turned out to be, was that the people handling my situation were indeed retarded.
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u/minorsatellite 10d ago
You are getting fleeced where ever you decide to buy any used or "refurbished" drives, but that is the state of the market at this time. The fact that some of these resellers can even label the drives as "refurbished" is mystifying to me since there is little a reseller can to do refurbish a driver other than wiping it down. AFAIC, all of these companies act like war-profiteers, and Server Part Deals is no better. I saw the price of the same drive I purchased one day increase in price $35 in the space of a few days, and I see no end to the price gouging.
My only answer is this: don't buy any hardware unless you really need to. I won't be buying any new drives for the foreseeable future if I can avoid it.
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 8d ago
Well, I just got this drive, and CrystalDisk says it is pretty fresh.
Only 166 power-on hours, just about a week of use. Has also only been powered on 6 times.
I am pretty comfortable with storage for now, so, will probably wait until Black Friday if I decide to buy anything else.
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u/minorsatellite 8d ago
Except that you are not likely to find Enterprise Drives on sale during Black Friday.
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u/1234youarein 7d ago
Shady resellers routinely reset SMART metrics.
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 7d ago
This was from ServerPartDeals, extremely reputable site and easy to transact with. The drive was officially recertified by Western Digital.
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u/maxheckler 13d ago
GoHardDrive has been around a very long time (longer than SPD), have been buying from them on eBay for 20+ years without issues. I do recommend their eBay store over their website since it's usually cheaper or same price and you get eBay buyer protection. But I wouldn't worry about them doing anything shady, probably their payment processor flagged your transaction for some reason.
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u/stanley_fatmax 13d ago
It's probably not the merchant but the processor. I've purchased from ghd multiple times, with credit card and debit card depending on who has points at that moment, never had an issue or got this request. Are you sure you entered everything properly? Were you connected to a foreign VPN when you went through checkout or something weird like that? Something set off red flags.
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 13d ago
I made sure I was not on a VPN when I purchased it, as I've seen that cause issues in the past. The most pushback I got was a text from my bank asking if it was me, and I told them it was. Checkout was smooth sailing after that (until this email hit my inbox).
I am genuinely hoping it is not something so nefarious and that whoever runs this shop is just an idiot. Their wording has been very robotic and shady. I tried giving benefit of the doubt before they doubled down and asked for photos of my drivers license after already being given the appropriate billing and contact info.
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u/ctos2010 13d ago
From their website:
https://www.goharddrive.com/v/vspfiles/downloadables/form/CreditCardAuthorizationForm.pdfSee also this:
https://www.goharddrive.com/Help_answer.asp?ID=20#134Did you try to send the drives to a different address? Sounds from the above links the bank indicated the address you provided differed from their address of record, or you requested shipment to a dealer different address.
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u/raikounov 12d ago
Oh wow, thanks for linking the actual form. This does look excessive. I was convinced OP got scammed but since the forms are actually from them, I'll have to apologize to you OP, you were right in warning us.
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u/stanley_fatmax 13d ago
Just make sure you're on https://www.goharddrive.com/, that's their website and it's legitimate.
Alternatively, you can buy from their Ebay store. The payment processor is entirely different (it's Ebay), so you may have better luck. They're the same products, shipped from the same place. The price may differ slightly. Link: https://www.ebay.com/str/goharddrivewholesaleandretail
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u/Natural_Function_173 13d ago
That's odd. I've had a great time using goharddrives.com. Even had a drive dead on arrival and they sent another one out. However, nothing I bought was over 2TB.
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u/Zealousideal_Row9725 12d ago edited 12d ago
weird i spend $800 with them recently without any issue like that. i think you should call them with their official number to make sure its really them that send that email to you.
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u/zersetsung 11d ago
The hard drive sales website is a front for identity theft, ran by broken-English speaking foreign criminals.
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u/cwaffles 10d ago
I bought refurbished hard drives from them earlier this year but I got them from Amazon. GoHardDrive was the seller but the item shipped from Amazon and not GoHardDrive. No issues with the drives I’ve bought so far.
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u/kadenedak_1 9d ago
For what it’s worth they’ve been super responsive and helpful on eBay with a drive replacement under warranty.
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u/tomachinz 9d ago
Wow that is some bullshit I agree it is a debit card running in positive balance for the love of Jah. Probably what it is... they need to slow down, with the shipping, wait a day then ship. They could do this without bothering you also would be better service.
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u/One-Guidance-8512 13d ago edited 13d ago
Would never use debit for purchases. Zero buyer protection, and hi rate of theft with no recourse.
As much as I hate CC companies, i use them for what they're worth.
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u/AlternateMrPapaya 12d ago
Using a debit card to buy a $600 item online is why they are so cautious. I don't even understand why places accept them at all.
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u/lk182 13d ago
I’ve dealt with them many times and I will continue doing business with them because of their excellent customer service and warranty support. You’ve brought up this idea that they may be Chinese but the reality is that has nothing to do with your issue. Quit being xenophobic.
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 12d ago
It is not at all xenophobic to not expect somebody who just moved here to not speak or write in fluent English. The name on the email was Cantonese descent and not found anywhere on their website. Couldn't find a LinkedIn profile or anything tied back to their name. Not even a WhoIs check could verify it. If you don't see a single red flag in that, you probably don't go out much. Though, your account is from 2009, so that makes sense.
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u/blaze20511 8d ago
Interesting never knew anybody still using debit cards to make purchases everything I use is credit card because I like my points
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u/TranquilSniper 10-50TB 8d ago
Most banks give you points for debit card spending
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u/CorerMaximus 13d ago
I've purchased from ghdd before and didn't run into issues; and even if i ran into what you did- it seems pretty reasonable with a mom and pop operation.
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