I bought a NAS off Amazon a few years ago... one of their 3rd party sellers had the same product for $50 cheaper so I went with that.

Anyway, what happened next was really amusing to me.

I get the product about 8 weeks later... I had tried to cancel because it was so slow, and Amazon wouldn't let me -- they said I had to receive the product and then send it back as a return once I got it in order to get a refund.

I was planning on just sending the box back the same day... but something caught my eye. The box had come from Shenzhen, China. Curious I cut open the outside box.

Immediately I saw that the NAS they sent inside had been opened, and had been re-tapped shut -- and poorly, there was a clear bulge on top of the box. My heart sank a bit... but I figured, "Well, let's see -- maybe it was a return or something... can't hurt to open it again since it's already been opened."

Inside the NAS box, all the manuals are in Chinese... and seem like they are just photocopies of the originals. The NAS was not in the original packaging, but rather elaborate bubble wrap. And there's a China to US power adapter to the cord.

I'm curious if it would even turn on, so I plug in the NAS... It boots! But not in English. I'm thinking, "What did I just buy?!" But I can sort of read some of the messages and it seems like instead of 4x2GB drives, it came with 4x4GB drives. Interesting.

It's late so I leave it initializing the drives (I think that's what it was doing anyway) and go to bed. Next morning I wake up, and it's still initializing the drives. Fuck it... time to call tech support and get my money back. The little light kept blinking yellow, but I couldn't read anything.

I email Amazon to initiate the return process, then go to work. I leave the NAS running -- honestly just sort of forgot about it. Got pulled into a business trip that day, so it was about 4 days until I got back to focus on the project again. When I got home the little yellow light on the NAS was still blinking, and I thought it was weird that I hadn't gotten an email from the seller with return instructions.

I email Amazon to tell them I hadn't heard anything back from the seller, and since I had to wait anyway, decided to call tech support. Cringe.

The thing was, the NAS was still doing something. The drives were still spinning... but after 4 days... I figured it wasn't doing anything good. But I didn't unplug it. I read the serial number to the guy in tech support. Pause... "Can you read me the serial number again?" I do... longer pause. "Can you read me the serial number one more time?" I do... Pause... "Please hold, Sir."

"Sir, where did you get this NAS?" I'd been transferred to someone up the food chain who told me that the device I had wasn't a valid serial number -- that the number I gave was for a model that hadn't been released yet. Super weird conversation, they took all my details, Amazon order number, and told me they would call me back.

Really late, like 2 AM that night, I got an email from the seller. It just said, "What wrong?"

So I write back, and my phone signature had my cell phone number on it. I get a call. At like 3 AM. The guy is polite, but his English isn't great. He tells me to just unplug the NAS, and plug it back in again -- then walks me through how to install the English interface. We're chatting for like 2 hours. He's crazy knowledgeable. We get everything set up, but I have no idea what all I just put on the device... most of the links he had been emailing me throughout the process were just IP addresses and paths. But they seem legit... and there wasn't anything on the NAS yet so I didn't mind running strange updates on it.

He says the yellow light will blink for 4 hours 24 minutes. (I don't remember the exact number, but the point was it was an exact number.) He says to email him, not Amazon -- he's very clear about that -- if I need help after. He's a friendly guy, I liked how helpful he was.

I go back to sleep for a few hours, do some yard work when I wake up, forget about the NAS, but when I checked later... some point after 4 hours 24 minutes... it's all green and working fine. And it's got twice the space than I paid for. And it's all in English. Only thing was... when I hit the "check for updates" option it just spun and nothing happened. But everything else seemed perfect.

So I'm on the fence... I have this clearly not authentic NAS from some random guy in China... that the manufacturer says it's not supposed to exist... but it's 100% bigger than what I thought I paid for...

That night I got an email from the seller, and you can tell he's sad. "I tried to help you, why did you tell Amazon it was a fake? It not a fake." I wrote back that I think that was from before he and I spoke, I had called the manufacturer's tech support to get the issue fixed and they told me the serial number wasn't real, but that it's working fine for me now.

He was writing back instantly, "It not a fake, you want a refund? I give you refund, but please don't complain to Amazon about me, I sell good stuff." Right away I see an email from Amazon telling me that the seller had given me a 100% refund. He even refunded shipping costs.

I felt awful. Here's this guy who spent 2 hours on the phone with me, probably spent a lot on an international call, and the manufacturer contacted Amazon about the order and came down on him for selling counterfeits. Probably scared him or told him he wouldn't be able to sell on Amazon any more if it was a fake... who knows.

I write back, "Thanks for the refund, where do I send the NAS? I will pay for shipping. I didn't mean to get you in trouble."

He writes back, "I'm sorry. It's not a fake. Please don't be mad at me."

The case was marked as resolved at Amazon, the guy told me I didn't have to return the NAS, and I never heard back from the manufacturer. Free NAS! But a little guilt because I didn't pay this guy for it, or for his time... and he stopped responding to my emails after that. I offered to send it back to him two more times.

About a year later I logged in to the interface, realized the auto-update feature was working fine. Updated the bios and firmware. I think that was 5-6 years ago now -- it's been running great.

I had raved about the quality of the NAS to a friend, who bought the same model about 6 months after I did... but his died a few months ago... when we took it apart to switch out the drives we realized it had totally different drives and cables, and even the logic board seemed different from the one that mine had. Sure hardware changes, but... his seemed more legit and polished inside than mine. Mine has a few spots inside that just look glue-gunned in place. (=

Anyway yeah, probably 7 years on... my little free (and probably semi-counterfeit) NAS is still running great.

That call at 3 AM was by far the most knowledgeable of any seller or tech support person I've ever spoken with.