Recently, a news article on Heise.de mentioned hundreds of reports of used Seagate hard drives being sold as 'new'. As an official Seagate distribution partner, we want to share Seagate's official statement in response.
Please note that we do not sell new hard drives. We offer Seagate white label and factory recertified hard drives, which are deliberately not marketed as new.
Seagate's official statement
We take this matter very seriously and are conducting a thorough investigation. As per the earlier statement, Seagate did not sell or distribute these drives to resellers. While we cannot share specific details of this ongoing investigation, we suspect these drives were new products that Seagate sold to customers who later sold them on the used market. In this instance, we believe that somewhere in the used market supply chain, the drives were remarketed and resold as new. We recommend that resellers purchase drives from Seagate authorized distribution partners, as purchasing from Seagate-authorized distributors is the best way resellers, and consequently, their end customers can be sure of the authenticity of Seagate products.
Seagate processes are in place to investigate these types of cases, with teams working proactively with our resellers to take corrective action when necessary. Our security team also regularly collaborates with local authorities to take necessary actions. Many investigations are initiated based on anonymous tips, and reports from partners and customers. Measures we have implemented are intended to protect Seagate partners and end customers in an increasingly global marketplace.
We encourage anyone who suspects that they received a used drive marketed as new to help the investigation by reporting it to us directly at fraud@seagate.com.
Additionally, customers who question whether the products they purchased are as advertised by sellers, can access our warranty-checking tool. The warranty checker can be found at https://www.seagate.com/support/warranty-and-replacements/.
Suspect drives and/or sellers can also be reported anonymously through our ethics hotline: https://secure.ethicspoint.com/domain/media/en/gui/38559/index.html
We are grateful for the trust our customers place in us and are committed to doing everything possible to uphold that trust.