The frequency of Scams tend to rise during a recession, mainly because there is a growing new group of people who are short of money and dreaming of making quick bucks.

There will be more online scams including the usual 419 scams, lottery and love scams. On the other hand, do not let your guards down when dealing with strangers and vendors on the street. Becareful when you are approached by someone who offers you something too good to be true.

Recently, I just came back from my one year's job relocation in China. Before returning home, I went to a place that is well known for "cheap goods", aka "A" goods. According to a friend from Taiwan, these goods are produced by the original manufacturers in China, but are "QC rejects". He bought a pair of Nike AirMax for only 150 RMB (abt 20 USD) and a Sony Ericsson Cellphone for 178 USD, and he has no problem with that. So I went to the same place and bought a 32GB Kingston Thumbdrive for only 120 RMB (17 USD) . At this time of writing, a 16GB sell for around 20USD.

When I tested on my own laptop, the thumbdrive works fine. It was able to save the files that I dropped on it. However, when I bring insert the thumbdrive in another laptop, the data was wiped out. I decided that it cannot be used so I threw it away.

It is just 17 USD, but the vendor managed to sell off a piece of junk that does not work.

When I asked my friend again, he mentioned that it depends on the defects that are present on each product. If you get one that only has a "minor" quality defect, you could continue to use the product with some limitations. However, if you are as unlucky as me to buy one that has a critical defect - does not serve its primary function - then its not worth the money at all.