Memory, money gone in a flash: Fake cards can cause problems.

Byline: Rick Barrett

Jan. 15--When Christopher Smith bought a flash-memory card on eBay, he had a feeling the price was too good to be true.

He was right.

Smith, a financial adviser at Robert W. Baird & Co., paid $35 for a new card that normally would have cost three times as much.

When the card arrived, it looked like the real deal. It came in a slick package, with a SanDisk-brand label, and it has worked fine in his cell phone and other electronic gadgets.

Too bad the card, like thousands of others sold over the Internet, was a counterfeit.

"If it blows up my smart phone a month from now, I know that I can't complain to SanDisk," Smith said.

The proliferation of counterfeit memory cards and flash drives has cut a wide swath through online commerce. On its Web site, eBay has warnings …