I've also stopped buying usb stick drives as well as micro-sd cards: the chance of getting a counterfeit piece of junk is just too high, and has happened to me more than once.

On the other hand, my local brick and mortar store (Esselunga) has high quality Kioxia usb devices for a fairly good price. And Kioxia is high-end stuff anyways, so worth spending a few more euros.