Believe me, those reports are true! I go through a lot of SD cards (physically wearing out the plastic), and there have been a few PNY cards that gave me fits, until I took a look inside the configuration (there are commands to do that). They had bad serial numbers and mismatched controller/memory settings just like cards we had rejected. I don't mind paying the extra few bucks for the SanDisk and Toshibas I get now. Two in one package - one good, one bad.
Andy