have a former friend that would do a brick and mortar version of this... even went so far as to buy a shrink wrap machine.

buy an external drive, take it home and remove the drive.. fill case with rocks or wood or something to add mass.. put it back in the box, shrink wrap it and have his wife return it.. doing a slight upgrade to the next size up. repeat a couple of times.. then get full refund.

he'd even end up with his own crap filled drives once in a while..