Similar story, but with 3 consecutive large capacity HGST hdds that were sold as new (SMART told a different story), switching sellers each time. Ultimately just went to Newegg.
Yep, I buy from Aria in the UK, the prices are always in the ballpark of Amazon's give or take (and occasionally a lot cheaper), they have genuinely knowledgeable about computer gear staff and I've never had an issue with a single aspect of them as a company (bar a postcode problem with a shipping address which wasn't their fault and they did get sorted).
It's not an entirely fair comparison since aria specialises in technology but when they do that and match price then Amazon has no competitive edge.