I've had equally bad luck with SanDisk's MicroSD cards. Samsung cards rarely ever go out to lunch in my Raspberry Pi systems, but I've never had a SanDisk card last more than six months.
As (sometimes six-year-old) Samsung cards get retired, I've gone to... Samsung. This time, I'm getting their cards intended for surveillance cameras and other write-intensive duty.
I bought 3 Samsung EVO 256G cards last year for a dash cam, all of them failed around 36 days - no return but just warranty with Samsung. Samsung’s customer service for storage products is pretty bad that there is not even a website to submit a warranty claim.
Switched to Sandisk then it has not failed after a year, I probably will never buy Samsung cards.
> cards that were packaged with official Pi 400 kits were counterfeit
Why not? Company needed SD cards, they bought them and packaged with their kits. It could be from literally any source. Even with official SandIsk partnership.
Strange, I have the exact opposite. Every single one of my Samsung cards have failed, but not a single SanDisk. As my Samsungs failed, I replaced them with Sandisks, which have all been going for quite a number of years now.
As (sometimes six-year-old) Samsung cards get retired, I've gone to... Samsung. This time, I'm getting their cards intended for surveillance cameras and other write-intensive duty.