News Amazon sold a fake RTX 4090 FrankenGPU cobbled together using a laptop GPU and 4080 board — scam card was found in a returns pallet deal

[Admin]

An RTX 4090 was sent to a repairer, but it turned out that beneath the exterior this was an RTX 4080 PCB with an RTX 4090 laptop GPU stuck on it.

Amazon sold a fake RTX 4090 FrankenGPU cobbled together using a laptop GPU and 4080 board — scam card was found in a returns pallet deal : Read more

 

[FoxtrotMichael-1]

I think the larger story here is that Amazon has become no better than AliExpress at peddling fake and counterfeit goods. It’s a shame, because it seems like Amazon has no real desire to crack down on it. The obvious conclusion is that they benefit from this type of behavior and give silence as tacit approval.

 

[COLGeek]

I think the larger story here is that Amazon has become no better than AliExpress at peddling fake and counterfeit goods. It’s a shame, because it seems like Amazon has no real desire to crack down on it. The obvious conclusion is that they benefit from this type of behavior and give silence as tacit approval.

This is a larger issue than just with Amazon. It also happens in brick and mortar stores. This has become a widespread problem and is not likely to go away.

It does make for interesting reading though.

 

[digitalgriffin]

This is a larger issue than just with Amazon. It also happens in brick and mortar stores. This has become a widespread problem and is not likely to go away.

It does make for interesting reading though.

Pallet return Crates are pennies on the dollar. This guy rolled the dice it would be cheaper to fix than buy a new one, then flip it.

It is interesting they don't have a better way of tracking fraud with big ticket electronic items.

Serial number scan on box going out to customer, and scan back in when going in a pallet.

 

[CDGoin13]

Here is something to consider Russia or China buying the cards to swap the chips to get thier hands on 4090 chips and return or sell the cards with rejected chips.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

It can happen to new purchases too. Remember the reports of people getting slabs of clay in iPad boxes from places like Walmart and BestBuy, and, of course, the fake Intel CPUs sold at Newegg. I myself got an empty Ryzen 1800X box that had obviously been bought, emptied, and returned (seals were broken), but was put back in new stock instead of used (or taken by an Amazon worker themselves).

Ontario Man Buys iPad Pro from Walmart, Finds Clay in Box Instead • iPhone in Canada Blog

A man from Ontario says he bought an iPad from Walmart--only to find clay inside instead.

www.iphoneincanada.ca

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/NewEgg-Fake-Corei7-D-H-Distributing,9814.html

 

[vanadiel007]

A melted power connector is not shipping damage. What we don't know is the original listing.
It could have been listed as a damaged card for a large discount. We don't know if it was listed as new or used. Reputable seller or not?

There's several things we don't know...

 

[parkerthon]

Pallet return Crates are pennies on the dollar. This guy rolled the dice it would be cheaper to fix than buy a new one, then flip it.

It is interesting they don't have a better way of tracking fraud with big ticket electronic items.

Serial number scan on box going out to customer, and scan back in when going in a pallet.

Except what if the product was resealed and resold as new previously? Who sourced the product, was it Amazon or a seller that uses FBA? Was it FBA commingled inventory? What if the buyer reporting the issue is lying to get a refund? Without a verifiable chain of custody from A to Z, they can’t prove anyone did anything. Now they could use analytics to suss out fraudsters that do this repeatedly but I’d bet this is a one off. Whoever threw this together went to way too much effort to make it look passable using various parts combined with time involved in slamming it all together… which means they really were worried about being caught. Amazon already flags unusual return frequency behavior and shuts down accounts based on that alone(sometimes for non-fraud instances).

 

[PEnns]

Here is something to consider Russia or China buying the cards to swap the chips to get thier hands on 4090 chips and return or sell the cards with rejected chips.

Or, they can get them by the 1000s via other countries that don't care for US sanctions.

 

[endocine]

It also happens in brick and mortar stores.

Indeed, bought a 4070ti at microcenter as new, but when taking it out of the box, the gpu had been used, but still worked as indeed a 4070ti. Always check the packaging when purchasing even from brick n mortar

 

[thisisaname]

Maybe the scam happen when the card was returned to Amazon by the original purchaser?

 

[Calimgule]

People should be banned from retailers and prosecuted, seriously this is not OK. This is a modern way of robbery, and they're just doing what they please,,, retailers need really good technicians to certify what's happening specially on expensive hardware.

 

[ProtagorasEmber]

This was sold BY Amazon and not just on Amazon? That's pretty horrific. I guess even if they are the seller, if you see a price that's too good to be true...

 

[kep55]

An RTX 4090 was sent to a repairer, but it turned out that beneath the exterior this was an RTX 4080 PCB with an RTX 4090 laptop GPU stuck on it.

Amazon sold a fake RTX 4090 FrankenGPU cobbled together using a laptop GPU and 4080 board — scam card was found in a returns pallet deal : Read more

Over the years I've learned that Amazon does NOT have the best prices on computers kit. Unless it's something I need yesterday, I prefer to buy either directly from the manufacturer or from a reputable computer / electronics store.

 

[digitalgriffin]

The tldr with Amazon is this:

Consumer will claim it's defective. Get replacement. Consumer will sell replacement for tidy profit while keeping swapped out original.

Buyers returns something and 9:10 chance it goes on a pallet sale for pennies on the dollar.

For whatever reason Amazon doesn't like futzing with returns. To amazon it's an annoyance and just try to offload it on pallets "as is"

New egg has a better system. But as Steve from gamers Nexus found out, an honest return can still get flagged unfairly, as he did.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/amazon-train-stolen-packages-thieves-b1993107.html

It's criminal and these guys deserve a good whipping. Somebody eventually pays for it through increased prices. Theft is theft, even if it's a mega corp.

 

[Maebius]

Now that's something that actually takes effort to pull off!
I remember getting a completely empty 970evo SSD box from (sold by) Amazon and they were remarkably chill about it and sent a replacement free of charge. Maybe they were already aware of such instances?
I guess their cost of doing business process has already taken into account things like that.
What has really gone downhill about the store is:
-The inclusion of shady stores
(I keep seeing super obvious scams, stores named "ggeoohopamniui[gfapolp" and things like that)
-Their search engine and filters
It's like their filters are purposely bad/non existent. and are clearly overriden by "sponsored" items
You also search for item X , you get maybe 1 hit on that and almost the rest of the first page are sponsored search items that are quite different from X, but of the same category (like searching 4070 super, getting one super and a bunch of 3060s and some 7800XTs).

 

[WhteTrash]

I think the larger story here is that Amazon has become no better than AliExpress at peddling fake and counterfeit goods. It’s a shame, because it seems like Amazon has no real desire to crack down on it. The obvious conclusion is that they benefit from this type of behavior and give silence as tacit approval.

Aliexpress and Amazon are now basically the same except you will find the same product at a cheaper price in Aliexpress since you cut off the midde man and the dropshippers.

 

[Krotow]

-Their search engine and filters
It's like their filters are purposely bad/non existent. and are clearly overriden by "sponsored" items
You also search for item X , you get maybe 1 hit on that and almost the rest of the first page are sponsored search items that are quite different from X, but of the same category (like searching 4070 super, getting one super and a bunch of 3060s and some 7800XTs).

This is called "targeted advertising" nowadays. Sellers use this crap sparingly to convince you to order more things they're selling. Sometimes those extra lists contain something that might catch interest. But usually all that is unnecessary crap.

 

[edzieba]

As the lede was very well buried:

This was not sold on Amazon masquerading as a 4090. Amazon sold an unknown customer an actual 4090. That customer did some dodgy stuff (strapping the cooler to a dead 4080) and returned this bogus card - classic returns fraud. Amazon received the bogus card, and threw it in a junk pile as a dead card. The junk pile was then later palletised, and a pallet of dead items including this dodgy card was sold for peanuts. A person then purchased this pallet of dead items, and discovered a dead card was actually a different dead card.

 

[Tom Sunday]

Maybe the scam happen when the card was returned to Amazon by the original purchaser?

No fix diagnosis: Having shopped at AMAZON more often than not, my most terrible experiences have always been dealing with third party vendors. Those often proffering and then scalping their goods because of the timing and its sheer availability. Then many of their tech items are being pegged as ‘New’ where in fact they are used and or returned items obtained from other dubious supply channels. This is where the cobbling enters the picture. Many also advertise the term “refurbished” but the educated buyer knows that these kinds of vendors are no more than’ basic clearing houses’ and do not have any type of tech refurbishment capabilities. It wouldn’t be profitable for them to do so!

With one of my recent Amazon tech purchases in excess of $1000, I ran into a major quality and performance problem with a third party vendor and subsequently wrote a negative report in Amazon's customer ratings feedback. Only to find that it was rejected by Amazon as it casts a bad picture towards their (third party) partners. Case in point: “Amazon is clearly in bed with these kinds of partners, creating much extra revenues for themselves, and thus allowing cobbled together, fake and not WYSIWYG products entering the marketplace. The only shortcut I used however to save a few bucks is using Amazon’s Warehouse. And as always the (RMA) return is always without any hassles versus with my friends on the dark side!

 

[tronixa2]

Recently, I have started to buy whatever PC Parts I can find from B&H Photo which has been around a lot longer than Amazon. It's generally cheaper anyhow because you don't pay sales tax if you use their store credit card. That being said, I trust Amazon more than Newegg these days as I have heard that they are not so great when it comes to returning faulty hardware.

 

[Junry]

I think the larger story here is that Amazon has become no better than AliExpress at peddling fake and counterfeit goods. It’s a shame, because it seems like Amazon has no real desire to crack down on it. The obvious conclusion is that they benefit from this type of behavior and give silence as tacit approval.More than likely the card was sent in to be sold by a new vendor and looked in in box probably sharing wrapped up nice and neat.

As bad as this is they can't open every card on the shelves and test them. They can only do what's right and give a refund.
Where the breakdown was is when returned no one caught this and inspected it and it realized what it was if they had.

 

[dehdstar]

Yep! I've been paranoid of this before it was ever a confirmed practice. Even in just being paranoid about manufacturer packaging mistakes. So every time I buy a GPU, I run GPU-Z to make sure all the RAM and shader cores are there. I was particularly worried about this when the 5700 XT released because I found out people could flash the 5700 into an illegitimate XT, but there were still some differences GPU-Z would pickup.

 

[Darkoverlordofdata]

People should be banned from retailers and prosecuted, seriously this is not OK. This is a modern way of robbery, and they're just doing what they please,,, retailers need really good technicians to certify what's happening specially on expensive hardware.

People been doing this scam since long before there was an internet. Don't need to tech products either. I remember friends doing this in high school back in the 70's with KMart. Back in the say KMart allowed you to return anything. Even Sears branded clothing.

 

[yeyibi]

Tomshardware should make articles dedicated to frankenhardware.

Many youtubers show how to add more/faster memory to low tier gpus.

Days ago I saw a video of a dude modding a 32 kb microcomputer of the 80's, (a Z80?) to which he added 1 mb of ram.