News Buyer Receives Fake Core i9-13900K With Swapped IHS Off Amazon

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The affected individual recounts that he reportedly bought the Core i9-13900K new directly from Amazon
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I'm always skeptical of accounts like this. Was the seller really "Amazon" and not like "Amazon Warehouse"? I don't think Amazon replenishes its "new" inventory with returned merchandise, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

To mitigate the risk of getting scammed, make sure to test your products within the (usually) 30-day return window of sites like Amazon and Newegg.

The Core i9-13900K and Core i7-13700K have $599 and $419 MSRPs, respectively. The fraudster only receives a $180 profit from the operation, leading to a discussion among Redditors on the genuineness of the case.
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My guess is the original buyer had an i7-13700K, either had or knew someone with the capability to delid CPUs, and decided they'd like a "free" upgrade to an i9-13900K.

Let's say it was a kid whose parents bought him an i7-13700K. All he needs his own (or a friend's) credit card with enough credit to let him charge the i9-13900K, and then make sure both the purchase and return fall within the same billing cycle. Then, he doesn't have to actually spend any money that he might not have. Even if they fall in different billing cycles, you just have to pay the interest on the initial purchase, which would still make it a very cheap upgrade.

Stories like this are important, because they remind us that scams often do hurt real people. Too often, you hear scammers rationalize what they're doing as scamming a big, faceless company and telling themselves that whoever gets the CPU will just return it for a refund, leaving Amazon stuck with the bill. But, too often, that's not the case. And, even if the second buyer did notice & return within the 30 day return window, Amazon will just pass the costs of any fraud onto other consumers via higher price markups & fees. So, we all stand to suffer from scams and frauds, even if not directly.
 
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Question - i9 13900k showing wrong CPU (as i7 13700k)

Not sure if this is the right forum to ask this, is there another forum or area that's better suited? I built my first pc in 15 years in April and was a bit of a learning curve, lost some hair in the process. There were some issues that I didn't resolve at the time as it seemed stable enough, I...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
Oh, that's the same guy, huh.
 
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The first thing I would check when booting up the computer for the first time would be the task manager to see how many threads I have and what frequency they are running at.

ark.intel.com

Intel® Core™ i7-13700K Processor (30M Cache, up to 5.40 GHz) Product Specifications

Intel® Core™ i7-13700K Processor (30M Cache, up to 5.40 GHz) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.
ark.intel.com ark.intel.com
ark.intel.com

Intel® Core™ i9-13900K Processor (36M Cache, up to 5.80 GHz) Product Specifications

Intel® Core™ i9-13900K Processor (36M Cache, up to 5.80 GHz) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.
ark.intel.com ark.intel.com

Although to be fair they do have the same number of Performance cores.
 
Phaaze88 said:

Question - i9 13900k showing wrong CPU (as i7 13700k)

Not sure if this is the right forum to ask this, is there another forum or area that's better suited? I built my first pc in 15 years in April and was a bit of a learning curve, lost some hair in the process. There were some issues that I didn't resolve at the time as it seemed stable enough, I...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
Oh, that's the same guy, huh.
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I was thinking the same thing.
 
Tom Sunday said:
I also make sure to always buy from Amazon direct and not third party vendors engaging Amazon for their shipping purposes.
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Depends on what it is. Obviously, if the 3rd party is actually the manufacturer of the item, then it's fine. Even when it's not, if the 3rd party seller has a good feedback score and a long history of doing business on Amazon, then I've had overwhelmingly positive experiences.

In fact, the only negative experience I had with a 3rd party seller, in recent memory, was when I bought a nutritional supplement and didn't notice it was from a 3rd party seller, thereby forgetting to do my normal diligence. What happened was they shipped me 4 bottles of 30 pills, instead of the 2 bottles of 120 that I ordered. Either they couldn't do math or they hoped I couldn't. But, the fact that they even warned they might ship different sized bottles does suggest this might be a scam they'd pulled more than once.

When I noticed the discrepancy, I went to check their feedback and found they were a new seller with lots of complaints. Even if I did check their % feedback score before ordering, the first few feedbacks were good, which might've given them a good enough feedback score at that time. It was only since then that most of the negative feedback had come in. That's why it's important to make sure not only the % is high, but also the total number. Anyway, I asked Amazon to refund me half of my purchase price and they did.

Tom Sunday said:
As my Mom used to say: "There are no free lunches in this world."
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The other possibility is that 3rd party sellers are "perfectly good" fences for stolen merchandise. If you're running a fencing operation, you have just as much incentive for good customer service as a legitimate store. Maybe even more.
 
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derekullo said:
The first thing I would check when booting up the computer for the first time would be the task manager to see how many threads I have and what frequency they are running at.

ark.intel.com

Intel® Core™ i7-13700K Processor (30M Cache, up to 5.40 GHz) Product Specifications

Intel® Core™ i7-13700K Processor (30M Cache, up to 5.40 GHz) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.
ark.intel.com ark.intel.com
ark.intel.com

Intel® Core™ i9-13900K Processor (36M Cache, up to 5.80 GHz) Product Specifications

Intel® Core™ i9-13900K Processor (36M Cache, up to 5.80 GHz) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.
ark.intel.com ark.intel.com

Although to be fair they do have the same number of Performance cores.
Click to expand...
Should force into bios after CPU swap or new build. Data is there on the UEFI
 
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Admin said:
Redditor says he bought a "new" Core i9-13900K from Amazon but received a Core i7-13700K with a swapped IHS.

Buyer Receives Fake Core i9-13900K With Swapped IHS Off Amazon : Read more
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Now I'm worried. I just went through an i9 scam on Amazon, it was a smokin deal $409 for a 13900k so I bought one. What they sent me was some lens protector thing for some phone. It took a little over a month to get my money back on that, but in the mean-time I bought another 13900k from Amazon at the typical selling price and Amazon reimbursed me the difference between the two CPU's in a gift cad. Now I'm concerned my second i9 might not be an i9.

I need another $700 worth of hardware before I can even think of powering up this new system. I've been patiently buying parts as they go on sale, so it takes time. But $409 is/was a smokin deal for a 13900k, if it is what it claims to be of coarse.
 
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Amazon Warehouse seems like it might be a good deal but can be a dumping ground for such fraudulent returns, as I found when I opened a present for my brother - a Dark Rock Pro 4 heatsink - and found the Pro 2 inside, without the right restraining bracket, and incompatible with AM5. Worst part was that Amazon refunded me but also seemed to have put it right back up on the listing for someone else.
 
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