News The GPU Sadness Index: Tracking eBay Pricing

Feb 25, 2021
3
2
10
This scalping <Mod Edit> needs to end and Nvidia, ASUS, EVGA, MSI, Sony could stop this if they wanted to in a second.
Years ago I ended up with a DVD exercise program P90 I think, since I didn't want it I listed it on ebay took about 15 minutes for the add to be pulled for copyright infringement.
I wasn't a authorized dealers and P90 was there copyrighted trademark like Nvidia, ASUS, EVGA, MSI, Sony are all copyrighted trademarks so they do have the ability to stop this.
People should be able to sell there stuff on ebay and make money but not in this way sucking everything up from every retailer amplifying the shortages for there own benefit.
Nvidia could simply ask for every add that uses there copyrighted trademarks more then 10% above MSRP pulled down the scalping and bots would disappear overnight.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • Like
Reactions: gg83

excalibur1814

Distinguished
Sep 12, 2009
202
61
18,670
You know what else needs to stop, on eBay? 0 feedback accounts.

I've been watching Nikon Z6 auctions for over a month and EVERY single one is bid up to around £850. EVERY. Single.One. All tech item prices are seemingly being inflated and that benefits oems, eBay and share holders. It's annoying. It's obvious. It's so obvious, yet most threads are full of people shouting that it isn't an issue and that there's nothing going on.

Yeah, okay.
 

LolaGT

Reputable
Oct 31, 2020
276
248
5,090
It used to be really easy to track on auction sites with a little detective work.
It has been many years now since ebay hid the bidding IDs so it was almost impossible to confirm it, and of course now that you can't see the obvious, it doesn't happen as far as ebay is concerned.


Shill bidding in auctions is the deliberate placing bids on the seller's behalf to artificially drive up the price of his auctioned item. Shill bidding has been known to occur in auctions of high-value items like art and antiques where bidders' valuations differ and the seller's payoff from fraud is high.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KyaraM and Why_Me

daworstplaya

Distinguished
Oct 30, 2009
220
179
18,760
Ebay makes far too much money to ever do this willingly.

^This!
Honestly in this climate MS and Sony should just stop selling their consoles for a loss and sell the consoles for a higher price themselves and keep the profits vs allowing these low life scalpers (aka leeches) to make a quick buck.

GPUs are a different story though, what needs to happen is for all the Cryptocurrency servers to be shut down in China and where ever else they are currently running. Kill Crypto and this whole thing goes away. There is absolutely no reason from Crypto currency ponzi scheme to exist.
 

blacknemesist

Distinguished
Oct 18, 2012
483
80
18,890
At least mining is getting diminished returns, hopefully it keeps dropping more and more and not only do they stop buying they will need to sell them to cut their losses.
I would be happy if all gamers boycotted the 3xxx series just to let crypto crappers suffer all the losses but that isn't going to happen,
 
  • Like
Reactions: KyaraM and Krotow
Feb 25, 2021
3
2
10
Ebay is making money off the scalpers there is no reason for them to stop it. On the other hand Nvidia and it's vendors are dealing with pissed off customers and losing sales with tie in sales. I suggested a solution to this issue one call from one of Nvidia's lawyers letting ebay, stock-x, Facebook market place know if there products are sold on there sites all sellers will need to be authorized resellers. or they can expect legal action seeking damages for copyright infringment
 
  • Like
Reactions: KyaraM

spongiemaster

Admirable
Dec 12, 2019
2,276
1,280
7,560
Ebay is making money off the scalpers there is no reason for them to stop it. On the other hand Nvidia and it's vendors are dealing with pissed off customers and losing sales with tie in sales. I suggested a solution to this issue one call from one of Nvidia's lawyers letting ebay, stock-x, Facebook market place know if there products are sold on there sites all sellers will need to be authorized resellers. or they can expect legal action seeking damages for copyright infringment
What are you talking about? You can't copyright a video card. Ebay is not doing anything illegal allowing video cards to be sold on their site, and there is nothing Nvidia can legally do to stop them.
 
Feb 25, 2021
3
2
10
What are you talking about? You can't copyright a video card. Ebay is not doing anything illegal allowing video cards to be sold on their site, and there is nothing Nvidia can legally do to stop them.
https://www.nvidia.com/content/imagekit/guidelines/NVIDIA_TWIMTBP_logo_guidelines.pdf

Um yes they can Nvida, logos, rtx slogans ect are all there copyrighted trademarked property.
They can't stop advertising "Video Card For Sale" they can stop you from advertising "Nvidia RTX Video Card For Sale"
 

Co BIY

Splendid
The shill bids and manipulation by sellers on ebay is obvious if you spend anytime at all on the site. There is no incentive for ebay to fix the problem. When ebay started and you could see the users bidding there was some transparency.

I am sure that many of the auctions are closing with a false sale that creates the impression of very high prices. The sellers do this when they don't get the high bids they want (actual bidders only willing to go 20% above MSRP). They have a shill bid up a sale to the target price and close the sale. Relist, rinse repeat.
 

Phaaze88

Titan
Ambassador
I am sure that many of the auctions are closing with a false sale that creates the impression of very high prices. The sellers do this when they don't get the high bids they want (actual bidders only willing to go 20% above MSRP). They have a shill bid up a sale to the target price and close the sale. Relist, rinse repeat.
So what you're saying is that if I look for sold listings, the system does not discriminate between sales that were purposely closed and actual sold listings?
 

trance77

Commendable
Aug 28, 2020
32
13
1,535
Retailers could put a lot more checks in place to help stop scalpers, I heard Scan who sell the FE cards in the UK are only allowing one FE card per household now, not foolproof I'm sure but it helps. Not that most retailers are bothered, many are now scalpers themselves.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KyaraM and bernieo

trance77

Commendable
Aug 28, 2020
32
13
1,535
^This!
Honestly in this climate MS and Sony should just stop selling their consoles for a loss and sell the consoles for a higher price themselves and keep the profits vs allowing these low life scalpers (aka leeches) to make a quick buck.

GPUs are a different story though, what needs to happen is for all the Cryptocurrency servers to be shut down in China and where ever else they are currently running. Kill Crypto and this whole thing goes away. There is absolutely no reason from Crypto currency ponzi scheme to exist.


I understand the anger but crypto currency is not a ponzi scheme and I don't see how shutting it down could be a legitimate option (if it's even possible).
 
  • Like
Reactions: atomicWAR

SSGBryan

Reputable
Jan 29, 2021
136
116
4,760
Retailers could put a lot more checks in place to help stop scalpers, I heard Scan who sell the FE cards in the UK are only allowing one FE card per household now, not foolproof I'm sure but it helps. Not that most retailers are bothered, many are now scalpers themselves.

Why should they?

They don't gain anything by doing that.
 

Giroro

Splendid
PSA for anybody looking for a cheap GPU on ebay: A 3GB Tesla M2050 might seem like a really good deal at $30, but it doesn't actually have display ouputs.

On an unrelated note, would anybody like to buy a super neat, passively cooled, and useful compute GPU? It can probably render things, or compile stuff, and do whatever workloads need FP64 ... It's a real steal at its new low price $60
 
  • Like
Reactions: adamboy64

Giroro

Splendid
I understand the anger but crypto currency is not a ponzi scheme and I don't see how shutting it down could be a legitimate option (if it's even possible).
I agree, Ponzi scheme is the wrong kind of scam to describe bitcoin. People are being tricked into paying money for an imaginary asset with no intrinsic value.
So its more like buying a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge, or naming a star.

FWIW, the Chinese government has complete draconian control of the internet in their country, so it would be trivial for them to shut down bitcoin in China and track/censor/arrest every single miner - if they actually wanted to, which they don't. But that wouldn't do anything to stop anybody in the rest of the world
 
Last edited: