Buyers of Nvidia’s flagship RTX 4090 GPU have been scammed in the past and have just been reported to have fallen victim to a graphics card sting.
Hong Kong-based HKEPC reports (hats off to VideoCardz) that a gamer bought a used RTX 4090 from a popular online marketplace (Carousell). The customer discovered that the graphics card wasn’t working – no enthusiasts were spinning and it looked dead. once installed on your PC.
After investigation, it was discovered that the graphics card was missing a very important component: the GPU chip itself (ah, and also some VRAM modules).
The customer was then unable to contact the dealer and reported the matter to the police, but the government may simply do nothing to track down the scammer (at least as far as can be said given the article’s translation, which is spotty).
They reportedly paid HK$13,000 for the RTX 4090, which equates to about US$1,700 in the US. (or £1,300, AU$2,500).
In any case, the point is clear: while a second-hand RTX 4090 may seem too smart to be true, it may not be (or a genuine working graphics card).
The ethics of the story here is the apparent recommendation that you only deserve to buy from a reliable dealer. If you’re considering a smart bid on used GPUs, it’s most productive to get it from a well-known retailer, or at least an auction dealer that has a lot of reviews and a savvy reputation.
In addition, there are times when it becomes more productive to engage in the second-hand market, for a while, such as when the crypto mining bubble burst in 2022.
The problem with very expensive graphics cards like the Nvidia RTX 4090 is that they are obvious targets for fraudsters, given that their costs are colossal, even second-hand.
Recall the incident that occurred at the end of 2022, in which an RTX 4090 customer picked up a used card, this time in the US. A 4090 box containing steel parts turned out to be just a 4090 box containing steel parts. (even worse than having the ghost of a graphics card).
In this case, the customer has gotten their money back, but the maximum “caveat emptor” recommendation applies to high-end graphics cards. Especially when, as is the case lately, the RTX 4090 has been at the top of the demand (due to its ban in China and the alleged release of a new variant to circumvent those restrictions).
Darren is a freelancer who writes news and articles for TechRadar (and T3) on a wide variety of IT topics, adding CPU, GPU, other diverse hardware, VPN, antivirus, and more. He has been writing about generation for about 3 decades and writing books in his spare time (his first novel, “I Know What You Did at the Last Supper”, was published through Hachette UK in 2013).
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