Don’t Fall for This Sneaky GPU Scam

A high end GPU for less than 50% the going rate? Of course it’s a scam! But there’s so many safeguards in place these days, how could the scammer hope to keep your money?

Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

CHAPTERS
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0:00 Intro
1:19 TL;DR?
2:09 Why It Works
4:10 How did we get here?
4:29 Marketplaces and Drop Shipping
6:19 Tracking Numbers
9:51 I've got a theory
12:30 In Our Case...
15:06 Credits

[sreezon]

Thank you for covering this. I got scammed out of $900 with this exact same scam. FedEx refused to give me any letter. The employees at a FedEx center acknowledged that I was scammed but they had a rule that they don't write letters. Paypal kept siding with the "merchant" even though I pointed out all kinds of inconsistencies with the package such as the weight being 60lbs and the delivery date being before my order date. I eventually got the police involved and they were nice enough to write me a report that said that they confirmed with FedEx that the package wasn't sent to my address. It took me a year's worth of anger and stress to finally get this solved.

[Saturnuria]

I recently ordered a brick from eBay. When I opened the box, somebody had replaced my brick with a 5070 instead. I was furious and eBay refuse to refund me!

[Wrenchmonkey]

I once received a brick in the mail from a scammer, but the marketplace said I had to provide concrete evidence...

*badump cha!*

[jordanpacht]

I ordered a cpu from Jawa and it was stollen out of the package by Fedex. Neither Fedex, Jawa nor the seller would help me out so i ended up just loosing $200

Edit: They've since refunded. Im very pleased with their response

[RobertCoss]

Last year my wife tried to buy me an RTX 4070Ti Super as a birthday present. She was sent a box of assorted used cables. We never got it refunded! Thanks for covering topics like this.

[UnknownFox]

I work for USPS and we are seeing these scams a lot, more people reporting getting tracking numbers but never getting the products they ordered. Granted I work in the back but hearing this from co-workers who work the window.

[ChrisRand-gflz]

Looks like someone updated to a bad driver and bricked your GPU....

I'll show myself out.

[NormLenhart-vl]

Back in the late 90s I got a motherboard from Best Buy in Vegas. Opened the sealed box and found several pieces of wood. I figured I was screwed. Called the manager and told him about it told him I didn't expect him to believe me but suggested he check his stock. Amazingly he did.

All remaining stock consisted of wood in sealed boxes. He was both embarassed and thankful.

[Kujashin]

I'm a UPS driver and I've had multiple scammers contact me about scanning labels and showing them as delivered. They try and offer money to get us to do it, but our jobs are worth far more than they realize. Also its very easy to see who scanned what and when, so its never worth it lol

[DJMontePGH]

So my brother sells in Jawa. He sold someone a 4090 past year. Well they said they received an empty box.
So whether the shipping company stole it or the customer scammed my brother by taking advantage of people scamming.

It goes both ways. There needs to be a better way to sell.

[ThomasRager]

0:11 Even the brick looks fake to me!!!!

[arandmpersn]

Every single day we're given better examples for why brick and mortar stores are still very important. Can't have a package never show up if you physically purchase the item in person. It's a shame that there's a significant lack of tech stores that have enough inventory to meet demand in most places. It's almost as if a lot of people are forced into risking getting scammed.

[tommyboy]

Ha, spent the time to print a brick instead of just getting a real one; these are definitely tech nerds.

[johnhodgson]

The next scam is the delivery proof where the 3rd party mailman takes a photo at your door, then pick up the item and leave.

[ex.perdition]

I very much appreciated the King of the Hill reference at 13:35

[rogantu]

That scam happened to me when I got a box of warheads on ebay. The ebay support team was able to see the tracking stopped in the city 30 minutes from my location and concluded it was indeed a scam and I got a full refund.

[sasjadevries]

Why don't the postal services offer to *sign tracking numbers with the private key of the seller?* Such that the seller can show his public key to the platform and/or user, and everyone can verify that this tracking numbers corresponds to this seller.
This is the kind of technical problem that had been solved years ago, but just not yet applied in this specific field.

[wubwub]

13:49 That's my purse; I don' know you!

[NonEuclideanTacoCannon]

I work at a thrift store, dealing with the donation end of things. Sometimes companies call us to pick up things they are donating for whatever reason. One was a furniture and electronics store that had been out of business for 6 months. They scheduled a pickup of "electronics". It was a pallet of new-in-box Sony Bluray players. The next day we're putting them out for stock, and I decided to open one to use as a display example. Box had scraps of wood in it. I opened the others, every single one had scraps of wood instead of the bluray player. Think they may have been running an eBay scam out of that place. Whoever arranged the pickup certainly got a rather large donation receipt for their taxes while also having us dispose of their garbage. Which is not uncommon, unfortunately.

[chrisblock]

That is the exact thing that happend to me in Germany.
But PayPal refunded me in full after I gathered enought evidence.

I am still shocked, that this is even possible.
My tracking number was actually dated 2 days BEFORE I even bought the thing.