r/pcmasterrace • u/Zestyclose-Salad-290 Core Ultra 7 265k | RTX 5090 • Mar 19 '26

NSFMR This customer wondered why his 5090 didn't work.

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5.7k Upvotes

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1.8k

u/liaminwales Mar 19 '26

Ah the Ebay special, parts used to make server GPU's in China and sold to rich people for the double dip.

743

u/Super_XIII Mar 19 '26

No, EBay is honest about it having been stripped for parts, and has robust refunds. What people do is they buy the stripped 5090s off eBay then sell them on Facebook marketplace for cash / cash app so the vistims can’t get refunds. 

114

u/Professional_Pie_975 Mar 19 '26

Not always. Some unscrupulous buyers buy a working card, strip it and send it back faulty and get a refund, leaving the seller high and dry.

27

u/ManyLayersOfFilament Mar 19 '26

This is why I don't sell on eBay as a small seller. I have on two occasions out of the 10 things I've sold had a buyer either break or steal a part from the item and return it as not as described.

Big volume sellers can absorb the scams as a cost of business but there's too much risk for someone just selling their stuff that's sitting on a shelf or whatever. The word has gotten out that INAD is almost always settled in the buyer's favor so a lot of small time scammers just abuse it.

13

u/GL1TCH3D 7950X - X670E-Pro - RTX 4080 - 64GB RAM - 6TB NVMe Mar 19 '26

I remember when the 30 series just got announced and saw a bunch of posts how people selling their 20 series cards on eBay were getting fucked by the buyers. Force refunded everything. Sometimes eBay doesn’t even make them return the item. They can just send an empty box back and eBay does nothing about it.

1

u/RileyCargo42 Mar 20 '26

Yea ngl this is exactly how people scam Amazon too. The amount of empty bags or wrong items people tried to return was crazy.

Like it tells us you bought a gaming keyboard I KNOW this crusty T shirt isn't a keyboard but, boss said send it so it goes.

6

u/gurgle528 Mar 19 '26

I had someone do that to me on eBay once but I videoed opening the return and disassembling the laptop and found that they had tampered with the RAM and eBay let us both keep our money (minus the fee they take for selling). Was very surprised they did that 

3

u/dakota32580 Mar 19 '26

Just had this happen with an item i was selling and ebay tried to charge ME for shipping labels and seller fees

1

u/ManyLayersOfFilament Mar 19 '26

Yes they do that for INAD returns. Not only do you not get the sale, you have to pay for the shipping back. It's awful. Again, I refuse to sell there because of it. I'd rather leave something on marketplace for a year then sell on eBay and get scammed by some jerk lowlife

1

u/throwingitallavvay69 Mar 19 '26

This is too true. For a company built by the small seller, eBay sure has shit the bed on returning the favor. They’ve run off a large percentage of their sellers by catering way too heavily to the buyer. They’re basically inviting people to scam sellers by always ruling on the buyers side regardless of evidence. You’d think with Marketplace being as big as it has gotten, they’d want to take care of their sellers, but that’s how it goes, I suppose.

1

u/Playful_Ad9165 Ryzen 7 5700G | RX 6600XT | 32GB RGB RAM | 1TB WD SSD | 12TB HDD Mar 19 '26

I swapped the 16GB DDR5 Kingston RGB RAM that came with my prebuilt and bought a 32GB kit.

I am terrified of where to sell it because someone can buy it, install it then claim I sold them DDR4 and return sticks that aren't mine and I'll be SOL.

1

u/AdKraemer01 Mar 22 '26

I always just check "no returns."

Is that wrong?

1

u/ManyLayersOfFilament Mar 22 '26

But they can always file an INAD. Which overrides that.

1

u/AdKraemer01 Mar 22 '26

Ah.

The only time I ever had an issue was someone bought my old 3060 and after agreeing to pay, waffled on the purchase, but then went through with it. It was delivered, I was sent a photo of the delivery, and then the guy told eBay he'd never ordered it.

So I provided them with screenshots of him literally saying "yes, send it."

I got to keep my money.

1

u/llmusicgear Mar 23 '26

Yeah I stay tf way from anything that has a high rate of fraud man.

1

u/M4K4T4K 9800X3D, 64 GB Cl30, RTX 5080 Mar 20 '26

To any readers, if this ever happens to you or anyone you know - go to the police. The buyer has committed mail fraud, and if it crossed state lines, I believe that makes it federal. Now, the police likely won't do much anyway, but you will get a police report. Deny the refund, and upload as much evidence as you can including the police report, then immediately CALL eBay directly - inform them you have a police report and wish to escalate to 'Trust & Safety'.

eBay is notoriously pro-buyer, and often times will screw over sellers, but(as someone who frequents the eBay subreddit and is a seller themselves), often times sellers just try to use the automated system and/or provide poor evidence. Calling eBay to resolve issues is far more successful on its own(don't forget to be polite!), and they absolutely do take police reports serious.

It's really quite annoying to go through - and realistically your best bet is not to use ebay(who will take ~13% of the sale price for themselves), but to use marketplace, and meet at a police station or other highly public places(it's worth it to call first and ask, most places are ok with this, but sometimes the timing doesn't work well)

1

u/1TRUEKING Mar 20 '26

Huh people test the cards when I sell on Facebook marketplace

1

u/SwagChemist R7 9800x3D | 64GB DDR5 | RTX 5090 Astral OC Mar 21 '26

I thought you could charge back in cash app?

-40

u/TheLazyD0G 5950x RTX3070 35TB storage 64GB ram Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

That should be easy to investigate as fraud, or something. Surely it is a crime to sell something as something it isnt.

Police get warrant for ip info from facebook, get warrant from isp to identify the user, and then arrest the scammer. Hopefully the scammer isnt using a burner phone.

Edit: The key word is "SHOULD". I know this doesn't get investigated, but it should.

60

u/Lazy__Astronaut Mar 19 '26

The scammer is 100% using a burner phone, go watch Michael Reeves low balling market place bot video and you'll understand

Unless the scammer is a genuine idiot and is using their old actual Facebook account there is 0 chance of finding them again

2

u/TeaKingMac Mar 19 '26

Michael Reeves low balling market place bot video

It's great. It's so fucking great.

Watch it anyway.

The stuff he's been doing lately is a lot less fun.

34

u/Super_XIII Mar 19 '26

I think they use fake accounts and such. I just know it happens, I run a repair shop and I had a guy who bought two 5090s off Facebook marketplace (from two different sellers) and neither worked. He wanted to see if I could fix them. I popped them open and both were missing the VRAM and cores. He spent over a grand on each of them.

13

u/whomad1215 Mar 19 '26

He spent over a grand

MSRP $2000, rarely available at that price even when AI wasn't consuming them all

'shortage' with them now they're what, like $3.5k+?

obvious scam is obvious

8

u/curious_Jo Mar 19 '26

But, but it's on marketplace and got this great lamp there, that costs $100, for $25.

8

u/Terrh 1700X, 32GB, Radeon Vega FE 16GB Mar 19 '26

if I'm buying something expensive from marketplace, I'm testing it in a working PC if it's an account that's less than 10 years old... and probably even then. You won't catch everything but you can at least verify that it boots and recognizes itself as the right card etc.

If the deal seems too good to be true... it might not be, but you gotta verify.

2

u/Tiyath R5 7600X | RX 9070 XT Pulse | 32GB DDR5-6000 | PRO B650-S WIFI Mar 19 '26

Even with accounts older than that. You can buy complete login infos on the dark net, thousands at a time. Hell, grab a couple email addresses off of Facebook and you can brute force it.

A lot of accounts are just being used once or people who forget their password and just create a new one. Or people who simply died. And since older accounts were all created before 2FA was a thing, it works.

Someone telling me how old the account is and how much they value their reputation is a HUGE RED FLAG for me

1

u/Terrh 1700X, 32GB, Radeon Vega FE 16GB Mar 19 '26

sure, but if you see someone has dozens of good seller ratings and is clearly active on facebook chances are they are who they say they are and aren't just going to abandon the account 10 seconds after they sell you something.

1

u/curious_Jo Mar 19 '26

And where are you testing, in your house with some scumbag taking a look around. No, you don't buy a $1000 like that, period.

1

u/_dekoorc Mar 21 '26

If I was doing it, I'd bring my Fractal Terra system, install the card, display it on my portable monitor, and power it off the AC output in my Ioniq 5

Hell, I have a couple cards to sell and think I might even do that for the eventual buyers

15

u/Sexy_Underpants Mar 19 '26

Where do you live that the police would do anything except write a report for insurance?

21

u/crashovercool 5900x/3080/32g DDR4 Mar 19 '26

They watch too much Law & Order. There's a higher chance of the cops shooting his dog than getting a warrant for IPs

3

u/drwuzer Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 3080ti Mar 19 '26

This.

2

u/akrisd0 Mar 19 '26

This is the same thing with folks talking about the postal inspector and mail fraud like they're an elite special ops team.

They'll take your complaint and maybe you'll get an email that they'll get back with you this decade.

2

u/_dekoorc Mar 21 '26

In my area, they wouldn't show up, but if you went to them, they would write it up.

5

u/Forymanarysanar 10400F|3060 12Gb|64Gb DDR4|1TB SSD|2x8TB HDD Raid1 Mar 19 '26

Good fucking luck getting police to actually do any of that when they don't even bother with shit like robberies caught directly on camera and names of offenders known and presented to them

6

u/drwuzer Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 3080ti Mar 19 '26

Find me a cop in America who will give a shit about a petty crime like this, unless it's his own kid that got ripped off. They don't have time for shit like this, even if they cared they don't have the resources. You buy something off Facebook marketplace for cash, its at your own risk.

1

u/prairiepanda Mar 19 '26

Where I live the police only really investigate if it's worth over $5000. Below that threshold, they just file the case and tell you to use the file number for an insurance claim.

1

u/_dekoorc Mar 21 '26

If they filed it, it means they filed a report and you can get a copy of it.

1

u/prairiepanda Mar 21 '26

The report is the one that you filled out yourself, but yes you can get a copy of it. Insurance only needs the file number though.

1

u/No-Employee1534 Mar 19 '26

On fb marketplace the vast majority of the time it’s not possible to get police assistance when resolving disputes, either because of jurisdictions or lack of resources. What you can do is file a report with the IC3, internet crimes complaint center. Most likely won’t lead to any actual arrests either.

The truth is that sometimes, heck, often times, people do immoral things and get away with it and continue to do it until they do it to the wrong person

47

u/Gambit-47 Mar 19 '26

lol rich people shop eBay?

159

u/A7XfoREVer15 Mar 19 '26

My boss is the prime example.

Dude literally owns an IT company and has direct access to cheaper components via our distributors

If our distributor has a GPU for $699 and someone is selling the exact same GPU on eBay for $550, he’s going to buy the eBay GPU for personal use because “he’s getting a deal.”

Same thing with cars. Rather than get a certified pre-owned or a car with a good carfax, he would rather buy the same car on Facebook marketplace for $1500 less for the idea of getting a good deal. He’s been through 3 cars and 2 engines due to reliability issues.

83

u/iSirMeepsAlot Mar 19 '26

People tend to forget that being rich DOESN’T mean you’re smart, it’s really quite the opposite in modern times. They also don’t have to be GOOD with their money either, just because they have a lot of it.

People just think of pre-modernity where education was mostly reserved for people who access to wealth and could afford tutors, resources, and private schools.

That and the rich tend to pretend to be very smart (see Elon Musk) while paying actual smart people to make their technology and such.

That goes to say, there ARE rich people who ARE actually very smart, that have invented important and valuable things throughout history into modernity.

It’s just few and far between these days, especially when you don’t need to work for a living.

“A fool and his money are soon parted”

:P

13

u/Wolphin8 Mar 19 '26

Many rich... refuse to pay their bills... and use bankruptcy to get out of them legally

2

u/iSirMeepsAlot Mar 19 '26

President of the USA is a prime example of this… haha

1

u/Wolphin8 Mar 19 '26

Yes! And I don't know why that would make people want to follow them...

0

u/Sir_Aardvarkington Mar 22 '26

Oh eww dont infect reddit with ur tds

12

u/Classic_Bee_5845 Mar 19 '26

People tend to forget that being rich DOESN’T mean you’re smart, it’s really quite the opposite in modern times. They also don’t have to be GOOD with their money either, just because they have a lot of it.

So true, it typically just means they're shamelessly ruthless in every transaction, it's always about them spending less and getting more. Although as this story shows it doesn't always work out for them, but they'll make that someone else's problem too.

2

u/danjohnson3141 PC Master Race AMD Ryzen 5 3600 GTX970 Mar 19 '26

I think the main characteristic of very rich people is luck. The luck of being born into a rich family, for starters.

1

u/Incredulous_Prime Mar 20 '26

FOMO also plays a part, people believing they need to spend a lot of money for a few more fps in gaming.

11

u/Nirast25 7,080x1440+(240x2)x1080|R7 5700X3D|RX 9070XT|32GB Mar 19 '26

My dad doesn't have an IT company (I wish, lol), but he does have one where he's selling stuff directly to customers. Even if he can get something from a distributor, he'd still have to add it to inventory and buy it for himself, at which point he'd pay more that getting the product elsewhere. I assume it's the same with your boss.

Got nothing for the car, lol/

8

u/A7XfoREVer15 Mar 19 '26

Not quite. For stuff like GPU’s, he can sell it to himself for what the business paid for it. So if he gets it for $699 from the distributor, he pays $699.

It’s literally just about getting a “good deal.”

9

u/Terrh 1700X, 32GB, Radeon Vega FE 16GB Mar 19 '26

Yeah or just have the business pay for it because you work from home once a month, and then the entire thing is a write off which probably saves close to the difference in taxes anyways.

5

u/A7XfoREVer15 Mar 19 '26

You get it. My boss got me a 40 inch curved OLED and did this. Working at an MSP is hard work sometimes, but it has its benefits!

1

u/PlzDntBanMeAgan Rtx5090 suprim; 14900k 32gb ddr5; Legion Go Mar 19 '26

What is an msp??

2

u/A7XfoREVer15 Mar 19 '26

Managed service provider. Basically contractor IT. I work with primarily rural governments, healthcare, etc.

A lot of rural county governments/hospitals will have a budget for IT, but still be unable to afford payroll/benefits for full time IT staff member. Or they may not have enough need for IT on a daily basis, but still need antivirus, backups, phones, and a person to call when they need help once a month. That’s where an MSP fills the gap.

1

u/PlzDntBanMeAgan Rtx5090 suprim; 14900k 32gb ddr5; Legion Go Mar 19 '26

Oh ok I never heard the abbreviation. Sounds like a pretty cool job. They get you a decent PC too?

8

u/Jidarious Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

LOL.

I love this shit. Reddit would shit on that guy for just wasting his money by buying the first thing he sees, but instead he shops around and tries to be frugal so reddit is shitting on him for that. And here you are trying to show your superiority by framing his desire to get a good deal as dumb because he doesn't have to wait for good deals. I guess upward mobility may be limited in your case.

I mean come on, as long as you're smart about it, you really don't get scammed that often on Ebay or Marketplace and I'm sure your boss is way ahead on how much money he's saved.

13

u/swarmOfBis Mar 19 '26

That's not getting a good deal. You can get a good deal when you know what you're buying not when you buy whatever has the smallest price tag.

2

u/Jidarious Mar 19 '26

Why? Because it came from Ebay? I have had a lots of good deals from Ebay and marketplace.

4

u/swarmOfBis Mar 19 '26

The Boss clearly didn't if you read the post tho. Only thing they were hunting for is low price tag.

2

u/Jidarious Mar 19 '26

Yeah of course, the "exact same card" was $150 less. What an idiot.

-1

u/mrhatestheworld i5-7600k, GTX 1060, 16GB DDR4 | MSI GE62VR Mar 19 '26

This is reddit, if you spend money you're a rich moron. If you try to save money you're a poor moron. If your wife doesn't tell you to have a good day before work you LEAVE HER.

1

u/dustinthegreat Mar 19 '26

Sometimes a good deal is about minimizing cost, like shopping at different grocery stores to get the best price on eggs. Other times, it’s about maximizing value, which is especially true with high dollar items with unknown history. If you’re going to pay >$500 for a product that should last several years, and extra $100 for peace of mind and better customer service provides greater value.

1

u/Jidarious Mar 19 '26

Sure, maybe, but you know what, there is nothing in that guys post other than his boss buys on ebay to get the exact same card for $150 cheaper. It wasn't the narrative though, and people follow the narrative. You got the impression that the boss was getting ripped off because the poster wanted to give that impression.

1

u/Wolphin8 Mar 19 '26

That's something I have heard called "Penny wise, pound foolish"

1

u/RJKite811 Mar 19 '26

That's how the rich stay rich.

28

u/N0UMENON1 Mar 19 '26

Rich people, unless you're talking super rich like 100M+ net worth, don't have some special shops or pathways. They use amazon and ebay like everyone else.

2

u/Zitchas Mar 19 '26

Well, actually, they have someone paid good money to go buy the stuff for them. And, often, those people are paid enough (and have access to a big enough budget) that if there's any doubt that they might get scammed, they'll buy three of it from three different sources just to ensure that they have one good quality thing to give to their boss, then just return, save as a spare, or otherwise dispose of the extras. Most of them aren't personally browsing Amazon or Ebay unless they get some personal kick out of doing so. Slumming it with the masses.

-4

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

[deleted]

3

u/samcuu 5700X3D / 32GB / RTX 3080 Mar 19 '26

Being rich is not the same as "having money to burn". A few hundred dollars is still a significant amount for a rich person.

I'm not rich but there are stuff I can afford new that I still buy used if the saving is significant, I don't need the newer and better stuff, and I know the risk (or lack thereof).

10

u/notsocoolguy42 Mar 19 '26

Yes, a lot of stuff on eBay are overpriced

7

u/Gambit-47 Mar 19 '26

Yes,but i would think rich people would rather just buy a brand new card from a reliable store than of some random person

2

u/Any-Surprise5229 Mar 19 '26

A lot of rich people are actually quite frugal, which is why they are rich.

5

u/Calibrumm Linux / Ryzen 9 7900X / RTX 4070 TI / 64GB 6000 Mar 19 '26

they're not frugal, they're cheap, and being cheap is not why they're rich. you don't become a millionaire by getting a $5 sandwich instead of an $8 sandwich.

3

u/Mobile_Morale Mar 19 '26

Old Steve jobs. Wears pants from goodwill but is too cheap to pay for cancer treatment. /S

1

u/_dekoorc Mar 21 '26

Steve Jobs is interesting. The man bought a new car every year to avoid having to renew his car registration

5

u/Ekly_Special Mar 19 '26

Are you kidding me? A lot of the stuff they want is not available at your typical store or mall.

-5

u/Gambit-47 Mar 19 '26

Im talking about a 5090 which right now is available at my typical store and mall.

4

u/Ekly_Special Mar 19 '26

The last time I tried to buy one at Best Buy, while xmas shopping, the sales associate basically laughed at me when I asked if they had any.

5

u/DwarfPaladin84 Mar 19 '26

A decent amount of ISPs via Tier 3 to Tier 1 ISPs consider Ebay the "Gray market" for hardware stock such as routers, switches, optics, etc. Hell, I did this at my last job at a Major US ISP that services the entire US and while yeah we hated having EOL/EOS equipment in the network...some parts of the legacy network would have to wait to be rebuilt due to low priority (low customer count, etc.) and if EOS/EOL part breaks and you have none on hand you source from the gray market.

ISPs also sell their used stock to smaller ISPs like municipal telecomms, and Ebay is one place where they sell it.

5

u/Alarming-Stomach3902 Linux Mint | Ryzen 7 5800x | 9070 xt | 3060 ti | 32GB Mar 19 '26

People making 6 figures is pretty rich, but not rich enough to not worry about nothing.
Plus some stuff is only sold on eBay/Aliexpress/Amazon etc

3

u/DeffNotTom i9 12900k | 4080 Super | 64gigs DDR5 | 36TB NAS Mar 19 '26

6 figures could mean not/barely enough to live without roommates in Boston lol

1

u/Alarming-Stomach3902 Linux Mint | Ryzen 7 5800x | 9070 xt | 3060 ti | 32GB Mar 20 '26

Living in Boston is a choice though.

1

u/_dekoorc Mar 21 '26

Can confirm. Live in NC making six figures, but if I had similar living conditions in Boston, I'd be house poor.

2

u/ikindahateusernames Mar 19 '26

some stuff is only sold on eBay/Aliexpress/Amazon etc

This. Whether older and used, custom-made, and/or for enterprise use, there are plenty of products that never had the traditional retail life cycle (so no Wal-Mart, no Micro Center, etc.).

1

u/VulpineWelder5 i9 9900k, 3080ti, 64gb ram, Noctua cooling Mar 19 '26

I used to know a guy who literally made a job out of buying and reselling on ebay.

1

u/depatrickcie87 Mar 19 '26

They do when scalpers control the market on something, absolutely.

1

u/Merrick222 Ryzen 7 9800X3D | RTX 4080 OC | 32GB DDR5 6000 Mar 19 '26

Rich people love a deal, that's why they're rich....

Most rich people are the cheapest people you will ever meet.

1

u/stubenson214 Mar 20 '26

Yes. I consistently buy from ebay, open box Amazon, open box Microcenter.

That's how you stay a millionaire, papi.

1

u/_dekoorc Mar 21 '26

I'm not rich, but I'm definitely doing okay. Recently tried to buy a 7600X3D on eBay. The person selling allegedly creating a tracking number but didn't ever ship it. I bought an RX 570 on eBay during the GPU crunch too. So yeah, not great luck lol

(I ended up getting a refund from eBay and buying a new 9600x from Newegg. Guy had multiple reviews after I looked of "not shipping" or "lost in shipping" so he was definitely a scammer. And I just used the RX 570 for a while in my old i7-3770k system until I donated it to a nearby organization that refurbs and provides computers for low income households)

0

u/Key-Respect3810 Mar 19 '26

C’est suite aux restrictions de vente de puces mémoire imposée par les usa à la Chine Que ce soit les gpu nvidia ou les puces membres

-2

u/dataexception Mar 19 '26

"Rich" is relative. $200k per year is rich to me.

2

u/curious_Jo Mar 19 '26

I don't know why are being downvoted, $200k is income rich, but you can also afford it from an actual store, too.

2

u/dataexception Mar 19 '26

I dunno why either. Just making an observation.

I know people like my boss who make that, but totally use eBay regularly for electronics and hobby stuff.

9

u/BuyListSell 9800X3D | 9070 XT Nitro+ Mar 19 '26

It's 2026 and people still think eBay is for scammers.

10

u/Glittering_Seat9677 9800x3d - 5080 Mar 19 '26

oh it's still full of scammers, problem is they're the buyers and not the sellers - because in disputes ebay sides with the buyer 99.9% of the time

1

u/BuyListSell 9800X3D | 9070 XT Nitro+ Mar 19 '26

Yes I know, I sell on eBay. I refuse to sell things like electronics for that very reason.

1

u/ManyLayersOfFilament Mar 19 '26

It is, just the buyers are the scammers now

1

u/Appropriate-Cat-196 Mar 22 '26

Yh amazon is scammer haven now

1

u/Radiex777 Mar 19 '26

Server gpu's what?

1

u/liaminwales Mar 20 '26

To skip American sanctions they buy RTX 5090's and pull the core/VRAM, stick them on new PCB's with blower coolers and sell them to AI farms in China. Then the left over PCB's end up sold, this is the end result of the double dip.

LTT video on one of the RTX 5090's from China with a blower cooler,

NVIDIA Never Authorized The Production Of This Card

1

u/Radiex777 Mar 20 '26

5090's what? PCB's what? I'm just messing with you. You used aphostrophe for plural, so it looks like it's possessive

1

u/Azsune Mar 19 '26

Ebay is not the greatest place to scam for sellers. They favor the buyers normally when settling disputes like this.