Gamer79
Predicts the worst decade for Sony starting 2022
Right now is the best time to buy a new graphics card second hand if you are in the market. People are seeing the 50 series coming out so naturally people want to sell their old stock to offset the cost for the new. I myself was scammed from a 4070ti Super on facebook marketplace online and it took nearly 6 weeks to get my refund. Certain Sites like AliExpress (full of scams and yes I was scammed but got a refund through paypal) or the beforehand mentioned should never be shopped. The alarming thing is this trend is starting to trickle over to ebay, amazon, and other reliable marketplaces. Here is a few scams I can alert you to look out for so maybe if you run into them maybe you know the action to take.
Recommendations:
*When shopping online, use a credit card or Paypal or something similar that gives you third party buyer protection. Sites like aliexpress, facebook marketplace and others promise buyer protection but you will find that if you run into a problem their customer service is 0 help and they do not want to help you get a refund.
*When using any site like backmarket, ebay, etc. Make sure you pay attention to the sellers history or feedback. If you see a seller on ebay that is selling a great Graphics card at a very low price and has 0 feedback I would be vary vary cautious of that.
*In some cases, Scammers can steal others profiles so that makes the above step harder in rare cases. When I got scammed on FB marketplace online, the scammer has someone else's profile that had good feedback so additional digging maybe needed.
Scam 1:
You order the item, the seller provides tracking details, a day later it says your item has arrived but you received nothing. You check the tracking and see there is a package delivered to your local town/city, and your state. There is no housing address just the city and state. Unfortunatley this is enough on sites like AliExpress and FB marketplace to automatically side with the seller. All they see is an item was delivered to your town and state and that's it. In my case My item was suppose to be a 27lb item but the tracking lead to a 1lb envelope delivered to some random address. Both AliExpress and FB marketplace automatically sided with the seller. Even calling the shipping company and they confirmed the info and it was not good enough for either platform. Luckily in my case, I used paypal and had to submit a lot of evidence but did get my money back.
Scam 2:
You Buy a graphics card for a crazy price on some site like AliExpress for example. You receive the card and it looks right. Say you order a 3080 and it comes in the box and the box is marked like a 3080. The card looks a little off but you check Nvidia Contol panel and CPU-Z and it confirms it is indeed a 3080. You Install the Nvidia drivers and they work and install them with no problem. You run benchmarks and then that is when the shit hits the fan. Your performance is way off and cannot figure out why. Upon further investigation you found these scammer took a Geforce 770, painted it and actually do a good job of counterfeiting it, and flash NVIDIA Bios on it to where the actual drivers work and identifies it as an actual 3080 despite being a 770.
Scam 3:
You see a graphics card for a price that's unreal. You see a 4090 brand new for $700. YOu can't pass that up. You make that impulse buy and buy it before you afraid to miss out. As days go buy you get no update for the order. You check the status and the order has not been shipped. You check the sellers profile and realize he has either 0 feedback or has a low number under 10 that clearly fake. By the time you fight to get your money back and jump through the hoops the seller is long gone with the money. You may get a refund back by your fund provider but the scammer got his funds and he is gone.
Recommendations:
*When shopping online, use a credit card or Paypal or something similar that gives you third party buyer protection. Sites like aliexpress, facebook marketplace and others promise buyer protection but you will find that if you run into a problem their customer service is 0 help and they do not want to help you get a refund.
*When using any site like backmarket, ebay, etc. Make sure you pay attention to the sellers history or feedback. If you see a seller on ebay that is selling a great Graphics card at a very low price and has 0 feedback I would be vary vary cautious of that.
*In some cases, Scammers can steal others profiles so that makes the above step harder in rare cases. When I got scammed on FB marketplace online, the scammer has someone else's profile that had good feedback so additional digging maybe needed.
Scam 1:
You order the item, the seller provides tracking details, a day later it says your item has arrived but you received nothing. You check the tracking and see there is a package delivered to your local town/city, and your state. There is no housing address just the city and state. Unfortunatley this is enough on sites like AliExpress and FB marketplace to automatically side with the seller. All they see is an item was delivered to your town and state and that's it. In my case My item was suppose to be a 27lb item but the tracking lead to a 1lb envelope delivered to some random address. Both AliExpress and FB marketplace automatically sided with the seller. Even calling the shipping company and they confirmed the info and it was not good enough for either platform. Luckily in my case, I used paypal and had to submit a lot of evidence but did get my money back.
Scam 2:
You Buy a graphics card for a crazy price on some site like AliExpress for example. You receive the card and it looks right. Say you order a 3080 and it comes in the box and the box is marked like a 3080. The card looks a little off but you check Nvidia Contol panel and CPU-Z and it confirms it is indeed a 3080. You Install the Nvidia drivers and they work and install them with no problem. You run benchmarks and then that is when the shit hits the fan. Your performance is way off and cannot figure out why. Upon further investigation you found these scammer took a Geforce 770, painted it and actually do a good job of counterfeiting it, and flash NVIDIA Bios on it to where the actual drivers work and identifies it as an actual 3080 despite being a 770.
Scam 3:
You see a graphics card for a price that's unreal. You see a 4090 brand new for $700. YOu can't pass that up. You make that impulse buy and buy it before you afraid to miss out. As days go buy you get no update for the order. You check the status and the order has not been shipped. You check the sellers profile and realize he has either 0 feedback or has a low number under 10 that clearly fake. By the time you fight to get your money back and jump through the hoops the seller is long gone with the money. You may get a refund back by your fund provider but the scammer got his funds and he is gone.
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