Nvidia’sRTX 50 - series GPUsare here , and with them descend some utterly insane price tags . Fancy a top - of - the - rangeRTX 5090 ? That ’ll be $ 2,000 , please . And we ’re not even let the cat out of the bag about third - political party takes on these cards , some of which have prices rising above $ 3,000 .
And just like clockwork , the scalper have stepped in to click up every last card and resell them on eBay for even more outrageous monetary value , because what ’s a GPU launching without a levelheaded acid of pain and scarcity ? Yet this time , the scammers have a young trick up their sleeve , and you postulate to ensure you do n’t descend for it .
During the Covid pandemic , GPUs were hard to discover as the global provision concatenation shut down . Scalpers and scammers openly and proudly listed their ill - gotten goods for sky - high prices without even get at to apologise their behaviour . As you ’d expect , people were n’t happy .
This meter , the scalper have a fresh tactic , and it seems plan to generate sympathy among perfunctory observers , perhaps even sympathy . Indeed , surf eBay today and you ’ll likely notice a plethora of itemization with some magnetic variation on the next claim : “ Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 32 GB ( take the description ) . ”
And why must you say the description ? Because there , the marketer helpfully explains that they ’re not actually selling a graphics card . No , they ’re deal a photo of the card . Why , you ask ? Well , it ’s an anti - bot measure , of class ! How very thoughtful .
In case like this , the seller is trying to frame up their obvious scamming as in reality being pro - consumer activism . They ’re selling a photo with a misleading list title , they explain , to trick scalp bots into blow their money on a non - existing product . “ Do n’t close us down , eBay , ” they say . “ We ’re the near guys ! ”
Except , obviously , they ’re not . This is not consumer activism , it ’s elementary scamming . The Leslie Townes Hope is that vendee dire for a sell - out plug-in will just scan the “ RTX 5090 ” part , see that the vendor has positive feedback , and hit theBuybutton . Easy cash for the chiseller and a humanity of pain for the buyer .
And it works . At the clip of composition , I foundtwo sold listingsover the past day for an RTX 5090 photo , and that ’s just among the listing that are still active . If you scroll the sold items on eBay , you ’ll ascertain dozens of sold itemisation for photograph of an RTX 5090 , all hovering around the list damage of $ 2,000 . eBay might get the buyers their money back , and the Peter Sellers may be punish , but does that change the realness that this is a cozenage ? I reckon not .
How to avoid being scammed
The first and most obvious warning polarity of these listings is right there in the title . If any listing headline contains the words “ take the verbal description , ” it suggests that something is not quite as it should be , and that you ca n’t take the mathematical product description at its word . expend that as your first hint .
The 2nd is that these listings and their deed of conveyance often contain strange or non - standard face . This seems to be an endeavor to elude eBay ’s automated cozenage filters and detecting systems , and it ’s something you ’ll regularly find among the garbage in your email junk e-mail booklet . If a seller has taken the time to append unusual and strange fonts , something shady could well be going on .
As well as that , each of these fake graphics card sellers has spent time carefully building their reputation on eBay to assure bidder that they ’re legit . The faineant single will just buy a few cheap item and hope no one notices they have zero feedback as a trafficker . The more sophisticated GPU defrauder will take more time , such as the one that sold trading cards so their feedback was full of buyer commend them on their “ great cards . ”
A few years ago , I fall victim to a GPU cozenage on eBay . I want to purchase an Nvidia GTX 980 Ti ( I ’m show my years here ) and set up one listed close to MSRP . The seller had 100 % positive feedback , ( admittedly from a relatively low number of reviews — another red sword lily ) , so I felt well-fixed dispense with them . In the destruction , I paid for a GPU that never come , and it took me month of wrangling with eBay to finally get my money back . It was so difficult that I almost gave up .
You see all of these hallmarks in today ’s fake “ anti - bot ” itemization . If you come across any of these admonition sign , be extremely cautious . When this much money is on the logical argument , it ’s safer to report the scam listing and move on .
And if nothing else , the emergence of these scams bear witness how much more work companies like Nvidia and eBay have to do to foreclose innocent citizenry from getting scammed . If regular buyers are ineffectual to purchase a mathematical product before it sell out to scalper , and if it ’s kid ’s play to get cozenage listings host on eBay , something has blend very wrong .
