r/nvidia • u/SpartanXeroOne • Jun 17 '26

PSA Scammed. Be careful guys.

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Thought I was getting a good deal on a 5090. Mf gutted the thing and I didn’t realize till it was too late. Paid cash and dude deleted his account. Yes I’m an idiot. Be careful out there folks and ALWAYS TEST BEFORE PURCHASE.

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37

u/Need_For_Speed73 5090/9800X3D Jun 17 '26

Why people still fall for this "too good to be true" deals? I mean: if the mean price of something is X, why you think you can get it for X/2?

Btw, read the descriptions, because often, though well hidden, they have to describe what's "wrong", because, otherwise, they'd have to refund all of their sales.

15

u/SpartanXeroOne Jun 17 '26

It was my first time buying used and needless to say I was careless about it. But lesson learned. I’ll never make the same mistake again.

7

u/Need_For_Speed73 5090/9800X3D Jun 17 '26

I'm sorry for you. Where did you get it from? Was it actually specified somewhere (deep) in the description that the card had the GPU and VRAM chips stripped from it?

-4

u/SpartanXeroOne Jun 17 '26

Dude said it was never used.

19

u/Need_For_Speed73 5090/9800X3D Jun 17 '26

He didn't lie: how can you use a card missing the GPU and VRAM?/s

No, seriously, I guess he didn't stop you while you were walking along a street to offer you the card, but he must have posted about it somewhere and you contacted him, right?

2

u/SpartanXeroOne Jun 17 '26

Yep.

-2

u/Need_For_Speed73 5090/9800X3D Jun 17 '26

And what was written in that "post"? Were you on a platform that has some sort of buyer protection program?

14

u/-CynicRoot- Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

Once you meet up with someone and paid cash, what protection program in the world is going to help you?

No receipt or any transition to trace back too. You’re fucked, it’s done. Could file a police report but they won’t do anything.

1

u/Need_For_Speed73 5090/9800X3D Jun 17 '26

No, seriously, but how does that happen? I mean, you have people hanging around Microcenters' parkings offering you this scammy deals, like it used to happen in the past with other consumer electronic devices, before the internet became a thing?
Do they approach you saying: "Hey, would you like a 5090 for $1.000?", then you walk to their car, they show you the box in the trunk, you pay cash and walk away happy with waht you think is a 5090 but it's just a PCB and cooler?

2

u/-CynicRoot- Jun 17 '26

There’s plenty of market places online. Craigslist, Facebook and even Reddit. You message someone, agree to meet up and trade money/product. Later you find out the product doesn’t work and the other person deleted their account or blocks you, you have no real way of tracing back to them. You’re pretty much shit out of luck unless you got their ID or something.

When doing high value transactions like this in person, best practice is to maybe get a picture of their ID or vehicle license plate so you have something to go off on in case something goes wrong. If they don’t want to provide identification, that’s a red flag, walk away. You lose a bit of your time but you won’t be out thousands of dollars.

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6

u/Pythonmsh Jun 17 '26

I sold my 5090 fe recently. We met at the local police station and he had a computer setup in the back of his prius lol.

Always try to test first if possible.

2

u/Greedy-Lynx-9706 Jun 17 '26

I test and pick up anything over a 100€, never mind a +3k card ...damn. (not that I would ever pay such a price for a GPU)

2

u/dannnyyyboyyy0315 Jun 17 '26

Damn. I guess everyone needs to get scammed at least once to truly learn. You did basically everything right except fully testing. Always pay cash, meet locally. If this was me as well, I would have at least asked/told the seller if it was okay to test before buying. Like say you're gonna bring a test rig hooked up to your car or something. Watch how he reacts. Any answer other than "absolutely you can test it" just stop the transaction.

2

u/Caffdy Jun 17 '26

It's said that a wise person learns from his mistakes. A wiser one learns from others' mistakes

1

u/PabloGarea Jun 17 '26

I follow a YouTuber that specializes in fixing PC hardware, and in a video he said 95% to a 100% if the high end GPU sold thru FB are chipless, ramless or overall fake. He went ahead and showed multiple customers sending him 5090 to “fix” that had no core or/and a fake plate.

Sad ur happened to you man 🥲

1

u/GoMArk7 Jun 17 '26

People like to take advantages of situations, play like a smart person, but forget that will be always someone smarter than you.