Netizens bought RTX 5090 at half price, but the chip was removed and only the empty shell was left.

Abstract:

Recently, a Reddit netizen posted a story about his experience of buying an RTX 5090 at half price. He spent 14,916 dirhams (approximately 29,000 yuan) on Amazon UAE to buy the white version of the Gigabyte Snow Eagle RTX 5090.

This card is from Amazon Resale, Amazon’s official second-hand channel, and the price is almost half of the market price. But after receiving the goods, I discovered that the graphics card had obvious signs of disassembly and repair.

It is understood that the poster said that he had bought second-hand cards on Amazon before and didn’t think much about it when he saw this card. He felt that it was Amazon’s official second-hand channel, which was more reliable than an unknown third party, so he placed an order directly.

After receiving the package, he found that the outer packaging was a little worn, but after all, it was second-hand, so he didn't care at the time. And after taking it apart, there seems to be nothing wrong with the accessories.

The problem wasn't revealed until I took out the graphics card. There was a small connector next to the power supply interface that had become loose. Turning to the back, several fan connectors were also disconnected. Various signs made him suspect that the card had been dismantled and that the core chip inside had been replaced and taken away.

Then the author decided to further check the graphics card. When he removed the radiator, he found that the fixing screws were very loose. It was obvious that the graphics card had been disassembled. There were still obvious traces of thermal conductive material on the radiator, and the most expensive core chip was gone.

To put it bluntly, this is a typical core-mining and packet-swapping scam. The scammer first bought a brand new RTX 5090, disassembled the graphics card, used professional equipment to remove the most expensive GB202 core and GDDR7 video memory, then put the radiator and discarded PCB back together and returned it to Amazon.

Because most of the platform inspection personnel do not understand hardware, they only look at the appearance and put it back on the shelves for sale. At present, the author has applied to Amazon for return processing, but has not yet received a clear refund reply.