PC Enthusiast Scammed For Used 4090 With No GPU or VRAM

Buying used GPUs is always a risk mostly for the risk of being scammed, either not receiving your product, receiving a broken product or other issues. Fortunately most reputable reseller sites such as eBay, at least in the UK, have strong buyer protections in place, unfortunately though those buyer protections can sometimes bite the seller in backside. Sometimes reselling sites aren’t very safe as an unfortunate Hong Kong PC enthusiast found out after buying an RTX 4090 which had been stripped of its GPU and VRAM.

Used RTX 4090 Scam

As reported by HKEPC (Via TomsHardware), a Hong Kong resident, by the name of either Mr Hong or Mr Hung, purchased an MSI RTX 4090 for HK$13,000 (£1,307.80) only to discover that he’d effectively just bought a paperweight. The card was purchased through reselling site Carousell with the arrangements to make the exchange in person meeting the seller at a train station. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with the transaction and everything seemed in order until Mr H arrived home to discover that the card’s RGB lighting would power on but would not produce an image nor would the fans spin.

The GPU was then taken to a repair shop to diagnose the issue which was likely the point Mr H realised he’d been mugged off. The repair shop made the discovery that the card has had some of its VRAM and GPU chip stripped entirely. To make matters worse, the original report suggests Mr Hhas no way of contacting the seller and the police said that “the second-hand transaction between the two parties was difficult to follow up” meaning it’s unlikely he would be getting his money back.

With the current situation in China and by extension Hong Kong surrounding the RTX 4090 and US sanctions, its hardly surprising that a scam like this has happened. It does serve as a reminder to be wary about online used sales and try to ensure some form of buyer protection is in place.