Micro Center/Newegg Mix-up or eBay Fraud?

[bikeracer4487]

So, I bought 2 eVGA GTX 580 Superclocked (015-P3-1582) cards, 1 from Newegg, 1 from Micro Center. Recently I upgraded to a GTX 690 and sold both 580s over eBay. One recipient gave me the all clear, everything as expected, etc... The OTHER guy, is claiming he received the regular, not superclocked version (015-P3-1580), that the DVI bracket is different from the superclocked version (?) and that there is a 01-P3-1580 sticker on the back of the card. I checked as many sources as I can find, and I've never seen a different DVI bracket and as far as I can tell the two versions are just about identical, externally. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a picture of the BACK of the card, the only concrete evidence I've been able to find that I actually owned TWO Superclocked cards is the receipts for both cards, and benchmarks I submitted from 3DMark 11 which show the clock speeds as being at Superclocked levels for 2 GTX 580s (SLI automatically uses the clock speeds of the slower card). The guy who's saying the card he got isn't the one he ordered has 3 positive feedbacks, the oldest of which is June 13, 2012, even though he's been an ebay member since 2010. Since he says he just wants to return it and get a refund, my current thinking is that he's trying to take the Superclocked version I sent him and send me back either a standard card...more likely, a non-functional standard card. Hoping to get advice from Tom's members, and thanks for your help in advance!

 

[bikeracer4487]

On the chance that this guy is genuine, and the sticker is just wrong, is there any way to tell if the card's BIOS has been tampered with? As in, any way to verify that I didn't just buy a standard card, overclock it and flash the overclock to the BIOS and then sell it as a Superclocked version?

 

[vrumor]

I would lean towards the guy from ebay is trying to screw you. Always record serial numbers of components. Id try and tell him that the only way youd take it back is if it matches the serial number you have on record for the vid card you sold him, see if he blinks.

 

[mouse24]

Those 2 cards are exactly alike in terms of dvi/back of the cards/ etc.

Tell Mr. Derp to prove to you, you send him the wrong model, tell him to include video of the serial number aswell as a hand written username yours and his on a piece of white paper in between 2 pieces of duct tape.

Make sure its video, pictures are easily faked.

If he says its to much work etc, tell him to stop scamming and go about the rest of your day

 

[smorizio]

before he ships you the unit have him give you the ser# and model lable on the back of the card. as you registered the card call up the vendor of the card they can tell by the ser# of the card what it was sold as. also the date and where it was make. it in the unit ser#. it could have happend at the plant that there was a screw up...not very likly. the problem is your system would not have run sli if the cards did not match. also micro center can pull up your sales slip the cards ser# should be on the slip. i would check that the card you bought from both was the right card. also with two cards from the same vendor one overclocked and one not. the bios are going to be almost the same or the same..who to say he did not reflash the card to say it not a super clock anymore.

 

[bikeracer4487]

So, what I've done is sort of combine your suggestions. Since he's planning on sending me a picture of the bracket as proof(?) I asked him to send me a video establishing that it's the card I sent him and to also include in the video the sticker and the serial number of the card, which I would then check with my records, and I told him I would call EVGA to verify that the serial number belongs to an overclocked card. I have one of the serial numbers recorded because I registered the card with EVGA, and you're right, I have the 2nd card's serial from Micro Center, so I CAN actually verify that it's the right card...ugh...

 

[bikeracer4487]

Oh, I also emailed the other buyer (the one that already left good feedback), asking him if he could possibly send me the serial number on the card so I would have it in a just-in-case scenario (a.k.a this one). But this was before I realized that I actually still had both serial numbers, so it SHOULDN'T matter, but you never know...

 

[bikeracer4487]

Well, no luck with Micro Center, apparently they DON'T capture the serial numbers off of these cards...now I'm back to hoping that just happened to send him the card that I registered with EVGA...

 

[bikeracer4487]

oh hallelujah! So, Micro Center didn't have the serial number, but the other guy got back to me and the serial number is NOT the serial number that I registered with EVGA, so I now know the exact serial number of the card I sent him. That said, I think I scared him off with the asking for a video of the serial number cuz he still hasn't gotten back to me despite saying he would send me a picture of the bracket "this evening" (it's ~11pm, my time, and he's in the same time zone).

 

[smorizio]

just make sure you contact paypal and ebay fraud dept and open up a case. he may try and have paypal recover his funds if he trys to open a dispute as good not sold as described and uses ebay buyer protection. the fool may even try and do a charge back. one thing to...if he used a stolen credit card or mom or dads without them knowning about it..when they get the bill they may try and dispute the charges..if it a stolen cc your account may go in the neg when paypal rev the funds.

 

[nforce4max]

Don't fall for it and am a victim of such fraud and lost hundreds of dollars because of such buyers. Best thing that you can do is check out what else he has been buying and if there has been any claims by or against this buyer before you or any that are ongoing. eBay does not protect anyone but a select few without question and paypal doesn't protect much at all. Your best chances is to have this guy send you pictures of the card that he claims that he "bought" with the original packaging label present. If he refuses try to raise the flag and escalate the case as he is likely doing the buy and swap to leave anyone else holding the bag.

 

[bikeracer4487]

SO...a few days ago he contacted me again...*sigh*... But he was asking for my e-mail address so he can send me pictures (he's really sticking to this thing with the DVI bracket...). Being a little paranoid, I actually opened a brand new hotmail accounts with no ties to any of my gmail addresses, and sure enough a day later he sends me the pictures, including one of the back of the card.

On the back of the card are 3 stickers. One is much larger than the others and has a big UPC code, the card's serial number (the right one), and the correct model number of 015-P3-1582-AR. The other stickers are much smaller, one has a small UPC code and at the top is the number 015-P3-1580-B6. The second is even smaller and just says 'GeForce GTX 580' at the top and '015-P3-1580-B6' right below it. Based on the placement of the stickers and the fact that 'B6' doesn't match EVGA's numbering which uses the last 2 characters to denote the type of warranty, it occurred to me that there might not be a mix-up at all and that those stickers could just be identifying the circuit board... So I called up EVGA and confirmed that very thing: the stickers are from nVidia's manufacturing. They get the card as a stock GTX 580 and overclock it and then slap their own sticker on it. So, I sent an e-mail to the guy explaining this, telling him that he can look up the serial number with EVGA which will identify it as an overclocked board, he can call EVGA and verify what I told him about the stickers, he can actually plug the f***ing card in and verify that it's overclocked, and I also gave him a link to EVGA's official page for the card so he can see that the bracket is just fine. Hopefully all that will be enough, and I don't think he's trying to scam me any more, but I haven't exactly been impressed with this guy's deductive reasoning skills...

 

[mouse24]

^rofl, this guy surely isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, atleast when you are going to file a fraud report on someone make sure you are looking at the correct serial number.