RTX 4090 returned to eBay seller with GPU and VRAM chips missing
Payment secured, and remnants of hardware in hand, but the seller suffered two weeks of stress.
An engineer in the U.S. recounts being "stressed out for the two weeks" after someone bought their used Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card on eBay, then had the audacity to return it with the GPU and memory chips removed from the board. Piscian19 told fellow Redditors that a "pristine" used RTX 4090, sold on eBay, was almost immediately returned for the reason of "no video." Thankfully, the story has a happy ending, as eBay eventually refunded the emotionally frazzled seller.
Ebay buyer stole my RTX 4090s GPU chipfrom r/nvidia
Piscian19's spider senses were aroused by the eBay buyer's profile – a "huge" entity with a storefront and California business address. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, so the RTX 4090 seller decided to make sure they were covered. "I took a ton of pictures, got mega insurance, tracking, etc," noted Piscian19.
The Redditor and eBayer's hunch was correct, as the buyer almost immediately started an eBay return process, asking for a refund due to the received graphics card being stone dead.
Upon receiving the return, Piscian19 noted that damage was clearly evident on the card's mounting bracket (these are usually steel) and messy wiring issues. Remember, the seller had pictured everything ahead of postage, and the "pristine... barely used" RTX 4090 certainly was now only a shadow of its former self.
The stressed-out engineer then decided it was time to contact eBay and politely mention legal action. However, while they were waiting for the wheels of the complaint process to turn, Piscian19 decided to tear down the card to get an understanding of the new issues before RMAing the hardware. This is when it was discovered that the cheeky buyer had desoldered the GPU and VRAM chips before returning the RTX 4090...
The best graphics cards are still difficult to obtain at reasonable prices, so the level of second-hand skulduggery seems to be amplified. However, there seems to be new hope in the market with more mid- to high-end cards trickling through to retail and both AMD and Nvidia beginning to address the mainstream mass-market '060 graphics card segment now, with their RTX 5060/Ti and RX 5060 XT models.
If you are dabbling in the used GPU market, take a leaf from Piscian19's book on the seller side. Photodocument as much of the sale and postage process as seems adequate to cover all eventualities. Used GPU buyers should also be diligent, as both sides of the equation have their swindlers.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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TheyStoppedit This is why I will NEVER sell anything on eBay. I do local sales only. Anyone who messages from abroad and wants me to ship. You are more than welcome to do that, but payment must be interac e-transfer only, no PayPal or anything else. You will pay ahead of time, when I see the money successfully deposited into my bank account, then I will send you the GPU. This is non-negotiable, and this article is the reason why I do it that wayReply -
txfeinbergs Reply
That doesn't work. Even if you list it that way, Ebay will override that statement as they always take the buyers side.ezst036 said:If I had only one of these to sell, it would be selling with no returns allowed. -
bigdragon Stripping the chips off a GPU and then returning it as defective does not surprise me one bit. Ebay is a favored den of scalpers and scammers.Reply
The last time I tried selling something on Ebay it was an AMD GPU. I got all manner of scam messages and shipping address change demands (item not received scams). The last time I tried buying from Ebay items that were supposedly in stock in north America were drop-shipped from China or ordered from a third-party Amazon merchant on my behalf.
Ebay should only be used as an absolute last resort when other options have failed. -
Rando99 Reply
I tried that, eBay allowed the buyer to keep the card for 2 weeks before suddenly claiming it had failed, and when I refused to accept a return citing that the buyer had already admitted in private messages on eBay's own platform that he had received it and been using it successfully UNTIL HE TRIED TO MODIFY THE VOLTAGE AND FRIED IT, they ignored me and gave him a full refund anyways. They had literal proof he lied, explicitly damaged the card himself and ignored it.ezst036 said:If I had only one of these to sell, it would be selling with no returns allowed.
Then they told him he didn't need to return the product, and initiated a chargeback on me for $2400.
So literally eBay cheated me and stole my money. -
CharlesZ Reply
Be aware that even if a Seller clearly states "no returns" on an auction,ezst036 said:If I had only one of these to sell, it would be selling with no returns allowed.
the Buyer simply must say "not as described" and the return process starts anyways.
EBay immediately creates a return shipping label that the Seller is charged for
and if the Seller does not challenge it, then the refund is automatically taken from the Seller's bank or credit card on file.
I am finding this happening more and more often in the past few years, even for non-electronic things like home decorations.
Sellers are low-class citizens who take on all the risk. I agree with @Rando99 as to his unfair experience. -
heyfunny I think it's more likely that the buyer already had a stripped down 4090 falcon Northwest videos have shown one that he was sent to repair that looked fine but when he took it apart all the memory chips and the GPU was removed with the customer reporting they purchased the GPU on Facebook marketplace. So you never know it could be someone who was selling the stripped down boards unable to find a new buyer due to the word getting around. And thought they could pull a fast one on somebody selling a proper one. Is anybody's guess though these days anything can happen.Reply -
Zerk2012 Reply
Or the engineer had a card he got for repairs and tried to sell the scraps, took a lot of pictures of another of the same card and tried to sell it, knowing it would be returned and call foul.heyfunny said:I think it's more likely that the buyer already had a stripped down 4090 falcon Northwest videos have shown one that he was sent to repair that looked fine but when he took it apart all the memory chips and the GPU was removed with the customer reporting they purchased the GPU on Facebook marketplace. So you never know it could be someone who was selling the stripped down boards unable to find a new buyer due to the word getting around. And thought they could pull a fast one on somebody selling a proper one. Is anybody's guess though these days anything can happen.
Either could be true.