Fake Nvidia RTX 3090s selling on eBay to trick bots — don’t fall for this

Fake Nvidia RTX 3090s selling on eBay to trick bots — don't fall for this

(Paradigm credit: Nvidia)

Scalpers honey sites like eBay, considering it means they have somewhere to peddle their ill-gotten gains. But information technology looks like eBay is becoming a new battleground confronting scalpers and their bots, with fake listings that look too skillful to exist true — because they are. That deal Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 you're about to purchase isn't a graphics carte du jour at all. It's a moving picture designed to confuse bots.

Selling pictures of in-demand products is zip new. We've already seen scammers attempt to sell photos of the PS5 for outrageous prices, and that's exactly what's happening here. Then you demand to exist careful and make sure you don't get scammed.

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A lot of these listings are being put up with the intention of catching bots. If scalpers spend thousands of dollars on photos, which are completely worthless, the logic is that they won't have that money to spend on genuine GPUs.

Have this listing, for instance, which currently has over 5 days to go, and has already clocked upwardly xiv bids. Gyre downwardly to the lesser of the folio, and y'all'll see that the list is actually for a hand-drawn image of the 3090, not the card itself. Another listing, which has clustered over $1,400 in bids at the time of writing, promises a loftier-quality photo of the card, and not the card itself.

Several of these listings warn humans that they should non be behest on this stuff, and that it'due south designed to catch bots. These tricks are non restricted to the 3090 either, as this listing for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 shows. In spite of a clear photo of a printed pic, and other warnings from the seller, it'south withal amassed 23 bids, totaling over $1,000.

There's more going on behind the scenes

The creator of one of these listings spoke to Tom's Guide, and explained function of what's going on here. This lister never intended to let their auction get to completion, and the listing had more to practise with personal curiosity about how RTX 3090 auctions are beingness handled.

That'due south considering hosting your own sale is the merely way to see exactly who is doing the bidding. There may be other users out there doing exactly the same affair, particularly since a number of these listings are coming from accounts with high feedback scores.

In this case, there did seem to exist one real person caught up in the behest, as their account has a solid transaction history. Everything else seemed to be coming from bots.

The lister explained that there are two different kinds of bots out there. The first are the obvious bots working for scalpers, which are ownership up every bit much stock every bit they can. The 2d kind are the "whitehat" bots, which are artificially inflating prices to the signal where ordinary people tin can't afford them.

That way, ordinary people can't fall victim to any opportunistic eBay scammers, while scalpers waste their time on bots that "win" auctions with no intention of paying.

How to avert getting scammed

Whether these listings are designed to trick bots, or up there for reasons of personal curiosity, they are still technically scams. You lot don't want to go through the hassle of winning a moving picture, rather than the actual GPU you were expecting. Your best option is to non bid on any fake listings in the first identify.

The primary affair to recollect is that if a deal seems too skillful to be true, it probably is. The RTX 3090 has a $1,499 MSRP, and is basically impossible to discover. Then whatever listings under that price are automatically suspicious. More than and so if they're quite shut to ending.

The second thing to remember is to check the listings' title and description for any indication that it may non exist a existent product. A lot of the descriptions I've seen are fairly upfront about that fact in the clarification, even if the remainder of the listing suggests that it's a brand new and unopened graphics card.

The championship may besides incorporate clues that this isn't meant for legitimate people, such as claiming information technology's a print, image, or something of that nature. I listing we saw even referred to the 3090 as a "jpegedition", though it doesn't have any bids right now.

If you do think that you've fallen for a scam and bid on a dodgy listing, try and cancel your bid. eBay has instructions on how to do this, so read through them and do everything yous tin. In a worse instance scenario where y'all can't cancel your bids, and you terminate upward winning, don't hand over whatever coin. Message the seller and tell them the state of affairs, At best they will abolish the sale, at worst they will send you lot nasty letters. Either fashion it'due south improve than giving them your money.

Your best bet to avoid scams is to ignore all the aftermarket sites birthday. Not just does that make it harder for scalpers to profit from their actions, information technology ways yous're not at risk of some random seller scamming y'all for an unabridged calendar month's salary. And then make sure to cheque out our guide on where to buy Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090, and proceed your eyes peeled for legit restock news.

Tom is the Tom's Guide'south Automotive Editor, which ways he tin can usually be institute articulatio genus deep in stats the latest and best electric cars, or checking out some sort of driving gadget. Information technology's long way from his days every bit editor of Gizmodo Great britain, when pretty much everything was on the tabular array. He's ordinarily found trying to squeeze another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of coffee, or complaining that Ikea won't let him buy the stuff he actually needs online.