A PC gamer in Russia fell victim to a GPU scam. The individual ordered a Gigabyte RTX 5070 Ti from the Russian outlet Wildberries for about US$1,125 (~RM4,598).
The gamer went over to the Russian hardware outlet to collect his card, but more importantly, they also had the common sense to open up their package in the shop itself, complete with a video recording of the act, and the serial number of the box. It was then that they discovered that box didn’t contain an RTX 5070 Ti, but a full water bottle.
By recording themselves opening the box, it makes it difficult for outlets like Wildberries to make claims that the customer replaced the contents of the box before recording the video. As Videocardz points out, setting up a phone to record only takes a matter of seconds. Also, if you’re in a store with that much expensive hardware, there’s bound to be security cameras recording their every move, further increasing the difficulty for a shop to accuse a customer for tampering with their package.
If the name Wildberries sounds familiar, it’s because the Russian retailer recently appeared in international news, what with its warehouses and logistics facilities being a target of Ukrainian drone attacks. We also reported on the company many years ago. Back in the early days of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the company nearly became a victim of a failed heist; some employees at the time attempted to whisk away 20 NVIDIA RTX 3070 GPUs, but the warehouse’s security cameras caught them in the act. That, and they tried to pawn off the brand new cards (at the time) at a pawn shop, unopened and smelling fresh from the factory, which raised alarm bells with the pawn shop owners.
The Unboxing Feels A Little Too Convenient
While the gamer’s discovery of the scam is entertaining, we can’t help but feel that the timing of the incident feels a little too convenient. While a reasonable person wouldn’t have to shake the box of the graphics card, we figured that the person in the video would have felt the water in the bottle sloshing around.
And there is the feeling that the video looks staged: the way he turned the box and water bottle towards the camera, it’s almost as if they knew what was inside the box already.
Speculations aside, and assuming that the discovery is indeed genuine, the onus will be on both Wildberries and Gigabyte to replace the gamer’s purchase with an actual RTX 5070 Ti.
(Source: Videocardz, OldValkyrie via X)
