Watch out humans, fake Nvidia RTX 3090s are selling on eBay to catch out bots
A new kind of captcha
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Auction site eBay has long been used by scalpers to sell their jacked up computing components likeNvidia’s RTX 3000 graphics cards, but it now looks like consumers are using the platform to fight back.
If you search on eBay for anNvidia RTX 3080or3090you’ll find a slew of GPUs selling at a fairly steep markup, though in amongst the few thousand dollar/pound options you’ll spot some at a bargain price. But, be warned: no matter how good those deals look, don’t buy them.
Reading the descriptions lower down on the product’s page you’ll see that you are in fact only bidding on an A4 image of the graphics card. The description will often advise humans to stay away, saying that the listing is intended to catch out bots likethis onewe found selling for $1,250 (£735 / AU$ 1,310) at the time of writing.
How to avoid getting scammed
The point of these scam listings is to trick people or bots into bidding money on something worthless, so they are purposefully easy to fall for. So what can you do to help yourself avoid them?
Make sure to read the listing’s name and description all the way through. Scammers will often write that what you are buying is an image or a fake somewhere in there. This is because the description is often hidden off the screen, so unless you are checking the page thoroughly, you likely won’t notice, and when you request a refund they can then claim that you were informed that what you were purchasing wasn’t actually a graphics card.
Also be wary of any ‘too good to be true’ deals, as they probably aren’t real. While you can get lucky with a bargain on these auction sites, you can also easily get stung, and it can even happen with more expensive listings like the $1,250 one above.
You can always use theeBay help serviceif you need a hand reporting a scam or requesting a refund. We’ve reached out to eBay for more specific help on what to do with these kinds of listings.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
ViaPCMag
Hamish is a Senior Staff Writer for TechRadar and you’ll see his name appearing on articles across nearly every topic on the site from smart home deals to speaker reviews to graphics card news and everything in between. He uses his broad range of knowledge to help explain the latest gadgets and if they’re a must-buy or a fad fueled by hype. Though his specialty is writing about everything going on in the world of virtual reality and augmented reality.
Intel Battlemage rumored for December – could new budget GPUs win over gamers neglected by Nvidia and save the Arc brand?
Nvidia RTX 5090 Ti suddenly pops up – and RTX 6000 GPUs are mentioned in trademark filings too – but don’t get excited
Arcane season 2 finally gave us the huge Caitlyn and Vi moment we’ve been waiting for – and its creators say ‘we couldn’t have done it in season one’
