alt Hacker NewsOkay so 'stefan_ is arguing that the board which now has no GPU at all and is completely non-functional then gets sold to unsuspecting consumers? In that case, why would the scammer sell the 4090 board at all? At that level of fraud, the scammer could just as well send a circuit board from an alarm clock, or a brick. How does this behavior reflect back on Brother Zhang's shop at all?
So far, everyone's concepts have felt pretty half-baked. Perhaps someone could point me to some actual reports relating to this topic which go into real detail about allegations around how these repair shops contribute to fraud. I'm not having a lot of luck engaging here, but maybe I'm just a bit dim-witted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJlFmyr8c14 https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/192z13d/scammers_...
> In that case, why would the scammer sell the 4090 board at all? At that level of fraud, the scammer could just as well send a circuit board from an alarm clock, or a brick.
Plausible deniability. With a real-looking GPU, the seller can always fall back on user error, bad PSU, driver issue, PCIe slot problem etc.
The buyer may even doubt themselves at first and spend time reseating the card, reinstalling drivers, swapping cables, or testing another system. By the time they're confident it's not their fault, the return window or dispute period may already be gone.
None of that works if you send a brick or an alarm clock PCB - the fraud is immediately obvious.