German hardware buyers are falling victim to an alarming scam involving stripped Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards. Fraudsters are selling empty card shells that have had their main silicon dies and memory chips removed. Recent reports show at least 2 victims lost over 4000 euros to what appears to be the same seller.
Hardware enthusiast Roman der8auer Hartung exposed the first incident after a buyer purchased a second hand Palit RTX 5090 GameRock OC for 1800 euros. That price tag should have raised alarm bells given that brand new retail units in Germany sell for around 4999 euros. The buyer arranged an in person pickup to verify the hardware. But without a functional test computer on site, the buyer could only inspect the outside of the card before handing over cash.
A second report quickly surfaced on the Hardwareluxx community forums involving another victim who paid 2250 euros for a dead card. In both instances, the seller gained trust by providing official looking purchase invoices showing proof of an original order. Inspection of the boards revealed obvious tampering. The first card had mismatched serial numbers between the PCB and the retail box, while the second card had its physical serial number scratched off entirely.
These empty shell scams leave buyers with useless pieces of plastic and copper. Inside the cooler, the printed circuit board lacks both the main Blackwell graphics processor and the surrounding memory modules. Ongoing demand for artificial intelligence hardware keeps card prices exceptionally high, giving dishonest sellers plenty of room to bait shoppers with fake discounts. Buying second hand hardware without seeing it boot up in a working system remains a huge financial risk.
