A fraudster in Germany has deceived two buyers into purchasing non-functional graphics cards. The scammer sold 'hollow' GPUs, which are cards stripped of their silicon and memory chips, making them completely worthless.
The first victim paid approximately $2,090 (€1,800) for a second-hand Palit GeForce RTX 5090 GameRock OC. This price was significantly lower than the new retail price in Germany, which starts at around $5,805 (€4,999).
The second victim, reported by a member of the Hardwareluxx forums, paid nearly $2,613 (€2,250) for a similar phantom card. In both instances, the scammer used friendly behavior and fake invoices to gain the buyer's trust.
The buyers discovered the fraud after the purchase. One buyer found that the serial number on the card did not match the packaging. The second buyer noticed that the seller had deliberately scratched off the serial number on the graphics card itself.
