you should report this buyer for fraud. even if you dont care about losing a fiver, your report might prevent them from ripping off the next seller that does care

That is just pathetic. If the buyer even wanted parts, then he still is not liable for a refund. The Fan was straight up butchered.

I am amazed that a £10 GPU was even returned, never mind missing bits.

Hi Steve, I'm the guy on the Uni campus who you sold the R7 370 to a while back. It was nice to meet you! Im pleased to report back the card is working perfectly and I have since upgraded to a RTX 4070 Super as that card was intended as a stop-gap. Don't worry, there won't be any returns from me! :)

This truly is a moment in time, RGHD using an emoji in his title.

Damn ... It isn't that much about the money, but the message behind. Quite disrespectful buyer. 💀

Refund rejected. Not all of the product was sent back. No money back in that case.

"Look how they massacred my boy." 💀☠

Did they swap the card? Does it have the same serial number as when you sent it? I think you’re too nice to them. I’m sorry somebody took advantage of you like this.

Report the scammer. Does not matter it was a cheap card, it is a matter of making them responsible for that kind of bs.

He may have took off that cooler and fitted onto a compatible GPU, like a 750 Ti or something like that, then hussled you for your money back. What a cheapskate!!!!!

Make sure in future sales you state that all sales are final, no refunds.

The proper response to "I want to return this $10 used card." is "lol, no."

Jesus Christ. That installation job must’ve been done in the middle of a warzone or something. No reply from the buyer either? Dude either got shot or was too ashamed he tried assembling a PC by throwing things at the motherboard (or tried jamming it into a low profile PC and was too ashamed to admit they did all that DIY)

I once sold a guy an old PC, and he complained i sold him a PC that i "knew" was going faulty. So i go look at it, and he had ripped the fan off the north bridge for some reason. People are dumb.

100% that guy took the shroud off shoving the card into an optiplex. The only "refund" he would be getting from me would be a ..|.. message with return the rest of it.

I had someone return a card saying it didn't work. Problem was, it wasn't the same card. I took a picture of the serial number, which didn't match. Also, mine had a bit of dust in crevices, this one was very clean. Luckily I was able to successfully dispute it on Ebay. This is a known scam people do, so take precautions on anything with a reasonable value.

Holy shit thank you community and RGHD!! I put my 1660 TI on Marketplace a few days ago and it didnt came in my mind to take pictures of the serial numbers. I will take them now. Ty

Slime ball wanted a free shroud. What a dink.

That person wouldn't have gotten SHYTE back from me, you're a real gentleman.

This feels like a genuine crime

I gave up on selling hardware online years ago, it's always the same problems: - People who want to pay a lot lower than what you are asking, even though you are already asking for a bit less than the regular used price. - People who keep sending you trade offers even though you made it dead clear that you aren't interested in trading. - People who will come back to piss you off due to their own stupidity. - Scammers. - People who would rather keep sending you messages instead of doing a google search to find out if that's actually what they need. Considering the hassle, I'd rather just stock pile a few parts at home, and sell a few others to close friends, than actually selling anything online, worst case scenario if it's a really cheap component I'll just donate it or repurpose it into something else like a media server.

Always sold as seen! So many of these scams going round, have to stand your ground!

Before accepting a return, I always ask the buyer to take a picture of the card. If you had done this here you could’ve rejected it based off of the user breaking it. You can use their picture against them if they send you something different as the picture will not match. Always keep a record of the serial numbers as well, and put a picture of the serial number in the listing too. If they send back a different card, then the numbers won’t match

He probably tried to shove it in a tiny pc and destroyed the card lol

My wild guess is that the buyer wanted to put it in their PC, somehow didn't fit and removed the shroud to make it fit, which "technically" accomplished what they wanted to do, but also fried it in the process. Either that or it's the ol' switcheroo and sent you a broken card while keeping the good one.

The only explanation I can think of is that they pilfered the cooling parts for another card and overheated the thing with whatever jury-rigged cooling solution they tried to use on it, or they thought they may have been able to passively cool it using case fans or something to get a quiter experience. Regardless, if they'd brought it and destroyed it, they should have to keep it. I think they were just trying their luck for a refund.

I’m UK based same as you, and yes sadly eBay can be a pain at times, however it offers better seller protection than most. For example, take a lot of detailed item pictures prior to dispatch with a print out of your transaction invoice within said pictures, include pictures of packaging and how it was wrapped ready for dispatch. Now if the seller then returns item in shoddy condition, you can forward eBay before/after pictures and they will very likely side with you (At least going by my own experiences over last 15 odd years). Also buy a quality pack of small delaminating warranty stickers and stick one over/across a vital screw head on the back plate etc - so obvious tampering = no refund. This method of self-protection has saved me a lot of trouble every time someone has tried to pull a crafty refund after tampering. Obviously not worth the hassle on £10 card, but dodgy buyers do tend to swerve any item with delaminating warranty stickers on, and clearly shown within sale advert.

Can't imagine why it doesn't work after they pulled it apart and tortured it. The fact they kept the shroud shows they knew what they were doing though. In situations like that I never issue a refund until it arrives in the same condition I sent it out.

Please confirm that you reported this buyer or that he faced any consequences for this fraud. You absolutely should not tolerate this! BTW. Like several other people in the comments, I suspect that someone may have bought your card and sent back a damaged one (rather than just keeping the fan). Have you looked at the serial numbers and made sure the stickers haven't been swapped?

This is exactly why I DO NOT ACCEPT RETURNS! I include everything about the item in the description and if the buyer can't read, that's their problem. 🤷‍♂

i sell on ebay for over 12 years now. ALWAYS take the 10 minutes and document the functional product in a single video (GPU in PC, running a benchmark and showing GPU-Z + Temps., take it out and put it in the box you'll ship it in. and show the serial numbers on video.)

Since it's also missing the bracket i think the genius who bought it removed the cooler and the bracket to make it fit in some small oem case. As an example if you try to fit in it a SFF Dell computer it won't fit even without the bracked because the cooler would hit the power supply

Mate, you find some real low lifes online. I once sold a faulty PS3 controller for parts and not working a long while ago to only have the buyer open the controller and strip it from its working bits. They then set up a return because they said it wasn't as described, I mentioned the LED worked and they obviously nicked the bits and said the LED didn't work. I rang ebay explaining that this seller is a con and has bits and pieces of PS3 controllers up for sale on their account. Ebay refunded me and that was the last thing I sold on ebay. As a general rule, you'd be safe selling to someone who been a member for a longer time on ebay than to a newish account with whom I wouldn't bother unless its cash on collection.

Thanks for the video. It's a good reminder of what can go wrong and the comments here make some useful points.

...and this is why I only sell things directly with my buyers as well as selling it all "as is". I got burned too many times by online scammers.

Swapped card... Fam ALWAYS take a photo of your serial numbers before seling stuff (Gpu's, laptops... anything really) There are some absolutely vile POS people that want to take advantage of others unfortunately... Also Thanks for the amazing content as always

Thank you for sharing the experience

Poor little nice card. This form factor is actually quite a handy card to pop into any case, and just for loading Windows for example.

more likely a classic bait-and-switch. They had a dead card, bought yours, swapped the fan and shroud and sent the dead one back. This is where creating your own paper trail would help to mitigate this kind of problem in the future. Take note of the serial number(s) of the devices or parts you sell, take photos of the items being boxed with their shipping labels, then put a terms of sale in your listings which states that refunds will only be approved provided the returned hardware / equipment matches the specifications of the item that was shipped. This would allow you to quickly and easily root out these kinds of scams and prevent you getting burned on future sales. Granted, it's more work post-sale but considering what some buyers are like and how eBay sides with them more than the sellers if the seller can't provide evidence of a scam attempt, it's far better than losing money constantly on scam sales.

Absolute monsters. And evga too. The GPU gods will not forgive this one.

The buyer had the same model card but most likely did not notice that his card's fan failed and kept on using it until it began having issues. Must have tried to DIY some alternate form of cooling so he had to remove the fan and cover but did not fix the problem. He then saw your card on sale and bought it with the intent to swap and return claiming it had problems. Must have thrown the cover and fan of his broken card so he just returned it without them.

Two and a half years ago I sold my 3080 on Ebay. After two weeks the buyer opened a return request stating the card was defective as games supposedly kept crashing. The buyer returned the card and what I got in the mail was an old AMD HD 5770 just loose in the parcel box without any protection with half of it's cooling shroud broken off (probably broken during shipping). I immediately opened a dispute, providing pictures and whatnot, but as usual Ebay sided with the buyer and I had to refund all the money including the shipping cost (which was 50$ as I had to ship it overseas), as well as the shipping cost of the returned card. The cherry on top is that card I got back was completely dead (black screen, fan full speed, no sign of life). Not that it would have mattered much as that card is worth like 10 bucks max.

I'll bet it's not the same card, they probably bought an identical card and returned the bad one. This is why I'm careful selling anything online- only sell to reputable buyers with a reputation, I learned that selling on ebay for a while, I wouldn't sell to anyone without 50+ reviews and 95%+ postive reviews. I had someone do what I just described with a Motherboard. This sort of stuff really hurts small time sellers. I certainly wouldn't have accepted this as a return. One thing I learned, ask for photos of the item before accepting a return. Of course for 10 Dollars i'd have probably just told him to keep it and refund them and just not worry about it. I'm surprised a Person can be this petty. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a Person who follows you and is trolling.

Shame really they have done this your an honest guy and sold them a good product for almost nothing and they ruin the card and returned it completely disrespectful. Keep up the good work though love your content

3:08 gaming journalist moment

That is definetly his graphics card not yours lol

Had you photograph the card covering all sides before you ship it (especially the serial number), you might win the case. I always did this before shipping just incase. But luckily I never had to use it.

Ugh, this sucks :( Appreciate the constant upload though, Steve!

Fkn shame. No card deserves to be deliberately destroyed. 650ti would've been amazing in a windows xp retro rig

how poor and tight must one be to return a $10 card and after butchering it.....unbelievable...some people are just pure scum

There sure are some unusual characters out there! I gave up selling ages ago, so mostly goes to recycling/charity now as its just not worth the grief.

One thing you could try is reflashing the bios, it's possible that it got corrupted to some degree. If that doesn't solve the crashing, I'd try underclocking/undervolting it a bit.

Most likely he had one just like yours that was broken, he kept your card and send back his broken one. Aka "fixing" his GPU for free.

I'm sad to state... it sucks but that's how it's supposed to work. There will always be scammers on both sides, sellers and buyers. And the buyer should always be protected. If you protect the buyer, customers stay. You'll discourage small sellers and get a natural selection of the big ones who can face scammers with other profits. If you protect sellers, customers will leave and you'll naturally select bad sellers. I've only sold very few things online and it was scary AF.

You are a good guy, you should never have accepted this "return". The seller did not return your card, you just got his old and broken one... what a scumbag. I wish him all the bluescreens in the world

I sympathise for you, RGiHD! At least your loss is small and the scammer is now being shown up online for what they are

Even if the GPU went bad on it's own & the customer had it apart just to check the thermal paste or something, they still should of returned the fan & shroud with it. This is why the few times I have sold PC parts I always check over everything first, take a lot of pictures, make sure it is passing stress tests if it's something like a CPU, GPU or memory. Make sure I have the SN in at least one of the pictures. Because you have to assume sadly whoever buys it might try to pull something like that, or they just might be someone who doesn't know what they are doing & damage the part. Of course though if you're selling anything online also make sure you pack it really well, take pictures of the packing & the outside package because there is always the risk of the item getting trashed in shipping. Tbh for the price of that card, if the customer could so me a video of it freezing up I'd just give the money back & tell them not to bother returning it. Even more so if it's through a site the seller has to pay the return shipping.

One of the first but not truly the first. 🙂

I would'nt of accepted a return, sold as seen. But you have the advantage of it coming back in that state, making a video about it and amusing us all and getting the money back anyway :D

I bet I know; the shroud and fan probably did not fit in their case so they took it off and threw it away. Then when it "mysteriously stopped working" they asked for a return.

Yea, welcome to eBay ... Learned my lesson when selling a monitor where the seller then claimed, dead pixels. Was 100% it had zero dead pixels (from my own using), so i asked for pictures. Instantly spotted the issue as just being a bit of dirt on the screen, told the person, clean with a bit of wipes. No no, was the response, dead pixels, you need to take back! Again, responded, please use some product to remove the dirt, ... again, repeat, repeat. I think they took some pictures when the screen arrived, tested it, maybe did not like it, or broke it, or wanted to ship a different screen back. Did not fall for that gag. From that point on, whenever i ship something, i take dozens of pictures of the item in working condition, it being packaged, shipped etc. Aka, to prevent any such claims and had one person trying to pull a quick one to return claiming it was not the shipped item, but when i pointed out some of my pictures, they vanished. Curious ;)

It’s a pity the buyer wasn’t a nice genuine decent person like yourself, unbelievable behaviour all credit to you for refunding!

Exactly the same reason why I stopped selling on eBay. Had a PC sent back with CPU out of the socket and bent pins.

They probably only had space for a single slot card. So they made it into a single slot card.

I sold two matching Intel Xeon proccessors once. The buyer cracked the die on one of them, kept the other one, filed a claim with ebay that i refuted but ebay still took the whole sum from my credit card and gave it to the buyer. Still annoyed by that. It was like $250. I dont think I've sold anyting on their platform since. And this was like 15 years ago.

might have figures it was a removable part, and they needed to reduce dimensions to get it to fit, you see all sorts when people build computers for the first time

Always throw warnings in your listings that the serial numbers and "unique hardware IDs" are recorded before shipping. This will in no way actually help you if the buyer returns a different card, but it will scare away most people from trying it.

I stopped selling computer stuff long time ago. I didn't have bad experience selling parts, but I still got paranoid. Instead I've used old parts in projects. My media-PC is made from my old parts. I have an back up system made of my old parts. Few years from now I'll have to start to think about another project.

best vid ! very entertaining 😄 had a laugh

I've been fixing and selling electronics on ebay for a while. One thing is for sure when you get a return you do have to be ready to repair it or otherwise you will have more losses then gains.

We have the technology to send pitures, so ask for 1 to check the conditions of the product, if it's damaged, don't accept the return

Sad to hear that. I also have similar card, but tall version 'msi gtx 650 ti cyclone ii', still working great with some maintenance from time to time in my second village PC, more like collecting item. Who broke that beautiful lil thing have no conscience...more than sended it back

Might make a whole series, unstable "spare tyre" cards tested with various cooling solutions to see if stability or performance improves. Try it with a GT1030 or something as the fans on them are arguably a placebo.

I would have checked the serial number to make sure wasn't swapped for a broken one, the other thing could be was used to mine on but then found wasn't good enough.

This reminds of when I was working at PC World and someone tried to returns their laptop because it wouldn't connect to wifi and the screens resolution was low. The laptop originally came with Vista installed and the customer decided to install Windows XP instead but hadn't installed any of the driver so neither the wifi card or graphics display was installed correctly.

This an example why its a good idea to add a (total & close-up) photos off the serial number. For yourself and in the ad. Also add it to the text chat. Handy when you have removed the ad. As text chat is usually saved on every trading platform (edit: typo)

Always add some unique marks to the board with a Sharpie and film yourself doing so. Then film yourself putting that into the addressed envelope and sealing it on camera. Takes 2 mins to do but worth it's weight in gold in a dispute. Also random Sharpie marks are almost impossible for the buyer to notice or replicate if they send back a different card.

I have had some close calls with dodgy buyers myself and learned my lesson, luckily at no loss. Thats why I closely document my hardware on video as it's being used, before I package it. I also document the packaging process, incase they try to pull some funny moves. Hasn't happened that way just yet but like I said I had some close calls with some people that made me start to do this

Weird set of circumstances!

I had this happen before as well, people usually send back the same old item that stopped working before, the really sh!tty people send a completely different item back, and Paypal/Ebay used to have policies in place where the seller always gets the shaft. Since then, EVERYTHING I sell I record serial numbers and include them in the listings so when I get an asshat that pulls the ol here's my old broken item I have some recourse to either get my original item back or money back.

Sounds like they had a broken card, bought yours and returned their broken one

If I was to hazard a guess (and due to the smell you mentioned, which suggests it was used in it's present state), there wasn't enough clearance in their case with the shroud on so they popped it off so that it would fit...

As a Ebay buyer i bought an Amiga CD32 from U.K. I did ask the seller if the unit was ok. When it arrived i find the whole console was glued shut. The value hit bottom at once. Seller had no idea of this he said 🙄

Back in the day I purchased a secondary BFG 7800GT off eBay to complete a SLI setup. The second card would have visible graphics glitches and freezing. Thankfully the card was still covered under BFG warranty and I was able to RMA the card for a working one. Be careful when purchasing used cards. Some overclock them beyond their limits and neglect them.

I sold an Asus x570 board a few yrs ago but they ended up having buyers remorse and realized it wasn't the WiFi version so he wanted to return it. I noticed when I got home it was missing the AM4 bracket, he did tell me he powered it up and that everything worked fine, I'm guessing he used his own cooler and forgot to swap the old bracket back on. I was able to get another off eBay for only a few dollars but honestly I haven't even actually tried the board myself. I am no longer being the nice guy and no more returns for me.

When I sold parts that were warranted by me and not a supplier, which usually meant they were used, and I had high confidence that the card or part was 100%, then I made a hidden mark and took a high-res photo of it and the entire board on both sides. My terms of sale were that no consideration for refund was given for used parts if a week passed after delivery. The terms of sale also stated that the item must be posted back within a week for inspection. I used an eBay shop for advertising but never sold parts through eBay therefore avoiding the eBay issue for sellers that scammers were refunded without fail. If the item returned was not the same item that I sold or if anything was modified, missing, or damaged, then I had the proof which I reported back to the dodgy buyer. If the findings were that there was a genuine fault, or that the part passed tests without failing, then I would offer a similar or better card, or offer a full refund.

And that's why I don't use random sites or apps for selling stuff shipped. It's ebay or cash deal.

Garden is looking great!

Should always keep track of the serials in case someone tries to swap it out. Make sure to have picture and video proof too with your seller name, etc.

Ha, your life is never dull... plus it made for a fascinating episode! 🙂

You should try touching the memory chips when it's running heavy games. Had a GTX 670 that worked like this, fine in older games but crashing in heavier ones. Touched the Vram once and it was burning hot. I put on little heatsinks over it and it suddenly started working fine, with stability going down over the next months though.

Holy sh1t, this is exactly my issue, back when i was with my RX 560, basically the games would just freezes into solid color from the majority of colors showing in screen like the brown one in Dust 2 map. additional note: the RX 560 is almost 6 years old, last time used it was dec 2023

The customer is always right; apart from where the're wrong. Always a conundrum in retail.

This kind of heatsink is sooo easy to duct. A duct will allow for cheap and easy fan replacement, and it will drastically improve noise to performance. Pair a card with a p12 or a p12-max, and you got a really cheap and super efficient fix. Although, this type of heat sink is not that great. Don't expect miracles, as this type of heat sink will need a ton of air to cool properly. A strix 1070, on the other hand, is running at about 900rpm with a duct. Not sure if that is of any interest for another video, but it is a great fix for near EOL parts that the fans fail on. Also, the stock AMD heatsinks is ton more fun as to noise, if ducted, but probably not your lane.

Reminds me of when my friend bought a used EVGA 3080 Hydro from Facebook marketplace and was wondering why his games kept crashing. He didnt notice the lack of fans or the fittings for watercooling tubing... RIP in peace 3080. 😢

Amazed someone could have the gaul to doctor a part, destroy it, then expect to return it for a refund in that state. All for a matter of pennies too.

This is why you take photos of products from all angles before shipping out to your buyer , it protects the seller in the event of such a situation , any serial numbers on the board and stickers will prove all wrongdoing towards the buyer in comparison photos Even in Malaysia ,where i live , its mandatory to take videos of parcel unboxings to protect yourself as a buyer incase of any wrongdoing from the seller , or any return or refund attempt will be null and void

I’m not saying it was switched but Lots of electronic repairers now mark their boards somehow and film it before posting, that way they can avoid switching returns and provide proof to auction sites if necessary.

And that's why I don't sell anything online, I rather give or throw away the things I no longer have use for, than having to deal with the aggravation of dealing with scumbags.