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Honestly I disagree with this. They are refusing to honour warranty claims on the stolen cards, which given the situation is totally fair. The alternative for

Honestly I disagree with this. They are refusing to honour warranty claims on the stolen cards, which given the situation is totally fair. The alternative for them is exacerbating the financial losses caused by the theft by offering free repairs/replacements on a product that they already haven’t generated any revenue on.

TheJoeMan 5y ago
How could a customer tell before buying from EBay though? No sellers going to let you try to register the serial so the end customer would get screwed.
- asguy 5y ago
  You don't need to register it. You can just do a warranty check. Asking for a serial number is probably a good idea at this point, considering the counterfeit market.
- spaced-out 5y ago
  That's the risk you take buying things from randos on EBay. Buy from authorized resellers if you don't want this to happen.
  - KingMachiavelli 5y ago
    You literally can't buy cards from most authorized resellers ATM and Evga is aware of that fact.
    - acdha 5y ago
      That makes it _more_ rather than less risky to buy from random people on eBay because they know that you're desperate, allowing them to charge more and figure someone will buy without doing too much diligence about the seller. Think about how people have received defective parts, or even things reflashed to list a different model. When the market is tight like this, those abuses become that much more tempting.
      - ab_c 5y ago
        So what you're saying is that buying from rando scalpers has increased risk & negative side effects? Cool. Then stop buying from scalpers.
        acdha 5y ago
        Yes, that's the point — this thread was in response to someone acting like it's unfair for a company to decline warranty coverage for a stolen product. That seems perfectly reasonable to me: anyone buying stuff on a site like eBay needs to factor authenticity into their buying decisions. (Here I'm reminded of a certain office manager in the 90s who “saved” a fortune on Microsoft licenses until it turned out that the floppies they got from some guy at a swap market had a virus & the resulting downtime cost them more than the savings.)
        drbawb 5y ago
        It is unfair though - a warranty covers a product being free from defects in materials and workmanship. The product being stolen happened _after_ it's manufacture, which is the thing that is actually being guaranteed. What would be fair is a company refusing to repair/replace a counterfeit product, but (presumably, given the response) the stolen cards are genuine articles. Articles that people will inevitably purchase at around 150-300% MSRP in the current market. This is just EVGA leaving ardent supporters of the brand, enthusiasts willing to pay many multiples of what the product is worth, out to dry. This concern should be purely between EVGA, the courier, their respective insurance agents, and local law enforcement. I'm honestly amazed it's even being mentioned by the company on a public forum.
        acdha 5y ago
        You’re leaving out some key factors to think about: they aren’t going to take responsibility for problems caused by mistreatment while the thieves are moving it around (heat or vibration can take time to manifest), or the possibility of something being modified before the buyer gets it. A common scam in many industries is someone taking legitimate packaging and using it to sell counterfeit or returned/failed products at full price. This is EVGA saying they don’t want their reputation and finances on the line for any of those things which can happen outside of their control, which seems reasonable. More importantly, they’re also sending a message to potential thieves that this is not a good thing to repeat. Publicly warning buyers and preventing those cards from being treated as equally valuable as the legitimate ones threatens the profitability of stealing them. Given the high prices in the market currently, that seems like a good message.
    - wilburTheDog 5y ago
      Actually you can. EVGA has a step-up program that allows you to buy just about any EVGA graphics card, register it, and pick the new better card you want when it's available. I bought a 2070 about a year ago and just got an email today that my 3080 is in the mail. I had to jump through a few hoops, but nothing onerous. And I had to pay the difference in price, but it was the only way I could come up with to get a registered high-end card. As far as I know EVGA is the only company that offers this, and it's the reason I went with them instead of another.
  - megablast 5y ago
    No it isn’t. You but it, find it’s not covered, ask for a refund.
    - jedimastert 5y ago
      You ask for a refund, you get ghosted and/or seller has some form of extra plausible deniability (how was I supposed to know it was stolen either?)
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  Isn't that what eBay buyer protection is for? The difference between this and shipping a crate of rocks is that this is easier to prove.
- chrischen 5y ago
  Usually warranties aren’t offered for third party sellers or unauthorized sellers. I’d say someone selling stolen goods is pretty unauthorized to me.
- varenc 5y ago
  Serial numbers should come in two parts! A public portion and a private portion. You can use the public portion to confirm the GPU isn’t stolen, look up its warranty policy, etc. The extra private portion is need to actually register and claim ownership.
johnsoft 5y ago
Naive question: did EVGA actually suffer any financial losses from this? If I was shipping millions of dollars of product, I wouldn't let it out of my sight without some sort of insurance.
- adriand 5y ago
  Not naive. I work for a logistics company and every shipment is insured. Standard amount of cargo insurance is $100k for a full truckload but that goes up for more valuable items. So the question of losses boils down to the amount of insurance on the shipment and also of course the length of time required to process a claim…it could take a long time to get the cash.

TheJoeMan 5y ago

How could a customer tell before buying from EBay though? No sellers going to let you try to register the serial so the end customer would get screwed.

asguy 5y ago
You don't need to register it. You can just do a warranty check. Asking for a serial number is probably a good idea at this point, considering the counterfeit market.
spaced-out 5y ago
That's the risk you take buying things from randos on EBay. Buy from authorized resellers if you don't want this to happen.
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  You literally can't buy cards from most authorized resellers ATM and Evga is aware of that fact.
  - acdha 5y ago
    That makes it _more_ rather than less risky to buy from random people on eBay because they know that you're desperate, allowing them to charge more and figure someone will buy without doing too much diligence about the seller. Think about how people have received defective parts, or even things reflashed to list a different model. When the market is tight like this, those abuses become that much more tempting.
    - ab_c 5y ago
      So what you're saying is that buying from rando scalpers has increased risk & negative side effects? Cool. Then stop buying from scalpers.
      - acdha 5y ago
        Yes, that's the point — this thread was in response to someone acting like it's unfair for a company to decline warranty coverage for a stolen product. That seems perfectly reasonable to me: anyone buying stuff on a site like eBay needs to factor authenticity into their buying decisions. (Here I'm reminded of a certain office manager in the 90s who “saved” a fortune on Microsoft licenses until it turned out that the floppies they got from some guy at a swap market had a virus & the resulting downtime cost them more than the savings.)
        drbawb 5y ago
        It is unfair though - a warranty covers a product being free from defects in materials and workmanship. The product being stolen happened _after_ it's manufacture, which is the thing that is actually being guaranteed. What would be fair is a company refusing to repair/replace a counterfeit product, but (presumably, given the response) the stolen cards are genuine articles. Articles that people will inevitably purchase at around 150-300% MSRP in the current market. This is just EVGA leaving ardent supporters of the brand, enthusiasts willing to pay many multiples of what the product is worth, out to dry. This concern should be purely between EVGA, the courier, their respective insurance agents, and local law enforcement. I'm honestly amazed it's even being mentioned by the company on a public forum.
        acdha 5y ago
        You’re leaving out some key factors to think about: they aren’t going to take responsibility for problems caused by mistreatment while the thieves are moving it around (heat or vibration can take time to manifest), or the possibility of something being modified before the buyer gets it. A common scam in many industries is someone taking legitimate packaging and using it to sell counterfeit or returned/failed products at full price. This is EVGA saying they don’t want their reputation and finances on the line for any of those things which can happen outside of their control, which seems reasonable. More importantly, they’re also sending a message to potential thieves that this is not a good thing to repeat. Publicly warning buyers and preventing those cards from being treated as equally valuable as the legitimate ones threatens the profitability of stealing them. Given the high prices in the market currently, that seems like a good message.
  - wilburTheDog 5y ago
    Actually you can. EVGA has a step-up program that allows you to buy just about any EVGA graphics card, register it, and pick the new better card you want when it's available. I bought a 2070 about a year ago and just got an email today that my 3080 is in the mail. I had to jump through a few hoops, but nothing onerous. And I had to pay the difference in price, but it was the only way I could come up with to get a registered high-end card. As far as I know EVGA is the only company that offers this, and it's the reason I went with them instead of another.
- megablast 5y ago
  No it isn’t. You but it, find it’s not covered, ask for a refund.
  - jedimastert 5y ago
    You ask for a refund, you get ghosted and/or seller has some form of extra plausible deniability (how was I supposed to know it was stolen either?)
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
Isn't that what eBay buyer protection is for? The difference between this and shipping a crate of rocks is that this is easier to prove.
chrischen 5y ago
Usually warranties aren’t offered for third party sellers or unauthorized sellers. I’d say someone selling stolen goods is pretty unauthorized to me.
varenc 5y ago
Serial numbers should come in two parts! A public portion and a private portion. You can use the public portion to confirm the GPU isn’t stolen, look up its warranty policy, etc. The extra private portion is need to actually register and claim ownership.

johnsoft 5y ago

Naive question: did EVGA actually suffer any financial losses from this? If I was shipping millions of dollars of product, I wouldn't let it out of my sight without some sort of insurance.

adriand 5y ago
Not naive. I work for a logistics company and every shipment is insured. Standard amount of cargo insurance is $100k for a full truckload but that goes up for more valuable items. So the question of losses boils down to the amount of insurance on the shipment and also of course the length of time required to process a claim…it could take a long time to get the cash.