German scammer dupes two different buyers into spending thousands on hollow RTX 5090 GPUs

Recent reports from Germany reveal a scam involving the NVIDIA RTX 5090 graphics card, where two buyers were tricked into spending thousands of euros on non-functional GPUs. These fraudsters exploit t... Read original →

This German scam underscores deep vulnerabilities in the high-end GPU supply chain, particularly for NVIDIA's RTX 5090, a flagship product of the Blackwell architecture. Its scarcity and premium pricing make it a prime target for fraudsters, who exploit the lack of technical verification in secondary markets. This incident will likely accelerate the adoption of anti-counterfeiting measures such as serial number validation and blockchain-based tracking. Regulatory scrutiny is expected to intensify globally, raising compliance costs for manufacturers. Competitors like AMD and Intel may leverage this to strengthen their offerings and service frameworks. In the longer term, as AI compute demand surges, the secondary market for high-value hardware will become increasingly contested, with fraud tactics evolving. The industry must establish robust trust mechanisms to mitigate 'phantom GPU' risks.