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Some Newegg Customers Received Fake Intel Core i7s
Several readers have mentioned the strange goods that some customers received from Newegg in place of the Intel Core i7 920 processor they ordered. Word on the problem first surfaced on TribalWar on Thursday evening. Newegg still hasn't commented on this. It's not known whether it happened as a result fraud by another Newegg customer, in shipping, or where. The "processors" are made of aluminum, and the "fans" are some kind of synthetic molded material. The "factory seal" was printed onto the box; the holographic stickers on the boxes were also faked. The first part of this video shows the bogus goods. At this writing Google News lists a handful of blogs mentioning the fakes.
I was at a swap meet a month ago and saw a *pallet* of Core I7 processors. I used Red Laser to scan the UPC codes (they were "Extreme" models selling for $650+ on the open market), and a quick volume computation (the pallet was about 12 high, about 20 horizontal each way) suggested that I was looking at about $3 million worth of processors.
Except, they weren't actual processors. According to the person selling them, they were "fake" processors, but the heatsinks and fans were real and could be used with other processors and motherboards.
Uh-huh. Carrying the original UPC codes. I'm still not sure what to make of it.
We had a problem with some Intel dual port gig cards and NewEgg about five years ago. We had ordered them shipped directly out to the data center (800 miles away) because of an urgent need, but upon installation, we were seeing various odd problems. Suspecting a driver issue, we left them in and returned home. Never resolved the problems. Pulled them a few months later on the next visit. Further research showed that they were phony Intel cards. Apparently several resellers had been hit with these. However, NewEgg maintained that it was no longer their problem because of their return policy (30 days, maybe, I don't remember), and refused to make an exception for goods that they knew were knock-offs. This was really too bad, as we started buying less stuff from them after that.