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NewEgg Confirms Shipping Fake Core i7s
adeelarshad82 writes "After originally rejecting the story, online retailer NewEgg confirmed that a shipment of Core i7s were indeed fake, and apologized for the affair. NewEgg has also broken off its relationship with IPEX, the supplier of the phony lot. The retailer said that it has already contacted affected customers and would continue to reach out and replace the counterfeit parts. We discussed the fake Core i7s over the weekend."
I sure liked the typos on the box. All that effort to duplicate holograms and what not, and they blow it on spacing and spelling.
Criminals, you gotta love their chutzpah.
When did they reject the story??
They never denied shipping fake units... the only difference between their story then and now is WHY the fake units existed.
They were leaning on that "oh, our bad, we got some 'demo units' by mistake" excuse pretty hard.
Demos? C'mon, demos are supposed to work, not be a blob of aluminum.
Long signatures suck.
Newegg were on top of this pretty early.
They never denied there being a problem although they took a day to figure out what was happening.
They have already apologized, announced they are sending out replacements and announced they are getting a new distributor a couple of days ago.
Counterfeit Intel CPU Saga Comes to a Close
At no time did HardOCP speculate as to what company was supplying the counterfeit processors to Newegg. Our source that informed us of the supplier being D&H Distributing came from within Newegg's organization. We belived the information to be accurate and reported it to our readers. Newegg is stating that IPEX shipped it the counterfeit processors. I am not sure as to why we would get conflicting information, and we will further investigate that.
At this time we offer our apologies to D&H Distributing for naming it as the supplying distributor. HardOCP was simply reporting the information that we believed to be accurate. We would NEVER "speculate" on something of this nature, as there is NOTHING for us to gain by misinforming our readers. We will be investigating further as to why we were misinformed on this detail.
They acknowledged that they had shipped non functional units on Friday:
http://twitter.com/Newegg/status/10050889498
They probably would have done better to say less, but they never denied the issue entirely.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Not true. We aren't talking "fake - not the correct part", we're talking "fake - not a cpu but a hunk of metal, not a cooler just a piece of plastic with a sticker on it".
If you are buying cpus, you'll know they're fake when you see them.
The supplier that Newegg got rid of was the one threatening to sue journalists. Again Newegg did the right thing by getting rid of them.
Newegg themselves never denied the incident nor did they threaten to sue anyone.
According to that article Newegg did not threaten to sue, Newegg's supplier did.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Not Newegg. That was D&H Distributing, the company that was originally (falsely) accused.
That wasn't NewEgg, one of their suppliers (not the culprit) threatened to sue.
The scenarios you describe are nice.. But it's kind of like tipping.. It's an accepted practice, but not required. There are oh so many people who abuse the niceties of customer service, at restaurants in particular.. Many people call customer service lines in ballistic mode, because they have come to expect something free offered.. These situations should be a pleasant surprise that something extra was done to make someone happy, not am expectation.. Someone "working the system" really isn't going to appreciate it anyway.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Read the article you linked. It's the distributor D&H that these sites accused without evidence and as such it was the D&H lawyers that sent the cease and desist. As it turns out it was a completely different distributor (IPEX).
"A company called D&H Distributing doesn’t consider it legitimate for the free press took umbrage to this. In fact, the legal beagles over at D&H Distributing got so worked up over the horrifying gall and chutzpah of Icrontic and HardOCP for daring to ask a question that the company slapped both publications with a “cease and desist” order.
Sent by the lawyers representing D&H, Creim Macias Koenig & Frey, it reads in part..."
Your link says that D&H, not Newegg threatened legal action.
Considering that D&H did not sell the fakes to Newegg, well, they are justifiably upset that people are wrongfully blaming them.
IANAL, so I don't know if they have an actionable complaint, but your link doesn't show a Newegg legal threat, and, again, D&H is understandably pissed off that they were blamed when they had nothing to do with it.
If IPEX was tossed out, I'm guessing it was someone at IPEX who was swapping processors out for dummies (for sale elsewhere, I assume) and then sending the fakes to Newegg.
Did you even read that article you linked to? It says that the legal threats came from a company called D&H Distributing that the sites claim sold the counterfeit equipment to Newegg:
In fact, the legal beagles over at D&H Distributing got so worked up over the horrifying gall and chutzpah of Icrontic and HardOCP for daring to ask a question that the company slapped both publications with a “cease and desist” order.
Sent by the lawyers representing D&H, Creim Macias Koenig & Frey, it reads in part:
“It has recently been brought to our attention that you are responsible for publishing on the internet, and specifically on your websites, untrue statements respecting allegedly counterfeit Intel Core i7 processors which you allege were sold to Newegg by D&H.
“This letter places you on notice that these statements are false. You have no basis for publishing these false and malicious statements about D & H. These false allegations are defamatory and disparaging to D&H”s business and business relations and have caused grave and irreparable damage to our client.”
Emphasis mine.
That article also mentions that Newegg had already started issuing replacements and they were just trying to figure out where those chips came from:
Tech community site, Icrontic, picked up the HardOCP story and noted that Newegg had shipped replacements for the fake CPUs quickly to affected customers and that both the e-tailer and Intel were in the process of investigating where the chips came from.
Emphasis mine.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
http://web.archive.org/web/20071020045918/http://www.ipexinfo.com/
Oct 20, 2007 wayback cache
Also opening every box would break the seals. Technically the item is now longer considered "new" under applicable laws.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?s=d01ac05d09e4f3d3bfb4364cdbc5d2af&p=1035432866&postcount=927
From [H] Forums:
I just want to clear up something Paul keeps bringing up in this thread: Ipex is a division of ASI. Ipex isn't ASI.
Full disclosure: I worked for ASI for some time back in the 90's (God, I feel old).
ASI is a legit Intel distributor (one of only a small handful) and is one of Newegg's biggest sources for Intel CPU's. Ipex, on the other hand, is the division that deals in gray market CPU's, RAM, etc.
These weren't demo units, they are nothing like demo/sub-standard products. Search them out on the youtube posts on it. Basically they're just squares of aluminum (no pins) and a plastic mold for the fan with a sticker on it for the blades. Most people are assuming they're duff but real CPUs, they're not, they do not function, cannot function, and do not look like the real parts.
That's bloody insightful in my book. Not even with sarcasm, personally if idjit joe can figure out how to make it work and work well. And there's a low failure rate it means that it's safe to use with half of my family.
Om, nomnomnom...
Except that NewEgg didn't send any cease and desists. They were sent by the distributor who shipped the units.
http://www.crn.com/hardware/223300173;jsessionid=B1V040G2ULN1LQE1GHPSKH4ATMY32JVN
"Ipex has been supplying computer components to the technology industry for over 10 years with the goal of providing quality products and services to our customers. Recently we were referenced in connection with some counterfeit Intel Core i7 920 Microprocessors sold within the US market. While we purchased these products in good faith from a supplier we are very disappointed to learn of the questionable status of these products and are taking appropriate action to resolve the issue for any impacted Ipex client as well as are fully cooperating with Intel's investigation in to determining the original source."
Actually the cease and desists were sent by a different distributer who was incorrectly named as the culprit and was justifiably upset. The cease and desist letters by D&H were appropriate, and their claims that they were being falsely accused were accurate.
I think Kyle at HardOCP was honestly misinformed, but he didn't exactly handle if well. He accused Newegg of being dishonest and trying to cover things up. He appologizes to D&H but defends himself by saying "We would NEVER "speculate" on something of this nature, as there is NOTHING for us to gain by misinforming our readers." However, he never gave Newegg the same benefit of the doubt he claims he deserves. He adamantly accused Newegg of a cover-up when they originally relayed IPEX's story about demo processors. Newegg had no more to gain by lying than HardOCP did.
Kyle has been around a long time and should know better. He owes Newegg one hell of a public appology, and hopefully after a little more thought he will man up and make that appology.
Random anecdotal example: A friend of mine bought a PAX 08-branded Razer Deathadder gaming mouse at (surprise) PAX 08. Turns out these mice had a defect: the scroll wheel doesn't glow! Mind you, I didn't even know it was supposed to (maybe my friend did, not sure) but in any case, Razer immediately apologized for the "defective" batch of mice (that were produced one time, in limited quantity, specifically for one event) and shipped everybody a replacement without the cosmetic defect. Two high-quality, fully functional mice, for the price of one, on a special one-off production run no less.
Why yes, I do recommend buying gaming peripherals from them. Who would have guessed?
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Distributors, wholesalers or middle men if you prefer provide both inventory and financing for retailers, even large ones. The goal in a business like Newegg is to receive funds from customers before you have to pay your suppliers. In other words you don't want your capital tied up in inventory if you can help it. Of course not having inventory can mean lost sales so there is a balancing act required.
Its all about terms and conditions.
I guess differently. My guess is that Intel allows orders of a minimum of 1,000 processors, and Newegg would sell that many of each kind in less than a week. That's only 52,000 of each kind of processor each year. I'm guessing that Newegg certainly sells that many, almost certainly more.
You are speaking of reimports. They're just one aspect of the grey market.
There are other grey market goods. For example, Intel might give out a sample of an i920 to a distributor or retailer for free as a gift. They say not to resell it, but you know, maybe they just do anyway. This becomes a grey market good too.
Basically, any a good is resold against some agreement (borders as you say, NFR in my case) it becomes a grey market good. As you mention, it's typically still a perfectly good item, it's not counterfeit or anything.
I don't really agree on your definition of black market. Black market goods are typically anything that is illegal to sell, they can still be legit goods, just you're not supposed to be able to buy/sell them. If I buy illegally imported liquor that the government didn't get their taxes on, it's black market liquor, even though it's still legit. It also can be a legit good that was stolen and resold. And it's still a legit good, but you might not get a warranty (you might not on grey market goods either!). These two examples are the most typical things people think of when you hear black market.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95