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NewEgg Confirms Shipping Fake Core i7s

Posted by kdawson on from the making-good dept.

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."

15 of 314 comments (clear)

  1. NewEgg handled it well, by SpazmodeusG · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:NewEgg handled it well, by John+Hasler · · Score: 5, Informative

      > It was only after they were called out on that they owned owned up to
      > shipping counterfeit units. Who knows the rational for that, maybe it was
      > just ignorance or whatever.

      When they said that the junk was demos shipped by accident they were repeating what their supplier told them. Would have been better to have just said "We acknowledge that they are real will replace them, but we are still investigating" until they heard from Intel. Still, they handled it fairly well. The important point is that they did not at any point try to deny that there was anything wrong.

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      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  2. D&H Distributing by ptbarnett · · Score: 5, Informative
    HardOCP was apparently the original source of the allegation that D&H Distributing was the source of the counterfeit CPUs. They have since apologized to D&H, claiming that their source of information was someone inside NewEgg.

    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.

    1. Re:D&H Distributing by Klinky · · Score: 4, Informative

      I am not a fan of HardOCP, once they were posting eBay auctions on their front page from one of their sponsors as being a "Hot Deal", specifically advertising the starting bid price as though it were the actual price of the product being sold. Misleading big time, this was cross posted into their Hot Deals forum as well. I posted a message on their forum asking when did eBay auctions suddenly get allowed into the Hot Deals forum(the rule previously was that eBay auctions were not allowed at all). I got banned for "thread crapping in a sponsors thread". Glad they value their sponsors misleading advertisements over their readers.

  3. Re:Lost customer by maxume · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
  4. Re:BS by characterZer0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to that article Newegg did not threaten to sue, Newegg's supplier did.

    --
    Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
  5. Re:What about the legal threats? by richardellisjr · · Score: 5, Informative

    That wasn't NewEgg, one of their suppliers (not the culprit) threatened to sue.

  6. Re:BS by eepok · · Score: 4, Informative

    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..."

  7. Re:BS by bem · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  8. Re:After following this.... by eepok · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  9. Re:BS by Mr.+Sketch · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
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  10. Who is IPEX? by eepok · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Who is IPEX? by hey! · · Score: 5, Informative

      No. Gray market does not mean counterfeit. It is just as legal as "normal" channels, although manufacturers don't like it.

      Let's say I manufacture a widget in Indonesia and sell it to US distributors for $100. I sell the same widget to Indian distributors for $10, because you can't sell this widget for as much there. I make the Indian distributor promise he won't sell back to the US and undercut my official channel price. But I can't control what people downstream do with the widget. Indians being smart and enterprising, somebody there figures out he can buy a boatload of widgets from the distributor, ship them back to the US, and sell them at a profit for $40.

      That's gray market. It's the legitimate goods, made on the same assembly line, and passing from hand to hand by completely legal sales. The manufacturers don't like it, and I may cut off my Indian distributor if I think he's involved with this or turning a blind eye. That means the incentive is for gray market sellers to be secretive, and therein lies the potential for a black marketeer to step into the process and represent himself as a gray marketeer.

      When somebody steals widgets from the Indonesian factory, or repackages rejects being thrown out and represents them as good, or sells a non-functional plastic knock-off and represents it as functional, that's *black* market.

      You may end up buying black market goods from somebody who represents himself as a gray marketeer. It could be because he is a fraud, but not necessarily. Goods pass from hand to hand in the gray market, and the fraud may be removed one or two transactions from your purchase.

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  11. Re:New Egg by Bureaucromancer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Except that NewEgg didn't send any cease and desists. They were sent by the distributor who shipped the units.

  12. Re:New Egg by flatrock · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.