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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."

9 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.

  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.

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    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. 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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  7. 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.