An enthusiastic follower of the technology industry is well aware of the noise around GeForce RTX 30XX. The Ampere technology driven graphics cards are in-demand and exceeding expectations for demand. Of course, everyone wants these first not just for the sheer experience of it, but to flaunt it too. All those hopes have taken a beating since scalping emerged as a major issue. The earliest victims were the US-based company EVGA. The likes of MSI and GIGABYTE soon followed. Around the web, you’ll find users on discussion forums usually blame the manufacturers for the ill service. The real evil however have been the online retailers in many regions, across the globe. Retailers tend to take advantage of the customer when their regional laws allow little to no intervention of the OEMs.
Authorized retailers at fault, found Scalping
MSI is one brand that would want to forget its recent struggles with GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 sales. The company was earlier notified how Australian retailer Umart was selling GeForce RTX 3090 cards at fake RRP. It was MSI’s Gaming TRIO X variant. The manufacturer responded saying they couldn’t help much as the Aussie Law didn’t allow them the agency to do so. Recently, a news came from Oman where NVIDIA authorized Gamehub were at fault for scalping. The card being sold at an unfair price was the ZOTAC Trinity 3080. This however has been the complaint from most customers in and around Europe. With the festive season fast approaching most customers would have high hopes of getting their cards as early as possible.
MSI however were greatly embarrassed when it was found one of their own subsidiaries were guilty of scalping their own cards. It was revealed that Starlit Partner scalped MSI’s RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 models for almost $600 to $1000 over the normal pricing. MSI clarified that this was owing to an internal error. This provided Starlit Partner with access to new GeForce RTX 30XX cards. MSI will now pay more attention towards making its security policies more restrictive and strict. For now, they are busy sorting the refunds. Elsewhere, NVIDIA chose to delay their RTX 3070’s arrival in the market by two weeks to accumulate more supplies. However, the demand for the more affordable of the RTX 30XX siblings is towering.
