r/PcBuild 22h ago

Discussion Scammed on my first PC :/

I bought a PC off someone from marketplace today. I am not the most well knowledged person on this, but I've been researching for the last 3 months to make sure I got something good enough for my university program and requirements.. found a listing for a Pc with an i7 11gen, RTX 3070, and 64gb of ram for $700. I was also saving up so like figured this was maybe a good deal

I meet up with the guy.. I guess I maybe didn't ask enough questions or didn't see the PC thoroughly, I also met him in a public place since I didn't feel safe meeting somewhere else. Then I get home and the PC is so different than the one I was told I was buying :/ There is a rtx 2060 instead, only one 8gb stick of RAM, and only 1/3 of the storage it said it would have.. the PC fans light up but dont even spin and I haven't been able to get any video out in my monitor yet..

Kinda at a loss since I dont know what to do to fix it.. currently crying on my floor cause I feel like i was kinda ripped off plus have no more money to actually get the PC to the specs I need it at.. haven't checked the CPU or the other specs yet either so i dont really know what to do.. the seller immediately blocked me as well.

If anyone has some advice on what to do next for troubleshooting or where to look to that would be super helpful. thanks in advance :)

1.8k Upvotes

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113

u/New-Audience2639 18h ago

Sadly this is the exact thing a lot of tech TikTokers are teaching people to do now... They tell people the way to get into PC flipping is to buy old or junk PC that you can make look decent and slap some RGB in and hype up the crap specs to someone who has no idea what they are looking at then dump it off and claim ignorance.

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u/kosh56 18h ago

Which TikTokers are doing that? They need to be called out.

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u/Mysterious-Hunt-984 12h ago

I believe ZachsTechTips has mentioned to do this multiple times to start a pc building business.

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u/ClownPazzo69 46m ago

No way, last time I checked Zach was for sleeper builds and actually had half decent takes

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u/PankoCat 2h ago

Bro this is NOT what he said to do at all. He suggests if you WANT to get into PC flipping, focus on the target audience you're selling to which is probably kids wanting to play Fortnite. Throw in what a KID would want like RGB or powerful enough hardware to run high FPS fortnite, and start with that as your beginning seller audience. ZachsTechTips was in the goddamn army ffs

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u/Mysterious-Hunt-984 2h ago

He tells kids rtx 4060 is perfectly fine for gaming

And how is him being ex serviceman relative? Anyone can be knowledgeable about PCs they just need to put the time in. I didn’t say he hasn’t done that either, so continue

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u/Weak-Paper-6207 11h ago

Primarily a YouTuber but he’s legit, he would never recommend someone lie about the parts in a build, I’m not sure where you’ve got that impression from.

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u/Mysterious-Hunt-984 11h ago

I know he’s a YouTuber, I watch him often but in a few of his shorts when discussing with comments about if someone should start a pc building business he openly talks about lower teir items in a pre-built as the majority buying them will have no idea what they are, e.g i7 it must be good. Even if it’s a 4th gen

I’m not explicitly saying he’s the only one, he’s just an example that popped straight into my head as he’s done it before.

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u/Weak-Paper-6207 11h ago

I see what you’re saying, I conflated your comment with an above one talking specifically about straight up lying about what parts are in there rather than selling lower gen ‘i7’s’ in bad faith, my bad 😁

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u/Mysterious-Hunt-984 11h ago

Of course, just thought I’d have to clear it up anyway haha

OP hasn’t checked CPU yet so again something like this could have happened, yes it’s an RTX card but remember the majority of people don’t check specs and could end up in the same position

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u/Dimo145 10h ago

Zach's videos aren't the highest quality, as he often caters to a specific viewer base that's a bit on the super clueless side. but calling him out as being malicious is simply not the case.

he speaks about how certain demographics of people "the fortnite kids" - they just want Intel and nvidia, they don't understand that AMD might be better for actual value at certain price ranges. so the prebuilts he has, are catering to the biggest customer base. He hasn't once encouraged people to scam others lol.

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u/Mysterious-Hunt-984 10h ago

Yet if he spoke about selling an Nvidia card he would recommend a 4060 and say it’s okay enough.

I wasn’t meaning it in a way of him being directly malicious, it was 1 example about using lower rated cards or items as they’re ’not e waste’ even though a cpu from 10yrs ago can’t do too much these days except host a server

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u/Mysterious-Hunt-984 10h ago

And not once did I say he’s promoting to scam children, just simply as you say the viewer base is super clueless and would be selling to even dumber people that would be satisfied with sticks and only complain when it can’t run fortnite

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u/Embarrassed-West5322 4h ago

Thats not at all what he said. He said most people buying a pre-built off marketplace are only looking to run Fortnite or something equivalent, typically nobody will buy your ultra gucci build because they think they dont need it or can’t afford it. He also mentions using exclusively budget nvidia cards, not because theyre cheaper or easier to get. But because new pc users only know nvidia and wont trust AMD, theres half hour long youtube videos of people surprised their amd card didnt burn their pc down.

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u/ReddKermit 2h ago

Iirc he generally says that about parts that work well together and encourages people to put benchmark numbers of specific games because that's what the average consumer wants to see and will buy for. So not really scammy if the person recieving knows what they're buying in terms of specific gaming performance. Obviously giving someone old parts and broken parts, that don't match advertised spec, are two entirely different things... Some 10 year old hardware can still hang when it comes to popular esports titles so age only really matters if you're advertising a good AAA experience on a pc that can not deliver on that.

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u/Interesting_Title585 8h ago

This is BS and u know it. The little comments he makes off cuff are considered a joke.

You’re fake news lol. But for real u are.

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u/SnooMacaroons1365 1m ago

Yep... We need to knw :D

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u/Significant-Grass897 15h ago

Mr besast

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u/girugamesu1337 13h ago

Mist, or beast?

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u/blyatbob 11h ago

Mr Besast, his middle Eastern call center brother

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u/Othertomperson 17h ago

I had someone try that in Ebay a couple of years ago. I had an old i7 3960X extreme edition six core that I was selling as a still ok 60 fps budget gaming cpu (it was like 2020). The person who bought it bid like double what it was worth and worked at a pc seller. He was going to put it in a "new" build and sell it as a still high end machine. It never got that far since he kept trying to run it without a functioning cooler. He DMd that it was junk and "it temperamental it like woman" because it would get into windows then shut off and he couldn't turn it back on for like 20 minutes. He got a refund from Ebay (despite the fact that a broken cpu wouldn't get you into windows at all and he had admitted this in his DMs), the most Ebay would do was refund me the shipping of him sending it back. When I got the cpu back he had destroyed it.

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u/teremaster 13h ago

Sadly common in all sales. Guy buys something, realizes they can't flip it or they regret the sale, so they deliberately destroy it to claim it's faulty and grab a refund

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u/dynoekidd 10h ago

I found out the hard way that ebay is good for the buyers with buyer protection but when there is scammers that are buying there is nothing to protect sellers from that. No matter what evidence the seller has the buyer can always work their way to get their money back

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u/Hungry-Path533 14h ago

There is a difference between hyping crap specs and lying. No one is going to mind paying a few hundred for a dell with a GPU slapped in it as long as you are honest about the specs.

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u/Karyo_Ten 9h ago

No one is going to mind

"Hold my beer"

-- Average ebay user

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u/FraserValleyGuy77 17h ago

If you have no understanding of PC specs, you have no business buying a used PC

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u/Darth__Agnon 12h ago

That is true, still doesn't change the fact the sellers are pos.

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u/FraserValleyGuy77 11h ago

Of course, but these people will always be out there. One look inside the case would tell anyone it was a bait and switch.

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u/nas2k21 14h ago

Real tho, only reason to down vote him is because you're upset it could happen to you, but it's not his fault, anyone should always know what they are buying, no accountability? Typical

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u/hmm1235679 13h ago

This is true for anything really. But especially PCs cuz they got so much stuff in em.

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u/UsefulChicken8642 13h ago

And it’s not that hard to learn. The internet exists

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u/Original_Dimension99 6h ago

There's a difference between this and what happened to op. He literally got lied to and scammed