Thieves are now using particularly bold means to get new graphics cards

Graphics cards are a rare commodity and currently cost a lot of money. In fact, some people are now resorting to particularly bold methods because they cannot buy graphics cards. MeinMMO explains what it’s about.

Imagine you run a computer business and in broad daylight someone is simply removing the graphics cards from your computers. And that’s not just a mind game, it actually happened.

How is the current situation? The current shortage of semiconductors continues to mean that the prices for graphics cards are far too high. Even at the end of 2021 there does not seem to be any improvement in the situation. But the demand is very high – so high that some fraudsters are now going there and are particularly bold.

Shops secure their gaming PCs against thieves and fraudsters

What exactly happened? Some electrical retailers are currently showing a strange picture, because here the sellers have gone over to this and have wrapped gaming PCs with cable ties. But this security measure has a sad reason, as the news magazine TheNextWeb reports (via thenextweb.com).

Because a user explained to the news magazine that all computers in the store had to be secured with cable ties or similar measures: “They secured the devices because people would pull the GPU, CPU and RAM out of the computers.”

And on reddit, a user explains that this is no exception. For example, a friend of his bought a ready-made PC in an electronics store and the computer was missing both the graphics card and the processor: “My buddy sent it back and told customer service, but he said they didn’t give a shit. “

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But it’s not just retailers who are affected by such audacious campaigns. There are also other cases where graphics cards are stolen.

Internet cafes are being plundered to get rare graphics cards

The case of an Internet café also shows how bad the current situation is. These are particularly popular in Asia, as they are extensively equipped. In addition to fast gaming PCs, there are often showers and sleeping options for gamers.

In China, people have now gone so far as to pillage such an internet café while distracting the boss. While the boss fetched new garbage cans for the users, the alleged thieves removed the graphics cards, including mainboards, from the computers. The owner stated that he suffered more than 7,000 euros in damage (via tomshardware.com).

Not only graphics cards affected: There was a similar case of coveted gaming hardware recently in Japan. There a brazen woman sold a PlayStation 5 to a customer, but the package only contained water bottles. Here the defrauded buyer had complained and the case had ended up with the police. Still, it’s frightening what some people are willing to do in order to make money on coveted hardware such as graphics cards or game consoles.

What do you think of the current situation? Do you also find it shocking how far some people go to get a coveted graphics card? Discuss with us in the comments!