As prices for DDR5 RAM get ever higher and availability becomes ever scarcer, it's unfortunately no surprise that the number of corresponding scams increases. The latest story comes from an unlucky European shopper who got DDR4 sticks in DDR5 clothing.
The story in question comes from the shores of Reddit. User and enthusiast Leading-Growth-3861 (Growth) already owns a prebuilt PC, but he was rolling his own build for the first time. He chose a good time, as supplies for components are dwindling rapidly.
Upon opening the RAM package and inspecting the DIMMs, he noticed the heatspreader on the sticks seemed a bit loose. Even still, he went to plug them in... and couldn't, because the notch on the PCB wouldn't line up no matter what he did. That's when he realized what had happened: someone had removed the DDR5 sticks beneath the heatspreaders and inserted DDR4 sticks to make the scam appear convincing.
(Image credit: Reddit user Leading-Growth-8361)
Where it gets interesting is that, according to Growth, the RAM was not marked as second-hand or open-box, merely "Sold and Dispatched by Amazon," signaling that it was meant to be a fresh, new item. In turn, this seems to indicate that the replacement theft occurred somewhere along Amazon's supply chain, as Growth made no remarks about the main box the item(s) arrived in.
His tale thankfully has a reasonably happy ending, as Growth got a refund from Amazon (UK, presumably, given his mention of pounds). The e-tailer even went so far as to refund him more than he paid, since he originally paid "about £100 less than what it's currently priced."
This latest story is but one in a long line of scams involving DDR5 ever since the proverbial hyperinflation started. Not too long ago, a Spanish buyer got DDR2 modules with weights posing as DDR5, while another Reddit user ordered laptop memory and got his package stolen. It's a sad state of affairs that leads us to post this advice, but if you're ordering PC components, ensure you video the opening of the package so that you're protected against any potential surprises like this one.
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