Help from the community RTX 3080 Fraud

[tikker]

8 minutes ago, Exidor said:

That is exactly what they are doing. If you google the URL and use the google cash you will see that today it was available for sale and google cash saved it.

https://www.computeruniverse.net/de/evga-geforce-rtx3080-ftw3-ultra-gaming-10-gb-oc-enthusiast-grafikkarte

So they got an EVGA delivery. That has nothing to do with you:

9 hours ago, Exidor said:

I ordered a Asus RTX 3080 Strix OC from them

They are under no obligation to ship you an EVGA FTW3. You ordered a completely different model.

 

Over here when I was still following Asus was having the worst stock issues of all of them. EVGA and Gigabyte seem to come in most frequently here, but Asus stock is abysmal with nothing coming in for weeks and weeks on end with the occasional tiny shipment. Might be different for Germany of course, but for us EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI seem to be the best shot in that order.

[LogicalDrm]

20 hours ago, FmPhenom said:

Mods can you please close this thread. 

 

To protect his legal interests. 

 

I'm pretty sure his/her/they (it is 2021 after all) "lawyer" has advised him against airing out his legal strategy. Might hinder his court case.

If you have issue with this thread, you can report it. But unless its requested by OP, or thread hard derails or otherwise violated Community Standards, there's no need to close it. This is open forum and anyone over 13 years of age can post anything they like (within the limits of our rules ofc). Its up to them whether it will cause them issues in real life.

[papajo]

On 1/29/2021 at 11:57 AM, Exidor said:

Hello,

 

I am sorry if this is in the wrong section.

 

I fully admit writing this post mostly out of self interest.

Never the less I am surely not alone and we are talking about a case of massive fraud here in the EU.

I think needs to get out there and get news coverage.

 

This particular case concerns a large German retailer namely:

computeruniverse GmbH

Grüner Weg 14

D-61169

Friedberg

Deutschland / Germany

Ust-Id-Nr.: DE812826949

WEEE-Reg.-Nr.: DE 77041682

They are a large online retailer here in the EU they ship everywhere and have a turn over of more than 250 million Euros annually and that was before the Pandemic.

 

I ordered a Asus RTX 3080 Strix OC from them on the 28.10.2020 I paid full price over credit card 981,71 Euros. The card was marked as shipping has issues thats a rough translation from German. They officially put it as "Availability is subject to significant fluctuations"

They have been promising to ship the card for three months.

Now on the 26.01.2021 they took down the card and the next day removed the whole category of 3080 cards only one was listed over search as available for instant shipping. Before the listings were taken down the same card and all other top tier cards were listed for 1417 Euros. They cancelled all the 3080 orders and refuse to provide alternatives saying that we are welcome to choose another product. First I asked them to ship me a different 3080 when they answered today(29.01.2021) that it is unavailable. I wrote them this:

 

Look I have been reasonable with you and waited for 3 months......

I work in the IT field and like many I am stuck in a home office environment. Not having this hardware I ordered and paid for is causing me losses as a business..... I lose time on my projects and I get paid by the hour.

I welcome you to contact me by phone. I speak German so that wont be a problem. I will keep this email exchange in English for legal purposes.

 

But there is a limit to my patience.

If you are not going to ship me the product I will be contacting a lawyer in German. And also consumer protection agencies both locally and in Germany.

I even think that media might be interested in getting involved. I suspect I am not the only customer who has this issue. We are potentially talking about possible fraud in the millions of Euros. I am sure many German and European news outlets would be interested in this story. 

 

 

As I see the situation you committed fraud. At best this can be described as bait and switch.

Your company committed to delivering a product. The piece of the product went up. So you own your customers the product they paid for or a market equivalent or better product. If the market changed and the price went up that is your problem and not a cost you can offset onto your customers.

There is a legal minimal interest rate for loans. Your customers did not gift you the money or lend it to you. This money was payment for a product you failed to deliver. You were free to use this money in your business for 3 months without paying any interest on it. How much would such a loan coast at a bank? An unsecured working capital loan?

 

I suggested a solution ship an equivalent product to the one I paid for namely:

https://www.computeruniverse.net/de/evga-geforce-rtx3080-ftw3-ultra-gaming-10-gb-oc-enthusiast-grafikkarte

EVGA GeForce RTX3080 FTW3 Ultra GAMING 10 GB OC Enthusiast Grafikkarte

 

Alternatively ship me a Nvidia RTX 3090 

EVGA GeForce RTX3090 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING 24 GB OC Enthusiast Grafikkarte

https://www.computeruniverse.net/de/evga-geforce-rtx3090-ftw3-ultra-gaming-24-gb-oc-enthusiast-grafikkarte

 

Or I will be forced to contact a lawyer and then I will be suing for the current market value plus damages.

 

 

 

Respectfully

 

 

This is exactly how I feel what they committed is fraud bait and switch at best.

They sold hundreds if not thousands of this cards. (They have a counter on the website of how many have been sold this week. And that was constantly over 200 when ever I checked the product page hoping for a shipping update.) They took the money and committed to delivering a product. Now they are forcing people to either cancel their order and swallow the difference to go try buy a new RTX 3080 on the market or buy some crap valued a 981 Euros at their webstore. By law they own us a product or its equivalent value if all the EU shops price the product hire that is their problem. In addition they never shipped within a reasonable time frame that again can be seen as a violation of this law. This was not a preorder they were selling the product and promising to ship in a timely manner. In emails always promising next week.

Even a god damn loan would have accumulated interest. How much would an unsecured working-capital loan run you nowadays? 6% probably not even sure any normal bank would offer you such a loan probably would have to go to a shadowbank. Here where I come from also the EU the major banks would charge you around 8-10% and shadowbanks 10-15%.

 

If anybody else has similar issues with this or other web stores please post here.

I am afraid that they have no obligation to do such a thing, it would be professional to give you a similar item new sealed etc but they are not obligated to do so. 

 

What they are obligated though to do (by EU law) in case they can not provide any other agreeable alternative is to refund you the full price (including shipping costs) that is the extent of your options unfortunately. 

 

You then could leave a negative feedback in search engines such as geizhals.eu but nothing else could be done unless they would like it to be done (and they are able to do it because maybe they just cant get any stock for reals) 

[Mark Kaine]

On 1/29/2021 at 10:57 AM, Exidor said:

will keep this email exchange in English for legal purposes.

 

Kinda weird since in Germany the legal language is German, but ok, personally I'm not bothered it's still weird and can lead to complications. 

 

On 1/29/2021 at 10:57 AM, Exidor said:

Or I will be forced to contact a lawyer and then I will be suing for the current market value plus damages.

please do, I wish you luck, but you will probably lose because they did inform you of "uncertain availability". 

 

On 1/29/2021 at 10:57 AM, Exidor said:

They took the money and committed to delivering a product.

This is why you pay with paypal, if they don't ship within 2 weeks you can always get back your money immediately. 

Don't get me wrong I get you're pissed, with relatively good reason, but this is still mostly on you, you kept letting this go on for way too long when it was clear they would not ship whatsoever (after 2-3 weeks) 

 

On 1/29/2021 at 11:26 AM, Exidor said:

As I said they have not refunded me.

This however is very weird... did you ask for a refund?  And you paid with credit card? Can always get your money back that way too.

 

 

On 1/29/2021 at 11:39 AM, -iSynthesis said:

Once you buy something a so-called "Kaufvertrag"

Yeah... and most online retailers will tell you very clearly it's not a "Kaufvertrag" until they inform you that the item is being actually shipped... so in this case, I actually want to see the "Kaufvertrag". If there is one, the OP has a good chance of getting actually some of the compensation that they apparently seek... 

 

Otherwise, especially if OP did not ask for a refund, this isn't going to get anywhere before a court... imo! 

 

 

[FmPhenom]

5 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

If you have issue with this thread, you can report it. But unless its requested by OP, or thread hard derails or otherwise violated Community Standards, there's no need to close it. This is open forum and anyone over 13 years of age can post anything they like (within the limits of our rules ofc). Its up to them whether it will cause them issues in real life.

I said please. 

[LogicalDrm]

27 minutes ago, FmPhenom said:

I said please. 

? Its still dog whistling. Something we don't like. Report.

[shaz2sxy]

On 1/29/2021 at 7:38 PM, Exidor said:

File

EVGA GeForce RTX3080 FTW3 Ultra GAMING 10 GB OC Enthusiast Grafikkarte - Grafikkarten PCI Express - computeruniverse _ computeruniverse.pdf 681.03 kB · 2 downloads

But you ordered a Asus RTX 3080 Strix OC from them. 

 

So your  contract is for that model only. nothing else.  They are not legally obliged to offer yout an alternative for the same cost.  If they cannot provide you the "Asus RTX 3080 Strix OC" then you get a refund.

 

you are blowing this out of all proportions.

[GimmeGaming]

I was always wondering about ComputerUniverse whether it was worth buying from them or not. This would be useful for others in Europe to know to avoid the company. I generally use CaseKing.de/Mindfactory.de/Overclocks.co.uk. For me I'm happy just to avoid this site based on the OP's first post. I had a similar issue with Overclockers.co.uk about 5 years ago and they replaced it with a slightly higher product.

 

[AngryBeaver]

On 1/29/2021 at 4:46 AM, IntMD said:

It is pretty much the same wording in UK law.

 

I would say being unable to provide a reasonable timescale for actually being able to fulfill the order, would be perfectly understandable grounds for issuing a refund (which they apparently haven't done... but that is another part of the story, and they definitely should be refunding without having to go through the CC company). Personally, if I was the company, I'd have done it differently and just said to people, 'We can't get stock, we don't know when we will be able to get stock, please have a refund if you want'.

I think the point that is being missed is they removed and then relisted the cards at a higher price. This happened in the states too due to tariffs. 

 

So they are telling him he needs to either select the newer listed items with a much higher price or us the money he has for a lesser item that us now in that price range.

 

The problem is months ago he agreed to X item at X price. The fact cards went up is not his fault nor problem. He has a binding agreement with them.

 

Your best recourse is to reach out for one of the cards they have in stock and offer to pay the difference in cost of the card 3 months ago (since that is when the transaction took place). The OP shouldn't be the one punished or the one that has to eat the additional cost. They took that risk when allowing people to purchase a spot on a wait list essentially. 

[shaz2sxy]

2 hours ago, AngryBeaver said:

I think the point that is being missed is they removed and then relisted the cards at a higher price. This happened in the states too due to tariffs. 

 

So they are telling him he needs to either select the newer listed items with a much higher price or us the money he has for a lesser item that us now in that price range.

 

The problem is months ago he agreed to X item at X price. The fact cards went up is not his fault nor problem. He has a binding agreement with them.

 

Your best recourse is to reach out for one of the cards they have in stock and offer to pay the difference in cost of the card 3 months ago (since that is when the transaction took place). The OP shouldn't be the one punished or the one that has to eat the additional cost. They took that risk when allowing people to purchase a spot on a wait list essentially. 

but OP hasn't provided any evidence of this. from his posts it looks like they have posted other models for a higher price but not the one he ordered.

[AngryBeaver]

10 minutes ago, shaz2sxy said:

but OP hasn't provided any evidence of this. from his posts it looks like they have posted other models for a higher price but not the one he ordered.

At a substantially higher price it sounds like. So them canceling orders and doing refunds is them trying to avoid a loss on an agreement they already made. If they have cards in stock then those should be offered at the price available 3 months ago... not the new inflated rates.

 

Anything else is a complete bait and switch scam.

 

"Here purchase now and we will send you the first available card!"

 

3 months later -

"Oops we are out of your card, but if you give us more money we will send you one we have in stock at the brand new inflated rate!"

 

They formed a binding agreement to fulfill his order. If they cannot get that card then an equivalent card should be provided. Since this happened 3 months ago it should be for the same series of card that was close to the same price at that time. 

 

What the OP should do is email and call them daily. The squeaky wheel gets the oil after all.

[LogicalDrm]

18 hours ago, AngryBeaver said:

At a substantially higher price it sounds like. So them canceling orders and doing refunds is them trying to avoid a loss on an agreement they already made. If they have cards in stock then those should be offered at the price available 3 months ago... not the new inflated rates.

 

Anything else is a complete bait and switch scam.

 

"Here purchase now and we will send you the first available card!"

 

3 months later -

"Oops we are out of your card, but if you give us more money we will send you one we have in stock at the brand new inflated rate!"

 

They formed a binding agreement to fulfill his order. If they cannot get that card then an equivalent card should be provided. Since this happened 3 months ago it should be for the same series of card that was close to the same price at that time. 

 

What the OP should do is email and call them daily. The squeaky wheel gets the oil after all.

You are/keep missing two things. 1) There's no proof that vendor received any amount of cards in first place, offered the same model at higher price to someone else or otherwise violated the original agreement with buyer other than for delivery date. 2) OP has already been refunded. Forcefully, but refunded.

 

1b) The shipping delay is the only thing which could be argued here. But the problem is that OP was making purchase as individual, not as representative for company. So he can't prove that delay in shipping of entertainment product has effected his business he now claims its for.

1c) As I point out earlier in the thread, retailer might not have even got their share of the cards from importer. Which means that yes, they have had misleading ad on their site, and that they are now getting the very short end of bad situation overall.

2b) We don't know how this has continued since OP told about getting their refund. He claimed to not accepting it. I for one am interested to hear if the bank agreed with them, and what their lawyers said. They could try to make special agreement with retailer, so when they get cards, he gets the first offer on same price he was gonna get them first time.

[SAVE-12-HK]

did the terms stated the delivery period? or refund details?

 

so is it just card not yet delivered yet? even it arrive 10 yrs later, they have completed the sales