It’s almost like the writing on the wall was trying to tell us something! Amazon is a bloated poorly self-regulated market with a low barrier to entry that prioritizes convenience over quality, while obfuscating the truth of the seller you do business with.
I stopped buying electronics on Amazon after getting bricks instead of a GPU for my PC and they treated me like shit when I went to return it. I filed a complaint with the state about the fraud and their unwillingness to correct it. Complaint didn’t do shit but I was pissed. Now the only stuff I buy on Amazon is random household items and stuff for the kids that’s under 100 bucks.
I use B&H for new tech stuff now. Sometimes the Bay of E for used.
B&H seems to be the best bet since Newegg went down the drain. I’d always gone to them for camera gear and never had issues. I’ll be going to them for electronics from now on.
Just be aware of their return policy, it’s not quite as no-questions as Amazon usually is. But it’s serviceable.
But it isn’t an unreasonable policy or anything I think. They’ve also price matched their own price for me after a week or two which seemed very customer oriented. No complaints and I’ve used them for a few years now.
What happened to new egg?
Pretty sure they got bought out by some Chinese company with terrible customer service
Their customer service wasn’t great in the past.
There was a time when it most definitely was.
They are like the anti Amazon in terms of shipping for religious reasons, given their observance of shabbos they don’t ship on Saturdays at all. Good to know that their warehouse staff has a weekend day off to rest.
Don’t use B & H. They have had numerous discrimination lawsuits filed against them and don’t seem to be changing their behavior. It’s just a different kind of evil than Amazon.
Ever heard of MicroCenter? There’s only a few but if you live nearish one, go check them out. It’s like a toy store for tech nerds.
I am aware of them, but am nowhere near one unfortunately. Not much locally. The nearest thing they’ve had like that was Fry’s Electronics. Could buy anything there, but maybe not the best price. They’re gone now too.
B&H
what’s the full name?
that is the full name lol, just look up that.
edit: technically the url is bhphotovideo.com but asking what b&h means is like asking what HP means. it may technically mean something, but no one needs to know it.
Wasn’t HP branded Hewlett Packard for ages ? Unless you’re talking about HP sauce which name is a complete mystery
I believe HP Sauce is House of Parliament.
I thought HP Sauce referred to the Harry Potter franchise, which is a book about a UK orphaned teenager living with oppressive stepparents discovering the secret ingredient to making a delicious dipping sauce.
Yer a wizard in the kitchen, Harry.
Probably Hawlett Packard and you are right, but no one says anything other HP these days.
yup, was looking for the url. thanks. wouldn’t have guessed that it included “photo video”.
One thing I noticed, about a third of the time they have lower prices for Legos compared to the official Lego site. I buy a bunch of Legos for my kids and been wondering about this. Are they very clever frauds or do they just have a better logistics system?
Fraudulent parts on Amazon is a mix clever and just plain dumb I got bricks instead of a GPU. For work I’ve gotten a handful of hard to notice frauds. We got some Samsung SSDs the older sata drives not NVMe. One was a different shade of black and looked altered. It had the guts of a USB drive with a usb to sata homebrew conversion. That one Amazon took back no questions but it was a company purchase so they probably treat those differently.
For Legos if they were frauds I would imagine it would be noticeable. It’s probably a discount because of the volume they purchase.
If you buy legos often I’ve had some good luck going to goodwill stores and getting them super cheap. It’s not going to be a set. Usually it’s mixed pieces in a vacuum sealed bag or bin if there are a lot.
The state AGs are slow on complaints but next time reach for the CFPB, they don’t mess around and you’ll get a call from a human (from Amazon) in a short amount of time.
I spent hours on hold with a company (not Amazon) and they kept giving me the run around. After filing a complaint I got a call back in less than 2 days by someone who immediately fixed the issue.
Appreciate the advice I didn’t think about the CFPB.
This reminds me of the black market IC thing that caused so much chaos about 15 years ago.
If you’re building systems, I would assume you’re the kind of person that knows how they work.
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The system tells you what CPU it has on boot.
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The BIOS tells you what CPU you have.
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MemTest86 would have told you what CPU you had when you tested it after assembling your system.
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Windows tells you what you have in Settings > About and Task Manager.
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Apps like CPU-Z have been downloaded a billion times and tell you what CPU you have.
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Geekbench would have told you what CPU you have and how it performs.
The article mentions someone paying a bunch for a specific CPU back in April, but then never bothered actually checking it until recently… What the CPU had written on it is meaningless. I couldn’t even tell you what my current CPU looked like before I installed it. It could have said Pentium 2 or 486SX or Core i-13. What mattered was that it physically fit, the system booted, and my software said “yup, this is what you paid for.”
The issue is if it never occurred to you that you might have been scammed you might not ever think to look.
I built my first computer last year, with all NiB internals, my main concerns when assembling it was does it work. If it underperformed (due to a bootleg part) I might not have been able to appreciate due to a lack of reference point.
This kind of practice is perfect for targeting the person using PC part picker to build a computer without an indepth knowledge or a relative buying it as a gift for someone else.
Would it not be possible to fake most of those by spoofing the model the CPU reports, like what happens with GPUs?
With GPUs you can do things like dump its BIOS, alter the identification string, and then re-flash the card.
I’ve modified a lot of GPU BIOSes to tweak GPU and memory clock timings or enable Mac support.
CPUs aren’t that easy to modify. I am not aware of any consumer tools that can simply re-write CPU’s internal code.
Regardless, the first time you run a benchmark and it shows that your CPU is really X and not Y, you will know something is wrong.
The article mentions someone paying a bunch for a specific CPU back in April, but then never bothered actually checking it until recently…
They may not have bought everything at the same time and were unable to check until their build was complete.
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