NewEgg sells 300 counterfeit Core i7-920 CPUs, KIRFers pump their fists
By Darren Murph 
posted March 7th 2010 6:28PM
posted March 7th 2010 6:28PM
Oops. Over the weekend, it seems as if 300 or so unlucky individuals were shipped a counterfeit processor from the normally reliable warehouses at NewEgg, and Hard|OCP has the images (and video) to prove it. Vincent Waller couldn't have possibly been more eager to receive the Core i7-920 that he had ordered, but upon unboxing it, he realized that he had received a well-disguised fake. After a fair bit of digging, it seems as if one of NewEgg's "long time partners" (D&H Distributing) got ahold of 300 fakes in a batch of 2,000, though not everyone's buying the "it was an honest mistake" line -- especially when you consider that said company has already issued cease-and-desist letters to the sites who published the news. At any rate, NewEgg has already arranged for an authentic CPU to be rushed to Mr. Waller, and it's purportedly working around the clock in order to make things right with any other negatively affected customers. Hop on past the break for a look at the knockoff, particularly if you just took delivery of a shiny new Core i7. 
Wow that's crazy!
Not really NewEgg is starting to stink. They wanted to charge me on a defective product I received in the mail and I also have to pay for my return shipping. I'm going to Amazon to shop these days.
@spsfinest Gosh that's VERY fake. I've bought a counterfeit MSpro duo card before (it was being sold as legit through the amazon marketplace) but aside from looking somewhat off it functioned just fine!
@spsfinest
I have to agree. I never knew there was a market for "fake" computer parts, let alone CPU parts.
That's why i buy the OEM version. :)
@One Love
spot on. when it comes to electronics it always good to buy straight from the source. you don't want to take any chance whatsoever
@Sean Connery
When you can make mad money off of computer parts... I would imagine this is why a bulk of fakes exist, especially a hot product such as the i7.
Hope things get straightened out with this situation. Hope buyers did not spend double what they wished to spend on it @ NewEgg.
@spsfinest but will it run Crisis?
@Lowest Ranks It's a special i7, of course it can.
@Techie Hmm I just remembered I still have some unused Gift Certificate balance in my account! Time to shop at Newegg! :)
@shadowj0 wrong they take the real ones and replace with fake ones and sale the real one smarter breed of thieves gotta hate'm
@spsfinest
The spelling on the box makes me think one of the engadget writers is responsible for it.
@spsfinest It would appear that...
*Puts on glasses*
We have some fake Core i7 processors on our hands
YYYYYYEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH
I'm sure it can overclock like crazy... Your blood overclock that is.
Here's the problem:
1. Newegg is a big business, not just some mom-n-pop computer store down the street. Were they really that clueless that they are stocking up counterfeit stuff?
2. Newegg said they are demo boxes. Really? Does intel put spelling errors on demo boxes? And why would demo boxes have actual contents in them?
3. Would Newegg respond differently if this is not published in an article of a well-know tech sites and propagated through digg?
@pika2000
I stopped shopping at Newegg last summer, when they were charging $900 for Intel's $450 SSDs.
@pika2000
Well, exactly like you said - they're not a small operation. I'm sure they order massive quantities of relatively popular items like that, and just stock it in their automated system. I don't think there's someone looking each box over and inspecting it in great detail.
@pika2000
1. I doubt that this was their only supplier of the chips. Even if they were, I don't know of any any companies that check each individual box upon receiving the shipment. They had an authentic security stickers on them, when scanned showed the correct item, what more do you expect them to do? Like you said, they aren't a mom-n-pop store, with the volume of items the receive daily, it would be a waste of time to go and check EACH item in a shipment.
2. Yes, companies to this often. They will use model of the items they are shipping to make sure that there are no problems when the actual items go down the packaging line. The quality control on this is lesser for obvious reasons, so you will often see spelling and other print errors on the boxes.
3. Newegg has a LONG reputation of doing whats right for it's customers. So yes, even if this wasn't reported by all the tech news sites, it's a fairly safe bet that they would do what was right, and replace the items.
@paul34 No. Unless Newegg love draining money due to shrink, they are checking what they are receiving. Big companies like Newegg cannot afford having thousand of dollars of inventory at risk.
@pika2000: Would a big business like Newegg, that caters to high tech-minded people, be so desperate as to intentionally sell counterfeit products, and so ignorant as to believe that no one would notice or make a stink about it?
@admlshake
1. No. Like I said, there's a shrink factor. Sure, they probably don't check every single item. However, it's questionable that newegg was completely "clueless" in this.
2. So, you're saying intel is allowing spelling erros on demo boxes? Bull. Demo boxes are that, demo boxes, to show to business partners and customers. Having some spelling errors on it would be unacceptable, especially for a company like intel.
3. That's just your personal opinion. I do think that Newegg WAS great, especially during their early days. Doing what's right for the customers? Well, we will never know as this story reached digg already. Obviously Newegg will do damage control.
@pika2000
No way a company as big as NewEgg would try and scam customers like that. It was likely a supplier of theirs that screwed them. And NewEgg thought they were legit.
Could you imagine if Ford sold 200 cars that looked genuine but actually had no engine or seats in them? It would be stupid because customers would get a product that didn't work.
It's not as if these fake processors would even work. As soon as the customer opened them, then the gig is up. It's a supplier of theirs (or shipping middle man) that burned them.
@Puhsitch So are you saying this story is fake? That somebody made it up? I don't think they intentionally did it, but at the same time, their excuse of those being "demo boxes" is just poor and weak. Add on top of that the C&D letters from the distributor.
@pika2000
1. You might want to learn what "shrink" actually means before you toss it around.Shrink it items that are stolen or lost in inventory. Meaning they are missing for one reason or another. The term certainly does not apply here, since there were actual items in the inventory system, just not the correct ones. It's not questionable at all, until someone provides a email or some other documentation, they are blameless.
2. You've obviously never worked in a factory setting that does this kind of packaging, or you would know that this is common practice. Like I said. These are ment to work out any kinks in the line before they go into full scale production, and are often put on a pallet, labeled with some form of "DO NOT SHIP" and either destroyed or put in storage. You are talking about promotional boxing, which are the final version of the box or one that's very close too it. At that stage some artwork and coloring might be tweaked, but for the most part it's a finished product.
3. And that is your personal opinion. Where as I have thousands upon thousands of happy Newegg customers to back mine up, you'd probably be hard pressed to find 1000 to back yours up. And of course they will do damage control, they are a freak'en business, something bad happened so that's what businesses do. You must either work for or be a fan of Tigerdirect, which has a much worse rep with people who have ordered from their previously.
@pika2000
1. If you read the original thread on this issue over on overclockers.com, you'll see that the packages were pretty much perfectly copied. Even with a legit version to compare it to, you'd have to REALLY examine it closely to notice the difference. Do you really expect a warehouse, with thousands of items coming in every day, to proofread every package for spelling errors?
2. They know full well that these aren't demos. Would it make a difference if they did call them counterfeit?
3. Again, going to the original source of the story, you'll see that they offered a RMA to the original customer before this hit any tech sites.
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=636484
@pika2000 If you really think newegg knowingly sold those fakes...then you are dumb..or suffer from paranoia.
@admlshake
1. I only throw out shrink to counter the paul34's defense that newegg "just stock it in their automated system." My point was due to risk of shrink, companies like Newegg wouldn't just dump some inventory without a second thought. The question is whether Newegg are completely completely clueless that they are stocking and shipping these.
2. Again, look at those boxes. Those are counterfeits. The argument that they are demo boxes are simply weak, period.
3. Wow, a newegg fanboy? I shopped at Newegg all the time during their early days, and they were great. TigerDirect? Are you out of words that all you can do is bash some other random company?
@Chip
"hey know full well that these aren't demos. Would it make a difference if they did call them counterfeit?"
Yet they said they're demo boxes. What does that tell you?
@pika2000
The OP and some of these comments are laughably naive. You give corporate America way too much credit. If the tobacco companies, for example, were comfortable selling a product they knew to be KILLING PEOPLE, why wouldn't a discount mail-order electronics company (and hardly a household name!) risk passing off a few convincing fakes? Let me repeat that: a discount mail-order company. It's not paranoia, it's bitter life experience.
@patches66
i do think it was probably just some weird mistake, however. just don't over-estimate newegg's goodwill towards man. there's a sucker born every minute, as the saying goes. if they lose a few customers, it's no big deal.
@patches66 It's not like they were passing off cheap oldschool Pentiums as core i7s... these were nonfunctional units... There is no possibility what-so-ever that they could be mistaken for the real deal as soon as the opened the package.
@patches66 Because Newegg stands to lose a lot of money if they did that on a regular basis. Plus it would erode their carefully earned market share.
@patches66
Convincing? Really? Maybe if they actually worked. These didn't even have pinouts, and I doubt a "fan" made out of Styrofoam would work very well.
@wicketr Poor Newegg. I've never seen a CPU in a retail box before so that looked like a block of cheese.
@patches66
Patches if you are going to call everyone naive please cite facts or a the least personal experience. I won't say every order I've made from newegg was perfect but in my own experience they have been great about making things right and their customer service is better than any other company I've dealt with lately. I believe they would have made this situation right whether the story broke or not.
@pika2000
There is no way a company as big as newegg could think they could get away with shipping out 300 counterfeit CPU's. This could never benefit them in any way seeing that it wasnt even like they swapped lesser versions of intel CPU's into packaging thinking some people might not notice (if youre builing your computer youre probably smart enough to notice a lesser CPU much less a stamping of metal that looks like one, a block of plastic instead of a fan, and a box riddled with spelling errors).
I would bet it is either someone who works for NewEgg (probably unlikely) or much more likely someone who works for NewEggs supplier of i7 CPUs who wanted to make some extra cash so started producing lookalike CPUs, fans and boxes then swapped out a few cases of real ones for the fakes. Then they can just head on over to eBay and make $250 a pop ($75,000 total if you dont feel like doing the math).
Really not a bad plan as long as they dont get caught (not saying its right).
And no im not a NewEgg fanboy (is there such a thing?) and i realize they have gone down hill quite a bit since i started using them about 6 years ago but there is no way they would knowingly ship these piece-o-crap fakes thinking it would help them in any way (they would send them with USPS which takes 2 weeks to deliver instead of the 3-5 days they "guarantee" though).
@Chip I'm a big fan of NewEgg, but their public response about these being demos isn't just wrong, it's a lie, and it doesn't help. I strongly suspect, however, that their distributor is the originator of the lie, and they are merely repeating it.
I don't know why any of you bother to reply to people... you could post a blog about the sky being blue and there will always, ALWAYS, be 2 assholes that argue it's yellow instead.
What so damn stupid is paranoid nerds like these are so busy thinking every little mistake is a scam, the REAL scams are getting by them. The sucker born every minute is too busy quoting PT Barnum to realize they're the sucker!
@jon I've stop shopping with them altogether now that they're "mainstream" with "mainstream" prices and attitude. Too bad for them, they're really alienating their fan-base that built them.
Slashdot had this yesterday....
@Standingfast
So how come Engadget don't have you credited for tipping them off? You can't complain if you don't help out...!
@Standingfast I've noticed that Gizmodo takes from Engadget but Engadget don't take from Giz
@University of Pi
are you kidding? they do all the time, though they do credit Gizmodo
@JeremyBenthem Giz is the worst **** ever. It's run by a bunch of adolescent overly sensitive morons. Yes, even the editors who are in their 20s and 30s
@JeremyBenthem
Gizmodo credits Engadget when the borrow stuff too.
@yyandrew
I will agree that Engadget has better writers but I still prefer Gizmodo because its comment system doesn't seem like it was made by idiots.
sad
wow...I want one of those knockoffs,just to hang on a wall.
I never even knew that this was being done!
@Sonicjet I want to make a tile mosaic out of those i7's
That is just embarrassing for a company like that
@naz maybe but they are doing what it takes to right their wrong so i don't think it is that big of a deal. i don't think any less of Newegg after reading this. i will continue to shop there.