Watch out – RAM rip-offs are now in vogue, so here's how to avoid falling for high-end memory scams

• Buyers are running into RAM scams due to the price of high-end kits
• There are reported cases of DDR5 RAM sticks being swapped out for inferior products
• These scenarios may be scammers gaming the returns system, but whatever the case, there's a crucial step you can take to protect yourself

With the price of RAM increasing so fast it's dizzying, in an unsurprising turn of events, scammers are trying to take advantage of the new and frankly ridiculous premiums that system memory is commanding.

Guru of 3D flagged up an incident whereby somebody purportedly purchased Corsair Vengeance DDR5 RAM sticks from Amazon, only to find out that the memory which arrived was DDR4 (which is quite a bit slower and cheaper).

And last week, VideoCardz reported a similar (but worse) scenario whereby a buyer of RAM from Amazon in Spain found an Adata XPG DDR5 kit actually contained DDR or DDR2 (positively ancient) system memory.

In the former case, it was a more sophisticated case of fraud where the modules had been replaced with the older RAM, though in the latter incident, the scammer had simply slapped a fake sticker that said DDR5 RAM on the very old memory sticks.

It's not clear what the outcome was in the second case yet, but in the first one, where the DDR4 modules were switched in, Amazon has actioned a replacement (as a refund wasn't much good, seeing as the price of the product had spiked again since the purchase).

Note that these were products bought directly from Amazon (and shipped by the retailer), not a third-party seller. So how come they are fake, then? What generally happens in these cases is the scammer buys the genuine product from Amazon, and files a return, switching the fake RAM in, and keeping the real sticks for themselves.

This should be picked up by Amazon, of course, but in these cases, the retailer may have somehow missed, or not properly checked, the return – hence it was sold again to some unfortunate soul, or that's the best-guess theory.

How can you avoid being scammed like this?

I'd expect Amazon will make good on any incidents like these, but obviously you want to avoid falling victim in the first place, if possible – and make sure you have hard proof of a scam to rely on, if you run into any trouble making your case to the retailer (whether that's Amazon, or any other retail outlet).

So, in terms of making sure you aren't a victim, don't buy high-value tech products like RAM or graphics cards (which are also regular targets for these kind of stings) from a third-party seller on Amazon (or elsewhere). When you're spending a lot of money, it just isn't worth the risk.

As we've seen, though, even if you do buy a product sold and shipped by Amazon, things can still go awry. That's why it's very important to do one thing with high-value items like DDR5 kits or GPUs – and that's record your unboxing of them. It might sound over-the-top, but if you have video evidence, that's obviously hard proof of what has occurred with the purchase.

So, when you take delivery of an item, get your phone out and video the package (including the labels on top), then keep it recording as you open the box, take out the product, and remove your purchase from its own box. This way, if there's a rock or metal weight in the box (which has happened with GPUs), or false RAM sticks with a badly plastered DDR5 sticker on them, you have an actual recording of this coming out of the shipped box (showing the relevant labels with product and serial numbers on the hardware itself). This way, should you run into any trouble with the complaints or return procedures, you've got this video to back you up.

Adata has subsequently issued some advice on how to see if memory modules are genuinely made by the company, which is helpful with double-checking anything you feel is somewhat suspect, but it won't help you avoid a scam like this in the first place.

These scams certainly suggest that Amazon needs to tighten up its policing of returns to ensure genuine products aren't being switched out for fakes by nefarious buyers. Either that, or it's possible that someone else is swapping out the real goods for a counterfeit at some other point in the supply or retail chain, although that seems a less likely prospect.

The best SSDs for all budgets

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