A buyer known as Blighted Agent recently purchased an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition for $50 on Facebook Marketplace. The seller warned that the GPU and VRAM might be missing, but the buyer intended to use the PCB for a custom RTX 3080 20GB project.
Upon inspection, the buyer found a glossy PCB finish instead of the standard matte, a glued cover, and empty connector ports. A teardown revealed a Gigabyte Radeon R9 280 3GB PCB inside, which was physically cut on both sides to fit the NVIDIA cooler.
The modified Radeon board was missing five memory chips and its display connectors. The buyer confirmed he will not attempt a repair, instead publishing the teardown as a warning to others about the significant risks of buying from second-hand marketplaces.