X-Kom takes advantage of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 LHR launch, offers lower SKU for outstanding non-LHR orders
An extreme example of a retailer taking advantage of the market situation.
Over the past year, we received hundreds of emails from customers who have had trouble with their graphics card orders. The issues mentioned in those emails include problems with availability, extremely inflated pricing, or issues with the orders themselves. While we can’t help with most of these cases, we can and will write about retailers taking advantage of the market situation at consumers’ expense.
X-Kom RTX 3070,Source: Instalki
Such an example was described by Jan Domański from Instalki.pl. The editor ordered GeForce RTX 3070 non-LHR model back in November 2020. The Polish retailer X-Kom was taking preorders on items that were not in stock, but ensuring customers that the orders are now queued and will ship as soon as possible. As soon as the manufacturer informed X-Kom about the delay of the shipment, the retailer began offering full refunds. But this would not solve the problem, which is buying a graphics card at the price from November 2020, which was much lower than what we have now. This is where the problem starts.
The editor decided to wait for the card to be in stock, which unfortunately never happened. Over the span of 10 months, the retailer did not secure the shipment of the RTX 3070 non-LHR model. Instead, the retailer reached out to Jan when NVIDIA released its RTX 30 LHR (Lite Hash Rate) series to ask if he wishes to swap to an identical model, except with LHR mining lock enabled. Most customers should agree to this swap because non-LHR series are no longer produced and will likely never be restocked.
The real surprise came when the retailer offered RTX 3060 LHR instead of RTX 3070 LHR. X-kom even explained that this SKU offers ‘exactly the same performance as its predecessor’, which is simply not true. This is an extreme example of a retailer taking advantage of the current GPU pricing situation, by offering a similarly priced model, except 10 months later, when the pricing has skyrocketed.
Original order (left), The latest offer with RTX 3060 LHR swap (right), Source: Instalki
Orders with non-LHR cards should be replaced with LHR models
We encourage our readers never to agree to such offers from retailers. The non-LHR series should be replaced with their corresponding LHR variants, and if that’s not available retailers should at least offer a model from a different manufacturer. This anti-consumer and misleading offer from X-Kom is a great example of a big retailer taking advantage of less knowledgeable customers. Some consumers may agree to such a ‘deal’ after months of waiting with no sight of the GPU market going back where it was supposed to be. However such choices should be well thought out, not based on the retailer’s recommendations, whose only motivation is to make a profit.
Source: Instalki