MSI has been recently caught selling RTX 3080s for more than the MSRP prices. A keen-eyed Redditor first caught MSI at the act, and the company has finally responded to the incident. If it weren’t for the Redditor, we wouldn’t know MSI subsidiary selling cards for almost $1359. MSI posted their official response after coming under fire and once trying to remove the evidence.
MSI involved in Scalping cards and price gouging
A keen-eyed Redditor has posted about MSI involvement in the price gouging and scalping of the latest RTX cards. The Reddit user found the eBay listing for the RTX 3080 under the company Starlit Partner. After searching for the ownership information, Starlit Partner was tied to MSI. MSI has responded to the incident by releasing an official statement.
Starlit Partner is claimed to be an individual subsidiary by MSI. The subsidiary sells refurbished products and is not supposed to have access to the RTX 3080 stocks. There is a possibility that the MSI HQ in Taiwan had no idea of the incident.
The incident is still not clarified as MSI wholly owns the Starlit Partner. MSI has refunded or given partial refunds to the 4 customers who bought the cards. There might have been more customers who were hidden or unrecorded.
The RTX 30 series cards have been out of stock, and Nvidia is trying to meet the market demands. Nvidia tries to produce stable supplies in the market as the graphics card demand increases day by day. Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, said that the company is holding units and producing more GPUs to meet the demands.
Nvidia reported that they had underestimated the demand for the cards. But sources say that Nvidia is not happy with Samsung’s 8nm yields. Reports from China even speculated that the shortage would last over this year and even early 2021.
Scalpers are already a headache in the market, taking all the cards stocks and selling them for an absurd hiked up price. Reports haven’t stated that MSI did this with consent, but the company’s image has shaken up a lot. It is an atrocious act coming from a trusted AIB partner, and hope MSI doesn’t mess up.
