• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

der8auer (Thermal Grizzly) got scammed on Copper and Aluminum

sleepeeg3 said:
Bummer for that guy. Buy from reputable dealers.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing his regular suppliers are depleted, copper has been scarce as rooster teeth for a few months now.

Metals as a whole, ferrous and non, have been getting scarce for small companies. If you're not by an open processor or a foundry warehouse it's getting extremely hard for small businesses to function. "We" subsidize the ever loving shit out of massive conglomerates and "we" create endless tax loopholes for them so they can go on M&A rampages and eat up smaller businesses and close them, thus preventing capitalism from inconveniencing the shareholders. Those massive conglomerates are buying up every scrap of stock that hits the market and turning around to scalp their leftovers to smaller companies, it effectively strangles out any potential upcoming competition.
 
DukenukemX said:
Didn't need to be 15 minutes. He most likely got his $40k back while keeping that pile of scrap.
Click to expand...

Where do you figure he's getting his money back from?

Even if he had insurance on the delivery it's incredibly unlikely he would see a penny from anything but the contaminated scrap value.

Legal action against a Chinese company is almost useless and even if they won they'd get pennies on the dollar and have to keep the scrap they have for several years until everything was settled.
 
Lately, for me, if the person is human, then... scammer. But.... I don't scam.... so, maybe that's not completely true.
 
It really was an elaborate scam. He didn't get solid copper plates, he got steel plates coated in copper. Just the fact that someone coated real copper around steel plates seems like a lot of effort but who knows maybe the cost was negligible because it was cheap to do in China.
 
LurkerLito said:
It really was an elaborate scam. He didn't get solid copper plates, he got steel plates coated in copper. Just the fact that someone coated real copper around steel plates seems like a lot of effort but who knows maybe the cost was negligible because it was cheap to do in China.
Click to expand...
Likely the scam of the one who go scammed who got scammed, etc. Just means the differential between steel and copper is huge. So, the initial scammer (whoever that is) made some money. The rest is just people trying to scam to get their money back. Just glad it stopped with der8auer.
 
I mean china has harvested components off pcbs and cleaned them and re-reeled them and sold as new. Sometimes the lengths they go through are crazy.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Where do you figure he's getting his money back from?

Even if he had insurance on the delivery it's incredibly unlikely he would see a penny from anything but the contaminated scrap value.

Legal action against a Chinese company is almost useless and even if they won they'd get pennies on the dollar and have to keep the scrap they have for several years until everything was settled.
Click to expand...

At some point it's going to come out that he's a paid shill or a member of the CCP. That's the only thing that makes any sense based on his posting history.
 
Some reason that video popped up as recommended for me, even though I haven't bothered to watch anything of his in ages.

But at that price I'd almost send someone out there to verify the product and physically take it to a container ship, or truck... not sure what the go to method for getting goods from China to Germany(??) Is
 
Twisted Kidney said:
I'm guessing his regular suppliers are depleted, copper has been scarce as rooster teeth for a few months now.

Metals as a whole, ferrous and non, have been getting scarce for small companies. If you're not by an open processor or a foundry warehouse it's getting extremely hard for small businesses to function. "We" subsidize the ever loving shit out of massive conglomerates and "we" create endless tax loopholes for them so they can go on M&A rampages and eat up smaller businesses and close them, thus preventing capitalism from inconveniencing the shareholders. Those massive conglomerates are buying up every scrap of stock that hits the market and turning around to scalp their leftovers to smaller companies, it effectively strangles out any potential upcoming competition.
Click to expand...

Basically this.

People are forgetting this AI boom isn't just consuming memory, it's consuming a titanic amount of copper as well. The datacenters need tons of it (copper traces, coolers, etc). Prices for consumer coolers are starting to increase as well for that reason, you just can't get the material you need to make them. Thermal Grizzly has to compete for material in order to sustain their ability to sell into this market, and I have no doubt their regular supply chain is tapped out since Sam Altman probably showed up and said he'd book their copper for the next X years at market price plus X more.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Some reason that video popped up as recommended for me, even though I haven't bothered to watch anything of his in ages.

But at that price I'd almost send someone out there to verify the product and physically take it to a container ship, or truck... not sure what the go to method for getting goods from China to Germany(??) Is
Click to expand...

Yeah I had this show up in my feed too and watched it before seeing it posted here.

In the comments people with experience buying bulk material from China were saying you to send someone to China and verify everything before it's on the shipping container every time. Even if you've done business with the place before. The scamming is rampant.
 
sharknice said:
Yeah I had this show up in my feed too and watched it before seeing it posted here.

In the comments people with experience buying bulk material from China were saying you to send someone to China and verify everything before it's on the shipping container every time. Even if you've done business with the place before. The scamming is rampant.
Click to expand...
It's okay though because chinese product is so cheap it's worth the effort, right? 🙃
 
sharknice said:
Yeah I had this show up in my feed too and watched it before seeing it posted here.

In the comments people with experience buying bulk material from China were saying you to send someone to China and verify everything before it's on the shipping container every time. Even if you've done business with the place before. The scamming is rampant.
Click to expand...
You're not likely to send staff to China for a $40k shipment, not only that, but they did a decent job disguising the pallets. You'd need to know the load is yours and strip the load. This is the grim situation facing people trying to buy up scraps when all of the reputable dealers are 90% bought out for the next five plus years. Smaller businesses can't afford to send people over there and don't often have relationships with people in China that can help them out.

A guy I deal with in China has become a good friend, he's an engineer that owns custom tooling company and I can always sound him out when I have to source raw materials I can't get here.


Nobu said:
It's okay though because chinese product is so cheap it's worth the effort, right? 🙃
Click to expand...
Honestly, as it stands right now, the gouge is so extreme here in western world that having four bad shipments like this and only one good one would still be cheaper than sourcing copper locally. Small businesses can't eat that though, and I assume Der8auer has a fairly small operation. Certainly well under a thousand staff.
 
sharknice said:
In the comments people with experience buying bulk material from China were saying you to send someone to China and verify everything before it's on the shipping container every time.
Click to expand...
That's not even a new thing--I read years ago that some suppliers will ship you good stuff for an extended period of time and then down the road, without warning, they'll substitute lower-quality materials.
 
1_rick said:
That's not even a new thing--I read years ago that some suppliers will ship you good stuff for an extended period of time and then down the road, without warning, they'll substitute lower-quality materials.
Click to expand...
They do it with steel and aluminium all the time, the stuff at the top of the pallet will be the good quality stuff, but they will mix in blatantly substandard stuff in the middle or towards the bottom.

I can personally attest to shipments of 6061 Aluminium having multiple sheets of 6063 mixed in.... Which are wildly different materials, you build airplanes with one, and cheap window frames with the other...

They would be apologetic when you called them out over it. It was a mix-up, an easy mistake because they look so similar, but they don't stop doing it, sticking with them after that point is 100% on you for accepting it. We just needed to find some way to use that 6063 we paid way too much for to soften the loss.
 
I've seen the video yesterday. And this scam is so elaborate I don't even think you'd catch it even if you sent a guy to china ti inspect the shipment physically. I mean you literally had to strip the shipment down to the pallet to even find the problem with the aluminium. And the copper you either catch it or you don't depending on which test you use.

What's even more amazing to me is that he didn't just get scammed by one supplier, but by two separate ones at the same time. One can be bad luck, but two is a pattern.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
. . . thus preventing capitalism from inconveniencing the shareholders. Those massive conglomerates are buying up every scrap of stock that hits the market and turning around to scalp their leftovers to smaller companies, it effectively strangles out any potential upcoming competition.
Click to expand...

Welcome to late stage capitalism, where we have very few of the supposed benefits of capitalism actually left. Basically everything is a monopoly, duopoly, etc. And if it isn't, it's on its way there. How does anyone compete with these giants to enter any space worth a lot of money?
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
Welcome to late stage capitalism, where we have very few of the supposed benefits of capitalism actually left. Basically everything is a monopoly, duopoly, etc. And if it isn't, it's on its way there. How does anyone compete with these giants to enter any space worth a lot of money?
Click to expand...
It's not really even capitalism, more like mercantilism. It's certainly not a free market (which is the correct, non-Marxist, term).
 
M76 said:
I've seen the video yesterday. And this scam is so elaborate I don't even think you'd catch it even if you sent a guy to china ti inspect the shipment physically. I mean you literally had to strip the shipment down to the pallet to even find the problem with the aluminium. And the copper you either catch it or you don't depending on which test you use.

What's even more amazing to me is that he didn't just get scammed by one supplier, but by two separate ones at the same time. One can be bad luck, but two is a pattern.
Click to expand...
China has a similar issue with fake Silver coins and bars right now; turns out most of them are cheap copper alloys with a thin silver plating.

So I guess if you want Chinese copper, you need to be buying Chinese Silver instead...
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Where do you figure he's getting his money back from?

Even if he had insurance on the delivery it's incredibly unlikely he would see a penny from anything but the contaminated scrap value.

Legal action against a Chinese company is almost useless and even if they won they'd get pennies on the dollar and have to keep the scrap they have for several years until everything was settled.
Click to expand...
Yes hello Credit Card/Bank company, I'd like my $40K back. I have proof as in I made a video where a magnet is working on copper when it shouldn't. You want to send a representative over to check out the delivery? Be my guest. You think the bank and credit card companies aren't going to refund that money back? For something like $40k, I'd imagine they'd want to do an investigation but he's getting his money back.

Also, insurance. You can't tell me he didn't have that package insured?
 
DukenukemX said:
Yes hello Credit Card/Bank company, I'd like my $40K back. I have proof as in I made a video where a magnet is working on copper when it shouldn't. You want to send a representative over to check out the delivery? Be my guest. You think the bank and credit card companies aren't going to refund that money back? For something like $40k, I'd imagine they'd want to do an investigation but he's getting his money back.

Also, insurance. You can't tell me he didn't have that package insured?
Click to expand...
You don't typically pay 40k or even 20k in this case with a credit card you use international money transfer, there is no charge back. And banks only step in when there is a banking fraud or phising attack, not when you willingly transferred he money a month ago, but have a quality dispute over the merchandise.

And package insurance only covers the shipment being lost or damaged, not when it's not what you expected it to be.
 
M76 said:
You don't typically pay 40k or even 20k in this case with a credit card you use international money transfer, there is no charge back. And banks only step in when there is a banking fraud or phising attack, not when you willingly transferred he money a month ago, but have a quality dispute over the merchandise.

And package insurance only covers the shipment being lost or damaged, not when it's not what you expected it to be.
Click to expand...
And if you really, really want to fight it, the process takes years; you can take it up with the government Anti-fraud authorities, and they can start the process.
But then the company you bought it from will claim that they are also the victims, because they bought it from their supplier in good faith, and they charged based on what they paid for it, so they also got scammed, so they both need to track down the people they bought it from to get their collective refunds... And down the supply ladder you will go to end up at a shell company registered to some homeless lady in Yima...
 
Darunion said:
I dropped a neodymium magnet into a tray of stainless steel screws i got from china a few years ago. About half the screws stuck to the magnet, the rest were unaffected. So i feel his pain.
Click to expand...
400 series stainless steel can still be magnetic, but can also visibly rust. 304 stainless steel isn't magnetic and doesn't visibly rust. I like 409 stainless steel because it welds better.
 
DukenukemX said:
400 series stainless steel can still be magnetic, but can also visibly rust. 304 stainless steel isn't magnetic and doesn't visibly rust. I like 409 stainless steel because it welds better.
Click to expand...
It’s was definitely a mixed bag of different materials. I just didn’t look that closely until I dropped that in there and only about half turned into a giant ball. Then tested the remaining. Not the only thing they do that with when ordering from non-reputable places.
 
schmide said:
Der8auer rules but he should be embarrassed. For 40k you better use an escrow service. The scam would have never gone through if he followed this path.
Click to expand...
Agreed.


der8auer's situation is more complex, than my own experiences. And its relatively easy to say this stuff with hindsight. But: he should have consulted more deeply with industry peers about how to successfully deal on such orders, from China.

He does look legit embarassed and upset in the video. Even with the video being shot a couple of weeks after they received the shipments. He's still holding the feelings.
Hopefully they can weather the hit, retain all employees, and move on. I will keep buying Thermal Grizzly Phasesheet!
 
Last edited:
Twisted Kidney said:
I'm guessing his regular suppliers are depleted, copper has been scarce as rooster teeth for a few months now.

Metals as a whole, ferrous and non, have been getting scarce for small companies. If you're not by an open processor or a foundry warehouse it's getting extremely hard for small businesses to function. "We" subsidize the ever loving shit out of massive conglomerates and "we" create endless tax loopholes for them so they can go on M&A rampages and eat up smaller businesses and close them, thus preventing capitalism from inconveniencing the shareholders. Those massive conglomerates are buying up every scrap of stock that hits the market and turning around to scalp their leftovers to smaller companies, it effectively strangles out any potential upcoming competition.
Click to expand...
Invisible hand. Supply goes to where the greatest demand is. Those companies became large because there was demand for their product. Most people would rather pay less for their copper consuming cell phone, CPU or motherboard than subsidizing small businesses that do nothing for them.

It sucks for small businesses, but some of them were only profitable when raw material supply or demand was high - now some are zombie companies.

I ran a business, for a short while, when demand was high. It no longer was profitable and was time to move on. That's life. Capitalism rewards things that are going to benefit society the most and if it's no longer profitable, that's your sign to move on and keep innovating.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top