"working counterfeit" didn't quite fit. Do you have a better suggestion? It's worth making the distinction -- see http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918 for example of working counterfeit chips made during "ghost" shifts at Chinese factories.
Newegg is going to lose a bundle on this fiasco. Serves them right for not bothering to do any QC on a big-ticket item that they're getting from a fly-by-night warehouser. I'm honestly surprised they weren't buying these from Intel directly.
Newegg has a very loyal customer base that generally appreciates the extremely low lead times, fast ship times and speedy RMA's.
From the reviews I see, they also seem to usually be pretty understanding when they receive a problematic product.
I don't think Newegg will suffer that much.
As for your criticism, one of their upsides is speed. You can't do a lot of QC on sealed products and keep up speed.
Even if they don't lose a single customer, they still lose money. The upstream supplier isn't going to write them a check out of the kindness of its heart; it's probably already gutted and shut down. The counterfeiters already have their money, and ultimately it's the retailer that takes the hit.
Unless like most companies they pay suppliers after 30 to 90 days. (Net 30 or Net 90.)
I think CPUs sell quickly enough that this delay will catch the check before it's sent.
I wonder if the supplier was in on it - they might not have been.
I really hope someone follows the money trail right down to the bottom. I have a feeling newegg won't - it costs too much for it to be worth it to them. But I hope Intel does it.
Am I the only one who's shocked that there's actually enough of a market out there for these kinds of fakes that somewhere there's a factory producing these?
