- Costco has removed RAM from display PCs on shelves
- This reportedly occurred after incidents of theft.
- Recently, an office was broken into just to steal DDR5 RAM, and online memory buyers are also facing scams.
If you needed another sign that the RAM crisis continues to get worse, yes, another sign – So here it is: memory cards are starting to become a target for thieves.
VideoCardz has noticed what appears to be a growing trend, and the latest development is that Costco in the US has started removing RAM modules from its pre-built PCs from shelves (and keeping the memory in the back of the store). In one reported case, this occurred after an incident in which a person was detained after removing memory from a display computer.
Another Redditor posted photographic evidence of a PC on the shelf with empty RAM slots on the motherboard, and this follows the retailer also removing GPUs from their computers, which happened a long time ago (in 2020, by all accounts).
However, with the current high value of DDR5 RAM, it seems that it is becoming a target for thieves.
This isn’t the only recent example of RAM theft, as last week we reported on an incident that occurred at an office in South Korea that was raided expressly to steal DDR5 system RAM from PCs (nothing else was taken).
In addition to this, (indirect) theft occurs through online retailers, whereby fraudsters purchase expensive RAM and replace those devices with old (cheap) memory in the boxes, then return them (and keep the expensive DDR5 memory). If the retailer doesn’t verify the return properly (and this happens), another subsequent buyer ends up buying the old RAM and gets stung.
Analysis: RAM looted
I guess this was inevitable with RAM prices absolutely skyrocketing and high-end DDR5 memory cards now worth a small fortune. The same has happened with GPUs, of course, in the past and, as noted, similar precautions have long been taken with these high-value items at traditional retailers.
However, RAM is much easier to steal (or certainly hide) than a graphics card, especially a beefy high-end triple-slot card. Still, breaking into a PC in a store to steal any component seems like a very difficult task, frankly, and in the case of Costco, the RAM thief was caught.
Apparently the way some people could get away with this is by posing as someone who looks official (holding a clipboard, iPad or something similar) and carrying out some sort of inventory inspection, which cannot be questioned to any degree if you are trustworthy enough.
Whatever the case, the average consumer doesn’t have to worry about what happens in stores, but we do have to worry about online orders where someone running a returns scam could have substituted a fake item for the real product, as noted.
Nowadays, it’s a good idea to record yourself unpacking any high-value tech product, just to have video evidence of the box’s contents, in case you need additional proof if a purchase goes wrong.
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