Went to buy a GPU today ended up getting a 3 cans of beans.

Today as any miner trying to get into mining, I am looking at adding cards to my collection. I have been waiting for Best Buy and looking around on let go or Craigslist for scalpers since I have not been able to come across any unfortunately. However this night I had seen an offer for a 3090 at $2100. Which is a bit much however I am already using my old gaming gpus and very invested into crypto mining.

After this I contacted the seller and hoped for a response. The seller got back to me and stated it was still for sell however it had buyers that were interested but wouldn’t be ready till payday. After haggling him down to 1900 he stated he had buyers lined up that would pay the full 4K. This event should have been a big red flag but in the moment I was too into the motion that I did not acknowledge the flag going off. However as the day went on we sent messages back and forth discussing what we would do when we got there as the exchange. He stated it has to be a direct exchange that he did not want to wait to see us open it. This should have been my second big flag and at the point I should have said no thanks and continued waiting.

After the meeting time was set I met near a public place with many cameras being able to record the interaction. And I waited and waited and the guy finally showed up about 10 minutes late. I greeted him and he got the gpu box out and as I was going to open it and he stopped me and said that until he saw the money we could not open it. We showed him the money and he immediately requested we hand it over . At this point I knew what was happening and wasn’t able to put the dots together quick enough. However I realized he had the money and was trying to flee the scene. After I looked up I noticed he had gotten quickly in his car and took off as fast as possible. I didn’t want to chase him or put myself in a dangerous situation since he didn’t look like the cleanest brick on the block.

As I finished opening the box I was quite hoping that it wasn’t what I thought it was. However it ended up being a lovely 3 pack of canned beans. So shortly after I called the non emergency line for the police had they stated they would get back to me and give me a call. (Which I have not yet gotten.)

So I am now looking for gathering proof from the local business that captured it on CCTV. I am filing a police report and will hopefully update you all soon. Any advice in legal proceedings would be greatly appreciated.

TL:DR I had asked a man about if his gpu was still for sale on Craigslist. It was a 3090 listed for 2100 haggled to 1900. When he gave us the card and began to open it to verify, he asked for the money before. We handed it to him and as soon as we continued to open it he got in his car and left. We opened it and found 3 cans of beans.