- Costco has removed RAM sticks from display PCs on shelves
- This allegedly happened after incidents of theft
- More recently, an office was broken into to steal DDR5 RAM, and online memory buyers are also facing scams.
If you needed another sign that the RAM crisis continues to worsen – well, another sign – then here it is: Memory sticks are starting to become a target for thieves.
VideoCardz picked up on what appears to be a growing trend, with the latest development being that Costco in the US has started removing the RAM modules from its pre-built PCs on the shelves (and instead keeping the memory at the back of the store). In one reported case, this was after an incident where a person was apprehended after removing memory from a monitor PC.
Another Redditor posted photographic evidence of a PC on the shelf with empty RAM slots on the motherboard, and this follows that the retailer has also removed GPUs from its computers – which happened a long time ago (in 2020 by all accounts).
However, with the high value of DDR5 RAM now, it seems that this is becoming a target for shoplifters.
This is not the only recent example of RAM theft, as last week we reported on an incident that happened at an office in South Korea that was broken into specifically to steal the DDR5 system RAM from the PCs (nothing else was taken).
On top of this, there are (indirect) thefts that take place via online retailers, where fraudsters buy expensive RAM and replace these sticks with old (cheap) memory in the boxes and then return them (and keep the expensive DDR5 memory). If the retailer fails to check the return properly – and it happens – another subsequent buyer ends up buying the old RAM sticks and getting stung.
Analysis: The RAM Sack
I guess this was inevitable as RAM prices were absolutely sky high and high end DDR5 memory sticks are now worth a small fortune. The same has, of course, been the case with GPUs in the past, and as mentioned, these valuable commodities have long carried similar precautions with them at brick-and-mortar retailers.
However, RAM is much easier to steal – or certainly hide – than a graphics card, especially a powerful high-end triple-slot affair. Still, breaking into a PC in a store to steal any component seems like a very tall order, frankly—and in the case of Costco, the RAM thief was caught.
Apparently, some people can get away with this by pretending to be someone who looks official (holding a clipboard, iPad, or similar) and doing some sort of inventory inspection, which might not be challenged to any degree if they’re confident enough.
Whatever the case, the average consumer doesn’t have to worry about what’s going on in stores – but we do have to worry about online orders where a fake item may have been substituted for the real product by someone running a return scam, as mentioned.
These days, it’s a good idea to record yourself unboxing any high-value tech product, just so you have proof of the box’s contents on video in case you need extra proof if a purchase goes wrong.
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