MSI Subsidiary Starlit Partner Sold RTX 30-Series Cards Over MSRP; Company Investigates
Recently, it has been brought to light that a particular seller on Ebay was selling price-hiked MSI RTX 30-series graphics cards - such as the RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio - well over MSRP ($1,359 for an RTX 3080, compared to NVIDIA's $699 and MSI's $799). A more attentive look at the seller, identified as Starlit Partner, reveals that they carried only MSI-manufactured SKUs for NVIDIA's RTX 30-series, and was selling them, in most cases, as sealed and brand new. Now, scalping of NVIDIA's latest graphics card series has been thoroughly covered here on TechPowerUp; however, suspicions of ties between Starlit Partner and MSI itself, and the suggestion that this was a coordinated move in order to sell RTX 30-series inventory at marked-up pricing, deserves a longer appraisal.
As soon as the suspicion was posted in the Internet, some users donned their detective cloaks and went digging for more information, and confirmed the ties to MSI. However, MSI has already issued a statement on the issue, clarifying the scenario we were faced with. Indeed, MSI has ties to Starlit Partner, as they themselves acknowledge - the later is an individual sales subsidiary working under MSI. However, MSI further explains in the statement that Starlit Partner is tasked with the sale of refurbished items and excess inventory - and that they should never have had access to NVIDIA's RTX-30 series graphics cards in the first place. MSI launched an investigation that confirmed an error in inventory allocation allowed Starlit Partner to access inventory they shouldn't have had access to (without clarifying the error).
As soon as the suspicion was posted in the Internet, some users donned their detective cloaks and went digging for more information, and confirmed the ties to MSI. However, MSI has already issued a statement on the issue, clarifying the scenario we were faced with. Indeed, MSI has ties to Starlit Partner, as they themselves acknowledge - the later is an individual sales subsidiary working under MSI. However, MSI further explains in the statement that Starlit Partner is tasked with the sale of refurbished items and excess inventory - and that they should never have had access to NVIDIA's RTX-30 series graphics cards in the first place. MSI launched an investigation that confirmed an error in inventory allocation allowed Starlit Partner to access inventory they shouldn't have had access to (without clarifying the error).
