Avoid scams when buying used GPUs

Used data center GPUs are expensive, serialized, and easy to describe vaguely. The failures that cost buyers money are ordinary: paying the wrong party, taking title that was not the seller's to give, and accepting freight that does not match the serial list. BreezeWish is a venue. It does not hold the funds, it does not hold the hardware, and it does not sit in the middle of the wire. The habits below are how you and the seller keep the deal between the two of you.

Pay the seller you identified

Pay the legal entity on the listing, at an account that entity's bank can confirm, after you know who signed. A new message that says the account changed, sent from a look-alike domain, is a reason to stop and call a number you already had. The FTC's guidance on scams is written for consumers and the pattern is the same in a business deal: urgency, secrecy, and a payment path you cannot reverse [S1]. A wire to a new beneficiary because "the truck is waiting" is how these losses happen.

Independent escrow services are the parties' choice. If you use one, you and the seller pick that company yourselves and you both check that it is the company you think it is. BreezeWish does not hold funds and will not tell you to send them to a wallet or to an individual agent.

Title before money moves in full

Ask who owns the hardware and whether a lessor or a lender has a lien. Ask for the document they will sign at delivery. A bill of sale from a company that never owned the serials is not title. If the seller cannot name the owner, do not fund the wire. Business verification on BreezeWish checks that a business is a business. It does not prove that this business owns this GPU.

Serials in, serials out

The listing, the seller-provided nvidia-smi or DCGM report, and the crate should name the same serials. Count them at the dock before you sign the carrier's paper clean. Treat a shortage, a different product name, or an H100 PCIe card in an H100 SXM lot as a rejected delivery, and settle that in the contract before pickup [S2]. The checks before you buy are the list to use. Photograph labels. Keep the list with the contract.

Freight and insurance

Agree who insures the load and from which point. A line that says shipping is included, with no declared value, leaves the freight uninsured unless the contract says otherwise. For an HGX board, ask about the crate and the shock watches. The carrier's limit of liability is often far below the value of the GPUs. That gap is yours to close with the seller, in the contract, before pickup.

Do not let a driver reroute the delivery to a different dock because someone texted them. The address on the contract is the address.

Pressure and side channels

Keep the deal on the record you and the seller already have. A request to move the conversation to a personal messenger, to cut the price if you pay today in a different currency, or to hide the GPU description on the export paperwork is a stop. ECCN 3A090 is a real control [S3]. A seller who wants the invoice to say "computer parts" with no model is asking you to take a risk this guide cannot bless. Consult counsel. This page is not legal advice.

Reports you did not ask for

A glossy PDF full of scores, with no serials, is not a seller-provided nvidia-smi output. Ask for the text file from the tool, tied to the host and the date. You can hire your own technician to repeat it. BreezeWish will not do that job for you, and a stranger who offers to bless the lot for a fee is not acting for BreezeWish.

If you already sent the money

Stop further payments. Call your bank and ask what, if anything, can be recalled. The FTC describes that first step for people who have paid a scammer [S1]. Then write down the accounts, the names, and the listing. Keep the marketplace record as a timeline of what was listed and when.