11-year-old finds loophole in Newegg app to quickly buy PC graphics cards

(The custom PC creation service on the Newegg mobile app.)

UPDATE: It looks like Newegg closed the loophole. About an hour after the story was published, the retailer removed the PC Builder icon from the Newegg app. You can always find the custom PC creation service on the app through a search. However, all “hot spot” PC graphics cards have since been phased out.

Original story:

An 11-year-old boy in Florida discovered a flaw in Newegg’s mobile app that allowed him to purchase an Nvidia RTX 3000 graphics card in seconds.

I tried the loophole today and surprisingly it works. The workaround allowed me to buy an Nvidia RTX 3070 graphics card for $ 729 without going through Newegg’s lottery system to get a GPU.

I also didn’t need to purchase the graphics card as part of a bundle. Newegg charged my credit card for the RTX 3070 card as a standalone purchase. According to the retailer, my order should ship later today.

Newegg website and email showing my confirmed order.

I learned about the flaw from Ricardo Santana, who lives in Orlando, Florida. His son, who goes by the same name, stumbled upon the bypass in his desperate search to buy a new graphics card amid the great chip shortage.

For several months, the duo had had no luck getting a GPU from the retailer’s Newegg Shuffle lottery system, which distributes a limited number of PC graphics cards every day. In April, Newegg said an average of 100,000 people participate in lotteries. Therefore, your chances of scoring a system card are low.

But last week the 11-year-old discovered a way around the entire lottery system. “I was very surprised when he came over and the graphics card was in his cart (Newegg),” said elder Ricardo Santana. “I was like ‘check out, check out, check out, check out, check out’ and then it was okay.”

Ricardo Santana Jr., 11, with the graphics card, which sits inside his desktop platform.

Three business days later, they received the GPU, an EVGA RTX 3090, which is currently listed as out of stock on Newegg. “He’s currently playing on it,” Santana said of her son.

How the flaw works

This is the retailer’s custom PC creation service, through which Newegg started selling a limited number of RTX 3000 graphics cards. These products have been dubbed “hot items,” but GPUs can only be purchased in form. from bundle with other PC parts including processor, RAM, motherboard, power supply and case. You also need to pay Newegg to put the parts together in a working office for you.

Screenshots of me completing the order for the RTX 3070.

However, Santana’s son found out that Newegg’s mobile app can allow you to individually purchase GPUs for Hot Items from the Custom PC Creation Service. Go to PC builder> Build your PC> Video cards section. You will see various RTX 3000 GPUs listed as out of stock. But in some cases, if you add the product to your cart, the app will do so and allow you to purchase it.

The video below shows this workaround in action. As you can see, Newegg even allowed me to add more than one RTX 3000 GPU to my cart, and check them all if I wanted.

Elder Santana reached out to PCMag about the loophole after reading my experience camping at Best Buy to buy a GPU earlier this week. By using this loophole, I was able to bypass the painful wait altogether.

“I thought about buying more, but I don’t want to abuse it and I would like to give the opportunity to other people,” he said. “I think they (Newegg) prioritize selling custom versions with the inventory they have for the Shuffle. I’m not sure exactly how many people are earning the Shuffle, but I’ve tried the Shuffle so many times. times and never won.

“It’s terrible that we have to go this far to be able to get these cards,” he added.

The loophole, on the other hand, can make buying a Newegg PC graphics card easier than ever. We have contacted the retailer and will update the story if we have any news. But expect the workaround to be fixed soon.