Material shortages and price hikes are encouraging more nefarious market tactics, as Thermal Grizzly found out. After ordering €40,000 worth of copper and aluminum from new sellers, the thermal interface maker found they were actually sheets of steel, coated with thin layers of the material it actually purchased.
The global AI infrastructure buildout is affecting memory and GPUs, as well as PCB drill bits, glass cloth, and prime production materials like copper. That’s driving up prices and incentivizing smuggling and scamming.
In this case, Thermal Grizzly was having difficulty sourcing enough copper and aluminum for its products, so it turned to Alibaba. Although it did its due diligence, researching the sales history of the companies it was dealing with, only paying 30% of the list price up-front, and spreading the order across two different suppliers, Thermal Grizzly still got burned.
The copper order appeared good at first glance; Thermal Grizzly snipped a corner off to test its purity, and it came back as pure copper. But when it tested its thermal properties, the results were poor. However, milling through the copper coating, it discovered cheap steel beneath.
In the aluminum order, the problem was similar, but hid its scam inside the box rather than the material. There were aluminum plates on top of the order, which helped it pass a quick visual inspection. Underneath, however, Thermal Grizzly found layers of steel plates and then large voids in the packaging—because steel weighs more than aluminum.
Recommended by Our Editors
“I still can hardly believe…that this happened twice at this scale. Embarrassing and also, it’s a financial problem,” says Roman Hartung, CEO of Thermal Grizzly, who estimates he’ll get back only about €3,000 from scrap. Hartung said he was hesitant to discuss the loss but hopes it helps prevent others from being scammed.
Get Our Best Stories!
Your Daily Dose of Our Top Tech News
By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy
Policy.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
About Our Expert
Jon Martindale
Contributor
Experience
Jon Martindale is a tech journalist from the UK, with 20 years of experience covering all manner of PC components and associated gadgets. He’s written for a range of publications, including ExtremeTech, Digital Trends, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, and Lifewire, among others. When not writing, he’s a big board gamer and reader, with a particular habit of speed-reading through long manga sagas.
Jon covers the latest PC components, as well as how-to guides on everything from how to take a screenshot to how to set up your cryptocurrency wallet. He particularly enjoys the battles between the top tech giants in CPUs and GPUs, and tries his best not to take sides.
Jon’s gaming PC is built around the iconic 7950X3D CPU, with a 7900XTX backing it up. That’s all the power he needs to play lightweight indie and casual games, as well as more demanding sim titles like Kerbal Space Program. He uses a pair of Jabra Active 8 earbuds and a SteelSeries Arctis Pro wireless headset, and types all day on a Logitech G915 mechanical keyboard.
Read Full Bio
