Investigating the HypeDrop PC "Scam" (Again)

a few years ago we investigated the loot box website hype drop on account of its ads targeting PC Gamers and enthusiasts the boxes touted high value items like graphics cards CPUs and more essentially hooks to pull in unsuspecting well gamblers let's call it like it is and I'm sure it wouldn't surprise many of you to hear that this website is still actually doing the same thing today only they've uh changed some things let's investigate stay with me ank's latest revision of the loved C8 dual chamber design is the C8 argb featuring three argb fans and an integrated Hub the two intake units at the bottom sport inverse fan blades for a clean aesthetic and are actually 160 mm in diameter making them perfect for high airflow builds but up to 3 360 mm fan rad combos in here simultaneously and swap included fan brackets for additional form factor support down below the C8 elegant design is supported by a seamless meeting between the front and side panels and the Chamber around the back supports a plethora of cables oversized power supplies and storage for days learn more by clicking the link below so here's a quick recap of how these websites work and it all starts with influencers SEO and targeted ads usually you could be scrolling social media only to come across an ad like this one and here's your hook or you could be watching a popular content creator pump the site because you know they're often paid tens of thousands of dollars to do so and there's your hook however it happens maybe you find yourself on their new and improved landing page littered with boxes supposedly filled with all sorts of goodies watches expensive clothing Apple products and even cars yeah that's not a joke it's actually one of their recent editions and the supposed odds are pretty laughable but what really pisses me off about this site is they're targeting a fellow PC Builders with boxes like contenders and Rivals there's setup booster Gadget geek and even PC Master race I seriously couldn't believe this one they've pcmr as a featured loot box and for over $70 a spin which is absolutely wild original logos and all in fact I reached out to my good buddy Pedro you know the founder of pcmr and of course they weren't given permission to use the logos or to treat this like some sort of endorsement and it's not like they're slapping a razor logo on a box with a bunch of Razor products inside I mean that'd be a bit different and they actually do that quite a bit there isn't even like a single pcmr item like there's no pcmr merch or anything offered in this box they're just taking advantage of clout that isn't Theirs to lure people in NOA now this wouldn't be a proper investigation without actually spending some money and I'm not looking forward to this part I'm sure Raymond is uh Raymond you looking forward to a spending some money long as it's not my money I knew he was going to say that and look as much as I hate to give these clowns any dime at all I feel it's important to demonst just why this is such a bad idea so um let's drop $1,000 in the pot I want to open some Rivals packs the actual first thing that we could spend that that's worth anything is Orizon 57600 valued at 220 and the odds are 375% so uh all right yeah without further Ado we're just going to click this and have at it we made some money we made we made two bucks all right let's uh I could sell it for 1250 yeah I mean of course I'm G to sell it for 1250 why wouldn't I I'm expecting just vouchers non-stop you can see I mean we're slowly but surely losing money which is not a surprise we knew this was their business model from the start a $4 voucher again that lost a six bucks there a $4 voucher lost another six bucks look how quickly the money's disappearing we're now at what $940 you know what I'm going to have Raymond speed it up until maybe eventually we win something maybe we don't let's let's have at [Music] [Music] it like there's no way I don't think they're going to physically ship anything like they're going to make sure for bucks I think you're going to get at least one thing out of this wow we actually got a 7800x 3D or we could sell it for $450 of intore credit which would put us up to 1,200 bucks it's up to you us what you want to do with this how's that upgrade button do now I'm curious oh no whoa we could attempt the upgrade for 45% success to a pair of shoes uh I think I'm good it looks like we're back to just good old vouchers and lose using an average of 5 to six bucks per [Music] spin right so we're down to $679 uh that that money disappeared very quickly so I think uh we're going to switch to different box uh what was that Contender box this one here so lot so it looks like there's a lot of chances to win something here when in reality nine out of every 10 spins is going to be just a voucher because you add 45% plus 25% plus 20% it's 90% I mean if we spend this 10 times it's 500 bucks we could spin it 10 times and just see if we happen to win something I don't know the problem is we already want a CPU so like maybe we get lucky and hit like a motherboard that's compatible no they don't even have a motherboard that's compatible with that chip in here okay there is a 670e so that's not bad but the odds of pulling that over anything else here if we haven't even win anything big pretty low so yeah I I guess we'll just buy 10 of these that'll leave us with almost a couple hundred bucks left so let's just go for it this this cring this is a lot of money on a on a loot box all righty oh boy I'm gon have to do fast opening after this is taking way too long yeah 15 bucks all right that that went by quick let's do fast opening now here goes another 50 bucks ouch oh $50 voucher I actually got my money back mostly okay see that they're they're looping me in 15 bucks o oh that was four five six seven ouch eight I'm going to sell this one because we've already got one CPU coming in it's frankly a better one um but okay we won something there that's fine we'll stop we'll pull back and we'll look at the field see what else we got PC Master race we could try this one because obviously I've got big problems with this one this one's for you Pedro I guess yeah actually that's apparently according to them worth more than the box so we just made 20 bucks made 20 bucks does it tell you what the size of that it's a 500 gig it's definitely not worth 90 bucks but whatever here we go ouch I'm G to sell that one back I don't want an SSD I don't want an SSD I definitely don't want f although that actually made us five bucks this is just kind of jarring like I don't I just I don't see the the point like what if there's like one particular thing that you're trying to spin for here like you're just losing money doing it you'd be better off just buying what you want up front versus wagering all this money on no guarantee of a positive outcome and this isn't bad this is 6,000 MHz this 32 gigs of DDR it's got to be DDR 5 6,000 MHz and it's Val 125 bucks I'm gonna add that to my cart it goes with the uh we'll see it actually does go with the CPU we could very well build this is not going the way I wanted it to go and I mean I mean I'm happy for the outcomes but this doesn't really help the Nar here I tell you what I really want is this x670 motherboard and I'm determined to actually build a system now from hype drop stuff if we actually can so another 50 bucks down the drain in three two one boy that goes quick a this is this is what what the another $50 vou almost got our money back yeah okay we can't say for certain that we're even going to get these items okay so I'm still I'm still holding back a bit we're going to hit a graphics car I smell it I smell it it's [Music] [Music] coming so many vouchers are just to me this is like the least interesting part of this whole thing I don't know I don't really know how I feel about that we can almost build a whole system here we've got fans we've got ddr4 we've got a CPU Cooler we've got storage we've got a CPU and we've got a graphics card we're just missing a case and we're missing a motherboard power supply power supply good yeah go on power supply I don't even know if they have power supplies on here interesting turn of events now now here's here's the kicker let's add these products up okay add them up and see see where we are so we get 660 + 160+ 95 + 90 oh God plus 80 plus 75 for a total value according to them of $160 so uh I already gave them my address it's already in the profile I was hesitant to to even give them that but I'm kind of glad I did now because it was just a oneclick thing and now apparently they're going to be delivered I I don't know how long it's going to take it's like free international shipping they could just be Drop Shipping from Amazon or newag I don't know but we'll keep you updated now you probably noticed this already but hyp drop has a ton of inore credit spins baked into each of these boxes whereas before it used to be stickers and other cheap albeit physical crap that they'd have to physic Al ship you it's also not a coincidence of course that a majority of these spins are for values less than that of the Box itself so you're slowly losing money over time which then feels the need to top up over time and there you go vicious cycle and uh well this is a loot Box's way of printing money now I want to break down the math because this is where again it gets interesting just exactly how does hype drop make money on boxes like these consider this the contenders box okay it's a $526 box it's pretty expensive that's per spin by the way and it's you know filled with stuff ranging from highend CPUs to cheaper B series motherboards now in order to estimate the expected value from each spin separate from the fixed upfront cost of 5260 we need to multiply the odds of each outcome by its specific market value that they list and then add those products together all of these sum to an expected value of a whopping $47.81 you could say that if you were to repeat this loot box opening many many many times the approximate mean profit per spin would be $47 82 but this wouldn't be a profit at all now would it because the cost of the box is 5260 so that's that's not great and you could make the case for any other gambling site much the same way we've done here it's not just loot boxes that are doing this it's not just sports betting but also online and physical casinos these expected values are baked into every game on the floor to ensure that in the long run The House Always Wins and speaking of this box May oh my are the products all over the place here the z590 orus extreme is a pretty beefy board again I don't think it's worth what they're saying it's worth but it's a few Generations old by this point it's also not compatible with a majority of the things in this box that aren't also motherboards I mean a lot of these CPUs are like straight up from a different manufacturer like it doesn't make any sense so even if you were lucky enough to win both a motherboard and a CPU from this box the odds that they're compatible are very very low maybe a graphics card box makes a little more sense since you can basically just drop those into any rig given you have the right power supply and case constraints and they are easier to work around right in just in general than entire platforms with finicky compatibilities other boxes like this Big Apple box some of these names are so stupid sell for a huge $346 36 which is an oddly specific price I might add and these don't have any vouchers at all so none of that like well you win $15 of in store credit which you may think is a good thing Until you realize that the odds of spending for a USBC cable are over 30% imagine spending $350 for a type c cable absolute lunacy and likely a trigger for some to charge back their credit cards again which is why I think a deposit system as an extra layer protection was added to your credit card company it'll just look like you made a single purchase and again once they realize that it's a loot box gambling site good luck ignoring the fact that hyp drop may be very well lying about these odds and ignoring the fact that some these listed product values you know seem a bit inflated I don't think this motherboard's worth 850 bucks anymore but it's what they're saying it's worth this Contender box is designed from the ground up to make hyp drop money it's how they're still in business all these years later o okay the timing of this was was really odd uh we were caught off guard by it I highly doubt that our shenanigans on the site a few days ago triggered this I think it was planned well in advance I'm not sure why it's come to this and from the looks of it a hype drop version two is coming at some point but now that we know the site is for sure shutting down within only a couple of weeks of time of filming we have a few other problems to discuss now I want to start first with the products that were supposed to be sent to us this so far is all we have to show for our winnings it uh has been what a little over a week I believe and I I expect some stuff to to kind of slowly trickle in they're not going to be using Amazon Prime overnight shipping for everything and like we suspected all of this was drop shipped from multiple sites uh so ironically not a single thing here came from Amazon uh one of them came from eay Cooler Master fans I don't I don't know uh the NZXT AIO I have no idea where this came from absolutely no idea there's no indication I think it came from like a small Mom and Pop shop because the packing list and the order are a bit vague this came from B&H Photo now here's where it gets interesting because if you recall we mentioned while we were spinning for these loot boxes that some of the product values they had listed on their site were a bit off a lot of them seemed conflated which would make sense because if you had inflated product values then you're giving the impression that they're winning more than they actually are and the case is no different for this CPU here they paid now I'm saying they as an hype drop paid $94 for this ryzen 5 5500 and you can see according to their site it was listed for quite a bit more than that it's a pretty hefty percent markup and this is another baked in margin for them so not only are they making sure that they have the odds on their side at least from a value standpoint but they've also inflated said values to make them money on the back end once they do actually pay out at least with respect to how much you've probably paid into the box see it there 94 bucks regular price 154 but well the final price here is what they actually paid and interestingly enough we can actually see who purchased the card on our behalf somebody in Cypress here's where it gets interesting though the number that a real Us number from the looks of it that we can call oh we're going to call cannot be completed as dialed please hang up and red the number including so it's a fake or disconnected phone number which is kind of funny because if I dial the number I entered for my contact information the Verizon Wireless Your call cannot be completed as dialed please we both jait each other so we both put fake phone numbers on here that is well played whoever runs omnifarious Services Limited well played my friend by the way for a good bit we were worried that they knew who I was again I'm not someone not I'm not a celebrity or anything but if they knew that we had a Channel with a decent following they might skew the results of the box right and and so that was why I was initially hesitant to even publish that part of the video CU they didn't want to give anyone the impression that hey you could just jump onto this loot box website and win tons of stuff not only does it not mathematically make sense but also you've got compatibilities to worry about and I'm fairly certain at this point that they don't know who I am because I received some interesting emails from the folks over at hype drop who um well I'll just say it weren't privy to sending us the items that we want a few days ago I received this email from the hype drop support team hi there we have cancelled your request to withdraw Asus and GeForce RTX 470 tough OC it's likely that it might not be available anymore or your address might be incorrect please contact support team here to learn more I received the same email for our Corsair mp510 m.2 mind you though I was more concerned about the graphics card because obviously that's the much more expensive item in fact the most expensive item that we won from the site also in case you're wondering no there isn't an issue with our address because we received three other items from them so we know it's not that so I reached out to the support team saying I recently won a gravic card and now you're telling me I can no longer claim it are there any options for me at this time to which their response was hello can you please explain the issue in detail is there an error message or block I sent a couple of screenshots only to receive this reply unfortunately it's not available at the moment and we do not know how long it might take to be restocked now you can probably see why I'd be a little concerned about that reply seeing as though the website is literally shutting down in a couple of weeks and if it does I highly doubt there will be any way to obtain my graphics card once it's shut down it's it's all gone everything I'm assuming is going to be completely wiped and they might save some stuff for taxes but I'm assuming most of the data from the site is just going to be completely cleaned out and I'd be so I replied can you just send something else then I know you guys drop ship everything just send a different model and we can square it up and his response was we would suggest exchanging the item for something similar on the site or withdrawing the crypto and source it yourself now I've never deal in crypto never will I've never sold exchanged it mined it I don't even know how these exchanges work so that's not an option for me and the idea of exchanging the item for another I I didn't think was possible because well we were actually on the site we were opening boxes and selling items but I didn't see a place where you could exchange it the only option there was to just sell it back for an equivalent credit that I could then use to spend you know on something else so that didn't seem all that fair to me because there's no guarantee of success on any subsequent box I might open why why would I do that and to make matters significantly worse I found that uh following the announcement that the site was shutting down I could no longer sign in with my approved signin method it's been about 3 or 4 days since that email exchange and the last thing I heard they were working on the issue but as of time of filming I still cannot sign in so I'd wager there's about a 50/50 shot I see the graphics card at the Point let alone the SSD it's very likely that the merchant they planned to purchase the card from had it listed for a price that hype drop wasn't very excited about and that's why they are saying no I I don't know why they couldn't just send another near equivalent card have me I don't know sign a document saying I'm okay with it and then ship that instead that's what an honorable business would do it's not like you can't find 470s and 470 TI in the wild today and even at decent prices there's several on newag and Amazon at decent prices that I would be okay with in in place of the tough card that I apparently won but this is what happens when you work with companies like this I'm not surprised I'm obviously not going to Sul in it I did this to myself to prove a point and hopefully this entire experience has pushed you away from the desire to throw your money into a loot box website I can't obviously say that they're all going to handle things this way but it's just a massive mess to have not only the site shutting down around the same time that we drop $1,000 into the site then to also be told that we can't actually receive the items that we won and for that matter the items that we did win aren't actually valued at what they said they were valued at because we literally have receipts so this has been a wild ride I'm surprised we won anything at all but in the net we lost quite a bit of money and that shouldn't really be surprising to anyone not only did we show you the m behind why you'll likely lose money in the long run but we actually tried it for ourselves and uh this is all I have to show for it yeah we really didn't expect this one to end this way shocked that stuff even arrived to begin with shocked that we won things but not shocked at all that the most expensive thing we won is not being sent to us for whatever reason let me know what you guys think about this one uh again I'm not surprised but uh maybe you've had better luck I again I I strongly advise everyone stay away from loot box websites period hype drop is obviously no exception to that and actually the owner of this site who I'm I'm clearly not fond of at this point apparently owns a few other sites as well there's something called was it hype up Raymond is that what it's called hype up um maybe they they I think they Interlink with with csgo boxes and things um but uh yeah the owner put out a statement about the state of hype drop and his intent to open another one in the future we'll see if that happens all I can say is be very very cautious and very very diligent if you decide to throw money at a site like this it is what it is but your viewership is appreciated regardless and be sure to check out relevant links in the video description my name is Greg thanks for wasting close to $1,000 dollar with me that's it that's it that's that's that's how we end it right there

Channel: Greg Salazar

Views: 237,116

Keywords: hypedrop pc, pc lootbox, pc lootbox scam, hypedrop scam, hypedrop, pc scam, lootbox scam, greg salazar, rip-off, PC Gaming, Graphics card scam, ripoff, scam, computer scam, graphics card, Tech, Technology, lootbox, gaming pc, Computer Hardware, i've been ripped off, pc tech scam, pc tech lootbox, Lootbox investigation

Id: M0Pj8dzbqxY

Length: 24min 32sec (1472 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2024