NZXT responds to damning Gamers Nexus video accusing it of running a "predatory, evil" rental scam

[MonkeyKing1969]

People need to actually watching the entire video. Its not being able to rent the PC even at a high rate that GamerNexus is reporting on. Its the fact that they descriptions and specs change daily if not hourly. The naming conventions for the PCs in question are deceptive, the specification of what certain hardware will do is wrong, the cost to rent month to month raises form 'usury' rates to just scam rates that will put people in a debt; the terms of service are impossible to meet on the consumers side and go far beyond what is needed in term of penalizing the renter for mistakes NZXT makes!

What would be fascinating is to see if the average cost of getting a gaming PC from a company like Rent-A-Center is cheaper...I think it might be with a lot less choice...but still cheaper?

RENT-A-CNTER = $50.00 a month
Skytech Ghost Gaming Tower
• Intel® Core™ i5-13400F 3.3 GHz (Max Turbo 4.6 GHz) - 6-Core / 240 mm AIO Liquid Cooler0
• 16GB DDR4 RAM
• 1TB Solid State Drive (SSD)
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060Ti (8GB GDDR6) Graphics
• RGB Gaming Keyboard and Mouse
• B660 Motherboard / 650 watts 80 Plus Gold Certified Power Supply

The difference is you CAN Rent-To-Own the PC from Rent-A-Center - it is NOT a good deal. However, you can own it and seemingly can even even have an intermittent loan and still get credit towards ownership (AGAIN not a great deal but it something) . And, you DO NOT end up paying $15,000, nope is you do it for 84 months you own it outright. In fact if you DECIDE to own it you can buy it outright for less. I think it would be fascinating for GN to look at R-A-C for a comparison.

 

[hwertz]

The swapping out parts without disclosing a different benchmark score is shady and basically fraud.

The extremely high rental prices? Well, you'd be foolish to rent one, but I don't blame NXZT on this one. I remember seeing ads years ago where companies were renting garbage-tier PCs for like $75-100 a month, just like with these you could have just bought the machine outright in like 6 months. (And there's the above post, which I didn't see before, where you can rent a decent gaming system from Rent-A-Center for $50, and after many many payments you can even own it.)

 

[ZedRM]

Holy crap! I would not want to be NZXT right now. Isn't some of what they're doing illegal in a lot of places? I'm sure Bait&Switch tactics are a crime in many places. At lease in Cali they are..

 

[hwertz]

As complete as this article is there is many pain points of using the leased hardware. However for some who need a steller competitive PC at a very low entry point this is a great option, otherwise they would have never got the machine at all. As Scammy as this deal seems there is 3x or 10x worst deals happening every day in the finance industry. People poaching on others desperation and lack of funding is nothing new. Don't be so upset about this deal it is far less of a scam then health care, finance, and vehicles. So if IT has a bit of a scammy setup you should relax IT industry has been hit so hard recently and needs to recover costs. IT is too tough of a business right now.

No this is not a great option. They point out (beside the bait-and-switch on the hardware) that the rental price is so high ($259 a month? That is insane..), that you could actually buy a computer with those specs with one of those "pay off x equal payments" and pay it off within 10 months. And if you decide you are DONE renting it, apparently they tack on an *additional* $100 to return the thing!

He's not complaining about leases in general.. he's complaining specifically about NZXT's absurd rental program.

 

[clemington]

I bet many of the other YT tech 'influencers' are beginning to truly hate Gamers Nexus.

One by one they're taking down the companies that throw products and advertising revenue their way and have to ask themselves 'can I still take their money and shill their products and keep any shred of integrity with my viewers?'

You do realize that GN has taken plenty of sponsorship money from companies whose products they then turn-around and review right? GN is dirty as any of them. "Tech Jesus" has you fooled with his shiny locks and constant white-knighting

 

[ZedRM]

I bet many of the other YT tech 'influencers' are beginning to truly hate Gamers Nexus.

No they're not. Steve is a goldmine of stuff to talk about and make videos about. Not even close to hating him.

 

[GTvon]

Brother, if you're paying three times the worth of your house, then you need to speak to a financial advisor asap.

Set that aside, you're paying off YOUR house or YOUR car. End of the day, its yours (technically the lenders until its paid off)

I don't buy on credit, I only buy what I have the money to buy and own my homes and cars outright.

 

[GTvon]

You do realize that GN has taken plenty of sponsorship money from companies whose products they then turn-around and review right? GN is dirty as any of them. "Tech Jesus" has you fooled with his shiny locks and constant white-knighting

He's got grey hair and a pot belly, not very Jesus like. Lol I don't give much credence to a channel that seems junk China merch along side so called legitimate reviews and tech news. Could you imagine any legitimate news source selling silly tee shirts and mugs during the broadcast? Lol yeah, it's pretty cringe.

 

[Ganbly]

Hypocrisy of GN... if he really wants to start complaining about rental plans and prices, he should start with the most and biggest scam of all rental plans, the real estate , what landlords do to people and all the governments it is just a scam, also the tax scam, where politicians and public officials dont pay any tax but everyone else has to... it is also the biggest scam of all... I know, its just how entertainment works, to focus in the little problems that solve nothing... distracting and diverging attention... from the bigger problems.

 

[R00sT3R]

You do realize that GN has taken plenty of sponsorship money from companies whose products they then turn-around and review right? GN is dirty as any of them. "Tech Jesus" has you fooled with his shiny locks and constant white-knighting

GN doesn't have me fooled because I don't watch it.

I hate the guys overly verbose way of talking, why use 10 words when you can use a 100 to make him sound more knowledgeable, kind of thing he has going.

Long since unsubscribed from their channel but I keep seeing stories like this popping up on sites like this.

 

[ZedRM]

GN doesn't have me fooled because I don't watch it.

Then why comment? At all?

 

[xzigraz]

Remember when NZXT's GPU raiser cable was so badly designed it was shorting and literally catching on fire? That seemed like a far more straight forward case for Gamers Nexus to terminate their advertisement deal at that time, but they went on with it.

So in other words: I *LIKE* Tech Jesus' new hard-hitting reporter phase that has brought legit concerns to light before, this just seems like a big nothing burger to me when compared to the intel fakery, EK employee and business partner abuse or even the inaccuracy and again business partner abuse from Linus: The man has a winning formula in these investigative/hit pieces but he seems like he ran out of targets for too long if he has to attach the well known schemes like this rent stuff: everyone knows it's a scam and I seriously doubt any significant portion of people ever fall for it.

Show me another company that offers something similar. And like the video says, this is aimed at the young and poor people. Are you sure you are not paid by NXZT to discredit Game Nexus so the damage of this article is less to their brand?

 

[lripplinger]

So many salty comments here......

 

[ZedRM]

So many salty comments here......

Are you seriously surprised by that? If so, how and why?

 

[ChipBoundary]

That's stupid. It's like saying when you buy a car, you don't own it because you have to pay the registration, which is a tax, every year.

First, you don't have to actually pay registration on your vehicle, ever. You can own a vehicle without paying registration and drive it on your own property all you want. However, if you want to drive it on public roads then you must have it registered. Same with a driver's license. You can drive on your private property all you want with no license, but if you want to drive a vehicle on a public road? Need a license.

And you factually DO NOT own property in the US. Eminent domain, look it up, educate yourself. Property can be taken from you by the government at any time and all they have to do is provide fair compensation for what the property is worth/what you paid. Property taxes are rent you pay to the government so you can use their property for your personal needs/uses.

It is unbelievable how ignorant people are of the way things work in the country they live in.