The new year is off to a rough start for some after orders from Corsair, and now ZOTAC were cancelled and then re-upped at a higher price. Buyers beware, as you never know if your order will be fulfilled at the agreed-upon price in these uncertain times. Reports (via VideoCardz) involving PC parts retailer Corsair began to surface at the start of the new year when one person revealed their $3,499 custom PC order was getting cancelled, only for the same build to reappear later for $800 more. The company did make good on the order after multiple media outlets and social media covered this incident, but this was not to be a one-time case.
Corsair’s sales reps had stated there was an error with its webstore, which led to the aforementioned incident, but then other consumers reported a similar situation regarding discounted 48GB DDR6 memory kits. Orders involving coupons for these kits were canceled, and refunds were issued as coupons had the incorrect expiration code, but it then offered new ones for items that might still be “in stock”, a laughable joke given the current memory supply situation. Just yesterday, it also issued the following statement on the matter.
Per Corsair Press Release:
“Early on January 1st, 2026, we had a pricing and inventory issue on our US website that has received a large amount of public notice.
In this specific situation, our US website showed incorrect stock availability and pricing for a specific memory kit that we no longer manufacture. Within hours, we received thousands of orders for this out-of-stock item. By January 2nd, the issue on the website was corrected and we began notifying customers that their orders would be canceled and a coupon code was included.
Unfortunately, the email template used incorrectly listed the expiration date for the included 15% off coupon. Within a few hours of that email on January 2nd, a corrected coupon for 40% off any in-stock memory kit was sent to those same customers as a correction.
The way we communicated and managed this issue does not meet our standards, and we regret confusing our customers with multiple posts and emails. This should have been a single communication, one time, with the correct discount code. For that, we apologize.
We made a mistake, and while we strive to minimize them, the next best thing we can do is resolve them as quickly and clearly as possible. We have made several changes to our process that will address these issues in the future, and we appreciate your patience.
We are and have always been focused and committed to the core customers – gamers, creators, performance users, and enthusiasts. We make parts for people who want to build fast, reliable computers. That has not changed.”
PC graphics card manufacturer ZOTAC has also now joined this party. Posts from buyers on Reddit who purchased RTX 50 series graphics cards via ZOTAC’s webstore state their orders have also been cancelled, only for the same models to be reposted at higher prices. The new prices jumped by an average of $500, and the only notification from ZOTAC to its customers was that it regretfully had to cancel their order due to a “system error that affected the processing of your purchase,” and that the customer could place the order again once the “error” had been fixed.
It seems obvious that both Corsair and ZOTAC, and would be PC part buyers, are now caught in the maelstrom created by the current memory chip supply shortage. This storm has firmly landed on shore now across the globe, causing prices to surge at never-before-seen rates, and from retailers to manufacturers, its effects are just beginning to be felt. Famed hardware overclocker Roman “der8auer” Hartung and Hardwareluxx have stated that NVIDIA has effectively ended its Open Price Program, which provided GPU and memory kits to its partners at MSRP, and could be why ZOTAC, which often provides custom cards at MSRP, has employed these seemingly shady tactics.
Folks on the hunt for their next hardware upgrade should be used to seeing similar situations with product price increases happening out of the blue on online marketplaces such as Amazon or Newegg, with scalpers constantly seeking the highest profits they can get, but such behavior is rare at manufacturer webstores. Sadly, though, this could be just the beginning as manufacturers adapt to a constantly changing supply chain regarding any products that rely on memory chips.