That makes it _more_ rather than less risky to buy from random people on eBay because they know that you're desperate, allowing them to charge more and figure someone will buy without doing too much diligence about the seller.

Think about how people have received defective parts, or even things reflashed to list a different model. When the market is tight like this, those abuses become that much more tempting.

Actually you can. EVGA has a step-up program that allows you to buy just about any EVGA graphics card, register it, and pick the new better card you want when it's available. I bought a 2070 about a year ago and just got an email today that my 3080 is in the mail. I had to jump through a few hoops, but nothing onerous. And I had to pay the difference in price, but it was the only way I could come up with to get a registered high-end card. As far as I know EVGA is the only company that offers this, and it's the reason I went with them instead of another.

You ask for a refund, you get ghosted and/or seller has some form of extra plausible deniability (how was I supposed to know it was stolen either?)