Another gamer has had issues with fake graphics cards

[WillyW]

Summary

 A teen in Alberta Canada received a weighted box instead of the graphics card that he was supposed to receive. Amazon refused to refund him saying that he needed to return the originally ordered product. It wasn't until CBC called them that Amazon responded positively to the incident. They recommend to make an unboxing video to prevent something like this from happening to you.

 

Quotes

Quote

"Instead, Amazon said in an email there would be no refund until the "correct" item was shipped back.

On top of that, the Amazon rep said the returned, fake item had been thrown out, to protect other employees.

"It was absurd," said François. "It's just a piece of plastic so I doubt there's any danger to their employees. And secondly … now they've destroyed the piece of evidence."

"

 

My thoughts

 It does not say which graphics card he ordered but I'm assuming that it was a 3060 or 2060 given this was in June and it was approx $530 US or $690 CDN. Also not sure which warehouse that he received this from but it does say Amazon Canada so given that this has happened a few other times to other people who ordered stuff from Amazon I imagine that it is a system wide issue for them, such as in the time that they give to solve cases, the amount they pay these employees and other reasons. It is a little crazy to expect that everyone is going to now need to make an unboxing video for themselves for high value small products. I also remember reading an article somewhere that talked about how the free returns were going to start to be a thing of the past, so this might be part of that, meaning that changes in the way returns staff take product back is making it more difficult to get proper service and highlight an issue.

 

Also this is a huge credibility hit to Amazon, when a tech news story makes it outside of the tech news and lands on someone like CBC or NYT or CNN the company has problems, and it will take a long time to rebuild that goodwill.

 

Sources

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/amazon-returns-1.6669601

[Skiiwee29]

It is absolutely a problem with Tech and Amazon. Right now I'm sitting on a NF-F12 Chromax that was repackaged as a NF-A12x25 by someone previous that I need to return shortly. This is a lot more common than you think sadly.

[Gokul_P]

I have a doubt. How a piece of plastic way the same as a grafics card. Ik the question is dumb

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

1 hour ago, WillyW said:

Summary

 A teen in Alberta Canada received a weighted box instead of the graphics card that he was supposed to receive. Amazon refused to refund him saying that he needed to return the originally ordered product. It wasn't until CBC called them that Amazon responded positively to the incident. They recommend to make an unboxing video to prevent something like this from happening to you.

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

 It does not say which graphics card he ordered but I'm assuming that it was a 3060 or 2060 given this was in June and it was approx $530 US or $690 CDN. Also not sure which warehouse that he received this from but it does say Amazon Canada so given that this has happened a few other times to other people who ordered stuff from Amazon I imagine that it is a system wide issue for them, such as in the time that they give to solve cases, the amount they pay these employees and other reasons. It is a little crazy to expect that everyone is going to now need to make an unboxing video for themselves for high value small products. I also remember reading an article somewhere that talked about how the free returns were going to start to be a thing of the past, so this might be part of that, meaning that changes in the way returns staff take product back is making it more difficult to get proper service and highlight an issue.

 

Also this is a huge credibility hit to Amazon, when a tech news story makes it outside of the tech news and lands on someone like CBC or NYT or CNN the company has problems, and it will take a long time to rebuild that goodwill.

 

Sources

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/amazon-returns-1.6669601

 

Based on the listing in, it looks like they purchased this:

 https://www.amazon.ca/GeForce-Graphics-IceStorm-Advanced-ZT-A30610H-10MLHR/dp/B097YW4FW9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2I7MIAJJM8J3I&keywords=Zotac+3060+Ti&qid=1672038767&sprefix=zotac+3060+ti%2Caps%2C140&sr=8-1

 

But no way to tell if they choose the one that's sold and shipped by Amazon, or by Triplenet Pricing INC. When I searched on my account it showed the Triplenet one over the Amazon one.

[Spotty]

59 minutes ago, WillyW said:

Also this is a huge credibility hit to Amazon, when a tech news story makes it outside of the tech news and lands on someone like CBC or NYT or CNN the company has problems, and it will take a long time to rebuild that goodwill.

This won't make any difference. Amazon has been in the news plenty of times for bad practices and it's more popular than ever. Amazon could start shipping anthrax in packages and the only thing that would happen is the Amazon Basics Hazmat Suit would become the #1 best seller on Amazon.

 

 

This type of return scam is not uncommon for Amazon. There was a post on the forum earlier today from somebody who received a 3060 instead of the 3070 they ordered from Amazon (likely from a previous customer swapping the 3060 and 3070 to get a 3070 for the price of a 3060). The annoying thing is in situations like this it's probably easier to just return it saying you changed your mind rather than trying to explain to Amazon support that you received the wrong item that looks almost identical, but doing that means that Amazon is just going to stick it straight back in to inventory and it'll be the next customers problem.

 

[Senzelian]

3 hours ago, Spotty said:

This won't make any difference. Amazon has been in the news plenty of times for bad practices and it's more popular than ever. Amazon could start shipping anthrax in packages and the only thing that would happen is the Amazon Basics Hazmat Suit would become the #1 best seller on Amazon.

^ This.

 

It's a miracle that the word "shopping" hasn't been replaced with "amazoning" yet. I know at least of a few people that honestly do not know any other online shopping site than Amazon and also honestly believe that Amazon is the only one ever to offer 1-day shipping and 14-day returns. "Other retailers are so complicated..." according to them, when in reality the experience is just as easy or even better on other sites.

 

And while I'm ranting, here's a recommendation for anyone in Germany, Netherlands and some of the other EU countries: CoolBlue. I don't work for them nor am in any form affiliated with them, but they managed to deliver my electric toothbrush within a day, with free shipping with DHL (not some bullshit like Amazon), they were the cheapest, were able to offer me additional brush heads that fit the damn thing right at the checkout and also provided very detailed documentation on how they work, what to look out for when buying and using one. Honestly, 10/10 experience. Afaik they are a dutch company and so I of course would rather support a neighbour country of ours than Amazon. 

 

Fuck Amazon, hope they burn in hell.

[Gamer Schnitzel]

Amazon has recently started to crack down hard on their flawed processes to start making some actual money. Amazon's idea was to enter the market and make losses at every step of the way to build market share. For them to make money from Prime you literally need to order an absurd amount of stuff with a good profit margin which barely anyone does + the royalties they need to pay for Prime Video.

They have been also sending out threatening letters to anyone who returns too many items in a short period of time and if you keep doing it they just shut your account down.

They also never check the returns you send them, which is why the graphics card thing happened in the first place. They also don't check the orders they get from their vendors. They essentially do nothing except ship out boxes and accept them and even that they want robots to do who won't be able to open boxes. If it wasn't for AWS financing Amazon it would have already gone bankrupt. I doubt Amazon will be around in the first 10 years. All these monopoly money companies based on nothing more than empty promises to investors will shut down overnight with a Netflix movie coming out about them a couple of years later.

 

Which Google product has come out in the last few years that completely impressed everyone?

Yeah.

[TetraSky]

10 hours ago, WillyW said:

They recommend to make an unboxing video to prevent something like this from happening to you.

YUP, That's why I always record myself unboxing expensive stuff. Can never be too sure these days. Interesting that Amazon themselves recommend this now as well.

[NumLock21]

Buy from a physical shop (Brick and Mortar), but still tell them to open the box in front of you or you open it in front of them just in case.

 

Side note

Never liked or why physical stores are called Brick and Mortar. To me it sound like the store only sells Bricks and Mortar rounds.

 

 

 

[Quackers101]

4 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

Never liked or why physical stores are called Brick and Mortar. To me it sound like the store only sells Bricks and Mortar rounds.

You might get mortar, but digital stores you get dreams and no hope and the brick at the bottom.

[Kisai]

6 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

Buy from a physical shop (Brick and Mortar), but still tell them to open the box in front of you or you open it in front of them just in case.

 

Side note

Never liked or why physical stores are called Brick and Mortar. To me it sound like the store only sells Bricks and Mortar rounds.

 

 

Unless you're buying from an actual computer shop, expecting the person to know the difference when many models of things from GPU's to hard drives have identical exteriors with no markings differentiating them. You'll only notice if you check the serial number when it's plugged in to see if it matches the exterior of the box/shipping label.

 

At any rate. "Brick and Mortar" is just meaning a store that is SMALL and actually has a physical presence, most stores are not actually made of Brick anymore because that's no longer the style, and isn't practical to build a large warehouse with. Hell, the most anyone has seen "new" brick anything in the last 40 years as likely been fireplaces that can still burn wood in them. Gas fireplaces don't need all that insulation.

 

The only real solution to the problem in the first place is for returns to be checked, and that can be accomplished three separate ways:

1. X-raying returns to compare with X-rays of the parcel that went out, if it's not "nearly identical" then...

2. Opening the box and comparing to a photo of the box when it was packed, and if that doesn't help then...

4. Check the serial numbers against the serial number that went out. That requires a lot more manual effort by the shipper.

 

Of course it could be cheaper to automate step 1, to try and "find" the serial number, but it could also be made much easier by having NFC "tags" on the boxes of items that cost more than $50, to check what came back against what went out. 

 

I'm sure AI visual models could also be used to identify products in x-rays, and the differences between different products from the same vendor, but that would be something that requires co-operation from the product manufacturers, most of which I don't expect to want to play ball.

[vertigo220]

This is why I had a friend record me opening a valuable package years ago, as I was concerned about this. It's also a big reason why I didn't buy a Samsung SSD when looking for one for my laptop, as there were a lot of people complaining about receiving drives either of smaller capacities or entirely different brands than what they ordered, and neither Samsung nor Amazon were doing anything about it (the other reason was I discovered SK hynix, who had just recently started making consumer SSDs). Even if you record the unboxing, you could still be screwed, because some people swap out the labels on the drives and even sometimes mess with the drive itself to make it report the wrong size (this is done with USB drives at least, not sure about SSDs/HDDs), so people will think they have a drive of a certain size but it's actually smaller, and the only way to know is to copy the amount of data it should hold to it and see if it does in fact hold it.

 

Unfortunately, I'm sure there are people out there lying about receiving the wrong item, too, so it's a difficult situation. I also wouldn't be surprised if some of it is being done by Amazon employees. Best thing people can do aside from recording unboxings is to always use a credit card--and it has to pay for the entire purchase--so protections from that will apply.

 

18 hours ago, Spotty said:

The annoying thing is in situations like this it's probably easier to just return it saying you changed your mind rather than trying to explain to Amazon support that you received the wrong item that looks almost identical, but doing that means that Amazon is just going to stick it straight back in to inventory and it'll be the next customers problem.

Or your return will be one they actually check and they'll say you're the one that swapped it out. There also may be a restocking fee if it's just because you changed your mind, so better to just say it's defective if anything, which will also hopefully prevent it from being shipped out again, but will also more likely cause them to look at it and see it's not what it's supposed to be.

 

12 hours ago, Gamer Schnitzel said:

Amazon has recently started to crack down hard on their flawed processes to start making some actual money. Amazon's idea was to enter the market and make losses at every step of the way to build market share. For them to make money from Prime you literally need to order an absurd amount of stuff with a good profit margin which barely anyone does + the royalties they need to pay for Prime Video.

They have been also sending out threatening letters to anyone who returns too many items in a short period of time and if you keep doing it they just shut your account down.

They also never check the returns you send them, which is why the graphics card thing happened in the first place. They also don't check the orders they get from their vendors. They essentially do nothing except ship out boxes and accept them and even that they want robots to do who won't be able to open boxes. If it wasn't for AWS financing Amazon it would have already gone bankrupt. I doubt Amazon will be around in the first 10 years. All these monopoly money companies based on nothing more than empty promises to investors will shut down overnight with a Netflix movie coming out about them a couple of years later.

 

Which Google product has come out in the last few years that completely impressed everyone?

Yeah.

This is one of the big issues with Amazon. They're incredibly anticompetitive. They operate at a loss so other, smaller companies without the financial backing that Amazon has simply can't compete and go under, and any that can compete Amazon buys out. Then, only after years of taking advantage of the system with regard to online retailers not having to take responsibility for what they sell like B&M ones do, now that they're massive and have the legal resources to handle it, while many smaller online retailers attempting to compete don't, Amazon is pushing for changes to the law to require accountability. It's not because they think it's the right thing to do; it's because they know the burden will be too much for many of those smaller companies, again crushing their competition. And they compete unfairly against non-Amazon products and marketplace sellers, giving their own products and stuff sold by them advantages, though at least, IIRC, this practice was stopped due to legal action (I'm sure it's still done, just more subtly and secretive). Amazon is one of the worst, most evil, and quite possibly most destructive companies in recent times. And people don't care, just like they didn't care when it was Walmart doing this stuff (it still does, just that now Amazon is even bigger and more powerful from them and has taken the crown with all this BS).

[NumLock21]

4 hours ago, Kisai said:

Unless you're buying from an actual computer shop, expecting the person to know the difference when many models of things from GPU's to hard drives have identical exteriors with no markings differentiating them. You'll only notice if you check the serial number when it's plugged in to see if it matches the exterior of the box/shipping label.

Open in the shop in front of them just in case it's not a GPU but something else, All GPUs will have  label on the back side that says what model it is. Not on the back, then it will be somewhere on the card.

[Beerzerker]

5 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

Unless you're buying from an actual computer shop, expecting the person to know the difference when many models of things from GPU's to hard drives have identical exteriors with no markings differentiating them. You'll only notice if you check the serial number when it's plugged in to see if it matches the exterior of the box/shipping label.

I agree - I do have to say even in the case of a physical store don't expect the guy selling to be an expert about it since his job is to sell stuff, not so much to know the in's and out's about everything in inventory they'd be selling.

Yes, matching the serial on the item to what's on the box will tell if it's been "Replaced" with something else not original to the box itself.
If it's different or you cannot determine this info, walk away from it.

5 hours ago, Kisai said:

At any rate. "Brick and Mortar" is just meaning a store that is SMALL and actually has a physical presence, most stores are not actually made of Brick anymore because that's no longer the style, and isn't practical to build a large warehouse with. Hell, the most anyone has seen "new" brick anything in the last 40 years as likely been fireplaces that can still burn wood in them. Gas fireplaces don't need all that insulation.

I'm just clarifying a couple of things here:

The term "Brick and Mortar" doesn't mean it's small, it can be a large(r) sized building too depending on what's being sold.
If keeping it strictly to PC components, then it probrably is small "Ish" but that doesn't apply to every store built of course.

Saying nothing new has been built over the past 40 years is beyond a stretch since Gateway is the perfect example of the opposite, stores for Gateways were built about 20-25 "ish" years ago.
Doesn't mean they stayed in business (They didn't) but yes, those were springing up all over the place during the late 90's and early 2000's, peaking around 2002 and it just went downhill fast from there.

I've seen more than a few new stores built in the last 40 years and yes, I also burned firewood in my fireplace the past few evenings because it was so cold out.
Seriously - I will light it again come New Years and to just chill out, with a nice mixed drink in-hand too.

[Kisai]

2 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

I agree - I do have to say even in the case of a physical store don't expect the guy selling to be an expert about it since his job is to sell stuff, not so much to know the in's and out's about everything in inventory they'd be selling.

Yes, matching the serial on the item to what's on the box will tell if it's been "Replaced" with something else not original to the box itself.
If it's different or you cannot determine this info, walk away from it.

An example of this are how Asus RTX cards are damn near identical from the 3070 to the 3090, you'd only know it's the wrong card if you actually look at the serial.

 

2 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

 

I'm just clarifying a couple of things here:

The term "Brick and Mortar" doesn't mean it's small, it can be a large(r) sized building too depending on what's being sold.
If keeping it strictly to PC components, then it probrably is small "Ish" but that doesn't apply to every store built of course.
 

The point was that it tends to mean "this place has been around for decades" same with "Mom and Pop", family owned small businesses. If a place has an online presence that you can order and ship from, it's not a "brick and mortar" nor a "mom and pop" place, since that means they have staff to run the website and ship things.

 

Basically

"Brick and Mortar" - You are REQUIRED to pick it up in person, there is no online presence to speak of, except maybe a business-card site (and yes, there are many Audio-Visual and Security companies that are exactly this.)

"Mom and Pop" - It's not big enough to have an escalation chain, it might be owned and operated by the same person.

 

[vertigo220]

4 minutes ago, Kisai said:

"Brick and Mortar" - You are REQUIRED to pick it up in person, there is no online presence to speak of, except maybe a business-card site (and yes, there are many Audio-Visual and Security companies that are exactly this.)

Not true. B&M simply means they have a physical presence, vs online only. A store can have B&M locations as well as a website.

[Beerzerker]

13 minutes ago, Kisai said:

An example of this are how Asus RTX cards are damn near identical from the 3070 to the 3090, you'd only know it's the wrong card if you actually look at the serial.

Yes, I agree that's a good way to determine things about it.

 

13 minutes ago, Kisai said:

The point was that it tends to mean "this place has been around for decades" same with "Mom and Pop", family owned small businesses. If a place has an online presence that you can order and ship from, it's not a "brick and mortar" nor a "mom and pop" place, since that means they have staff to run the website and ship things.

Gotcha on that and it's a fair point(s) to make.

 

13 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Basically

"Brick and Mortar" - You are REQUIRED to pick it up in person, there is no online presence to speak of, except maybe a business-card site (and yes, there are many Audio-Visual and Security companies that are exactly this.)

"Mom and Pop" - It's not big enough to have an escalation chain, it might be owned and operated by the same person.

 

The post after yours makes a good point about that, I've worked in a couple of places that had both kinds of presence so it's a valid point they made about it.

You can still make and escalate a claim even in the case of a "Mom and Pop" store, most likely you'd have to do it in person but it can be done.

[Brooksie359]

18 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

Buy from a physical shop (Brick and Mortar), but still tell them to open the box in front of you or you open it in front of them just in case.

 

Side note

Never liked or why physical stores are called Brick and Mortar. To me it sound like the store only sells Bricks and Mortar rounds.

 

 

 

Honestly with how good microcenter is with their customer service I wouldn't bother opening the thing at the store. Had a monitor with a bit of backlight bleed and returned it and they simply took it no questions asked and I got a different monitor. Did the same with a 2080ti that was having stability issues. 

[Monkey Dust]

Amazon. Evil, but convenient.

[NumLock21]

5 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly with how good microcenter is with their customer service I wouldn't bother opening the thing at the store. Had a monitor with a bit of backlight bleed and returned it and they simply took it no questions asked and I got a different monitor. Did the same with a 2080ti that was having stability issues. 

Well you got the correct item in the box, with scammers swapping out parts like this topic here, it would be safer to open it in front of them, just in case.

Let's say you work at Microcenter, a customer bought a graphic card and left. 5 minute later they came back and said, hey I just bought this, opened it in the parking lot and inside was this large piece of rock, there is no GPU in it. Would you believe in that customer or will you think that person is trying to scam the store, and is trying to get 2 cards for the price of 1, or free by demanding a refund.

 

If you are that customer and it so happened it was a rock inside the box, and you went back into the store. How can you prove that is what was inside the box?

[Brooksie359]

8 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

Well you got the correct item in the box, with scammers swapping out parts like this topic here, it would be safer to open it in front of them, just in case.

Let's say you work at Microcenter, a customer bought a graphic card and left. 5 minute later they came back and said, hey I just bought this, opened it in the parking lot and inside was this large piece of rock, there is no GPU in it. Would you believe in that customer or will you think that person is trying to scam the store, and is trying to get 2 cards for the price of 1, or free by demanding a refund.

 

If you are that customer and it so happened it was a rock inside the box, and you went back into the store. How can you prove that is what was inside the box?

This wouldn't happen as I don't buy open box products and microcenter checks the open box products regardless to ensure there is an actual product in there. I mean they don't Simply take a person's returned product and put it back on the shelf like Amazon does. It's not like microcenter is getting their supplies from some shady third party seller so I don't have to worry about the product not being in the box if it is brand new.