News Retailer ships RTX 5090 with missing GPU and memory chips to customer — defaced GPU took over a year to ship

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Another example for why you should never buy anything this expensive via Amazon, especially not via Marketplace and especially not PC hardware... always buy from computer retailers, be they inline or local.

A correction, though, the customer wasn't scammed out of a 5090, but out of his money. He didn't use the 5090 as payment after all.
 
IDK about Amazon France, but over on this side of the pond, Amazon customer service is usually pretty good when it comes to lost or damaged products that shipped directly from Amazon. The catch is, you have to word it in a certain way, like "can I get a replacement", or "I would like a refund", and not "could you please solve this problem for me?"
The latter results in unnecessary back and forth before they resolve the issue.
 
USAFRet said:
"Sold and Shipped by Amazon" is fine.
Direct route to return/refund.

Marketplace? Not a chance.
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This isn't the first time Amazon had issues with stuff like this. Especially in the PC hardware segment. Yes, they are great with returns and refunds, but the customer still has the frustration and work of the return etc. I have no issues if a product is defective because that can happen. But an outright scam like this? That just can't be allowed to happen, especially not multiple times like apparently in France.
 
Part of the problem is that Amazon only checks boxes by weight. If the box weighs what its supposed to weigh, they don't care about what's inside. I got scammed out of a Noctua NF-A14x25 G2 PWM Sx2-PP set of 2 fans that way which was only $77 so there's no minimum to some scams. Bought from and shipped by Amazon from their warehouse in Tennessee. The scammers nowadays are smart enough to shrink wrap the boxes so that no one bothers to look inside and they're clearly skilled enough to steal what they want and reassemble the product so that no one would suspect its fraud. If the weight's right it goes back into inventory.
 
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The correct explanation is not "all" GPU prices are inflated, they are but it's not the reason for GPU/VRAM stripping thefts. The reason is that Nvidia charges 3x more for their "professional" grade cards on consumer grade dies. That huge premium creates a addressable market for custom board makers stripping retail consumer products to refit the dies into "professional" form factors. That black market did not exist before because the arbitrage did not justify the capital investments for the retrofit.

This is what happens when there is an effective monopoly where legal market has failed so black market flourishes.
 
I mean... Consumer protection laws exist because corporations can't be trusted, and yet, we have people whose sole identity is defined not by values, morals, or community, but by corporate branding... Like cattle who gleefully brand themselves, like true Maverick's. I ended my prime membership when I heard about the warehouse workers who were forced to work in the middle of a tornado and ended up losing their lives. There are other options. I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon low key knows all about the sellers behavior but keep them on the platform anyways. Heck, Amazon owns 70% of the internet, (maybe I'm exaggerating, but the stastics are shocking)
 
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How did they order a GPU that came out a little over 6 months ago, a full year ago? The 5090 was announced in January and was officially released January 30th. Already holes in the story that I'm not sure Tom's Hardware of all people didn't question.

Edit: NVM they ordered it a month ago and said "what felt like a year" in the actual Reddit post
 
Shoddy "reporting" from Tom's Hardware - I'd blame AI but even it could read better.

- 5090s weren't available a year ago
- the screenshot in the Reddit thread shows it was ordered JULY 2025 (IE: last month)
- The Redditor said "after what FELT LIKE a year of waiting"

If you're going to regurgitate Reddit posts the least you can do is read the OP with a basic level of comprehension...
 
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So this article must have been written by AI.
It talks of the "redditor's demise", the redditor has not died.
It also mentions the redditor opened up his card to find a missing core. It's called a die not a core.
So either the author of this article is unqualified to write about computer hardware or it was done by AI
 
Eambo said:
Shoddy "reporting" from Tom's Hardware - I'd blame AI but even it could read better.

- 5090s weren't available a year ago
- the screenshot in the Reddit thread shows it was ordered JULY 2025 (IE: last month)
- The Redditor said "after what FELT LIKE a year of waiting"

If you're going to regurgitate Reddit posts the least you can do is read the OP with a basic level of comprehension...
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Yeah I suspect it was written by ai. It also mentions the redditor's demise, the redditor did not die. It also says the redditor opened up his card to find a missing core. The die was missing. It is not called a core
 
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tresnugget said:
How did they order a GPU that came out a little over 6 months ago, a full year ago? The 5090 was announced in January and was officially released January 30th. Already holes in the story that I'm not sure Tom's Hardware of all people didn't question.

Edit: NVM they ordered it a month ago and said "what felt like a year" in the actual Reddit post
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This is what happens when you have ai write your article for you
 
acadia11 said:
Something doesn’t sound right … waited a year to get the GpU? This seems suspect all around?
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He didn't wait a year. In the original post it says it felt like a year.
Then the AI that wrote this article doesn't understand hyperbole.... If you look closer there are many more other comprehension issues.
It mentions the redditor's demise,
It says the redditor opened up the GPU to find a missing core, it's called a die.
 
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And guess what happens to the scammed core and RAM-less graphics card when it gets returned to Amazon for refund? Amazon puts on a pallet, with a variety of other returns and put up for bid. Auctions then bid and buy them, then list everything on the pallet on Hibid.

These items are then have "as-is" in the description.

A few months ago, I bought four "RTX 4090 24GB"" cards, each from different Hibid auction companies ... except NONE of them shipped with a 4090 core or RAM on the PC. Nice, huh?

One auction gave me a refund without much trouble. The other three I had to file disputes with my credit card companies because they were telling me I bought "as-is", clearly hoping I'd just eat multi-thousand dollar losses. I don't blame hibid at all, only these dregs of society auction houses looking to screw over their fellow man for a buck. In my case, to the tune of around $6,000.

Last month, I received my last refund. What a nightmare. Please don't let this happen to you.
 
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TristynR said:
He didn't wait a year. In the original post it says it felt like a year.
Then the AI that wrote this article doesn't understand hyperbole.... If you look closer there are many more other comprehension issues.
It mentions the redditor's demise,
It says the redditor opened up the GPU to find a missing core, it's called a die.
Click to expand...
No, it's actually more often called a core.

Regardless, the point of the article is less about the pedantic but more about unsuspecting buyers (like me) being victims of fraud.
 
mamboman said:
And guess what happens to the scammed core and RAM-less graphics card when it gets returned to Amazon for refund? Amazon puts on a pallet, with a variety of other returns and put up for bid. Auctions then bid and buy them, then list everything on the pallet on Hibid.

These items are then have "as-is" in the description.

A few months ago, I bought four "RTX 4090 24GB"" cards, each from different Hibid auction companies ... except NONE of them shipped with a 4090 core or RAM on the PC. Nice, huh?

One auction gave me a refund without much trouble. The other three I had to file disputes with my credit card companies because they were telling me I bought "as-is", clearly hoping I'd just eat multi-thousand dollar losses. I don't blame hibid at all, only these dregs of society auction houses looking to screw over their fellow man for a buck. In my case, to the tune of around $6,000.

Last month, I received my last refund. What a nightmare. Please don't let this happen to you.
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Just because the AI that wrote this article said the GPU was missing the core, does not mean it was missing a core. It was missing the whole GPU die.The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card is reported to have 21,760 CUDA cores in the GPU die. It is not called a core, don't call it that, you're just reinforcing the incorrect information in the AIs algorithm
 
The RTX 5090 inventory was likely hijacked in transit before reaching Amazon's warehouses, which would leave Amazon with virtually no means to determine whether its GPU inventory has been compromised or not. This is especially the case if the boxes appear untampered, as was the case with this latest report.
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That is not common at all. These are normally returns. Someone takes the card and puts a dead card in the box or a bunch of junk to bring it up to the proper weight. Then they shrink wrap it (it doesn't take a major criminal organization to do this) and mail it back to Amazon as a return or exchange. Amazon doesn't actually check to see if there are any signs of tampering and just weighs it, comparing it against what a new, unopened product should weigh. If it passes the weight test then it goes back on the shelf for resale.
 
TristynR said:
He didn't wait a year. In the original post it says it felt like a year.
Then the AI that wrote this article doesn't understand hyperbole.... If you look closer there are many more other comprehension issues.
It mentions the redditor's demise,
It says the redditor opened up the GPU to find a missing core, it's called a die.
Click to expand...
😭 crying , screen writers guild had it right …
 
SirStephenH said:
Someone takes the card and puts a dead card in the box or a bunch of junk to bring it up to the proper weight. Then they shrink wrap it (it doesn't take a major criminal organization to do this) and mail it back to Amazon as a return or exchange. Amazon doesn't actually check to see if there are any signs of tampering and just weighs it, comparing it against what a new, unopened product should weigh. If it passes the weight test then it goes back on the shelf for resale.
Click to expand...

In my case, each of the four 4090's had what appeared to be the actual brand-name, factory replacement 4090 PCB (without processor or RAM installed).

In the auction, the photos of these cards showed original boxes, some with "Warehouse Deal" labels but all that looked like they were shipped a dozen times. That should have been my first clue before I bid on them, but hey - they also put "still under warranty" in the description too, so I didn't care about the boxes. If they arrived and didn't work, I'd send them in for repair/replacement.

I was able to register the warranty on all of them, and sent in two for warranty, and of course, weren't covered.
 
It sounds pretty suspicious to me. I've never in my life received a product that didn't work and decided that I would take it apart and look inside and see if I could see why it wasn't working. I just send it back. Why would anyone open up a graphics card that doesn't work? I would suspect that he opened it up first removed to the parts and then complain that it didn't have them to try to get them for free. That seems a lot more plausible of an explanation.
 
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