We've seen our fair share of GPU scams around here, with unlucky buyers receiving all sorts of fascinating oddities like rice and macaroni, or even a literal brick in lieu of the card they actually ordered. It's a tale as old as time, and, unfortunately, another Redditor has been shrouded in this narrative. After waiting for a while for GPU prices to come down, our victim finally bit the bullet, only to find sediment, and not the kind that makes silicon.
On November 25, u/GnarDead ordered an Asus TUF RTX 5080 from Best Buy for $1,200, well below the MSRP for this variant. Three days later, the GPU finally arrived... or so they thought. Even before opening up the box, the red flags were already there. The 5080 wasn't put inside a generic cardboard box to conceal its identity, and the shipping labels were directly slapped onto the retail box itself, and the seal was "clearly tampered with."
Opening up the box only confirmed the suspicion as our victim found literal rocks sitting where the GPU was supposed to be. If you're getting some déjà vu reading all this, it's because scams like these have become increasingly commonplace, and bad actors have learned to fool automated systems (that detect weight), and even humans, by simply faking the heft of the package. By the time someone checks, it's already too late, so customer support is the last resort.
Unfortunately, for our unlucky buyer here, even Best Buy's support teams turned them down, saying they couldn't do anything about it and that a refund was not possible after conducting an investigation. Comments suggested taking the matter to social media and blasting Best Buy with hashtags, while others reminded u/GnarDead of the importance of recording unboxings, so that you have conclusive evidence in case of any claims like this. Right now, it's a sort of your word against mine situation.
The best plan of action in the thread was a credit card chargeback. Asking the bank to reverse the transaction after filing a billing dispute is a pretty surefire way of getting your money back. We sincerely hope the victim gets a refund, and for everyone reading, let this serve as a reminder of how unreliable customer protection systems can be at major retailers. Like we always say, remain vigilant until due process takes its course, and remember that nothing scares these companies more than bad PR.
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