New episode in the Amazon scam series where a user buys a Ryzen 9 9950X3D from an Amazon customer return, probably in a bin store that sells pallets of Amazon returns. When he arrives home, after unpacking, he realizes that all he has is the IHS, and the CPU itself is completely missing. In short, whether online or in person, it’s hardly advisable to buy high-value hardware from a customer return.
New Amazon scam: he buys a Ryzen 9 9950X3D and ends up with the IHS!
Scammed despite physical purchase!
Broadly speaking, Amazon does not allow the public to buy on the spot in its warehouses. However, some stores buy pallets of customer returns directly from Amazon, which they then sell off at low prices. This is certainly where he found his Ryzen 9 9950X3D for $180. A golden bargain, especially when you consider the selling price of over $600 for this type of product in the USA.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to inspect the merchandise on the spot and therefore had to proceed with the purchase, go home and open the CPU. When he unpacked it, he discovered that the IHS was sitting on a piece of 3D-printed plastic. In fact, the PCB and CPU are missing from the packaging.
The classic scam:
In short, this is the classic scam, as it involves defrauding the company’s customer returns system. In this case, the original buyer acquired the 9950X3D, delid it (removed the IHS) kept the CPU then put the IHS back on a plastic base then repacked the whole thing in its original packaging and returned it to sender… Amazon in this case. Then, as a result of collecting customer returns and not having the capacity to repackage/resell them, the whole thing is piled up on a pallet bought by a bin store and put up for sale.
If this customer has been swindled, it’s simply because he was unable to check his merchandise before purchase. If he had, he clearly wouldn’t have bought.
