A player receives a brick instead of a graphics card. In the future, such cases should occur significantly less frequently. At least Amazon intends to discontinue a controversial practice, the “Commingling” program.
What happened to the player? A player reports on Reddit that he ordered a new RTX 5080 on Amazon. For the graphics card, you pay at least 1,000 euros in Germany (via Geizhals.de). On Reddit, he posted a screenshot where you can see the opened package.
However, inside the package is not an expensive graphics card, but instead, a (costly) brick. The player is now hoping that Amazon will reimburse him for the scam and at least give him his money back. How the brick got into the package cannot be conclusively proven. Users suspect that it could have been either an Amazon employee or another buyer who swapped the goods for the return.
At least now Amazon wants to end a controversial practice, the so-called “Commingling” program. For years, buyers and sellers have criticized Amazon for this.
Amazon changes controversial practice to make products traceable
What is changing soon at Amazon? Amazon is discontinuing its long-standing “Commingling” program. The company announced this at the annual seller conference in Seattle (via modernretail.co).
Behind “Commingling” was a practice that has always been considered controversial among sellers: Amazon previously combined identical items from different sellers under one barcode. Amazon argued this led to faster shipping and less space consumption in the warehouse. However, due to this practice, individual products could no longer be reliably traced, as they all shared the same barcode.
For years, companies complained that due to “Commingling”, it was difficult to attribute problems to specific sellers or buyers. They accused Amazon of damaging their reputation by allowing customers to receive counterfeit products and not doing enough to curb the sale of damaged or expired goods by third parties.
In the future, each product will receive its own barcode and thus also be traceable. This way, Amazon is also meeting the needs of many merchants.
How can one protect against such scams? Many people now recommend making a video when unpacking especially expensive hardware:
- If you then hold counterfeit goods or simply the wrong product in your hands, you at least have the evidence on your side.
- Moreover, you can then prove that you did not swap the goods, but that someone must have tampered with the package before you.
Such evidence, however, does not always help, as illustrated by a story of a family man. He also received the wrong GPU from Amazon, but Amazon denied a refund: Gamer buys graphics card on Amazon, receives fake product – seller refuses refund until the “right” item is returned
