Gamer buys a new graphics card on Amazon for 1,900 euros, only realizes it’s a counterfeit when he tries to install it in his PC

A gamer purchases a new graphics card on Amazon, but he only receives a fake. This is only noticed when he tries to connect the GPU to his computer. Such scams are repeatedly used on Amazon to harm buyers and Amazon itself.

A graphics card is one of the most important components in a gaming PC. A gamer wanted to invest in a particularly powerful upgrade, but instead, he receives a fake product from Amazon. This is reported by a friend who shares his case.

Gamer receives cooler without the graphics card’s circuit board

What did the gamer purchase? A gamer orders an RTX 4090 on Amazon. This graphics card is currently the fastest GPU available on the market. The gamer uses a regular Amazon offer to order the graphics card and does not buy through a third-party seller. Here he pays £1,600, which is approximately €1,900.

When he opens the package and wants to connect the graphics card, he finds that the graphics card has no PCIe connection to attach the GPU to the motherboard. A friend must clarify for him: He does not have a graphics card, but only the cooler of a GPU, which is a (used) component offered on eBay for around €100. He posts the image on reddit.com.

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Previous buyer sends only the cooling instead of the graphics card back

What exactly happened? In this specific case of the user, we cannot say how the fake came to be. Nevertheless, gamers repeatedly report or show images that they receive only a cooler instead of a GPU. And typically, there is always a similar scheme behind this:

• Often there is a fraudster who buys a graphics card, swaps the official cooler for a water cooling block, and then returns only the official cooler to Amazon.
• The person in the Amazon warehouse who checks the return does not recognize at first glance that it is “only” the cooler, but not the entire graphics card.
• The graphics card is then listed as “like new” again by Amazon because the counterfeit went unnoticed.

In the case of a family man, Amazon did not want to believe the buyer that he received a fake. Only after a journalist got involved and the story became public did Amazon recognize the error and contacted the father: Gamer buys graphics card on Amazon, receives fake product – Seller refuses refund until the “correct” item is returned