Newegg refunds customer who received RTX 4090 box filled with weights

[midian182]

WTF?! Paying one-and-a-half thousand dollars for a graphics card is a big decision, but those concerns often vanish when you're enjoying blistering framerates at high resolutions. What will give you buyer's remorse, however, is opening an RTX 4090 box and finding it filled only with weights. Luckily for the person involved, seller Newegg has given them a full refund.

The strange story began a few days ago when Reddit user u/NuclearInnardsBeep posted a photo of what he claimed was inside the RTX 4090 box they ordered from Newegg: nothing but a couple of large metal blocks.

The poster also claimed that rather than responding, Newegg locked their account when they complained to the retailer, which sounds like the company assumed it was dealing with a scam. But it has now been confirmed that the account was only suspended for a few days while the investigation took place, as is Newegg's standard practice when dealing with fraud cases.

Eric Wein, head of public relations and partnerships at Newegg, told Tom's Hardware that it was "unable to determine the source of the theft" and that the customer has been fully refunded and their account reinstated.

"The package was weighed both at Newegg and by the carrier. Its weight was the same and standard in both measurements for that 4090 graphics card," Wein wrote. He confirmed this has been "the only fraud case like this" and that "Newegg considers this a resolved customer case."

The whole situation has brought a lot of heated arguments. Many commentators have raised questions over whether this was a scam, highlighting apparent discrepancies such as the lack of scuffs or compression marks on the inner box carton one would expect to see from loose metal blocks being transported unsecured. Interestingly, the Redditor also took photos of the box's damaged corners before opening it as he was going to complain to Newegg about the state of the packaging.

One has to wonder if Newegg would have reacted the same way had the incident not come soon after the Gamers Nexus debacle, which saw the company change its open-box return policy following host Steve Burke's attempts to return a motherboard. It claimed the pins were bent and there were thermal paste traces around the PCB, despite Burke never even opening the box.

Burke had offered to pay the Redditor full price for the box and weights so Gamers Nexus could investigate and "nail Newegg to the wall if they're doing this."

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/96462-newegg-refunds-customer-who-received-rtx-4090-box.html

 

[DSirius]

Next Nvidia 4090 scam will be to get the box with a fire extinguisher instead of the video card, 'cause safety measures first

 

[CanAqua]

Don't you mean lucky for NVidia since they have shipped out crap like this.

 

[EdmondRC]

Someone stole this card during the packaging process. Most likely they sold it. They knew what they were doing too because they made sure the weight was appropriate to make it through QA. Still, I would not be surprised at all if they were caught on camera and will be caught once it's all reviewed. Obviously, where these things are assembled, what they can get for these cards is probably equivalent to 1/4 or more of their yearly salary. The temptation was too much for one employee.

 

[psycros]

Someone stole this card during the packaging process. Most likely they sold it. They knew what they were doing too because they made sure the weight was appropriate to make it through QA. Still, I would not be surprised at all if they were caught on camera and will be caught once it's all reviewed. Obviously, where these things are assembled, what they can get for these cards is probably equivalent to 1/4 or more of their yearly salary. The temptation was too much for one employee.

I guarantee you that it wasn't a one-man job and that many cards were replaced. This was almost certainly a crooked reseller taking advantage of Newegg's desire to be another Ebay.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

[...] and they put it back on the shelf and sell it until the next sucker buys it, which in this case was me. A sucker with an "s" just for the YouTube algorithm

That embedded video is great.

 

[Rq3EWAq]

I watched Gamers Nexus blow up video and the follow up, such a story! Thanks for sharing this in the article.

 

[Avro Arrow]

"What will give you buyer's remorse, however, is opening an RTX 4090 box and finding it filled only with weights."
So too will discovering after only a month or two that you could have spent more than $500 less and got a card that was only marginally slower.

"The poster also claimed that rather than responding, Newegg locked their account when they complained to the retailer, which sounds like the company assumed it was dealing with a scam. But it has now been confirmed that the account was only suspended for a few days while the investigation took place, as is Newegg's standard practice when dealing with fraud cases."
I don't necessarily disagree with locking the account for a few days while the investigation takes place but I definitely disagree with the lack of communication with the customer. If you're going to do that, you have to communicate to the customer your intentions because otherwise, it just looks like you're screwing them over.

What Newegg needs to do is figure out who took the card to begin with because clearly, this smacks of internal theft.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

What is wrong with this company?
I ordered a few SATA cables and got a lousy RTX 4090 instead

I demand a refund!

 

[emmzo]

What is wrong with this company?
I ordered a few SATA cables and got a lousy RTX 4090 instead

I demand a refund!

I`m still waiting for the weights. I ordered 100 boxes.

 

[p51d007]

I'd check out those two guys that were sticking weights in the fish they caught
at a fishing tournament.

 

[tmehanna]

These things happen a lot more than people think. I once received a size 7 off brand black pair of sneakers in the original box of the size 13 white chucks I ordered from and sold by Amazon. I was refunded of course, but these things are common. It takes a cutting edge, just released tech item to make the news though.

 

[Tetr1s]

Man, just imagine spending 1.5k $USD for 2 weights, only on newegg istg!!!

 

[Chemicalfaerie]

Someone stole this card during the packaging process. Most likely they sold it. They knew what they were doing too because they made sure the weight was appropriate to make it through QA. Still, I would not be surprised at all if they were caught on camera and will be caught once it's all reviewed. Obviously, where these things are assembled, what they can get for these cards is probably equivalent to 1/4 or more of their yearly salary. The temptation was too much for one employee.

I agree. In 2019 I purchased a New Ryzen 9 in the box from Amazon. what showed up was factory sealed with an intact hologram sticker in place. What was inside was a color photocopy of the chip taped to the top of an old Intel Xeon chip. That was a trip.

 

[YOUDIEMOFO]

Bought three 1tb SSD's from Newegg once. Got what I paid for when it was to be received. Almost a half a year plus later I received another box from Newegg (didn't order anything recently) I opened it up and Viola there was a book inside from 1970 something about gunsmithing!

Called Newegg customer service and spoke with them on the matter. States right on the shipping label that it indeed was x3 WD Blue SSD's that were supposed to be in the box.

Surely they wanted me to return the box with the contents, but as time would have it the damn thing sat next to my door for almost a year, so it's not going anywhere.

Just hilarious that after they allowed third party sellers on their site they have some serious issues with shipping and receiving. Especially as it was an inside job from someone in Newegg using and recycling an old shipping label...

Pretty sad these practices even happen let alone get past their shipping department in general.