WTF?! Imagine spending an obscene amount of money on an RTX 5090, only to discover the box contains nothing but backpacks. More than 30 people who bought Zotac versions of Nvidia's flagship made this discovery after purchasing the cards from a Micro Center store in Santa Clara.
A redditor going by the handle JamesFerg650 posted an image – taken in a car – of his Zotac RTX 5090 box that had been purchased from Micro Center Santa Clara. Other images showed the box opened on a bed, containing nothing but sealed GlamAholic backpacks.
The box was returned to Micro Center, naturally. It's easy to imagine the store refusing to hand over another card by claiming this was all an unimaginative ruse to get a free RTX 5090. But staff did give JamesFerg650 his replacement because 31 other people also bought backpack-filled Zotac boxes.
It seems whoever swapped the cards for the backpacks made sure the weights were similar – just half a pound difference.
In a statement addressing the situation, the store said it was aware of the reports and investigating. Micro Center has since confirmed that the incidents took place – several Reddit comments had cast doubt on JamesFerg650's claims.
The company said the boxes had been altered at the Zotac factory in China. Zotac USA responded to the Reddit thread and is doubtlessly carrying out its own investigation.
Micro Center lists the card in question at $2,900. With at least 32 presumably stolen, that's almost $93,000 worth of pilfered cards.
This isn't the first time we've seen retailers selling GPU boxes containing items that aren't graphics cards. In 2022, a Newegg customer received an RTX 4090 box filled with weights. Sometimes the cards are there but missing vital components like the GPU itself or VRAM chips. There was also the case of the person who bought an RTX 3060 Ti from Amazon and found it filled with a putty-like substance.
When these cases are isolated, it can be difficult for customers to prove they were genuine victims rather than scammers. It's often suggested that you record the opening of expensive deliveries, and unbox high-value hardware in the store at the time of purchase – if possible.