Winners & losers: We've seen plenty of stories over the years about fake computer components bought from Amazon, but the problem isn't limited to the likes of graphics cards and CPUs. Just ask the person who bought a Switch 2 title and was sent an empty game card that ended up breaking their handheld.
ResetEra user jokkir writes that they found an Amazon Warehouse discount deal for the excellent Pragmata on the Switch 2.
For those unfamiliar, Amazon Warehouse is the retail giant's section for used, open-box, returned, refurbished, or slightly damaged-packaging products sold at discounted prices. That might make some people think twice about purchasing from the platform, but having bought several other games on Amazon Warehouse in the past without any problems, jokkir wasn't concerned.
Once Pragmata arrived, the user slotted it into his Switch 2. When nothing happened, jokkir tried to remove the card but it got stuck. The only solution was to pry it out.
Unfortunately, it seems the force required to remove what was essentially a foreign object from the Switch 2 damaged the console. Jokkir notes that some pins may have been damaged because the device stopped reading his other games after the incident.
The problem was that the game card was literally just an empty shell with no components inside.
A photo of the game-key card in question reveals the problem. There are plenty of discrepancies: the shell color is slightly wrong, it lacks the marking on the back, the label placement looks off, and there are no contacts showing through the rear grooves. Also, the notch on the rear bottom-right is missing, making it look more like a Switch 1 card in red.
The most likely and familiar explanation is that this is a typical Amazon swap scam: someone buys a product, files a return request to get their money back, and sends in a fake that goes unnoticed during the returns process.
Some users have speculated that the card may have been 3D printed, which is certainly a possibility given that it looks cheaply made. Hopefully, jokkir will be able to get a full refund.
There has been a slew of Amazon return scam stories over the years. In December, someone bought a Corsair Vengeance DDR5 kit that turned out to be DDR4 in disguise – that was also from Amazon Warehouse.
While most of these fakes are easy to spot, an RTX 4090 that was sent to Northwest Repair featured laser etching on the VRAM and GPU core, making it appear almost identical to the real thing. No word if it came from Amazon, though.