WTF?! It seems that scalpers aren't the only ones exploiting people desperate to buy a new RTX graphics card: Best Buy is doing it as well. The retail giant had a restock of Ampere products yesterday, but the only way you could buy one was to become a member of its $200-per-year Totaltech program.

The Totaltech program offers several perks to members, including 24 months of product protection, free delivery and installation, free Geek Squad tech support, and more. It also offers "Access to exclusive Totaltech member prices," which appears to be where the locked GPUs fall under.

Image credit: PCMag

Twitter user @CameronRitz, who keeps track of graphics card and console restocks, yesterday noted that a restock of RTX 3000-series cards was coming into Best Buy, and that buying one meant signing up to the Totaltech program, adding $200 on top of the price.

"I feel like Best Buy is assuming if you're spending X amount of dollars already on your GPU or PC what's an extra $200 to you?" @CameronRitz tweeted.

Despite having to pay the Totaltech tax, the cards all sold out within the space of about four hours, which is still longer than most Ampere items last when they come into stores. We don't know whether this was a one-time event or if all (or most) future RTX 3000 restocks will only be available to Totaltech members, though it's easy to imagine the latter.

And you get to buy our graphics cards

Retailers are already selling graphics cards for way above their MSRP, and you can expect to pay around double their recommended prices on reseller sites such as eBay, so Best Buy probably does believe people will have no issues with paying $200 just to buy something, even though it's cynical and exploitative. You might have a 0.001% chance of being picked in the Newegg shuffle, but at least it's free to take part.

h/t: PCMag

Image credit: Miosotis_Jade