We have reported the RTX 5090 fraud incident many times, but this is the first time we have encountered such a ruthless package swap. Recently, Reddit user pcmasterrace posted:He purchased a brand new MSI RTX 5090 from Amazon France, which is sold and shipped by Amazon (not any third-party seller).
However, when he received the goods,I immediately became suspicious when I saw that there was no tamper seal on one of the screws on the back of the card. This means that the graphics card has been removed before.
Sure enough, when the graphics card was plugged in, the fan would not spin or operate normally, and the PCIe gold finger also showed obvious signs of use.When he used a flashlight to look at the gap in the radiator, he was stunned on the spot - the video memory chip was missing. Later, when he removed the radiator, he was surprised to find that not only the video memory chip was missing, but also the GPU chip had been removed, leaving only an empty PCB.
Wccftech guesses,The other party removed the GPU chip and video memory, and then soldered them to another customized PCB for AI training. However, I don’t know through which channel the scrap card was transferred to the user, and it was most likely that it was switched.
Apparently, even graphics cards sold and shipped by Amazon aren't immune to this.
