Putty-Filled GPU Causes Months-Long Dispute Between Amazon and Canadian Customer

Zotac GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
(Image credit: Zotac)

Amazon and one of its customers based in Canada locked horns over a refund for a $690 graphics card earlier this year. The customer, François Legault of Calgary, claimed the purchased Zotac GeForce RTX 3060 Ti contained a fake graphics card filled with a putty-like substance. Amazon wouldn’t entertain his request for a refund, as it insisted the “correct” item should be packed up and sent back to its warehouse, before the customer could receive any reimbursement.

Zotac GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

(Image credit: François Legault)

Earlier this week CBC News posted a report on the efforts by the Legault family to try and get some justice from Amazon, and the absurd situation they have found themselves in. The graphics card order was part of a much larger components order which François bought his son to recognize the work he put in before his high school graduation.

Among the extensive selection of parts bought from Amazon, back in June this year, was the Zotac GeForce Twin Edge RTX 3060 Ti graphics card at $690, as well as some other tasty choices like the NZXT H510 case, a 16GB kit of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3600 memory, a Samsung 98 Series 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD, and an MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk motherboard.

Zotac GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

(Image credit: Zotac)

With the system almost complete but lacking the all-important graphics card, François, who purchased all the components for his son Matthew, contacted Amazon and sent the fake part back to secure a refund. However, an administrator at the retailer said that they threw away the fake graphics card “to protect employees.” (Did someone think it was plastic explosive?) It was added that the refund would only be processed when the “correct” item is returned. This decision by Amazon was claimed to be “final,” in an email to the Legault family.

After months of deadlock, and the Legaults dismayed by Amazon’s seemingly unfair and unfriendly return policy, CBC’s consumer-affairs focussed Go Public program has managed to secure a refund and apology for the family. In discussions with the online retail giant, the CBC reporter had some questions about company policy and behavior, but Amazon wouldn’t shine any light on topics like how often this kind of refund issue occurs. The video report ends by advising customers to shop local and, indeed, the Legaults eventually bought a replacement graphics card from a nearby retailer.

Echoes of the Newegg RTX 4090 Saga

The above story, where a seemingly unyielding customer service department refuses to issue a refund for goods discovered to be very much not as described, reminds us of our coverage of the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4090 box full of metal weights saga from October. In the Newegg case, it only took about a week from the complaint hitting major media outlets, via social media, before the retailer relented.

There are some important lessons here: Where possible, it is wise to open and check big-ticket items at the retailer, or with perhaps the delivery operative witnessing it. If that isn’t possible you could make a video from the receipt of the package to opening it. All these little pieces of evidence can help your case, further down the line, if you are unlucky enough to suffer from a bogus product package delivery. Although it is likely that these kinds of occurrences are very rare.

Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

  • PEnns
    Which proves, for the nth time, that unless you go public big time, with news outlets discussing this issue, the consumer is SOL. And that the big online retailers couldn't give a rat's butt about their customers!!
    Reply
  • blacknemesist
    Big corps sets the rules to their lower employees in support, support does exactly what the manual says to the letter, situations like this drag on and on because support does not want the heat of a superior and the customer has no way to get to someone with authority to rule these cases.
    Amazon has support for Portugal in Spanish and when I made basic questions they took quite a lot of time to answer(phone support) and there was no confidence in their voice which led to me not buying a G8 off of them. If I don't know if I can return the item or not because I need to open plastic bags to try the item then I am not ordering, sorry, bought it off the only company that actually let's me try the hardware 100% and money back if I do not like it which in image and sound is understandably needed to try for yourself.
    Reply
  • YouFilthyHippo
    PEnns said:
    Which proves, for the nth time, that unless you go public big time, with news outlets discussing this issue, the consumer is SOL. And that the big online retailers couldn't give a rat's butt about their customers!!

    Its not all about going public. Its also about execution: How you do it. Whenever you order a hot commodity such as PC components, film yourself opening the package. Just in case. Call the retailer, explain the situation. If they deny you, tell them you have video of you opening the package. If they still deny you, go public with the evidence, and quash out the retailer. Any monkey can pull a GPU out of a box and jam a brick in there and take a photo. You gotta film yourself opening the package, gather the evidence, then go after these clowns.
    Reply
  • ThatMouse
    There are a lot of companies out there with bad reviews and F ratings on BBB, so I don't think going public always works. I'm often surprised when Amazon refunds me no questions asked, like I'm using up my one freebie for the year.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    I assume this was probably purchased from an Amazon Marketplace Seller. You really need to look at their %-rating and the number of reviews they've gotten, and don't take your chances on a big-ticket item with anyone below like 95% and a few thousand reviews.

    I guess the other possibility is that he bought it from Amazon Warehouse as an "open box" item, and the original staffer handling the return wasn't diligent enough to fully open and inspect the merchandise. I always wonder about who buys "open box" items, because the price difference usually isn't enough to justify the risk (but that presumes there's any non-open box stock available).

    Another troubling aspect of this is that presumably whoever made the substitution (i.e. the real return fraudster or faithless marketplace seller) got away with it. That's just going to encourage them to try it again.
    Reply
  • newtechldtech
    bit_user said:
    I assume this was probably purchased from an Amazon Marketplace Seller. You really need to look at their %-rating and the number of reviews they've gotten, and don't take your chances on a big-ticket item with anyone below like 95% and a few thousand reviews.

    I guess the other possibility is that he bought it from Amazon Warehouse as an "open box" item, and the original staffer handling the return wasn't diligent enough to fully open and inspect the merchandise. I always wonder about who buys "open box" items, because the price difference usually isn't enough to justify the risk (but that presumes there's any non-open box stock available).

    Another troubling aspect of this is that presumably whoever made the substitution (i.e. the real return fraudster or faithless marketplace seller) got away with it. That's just going to encourage them to try it again.

    95% is considered "low" even with thousand reviews ... 99% is the way to go.
    Reply
  • drtweak
    And this is why i always video myself opening it. I had this happened to me once at Microcenter. I bought a low end video card to add in an older dell inspiron which only had 1 video output. I got it, took it to my office, opened it, and BAM! No video card. It was only like 30 or 40 bucks but still. I went back and I wasn't sure if they would do anything about it. Luckily they refunded me. Now, anything that is not fully sealed, i check it before i buy it.
    Reply
  • umeng2002_2
    Spend thousands of dollars at a business just to be treated like a criminal... sort of like DRM.
    Reply
  • svan71
    I recently received an Odyssey Neo G7 pretending to be a G8. It was an open box purchase, but somebody actually pulled the guts out of the G8 and swapped with a G7 and then retuned the item to Amazon. I was the sucker who bought it next. Thankfully no issues with the return.
    Reply
  • outsider2k21
    Last week I purchase Asus x670e hero and Corsair HX1000w power supply from Amazon Canada and Intelcom that Amazon Canada used to delver the package just left my package at lobby instead bring it up to my unit. :mad:

    Amazon Canada used fedex to delver the Samsung S22 ultra 512 which requires signature yet op to use intelcom to deliver 1200 dollars worth of computer parts.
    Reply