Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti bought from Amazon had the box contents swapped for bag of suspicious white powder — PC hardware enthusiast bamboozled by Amazon just days after ordering a 5090 with no GPU core, finds salt instead

A PC hardware enthusiast in Taiwan video recorded their Amazon-sourced RTX 5070 Ti unboxing (Mandarin language, no English closed captions). We aren’t sure if the recording was purely made out of caution, made to bolster @8591’s extensive YouTube channel content, or for a bit of both. However, the (un)lucky PC-centric content creator managed to capture the reveal of a bag of salt inside the freshly received package - live on camera. We hear so much about these kinds of Amazon scams (other retailers are available), it is interesting to see one on video.

The Taiwanese TechTuber starts the video in a positive tone. This is despite a recent episode where he bought an Asus ROG Astral LC GeForce RTX 5090 32GB from Amazon Germany, and received a card that was missing the GPU core, among its multitude of faults, just days earlier.

【亞馬啟動又翻車】全新技嘉5070Ti打開竟是白粉?！[Amazon Fail] Brand New Gigabyte 5070 Ti?! Turns Out to Be White Powder - YouTube

Watch On

Something was sliding around inside the box…

Back to today’s video, and with the outer Amazon-branded packaging removed, the intrepid enthusiast takes a long, hard look at the Gigabyte Aero GeForce RTX 5070 Ti OC 16G box. This gleaming white packaging looks fine. But before even attempting to cut the seal on this carton, something unusual is noticed. When tilting the box from one angle to another, you can clearly hear something sliding around inside – that isn’t normal…

Next, we see the Gigabyte sleeve slide off, the opening of the inner black cardboard box, and the removal of the top padding sheets of protective packaging. There’s just a lumpen package of powder inside – this is what was sliding around in the space cut out for the graphics card. Further investigation reveals that the powder appears to be common table salt.

“Amazon, who did your warehouse contact?”

This live on-camera discovery might help @8591’s YouTube video grab eyes among the PC community. Nevertheless, he is clearly frustrated with Amazon. According to our machine translation, he rhetorically asks, “Amazon, who did your warehouse contact?” Earlier, we mentioned the TechTuber's recent Amazon Germany package with a missing GPU core, and with this for context, the TechTuber complained, “Graphics cards are so valuable, and you don't even bother to inspect them… Two consecutive failures, two consecutive failures… Should I even return this?”

Taiwan’s RTX 50 prices are surprisingly high

It may be surprising to those living beyond the shores of the silicon island, but PC components and tech gadgets aren’t always the cheapest in Taiwan. As Uniko’s Hardware notes, Nvidia GeForce RTX 50 graphics cards are priced particularly high, relative to some alternative sources abroad. This is why enthusiasts like @8591 sometimes decide to order such components from Amazon’s worldwide network (there is no Amazon Taiwan).

The most popular online stores in Taiwan for PC hardware are places like Shoppee.tw and PCHome24. In Taiwan, the best-priced RTX 5070 Ti models at PCHome24 are TWD$32,990 (USD$1,100). With its relatively low VAT rate of 7% this seems too much. A quick glance over at Amazon.com shows RTX 5070 Ti choices are available from USD$779. Only yesterday, we highlighted that U.S. Best Buy customers could even snag an RTX 5080 OC for USD$999.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.

See more GPUs News

TOPICS

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.

5 Comments Comment from the forums

jg.millirem

I’m sorry, all these “ordered expensive tech, got a bag of donkey balls” stories aren’t very interesting. It’s mostly mundane merchant screwups and seller duplicity we’ve all seen over the years.

Maybe move them to the premium tier?
Reply
bolweval

Maybe he did it himself, then filmed the unboxing to complete the ruse..
Reply
waltc3

It doesn't "come from Amazon" unless it plainly states "Sold By" and "Shipped by" Amazon in the online order form a purchaser has to fill out to complete his transaction. If Amazon stocks it and ships it, then, yes, it's fair to say it "came from Amazon," no question about that, even if Amazon is not the supplier, etc. But this case has the hallmarks of an Amazon third-party reseller, in which case Amazon is the front end for the supplier and shipper, only. Amazon never touches the items sold and shipped by third-party resellers!

Since the items ship from the reseller, not Amazon, in this case, then of course Amazon can in no way vouch for or verify the item before it is shipped to the customer. Amazon in this case is just the front end of the transaction, and other than that has nothing whatever to do with the transaction particulars itself. Out of the hundreds of Amazon purchases I've made over the last decade, all but two or three of them were Prime, sold and shipped by Amazon. I've never had a problem, accordingly, which does not surprise me.

I've seen this ploy before, as I'm sure many of us have(!)--only with rocks carefully weighted to substitute for the missing merchandise shipping poundage instead of a bag of salt!!!!! That one is a new one on me...;)

But it is precisely why when I use Amazon it's only Prime, shipped by and sold by Amazon that gets my dollar! Oh, I'll wrap this up by stating that on the very few items I purchased from a third-party reseller through Amazon, it was because I wasn't paying attention to the order when I placed it...;) However, I had no problems there, either, I'm glad to say.

In the event that this guy was indeed being forthright in his description here, I have nothing but sympathy for him, as it isn't any fun when you realize you've been robbed! Grrrr-r-r-rr. It's happened to me a couple of times, I'll confess, but not with Amazon, fortunately. Yes, most of the third-party resellers that use Amazon to collect their sales and purchase orders and handle their customer feedback do a decent job, generally, from what I have read in other reports. But if you can buy what you want "sold and shipped" by Amazon, instead of a third-party reseller, then Amazon is responsible for shipping you what you ordered, period. That's the route I recommend!
Reply
humanShield8035

Even for the price, a bag of salt is still a better value than an actual Gigabyte card. They handed me TWO different cards that failed in the exact same way and lied to my face TWICE about having run tests to prove the problem was on my end. Keep the bag of salt, my guy - at least it will perform as advertised (i.e. flavor food)
Reply
MobileJAD

waltc3 said:
It doesn't "come from Amazon" unless it plainly states "Sold By" and "Shipped by" Amazon in the online order form a purchaser has to fill out to complete his transaction. If Amazon stocks it and ships it, then, yes, it's fair to say it "came from Amazon," no question about that, even if Amazon is not the supplier, etc. But this case has the hallmarks of an Amazon third-party reseller, in which case Amazon is the front end for the supplier and shipper, only. Amazon never touches the items sold and shipped by third-party resellers!

Since the items ship from the reseller, not Amazon, in this case, then of course Amazon can in no way vouch for or verify the item before it is shipped to the customer. Amazon in this case is just the front end of the transaction, and other than that has nothing whatever to do with the transaction particulars itself. Out of the hundreds of Amazon purchases I've made over the last decade, all but two or three of them were Prime, sold and shipped by Amazon. I've never had a problem, accordingly, which does not surprise me.

I've seen this ploy before, as I'm sure many of us have(!)--only with rocks carefully weighted to substitute for the missing merchandise shipping poundage instead of a bag of salt!!!!! That one is a new one on me...;)

But it is precisely why when I use Amazon it's only Prime, shipped by and sold by Amazon that gets my dollar! Oh, I'll wrap this up by stating that on the very few items I purchased from a third-party reseller through Amazon, it was because I wasn't paying attention to the order when I placed it...;) However, I had no problems there, either, I'm glad to say.

In the event that this guy was indeed being forthright in his description here, I have nothing but sympathy for him, as it isn't any fun when you realize you've been robbed! Grrrr-r-r-rr. It's happened to me a couple of times, I'll confess, but not with Amazon, fortunately. Yes, most of the third-party resellers that use Amazon to collect their sales and purchase orders and handle their customer feedback do a decent job, generally, from what I have read in other reports. But if you can buy what you want "sold and shipped" by Amazon, instead of a third-party reseller, then Amazon is responsible for shipping you what you ordered, period. That's the route I recommend!
I honestly have to wonder just how much people actually pay attention to the bit of information while shopping on Amazon regarding if the item comes directly from Amazon or if it comes from a third-party seller... Many of those third-party sellers are virtually the same small outlet that sells on eBay... And from what I understand if a third-party seller on Amazon causes enough trouble and Amazon closes their account for selling on their platform, they just grab a new email address and use a different name while creating a new seller account and maybe use some other details such as a mailing address and they are right back on Amazon pulling the same scummy shit again... I find myself shopping on their wondering how better or worse off Amazon would be if they just killed off the entire third-party seller service and just sold exclusively out of their own AI powered robot operated warehouses only...
Reply

Show more comments