Stop Buying Electronics from Amazon

This nightmare began in July when - against my own gut instinct and lack of availability at Best Buy or Microcenter - I purchased a brand new Nvidia RTX 4090 from Amazon (not a third party seller - shipped from/sold by Amazon.com), and received what was clearly a ‘return fraud’ box with an RTX 4070 inside. It appears someone simply ordered the original 4090, swapped their own card, and returned it - and worse yet, Amazon simply restocked and reshipped it as new.

Thankfully, I had learned to take videos of all my unboxings from Amazon. The video - and pictures - clearly show the box was unsealed and tampered with.

Of course, I immediately open a chat with customer service (never call as there’s no record for you) and tell them I’ve received the wrong item and that it’s been tampered with. The agent tells me to open a return. I initially refused, stating that I didn’t trust them to follow through with a refund and instead would blame me for returning the wrong item. Maddeningly, there’s no way to send Amazon pictures in a chat - so you can’t document what you’ve received. In any case, they refused to budge, and wanted the item returned. I quintuple-verified in chat that they’d be receiving the wrong item and that I expect a full refund, or I’d be contacting my state’s Attorney General and AMEX. They insisted there’d be no issues.

I received a UPS QR code, took the original box to UPS, photographed the return/contents at UPS, and of course kept the return receipt. Amazon received the return the next day, and of course, the ‘30 days to receive a refund ’ countdown began anyways. The return was received on June 24, and I was told my refund would be processed by July 16. July 16 comes, and of course, I log in to my account and see “there’s a problem with your return - contact us to help with a refund.” At this point, my prophecy of being blamed for committing return fraud had come true.

I open the chat, explain to three different agents what I’d been told (and referenced chat history, which they can undoubtedly see) and got the run around - in fact, I received two different answers. Two agents told me everything was fine and that they’d process a refund within 24 hours, and email me a receipt - one said that they had to ‘check with a supervisor due to the amount,’ and abruptly ended the chat.

On July 16, I filed a complaint against Amazon with my state’s AG, and opened a dispute with AMEX.

The emails you’ll see above show their final and initial responses after AMEX contacted them. In the initial response, they claim I sent them an RTX 3090 - I didn’t receive a 3090. It was a used 4070. Either they made this up, or there was yet another case of return fraud they’d confused with this situation.

This dragged on for nearly 2 more weeks until I was finally able to send Amazon video/pictures of what I unboxed; as soon as Amazon received the same bevy of videos and pictures I’d sent to AMEX, they immediately processed the chargeback in my favor. I had already received and installed my legitimate 4090 from Best Buy. Saga over, right?

…Not quite. Last week, I opened my AMEX statement to see that $2,056 due - Amazon had re-charged the amount without a single notification to me, nearly 5 months later. I called AMEX (luckily, my card gets me straight to US customer service) and they confirmed it. We opened another chargeback, and Amazon immediately closed it in my favor - again - and told AMEX it was a ‘billing error.’ Yeah, sure. I updated my AG report; I did actually get a call from the AG’s office stating that based on the evicence I’d sent, this is theft/fraud on Amazon’s behalf.

The person handling the AG complaint said they’ve been seeing a significant rise in the number of cases like this one in the past year - but state AG offices just don’t have the staff to chase Amazon-specific complaints and cases.

I’ve been a Prime member for 12 years, I rarely ever make returns (to be specific, 6 out of my last 80 orders were returned, all under $50). This is how Amazon decided to go about this - and then tried to sneak a re-charge in one week before the holidays, claiming it was done ‘in error.’

I’ve removed all cards, placed a lock on my AMEX for a few months, and canceled Prime. My cancellation of Prime won’t matter much, but I hope my situation encourages others to act. Dishonest customer service agents, what appears to be zero return inspection discipline, and reshipment of opened items as ‘new’ should be enough for any of us to refuse to give this company any more trust than it’s already proven it cannot handle.