Amazon customer buys RTX 5090, receives rice, pasta, and mystery GPU instead

Why it matters: If you still think that filming the opening of hardware boxes, even those that come from Amazon, is unnecessary, here’s yet another case that could change your mind. A Redditor who ordered an RTX 5090 from the Netherlands branch of the world’s largest retailer allegedly found the box contained a bag of rice, a bag of pasta, and what appears to be an old graphics card.

Ok-Atmosphere7655 posted that he spent weeks saving for an Aorus Master RTX 5090 card. The Redditor admits it’s overkill for many people but wanted to make the most of his Samsung 7,680 x 2,160 monitor and its 240Hz refresh rate. He later confirmed that this is the 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9.

Ok-Atmosphere7655 chose Amazon NL for the purchase as it was the cheapest option in the Netherlands at 2,950 euros ($3,368). But after waiting a week longer than the week-long delivery date, the box arrived damaged and unsealed, filled with bags of rice and pasta.

There was also an old, scruffy graphics card in the box that the unfortunate buyer cannot identify. Based on the photo, it appears to be part of Galax’s KFA2 European brand and comes from its EX/EXOC Pascal series, so it’s likely a GTX 1080 or GTX 1080 Ti.

While we have seen cases like this before, there are some eye-raising elements to this one. The biggest is that the RTX 5090 box was damaged and unsealed with no stickers on it, though it was presumably inside a cardboard box when delivered.

The buyer also confirms that Amazon had this card listed as “new” and it was sold by the retailer itself, not a third-party merchant. The internal track and trace showed it had been shipped to the Netherlands from Spain, which is why it took so long, and it was delivered by an Amazon driver.

Amazon apparently waited several days after Ok-Atmosphere7655 contacted them. The company asked for photographic evidence and for the package to be returned for inspection. The Redditor writes that he has returned it, “but I have this really awful feeling in my gut that they’re not going to take this seriously.”

These sorts of incidents aren’t limited to just online retailers. Last week brought news of RTX 5090 units being sold at Micro Center in sealed boxes that contained only backpacks. It was found that 32 boxes had their contents replaced at the Zotac factory in China.