"Mass" Fraud Reported by WCCFTech on Ryzen CPU Returns at Amazon

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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As noted, WCCFTech has scoured two posts at Reddit (here and here), that show how they have purchased "fake" Ryzen processors from Amazon.

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People returning processors that are NOT what has been purchased has been going on since I started reviewing hardware 20 years ago, so this is far from a new scam and happens on a daily basis with everything computer related. These two instances are a bit different as the perpetrators have gone through the trouble of looking like what is a re-screening of Intel CPUs with Ryzen branding. While two instances is far from "mass" fraud, it is worth pointing out that if you are going to buy Ryzen processors from Amazon you should grab one direct from Amazon rather than a 3rd party reseller.

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X Processor (YD180XBCAEWOF)
AMD Ryzen 7 1700X Processor (YD170XBCAEWOF)
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 Processor with Wraith Spire LED Cooler (YD1700BBAEBOX)
AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Processor (YD160XBCAEWOF)
AMD Ryzen 5 1600 Processor with Wraith Spire Cooler (YD1600BBAEBOX)
AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Processor with Wraith Spire Cooler (YD150XBBAEBOX)
AMD Ryzen 5 1400 Processor with Wraith Stealth Cooler (YD1400BBAEBOX)

And look in the side window BEFORE you open the box. HardOCP readers know the difference between an AMD and Intel CPU by what the IHS looks like alone. Put that eagle eye to good use.
 
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Oh I would be so pissed off if that happened to me.

What's the point though? You sell a few on amazon then get black listed and have to start the scam all over again with new setup. Seems like a lot of work for minimum payoff.
 
Both of these purchases WERE direct from Amazon though, and not a third party seller.
Wow. That means the fraudulent cpus were sold at the wholesale level to Amazon directly then? Then packed and shipped to the buyer by people that may not know it's a fake. If that's the scam then it may be able to operate for for longer than setting up as a seller etc etc.
 
Both of these purchases WERE direct from Amazon though, and not a third party seller.
Yes and no if what I read was correct: it seems Amazon inter-mingles 3rd party seller stock in with their normal stock. So it sounds very possible that one can still get a fake/counterfeit product from Amazon (non 3rd-party). That is if I am reading the Reddit comments correctly and as the truth... LOL
 
it's intel doing it so that people are wary about buying a ryzen cpu, so they get intel! Hence the intel cpus and not some old socket 939 chip.
 
Microcenter is way overpriced compared to online pricing unless you only buy their on sale items. Every time I have gone to one and looked at prices of what I needed/wanted, I could get the same exact thing for 30%+ less than what MC was selling it for.

And we don't have a Microcenter of Fry's anywhere near where I live.

The only computer store that is worth anything jacks up the prices of most of their stuff through the roof. Yeah, I want to pay $100+ more for a video card than what I can order it online for... NOT

Microcenter price matches pretty much everywhere if you talk to a sales associate. You can even just look it up at the store.

What Microcenter does well though is that they sell CPU's generally cheaper than online, and with an additional discount if you buy a Motherboard too. So that gets you in the store, then you either buy the rest of the components there (to build immediately) or you order the rest online.

The real savings by not shopping at Microcenter is basically tax.
 
Wow. That means the fraudulent cpus were sold at the wholesale level to Amazon directly then? Then packed and shipped to the buyer by people that may not know it's a fake. If that's the scam then it may be able to operate for for longer than setting up as a seller etc etc.

More likely, it's the return department. I've had to deal with people who have purchased directly from Amazon, and the serial number shows up in our system as a different person who called in with a problem, who returned to Amazon. The new customer is experiencing the exact same problem as the first customer. It appears Amazon's returns department doesn't do much verification of returns, and simply restocks "as new" many returns.
 
not that fake procs arent news, because they are...but lmao wccftech. """""very well organized"""" """"mass"""" fraud is """"""""very elaborate"""""""". im glad i have my adblock on for that site, theyre a bunch of melodramatic gossipmongers. the only factual thing they said is that its fraud & its occurring.

also this is just me being 1000% bitchy but the dude wrote distinctively different in his article which is redundant as hell & doesnt make grammatical sense. okay, im done
 
Microcenter price matches pretty much everywhere if you talk to a sales associate. You can even just look it up at the store.

What Microcenter does well though is that they sell CPU's generally cheaper than online, and with an additional discount if you buy a Motherboard too. So that gets you in the store, then you either buy the rest of the components there (to build immediately) or you order the rest online.

The real savings by not shopping at Microcenter is basically tax.

Ok, cool. If there was one anywhere near where I live I would go there and check them out. The closest one is about 3.5 hours away.
 
I have been seeing a similar thing with Ubiquiti products on Amazon. I have purchased over 100 EdgeSwitches from Ingram Micro, with no problems. I bought 8 off Amazon over the course of 2 months, and 7 of them were DOA. The way Amazon handles inventory now, they wont say what seller the stock came from, it all "comes from Amazon". I'm wondering if this is some kind of return scam. Buy broken/parts items cheap, buy the same item new from Amazon, then put the junk in the new box and return it to Amazon.
 
Amazon returns are pathetic, i bought a 980ti strix NEW from amazon and in the box was an old geforce 275oc or 285oc, was a BFG card regardless. Its like you buy new and you run the risk of getting a return, fucking joke.

Found the pic i took at the time

Xm2HE0k.jpg


I was refunded but it could easily have went the other way, how Amazon are getting away with selling returns as "new" is beyond me.
 
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Amazon needs to get a handle on this.

I recently purchased a new battery for my Note 4 from Amazon
Battery was listed as a new oem battery, in the original box.

Box looked like a retail Samsung box, but I noticed the seal was broken on the bottom flap.
The battery would charge, but only lasted about 1/2 as long as my currently battery.

After more testing, I came to conclusion that the battery was used and returned it.
After digging through the reviews, it became obvious that it would be almost impossible to buy a new OEM battery on Amazon, since all the sellers where shipping either used batteries or cheap copies.

You either have to buy the battery direct from Samsung, or buy a good quality 3rd party battery from Amazon or the manufacture. (nobody seems bother faking 3rd party batteries yet)
 
More likely, it's the return department. I've had to deal with people who have purchased directly from Amazon, and the serial number shows up in our system as a different person who called in with a problem, who returned to Amazon. The new customer is experiencing the exact same problem as the first customer. It appears Amazon's returns department doesn't do much verification of returns, and simply restocks "as new" many returns.
This is what I figured happened, too. I've bought used things from Amazon and the wrong items have come in the box. Actually, I thought that's why Microcenter was brought up since the same thing happens there and used to be what I thought was common knowledge to open the box and check it out really well before purchase for that reason.
 
The Returns Department of Amazon on the other hand...lol

This. I've had a rash of new items from Amazon that were fraudulent returns. Heck, I received 2 of 4 shocks for the car that were clearly returns, Amazon sent out 2 to replace those and they were also fraudulent/used/errored returns (wrong part#, used, or missing components).

It'll happen at every store. The difference between Amazon and a brick store is that the latter you can usually tell. I'm surprised Amazon doesn't have some form of CV comparison of the items.
 
Why bother with overpriced Ryzens to start with? Endless bios problems, now counterfeits on top of it because the marketing hype. Save yourself some trouble and heartache, and go to microcenter.
$280 i7-7700k http://www.microcenter.com/product/472529/Core_i7-7700K_Kaby_Lake_42_GHz_LGA_1151_Boxed_Processor
$190 i6-7600k http://www.microcenter.com/product/472532/Core_i5-7600K_Kaby_Lake_380_GHz_LGA_1151_Boxed_Processor

And you won't need to worry about the CPU bottlenecking your GPU already. People are foolishly discounting/gnoring the 1080p test results. Move up a resolution and See the Ryzen already slowing down the GTX1080ti even at 1440p:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11244...x-vs-core-i5-review-twelve-threads-vs-four/13
http://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/2875-amd-r5-1600x-1500x-review-fading-i5-argument/page-4
https://www.hardocp.com/article/2017/05/26/definitive_amd_ryzen_7_realworld_gaming_guide/13
Just imagine the next gen GPU, Ryzen is NOT future-proofing nothing. It is a timebomb waiting to crimp your nextgen GPU on 4K performance.

And to go Ryzen just so you can game like Sandbridge is so sad. From the link above:
"Overall, the AMD Ryzen 7 1700X at an overclocked 4GHz provided the same performance and gameplay experience as the Intel 2600K on Z68 at 4.5GHz. It was most competitive with the 2600K CPU with both overclocked to the highest levels."

But if you insist on providing charity donations to AMD you can get those microcenter to:
http://www.microcenter.com/search/s...y=pricelow&N=4294966995+4294965455+4294845179

At least you could avoid the fraudster taking advantage of the gullible.
 
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Oh I would be so pissed off if that happened to me.

What's the point though? You sell a few on amazon then get black listed and have to start the scam all over again with new setup. Seems like a lot of work for minimum payoff.

They are not selling them on Amazon, as it is not the seller, it is the BUYER. So you buy a CPU from Amazon, get the CPU in, have some cheap busted CPU on hand that you apply Ryzen markings to the IHS, which is pretty easy to do with some basic gear, then return that worthless CPU back to Amazon. Amazon gets it back, possibly "unopened", or opened and it gets inspected, most of these people will see a IHS marked with the correct name and model and think "yep, right part returned" and put it back on the shelf. so the buyer ends up with a free CPU, and someone else down the line who gets shipped that return gets a fake CPU.

This happened online and even a big run at BB before, where people had access to those plastic sealing machines, they went and bought all sorts of HDDs, removed them and stuck a small cinder block/brick inside the box for weight and reapplied the plastic wrap and returned to BB/online stores as unopened, the store sees a box not touched and puts it back on the shelf, only to have someone down the line get a nasty shock.
 
Geesh , another one of you people? Pretty soon they'll have to make a subforum for you guys to hang out in.

What is wrong with "you people". What is it your don't like? Microcenter, Intel? Don't like saving money? Don't like NOT getting scammed?

I'll buy Ryzen chips when they are either 1.) the unrivaled value, or 2.) the are the performance leader across the board and priced on par to intel. So far option 2 is clearly impossible so I suggest AMD price their stuff like they did the back in the days of AthlonXP(t-bird/thoroughberd/baton) vs P4. So all ryzens needs to be priced lower than the 7700K, $250 max for the 1800x.

And it is already well known the that the 1800x/1700x are really just rebadged 1700 with adjusted default clocking settings, which in itself is a scam of sorts. See:
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-1700/3916vs3917

Charging $420 for the 1800x when the 1700 is at $280 is AMD taking donations from its fans. And they do no overclock any better than the 1700. And all this fuss just to game like sandbridge.

So the unrivaled pricing would be:
1800x $250
1700x $225
1700 $200
1600x 175
1600 150
1500x $125
1400 $100

And get rid of the FX piledriver, vishera, and other obsolete crap. AMD should do something to make Intel earn their keep as it is. Right now, with the ridiculously high priced Ryzen, Intel is getting away with murder so to speak.
 
They are not selling them on Amazon, as it is not the seller, it is the BUYER. So you buy a CPU from Amazon, get the CPU in, have some cheap busted CPU on hand that you apply Ryzen markings to the IHS, which is pretty easy to do with some basic gear, then return that worthless CPU back to Amazon. Amazon gets it back, possibly "unopened", or opened and it gets inspected, most of these people will see a IHS marked with the correct name and model and think "yep, right part returned" and put it back on the shelf. so the buyer ends up with a free CPU, and someone else down the line who gets shipped that return gets a fake CPU.

This happened online and even a big run at BB before, where people had access to those plastic sealing machines, they went and bought all sorts of HDDs, removed them and stuck a small cinder block/brick inside the box for weight and reapplied the plastic wrap and returned to BB/online stores as unopened, the store sees a box not touched and puts it back on the shelf, only to have someone down the line get a nasty shock.

But isn't buyer conducting the scam running a real risk? Amazon has to make a delivery to a location, a location that identifies the scammer? It is NOT like the CPUs do NOT have serial numbers, or the inventory system is NOT tracking the numbers. As soon as someone got scammed and files the complaint with Amazon, they would track it back to the person that actually did this.

I would imagine at a BB(big box store a la Best Buy), people paying cash may be able to get away with this. But even then the re-seal will need to be flawless to fool the customer service rep. I recall when I returned stuff for being defective (e.g. monitors with bad pixels), these people actually take stuff out and check it over. It would seem fraud done at the individual level would NOT generate enough occurrences to get caught in the news cycle and get identified or pegged to one product or product line.

What I suspect, there is insiders at Amazon going rogue. It is much easier stealing from backroom pretending to work as an employee, they can tell what item is suddenly "hot"(pun intended or not), and be part of some scam ring, especially now that Amazon has their own drivers and such. They take all the stuff to where the plastic sealing machine is, repackage and then deliver. And then they sell the stolen CPU on Ebay or something, heck they can even setup their own Amazon store to sell them as OEM no box or something. They probably won't do this for long, but they make their money and flee. They probably wouldn't have used their real ID for job application obviously, and the low level work at Amazon warehouses is NOT exactly know to be kind to their employees either.
 
But isn't buyer conducting the scam running a real risk? Amazon has to make a delivery to a location, a location that identifies the scammer? It is NOT like the CPUs do NOT have serial numbers, or the inventory system is NOT tracking the numbers. As soon as someone got scammed and files the complaint with Amazon, they would track it back to the person that actually did this.

I would imagine at a BB(big box store a la Best Buy), people paying cash may be able to get away with this. But even then the re-seal will need to be flawless to fool the customer service rep. I recall when I returned stuff for being defective (e.g. monitors with bad pixels), these people actually take stuff out and check it over. It would seem fraud done at the individual level would NOT generate enough occurrences to get caught in the news cycle and get identified or pegged to one product or product line.

What I suspect, there is insiders at Amazon going rogue. It is much easier stealing from backroom pretending to work as an employee, they can tell what item is suddenly "hot"(pun intended or not), and be part of some scam ring, especially now that Amazon has their own drivers and such. They take all the stuff to where the plastic sealing machine is, repackage and then deliver. And then they sell the stolen CPU on Ebay or something, heck they can even setup their own Amazon store to sell them as OEM no box or something. They probably won't do this for long, but they make their money and flee. They probably wouldn't have used their real ID for job application obviously, and the low level work at Amazon warehouses is NOT exactly know to be kind to their employees either.

The number of chips you could RMA this way could be hundreds, as it stands now, Amazon is not even the one who caught it, but customers, it is unclear if Amazon has even started looking into it. So for the very little trouble of setting up an Amazon account they bank a few grand....Pretty good pay out, getting new address to ship to is not hard, look at the thousands of Pixel phones that one guy bought by getting people to buy them and ship to his location, and it took months before anything happened and once it did, it was the second buyer that got screwed and the people who bought the phones in the first place, the one running the flipping service didn't.

Low risk, high reward.
 
Be careful buying cpus form Amazon they take returns and sell them as new. Last year i bought a 6950x and in the box was a 920

Thats what happens when humans are involved. Maybe once robots completely take over, you will actually get the product you purchased.
 
Back in the dark ages I used to work at Computer City (by the now long gone Prestonwood mall in Dallas/Addision. I think there is an In and Out burger there now). You would not have believe the bullshit people tried to return. I'm not even saying taking the time to re-seal a package and slip something in it's place... that takes effort. No no, like returning a $500 3.5 hard drive that is actually a full height ancient POS that is so big the box wouldn't even close. Software all the time that was opened and they would stick blank or AOL floppies and stuff in there. 4MB memory sticks (like $400 back then) replaced with junk 256k sticks, etc etc. We had some braindead chicks who wouldn't even bother to look at the box, just scan and refund. I would tell them to get the hell out of my store with their weak shit. But if they made a scene, and the manager got involved, I would always get defeated and the crooks would get their money or exchange or whatever. I tried to explain these things to the manager, but he WASN'T A COMPUTER GUY, he just MANAGED A COMPUTER STORE. He didn't know the difference of anything and didn't care. Customer is always right etc etc etc. That store closed less than a year after I quit, and Computer City as a whole died shortly after (along with Incredible Universe, Tandy management could screw up a wet dream).

I hope Amazon can chase these tools down and prosecute to the full extent of the law.

Re: the fake Ryzen, I guess they took a picture of the real chip (or stuck it in a scanner) and printed the label out on a clear mailing label, and slapped it on there? Just to look good enough from inside the box? What irony that they used Intel celerons though.... what, they couldn't find any old Athlons or Semprons laying around?
 
I think Microcenter actually has extremely fair prices comparing to online. Something like CPUs are much cheaper there and many other items are nearly the same. I really enjoy going to our Microcenter and its great for emergency purchases. Not sure I'd build a whole rig there since their selection is obviously not as big as online but many processors in our store are as much as $50 less than online so even with taxes it's worth a trip in some cases.

I agree, Microcenter is totally the way to go for CPU's if you're buying a motherboard too. Their bundle deals are tough to beat, even if I do have to pay sales tax. But the pricing on the rest of their stuff is really hit or miss. Some good deals and some stuff is priced so high you just bust out laughing ( ie - cases that are NOT on sale are like 20% above MSRP for some reason).
 
Amazon returns are pathetic...I was refunded but it could easily have went the other way, how Amazon are getting away with selling returns as "new" is beyond me.

Seems to me the return process worked for you. Not sure you can expect a company that sells millions of products to be able to spot forgeries in every one. Best you can do is make it easy to exchange or refund when a problem comes up and investigate any outliers with help from the vendor. In my experience, Amazon does just that.

Amazon purchases are as hassle-free as they get. Three clicks and you have a shipping label. You can wait 30 days to file your return and then get 30 more days to send back after you file. The one time I couldn't complete a return process (some issue with the website) they let me keep the product and issued a refund. All I did was ask them "why can't I return this item?".

I admit this all sounds like an advertisement. All I can add is that I'm still skeptical of the company as a whole. I'm not sure their growing market power is good for consumers in the long run. I'm not sure, outside antitrust action, it's avoidable either. But I can't fault their return process. It's the gold standard for e-commerce.
 
They are not selling them on Amazon, as it is not the seller, it is the BUYER. So you buy a CPU from Amazon, get the CPU in, have some cheap busted CPU on hand that you apply Ryzen markings to the IHS, which is pretty easy to do with some basic gear, then return that worthless CPU back to Amazon. Amazon gets it back, possibly "unopened", or opened and it gets inspected, most of these people will see a IHS marked with the correct name and model and think "yep, right part returned" and put it back on the shelf. so the buyer ends up with a free CPU, and someone else down the line who gets shipped that return gets a fake CPU.

Happened to me, years ago, when I bought a 56k modem at Wal-Mart. The box was perfectly shrink wrapped and when I opened it, a paperback book, just heavy enough to feel legit.
 
The number of chips you could RMA this way could be hundreds, as it stands now, Amazon is not even the one who caught it, but customers, it is unclear if Amazon has even started looking into it. So for the very little trouble of setting up an Amazon account they bank a few grand....Pretty good pay out, getting new address to ship to is not hard....

But that existing ship to address is enough for the police to track down the fraud perp. This of course assumes Amazon cares enough to be aggressive against the fraudsters. From what it seems is that Amazon is extremely permissive to all kind of sellers, many of which are running blatant scams. The photos of the product and actual item do NOT even match, and Amazon doesn't do much other then allow buyers to return the stuff, which of course has to be gold standard to protect the buyers. However the problems of the scammers remain. It would be particularly bad if Amazon have scammers working as their employees which would significantly increase their operational costs. The question is how much money is Amazon making such that they are willing to absorb these costs. But to the buyer who got the counterfeit, it is a massive hassle.
 
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It's not just CPUs...

I recently ordered an EVGA power supply from Amazon but instead I received a bunch of old hard drives taped together.

The seller was Amazon, the box was for the correct PSU, and the returning fraudster even took the time to shrink wrap the box.

Obviously frustrating but Amazon promptly sent me another PSU.

15003311746230 - Copy.jpg
 
It's not just CPUs...

I recently ordered an EVGA power supply from Amazon but instead I received a bunch of old hard drives taped together.

...

That is terrible. People really try to get creative with their scams. But what impossible to determine is if it is indeed a "returning fraudster" or just a "fraudster". Because Amazon will say "fulfilled by amazon", even if the seller could be some 3rd party seller. They just provide a bunch of counterfeit, fake, stock for Amazon to ship and deliver thru their logistics system.

And worse yet, there are those really creative ones, who might even try to take advantage of the media. They could be the source of counterfeit, and they make news about how they got the fake from amazon, when in reality they just pocketed the real item and got money back from Amazon, and push the fake back to Amazon and make themselve look like the victim so they stay in the clear. That would be truly devious.
 
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