Every once in a while, a story comes up that really makes us scratch our heads. A recent example of this was people willing to pay over $250,000 for a ordinary stapler and a damaged Nintendo Switch 2. Now, we have an absurd news story about an online purchase that is causing a lot of headache for a Best Buy customer.
A post by u/GnarDead in the r/pcmasterrace subreddit on Reddit claims that they placed an order for the ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 5080 through Best Buy on November 25, and they received the package on November 28. RTX 5080 AIB variants like this one typically cost around $1000.
However, the packaging had clearly been tampered with, as the item had not come in the conventional brown box and the seal wasn"t in perfect condition either. When the Redditor opened the box, they discovered four big rocks packed in bubble wrap in place of their RTX 5080 GPU. You can see the images below:
Naturally, the disgruntled customer filed a claim within an hour, after which they were informed by the representative that they would be receiving a replacement soon. However, fast-forward to today, and Best Buy has told the person that they have completed their investigation, and will not be issuing a refund or a replacement.
u/GnarDead is obviously furious and has decided to take the matter public in order to figure out their next resort:
"I have no idea what to do, I don’t make tons of money, this was a pretty big purchase for me. I waited very patiently for this GPU to be relatively affordable. I feel absolutely robbed and defeated, customer service is utterly useless. They just give me the classic “there’s nothing that can be done, is there anything else I can help you with?” in that cold, robotic tone and that’s it. If anyone has any advice on how I should approach this, I’d greatly appreciate any advice."
Although we have been unable to verify the sequence and veracity of events, it does seem genuine. The post has gained traction on Reddit with over 25,000 upvotes and the outpour of support from thousands of customers, some of whom have gone through similar situations. We"ll have to wait and see how this news story evolves, but the most common recommendation right now is to issue a chargeback on their card while providing all the evidence they can.