Dozens of Zotac RTX graphic cards replaced with junk in sealed boxes

If you just splashed out more than a grand on the latest, greatest, most powerful desktop graphics card on the market, you might be a bit miffed if you instead received… three backpacks in the box. And not particularly nice backpacks, mind you. A bizarre case of apparent theft from somewhere inside the GPU supply chain was first reported on Reddit, but has since been confirmed by manufacturer Zotac.

Reddit user JamesFerg650 claimed that they had gone to the much-anticipated retail opening of the new Micro Center store in Santa Clara, California last week in the hopes of tracking down an elusive and extremely expensive Zotac Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card. The user managed to buy one—PCWorld was present and there were several thousand cards available, very cool!—only to discover when they opened the box at home that it was stuffed with three “crossbody backpacks” (significantly less cool). According to the post, the retail box was sealed and there was no way to tell that it had been tampered with.

While initially met with skepticism, the Reddit poster showed photographic evidence and was soon put in contact with representatives from both Micro Center and Zotac USA, and they were able to get a replacement card almost immediately. Though this customer was apparently the only one affected at that Micro Center, they were told that 31 other retail GPUs had been found with dummy goods inside.

An extensive investigation of the supply chain would seem to be in order. According to VideoCardz, Micro Center representatives believe the swap was made at the original manufacturing point in Zotac’s factory in China. Assuming just 31 cards were stolen—which seems like a light estimate, all things considered—the theft would have an approximate retail value of $90,000 USD, possibly much more considering how high these cards can go on secondary markets.

The incredible rise of graphics card prices, not to mention their low supply in the face of incredible demand thanks to the boom of the “AI” industry, has made them a frequent target for theft and counterfeiting operations. It seems likely that the three crossbody bags stuffed into the retail GPU packaging were a close enough match to the original card in terms of weight and volume to get past various failsafes and checks. If you’re lucky enough to find one on a retail store shelf, maybe open it before you leave the checkout line.