Amazon is reportedly suffering from RMA fraud for Ryzen CPUs

Fake CPUs!

| Source: Reddit - Via RedGamingTech Author: Mark Campbell

Amazon is reportedly suffering from RMA fraud for Ryzen CPUs

RMA fraud is not a new thing, being prevalent at large retailers like Amazon for many years. RMA Fraud is when a buyer purchases a new product and then returns/RMA's it with a different product inside the same box. This is fairly common with purchases of new GPUs as well, though CPU fraud has also happened in the past.

How can a CPU be fake some of you may ask? Picture it like this, you buy a new Ferrari to drive home and open the bonnet to find that the engine underneath is from a Volkswagen Beetle. The fake AMD processors have heat spreaders which say that they are an AM4 AMD R7 1700 but in fact, the CPU underneath is of an older socket Intel LGA CPU which is not compatible with the AMD AM4 socket.

Fake AMD CPUs have been in circulation in the past, but that was back in the AM3+ FM2+ era, with the practice only taking place for a limited time. Now it seems that this has happened again, as fake Ryzen CPUs have been received by several Amazon users.

These fake Ryzen CPUs look legitimate enough to pass inspection by an untrained eye, with legitimate looking markings being printed onto an older Intel LGA CPU (looks like LGA 775). This means that a CPU that was returned to Amazon looks legitimate to some Amazon employees, who are trained to deal with RMAs on a range of products and lack the required knowledge to spot a fake CPU.

This process allows scammers to purchase CPUs and return fakes, giving them a "free CPU" to sell on to a different user.

Thankfully these fake CPUs are LGA, which means that their potential to damage AM4 motherboards is limited, even for novice PC builders and Amazon purchasers of these fake CPUs have gotten refunds or replacements quickly. At this time Amazon is working on this issue, though it is unknown how many of these fake CPUs are in their inventory.

It must be remembered that this issue has nothing to do with AMD, as right now only Amazon users have been affected by this in relatively small numbers. Amazon will need to train their RMA staff to spot fake CPUs, as this has happened in the past.

You can join the discussion on these fake Ryzen CPUs on the OC3D Forums.

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