A Reddit user says a Best Buy order for an ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 5080 ended with a box of rocks instead of a $1,200 graphics card. The buyer placed the order on 25 November and received it on 28 November. According to his post, the card shipped with shipping labels stuck directly to the retail GPU box, no outer brown carton, and a seal that already looked tampered with.
Or alternatively, whoever was responsible for shipping did that, but that’s not the customer’s problem. The customer only has a contract with Best Buy, so if the GPU did get pinched in transit, then that’s between Best Buy and the shipping company.
Charge backs are a super useful lever to pull when all else has failed. They’re usually so rapidly resolved that I sometimes find myself wishing I could use them as a first resort and not have to deal with the merchant. Alas, that’s not how it works, but it is nice to have a fallback.