PC shop receives two empty Ryzen 5 9600X boxes from Amazon in 72 hours, captures fraud on camera

A New York-based computer repair and custom gaming PC store called PC Plug ordered an AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and received only the retail box with the CPU missing. After requesting a refund, they purchased another with next-day delivery and received the same result: an empty CPU box. Both incidents occurred within roughly 72 hours. The store's co-owner says this is the first time they have received a product with no hardware inside, though packages have arrived damaged or missing components around 10 times over the last five years.

The orders did not come directly from Amazon or the manufacturer. An inventory manager accidentally purchased the CPUs from a third-party seller called The Tech Group, whose orders were fulfilled by Amazon. The co-owner suspects the seller's ratings could be fake, though they noted a Reddit user claimed to have purchased from The Tech Group without issues. The store usually orders directly from Amazon or manufacturers, and these two purchases slipped through their normal process.

The store records every product unboxing and maintains documentation specifically for fraud cases. They claim to have security camera footage showing both Amazon packages being opened and found to contain only the CPU boxes. This footage is the evidence that supports their refund request and distinguishes the case from an unsubstantiated complaint. The article recommends that buyers of expensive hardware always record unboxing and verify seller ratings before ordering.

The co-owner told Tom's Hardware that the store orders 90% of its hardware inventory through Amazon, amounting to roughly $10,000 a month, and relies on Amazon Business Prime. They expressed concern that attention around the incident could put their Amazon account at risk, which would affect their ability to purchase inventory. The article also references a separate case where a Reddit user ordered a Ryzen 9 9900X3D from Amazon Warehouse and found a Ryzen 9 3900X, a 2019 AM4 processor, inside the box instead.

Only one feed carried this story, so the details rest on a single source reporting on a Reddit post and a follow-up comment from the co-owner. The specific seller name, the dollar figure, the camera footage claim, and the account-risk concern all come from that one article. There is no corroboration from other feeds, and the seller's legitimacy is disputed rather than established.