Public opinion?
I paid over $270 for a Ryzen 7 5700G from Amazon. I’m starting to regret trying to save $5 instead of buying it from Newegg.
When I was given the option I selected to have my computer parts delivered in one box. They didn’t.
Amazon sent my my NVME SSD, thermal paste, and ram safely packaged in a sturdy cardboard box with air bags. It was a box that was 90% air.
They shipped me my CPU in a plastic bag and the delivery guy just dropped it on my front steps. I can’t blame him, nobody expects a fragile CPU to be shoved in a plastic bag and tossed in the delivery bin with the cans of soup and dog food.
I haven’t opened the CPU yet, it might be fine, but the principal of the matter is that I paid for a NEW CPU and what arrived was a damaged B-stock CPU.
So question. I should just return this right? Does it make me a bad person for returning it without even checking on the condition of the product in the damaged box?
Are you planning to doing something amazing with the box? If not, what’s the big deal? I mean it’s not a good look for Amazon to be sending anything with insufficient packaging such that the product’s packaging is damaged as in your picture, but since you’re 99% likely to throw the box away after you know the CPU works, I don’t see how slightly rounded corners on the box affects much.
My first 5700G from Amazon arrived the same way (in a bag) with no CPU in the box, so at least you didn’t have to deal with that. The CPU itself is not THAT fragile, and is packaged inside of plastic inside of the box it arrived it. It’s 99.9% likely it’s in fine working order. Your biggest worry would be bent pins, and they’re protected by the IHS so unless the box was actually trampled enough to collapse it, it’s probably fine.
If you want to “invest the time” you can contact (probably chat) with an Amazon agent, complain enough, and hint you’d like to either return it or get a credit, and they might credit you back $5 or 10.
I once complained about a $1200 tool coming a week late and poorly packaged and looking ratty, and the agent credited me back a couple of hundred dollars for my inconvenience… so you just never know.
It’s a good point It might just be the box. I am just so irrationally pissed off that they treated it so poorly that I want to send a red flag to some bean counter somewhere at Amazon HQ to say “hey people keep returning these CPUs because we aren’t packaging them safely.”
But I realize it’s completely irrational and no one is going to notice that’s why I asked for public opinion. Am I being a Karen?
(sorry to all the people named Karen in the world).
The bag and the AMD packaging are usually enough to ensure the product arrives undamaged - if you use delivery services professionally (E.g. like Amazon using DHL, DPD, UPS etc.) their packaging usually has to go through a bunch of tests, before the delivery company will accept responsibility for them.
When we started using UPS for delivering our touch screen industrial terminals, our packaging was scrutinized and taken away for drop tests etc. They came back with recommendations and we actually had to change the packaging slightly, before they would agree to transport the terminals for us (insurance purposes).
I’d guess that AMD’s packaging has to meet similar standards, that the product can be dropped and put at the bottom of a typical pile of other packages when out for delivery. It probably wouldn’t survive being stamped on with a foot or being driven over, but going through the sorting centre and in a box into the delivery van shouldn’t cause the box too many problems.
I did do this with an M.2 stick. Mainly because it came in a brown card envelope from Amazon and it had been ripped open and the box could be removed from the envelope and the box itself had been subtly opened at one end, but the top was still sealed.
I took photos and contacted Amazon and told them that the packaging had been opened before it got to me. It was delivered by one of Amazon’s own drivers (I have the most problems* with their direct deliveries, they are the least professional drivers, at least around here). They asked me if I wanted to return it? I told them, I just wanted to report the condition of the packaging, in case there were any problems, but I’d be happy to test it first, to ensure it worked - it did.
My guess is someone at Amazon or the driver wanted to steal the contents of electronic packages and resell them, but didn’t know what they were looking at, when it was an M.2 stick and not a “gadget”, so they put it back in the box and delivered it.
Amazon were very apologetic and offered me a 5€ credit for the inconvenience.
(*) another time, Amazon’s driver delivered me a new firewall, some lights and cables to my work address… At 7pm on a Friday night, the office had been closed for 2.5 hours. They just left it on the door-step facing the street. Somehow, the package remained there, unmolested, until Monday morning 8am, when the first person arrived at the office!
That’s amazing that the firewall didn’t walk.
I once was tracking my package at 7 pm and it still said “delivery by 10pm” I then watched the driver head home for the night.