I Ordered a FAKE Ryzen 5 3600 from Best Buy

I work at Amazon and last week they had me grading customer returns on their condition to be resold as used and I had a Ryzen 3500 with a return reason being "no longer wanted". It was obvious it was used because it had thermal paste all over it but I flipped it over and see that at least 30 pins in one of the corners were bent flat. Yeah, I bet you didn't want it anymore.

He really made the sticker say "DeTECHtive". Linus Dad Tips coming up

I'm actually impressed that somebody delidded an AM3 CPU without bricking it.

That's really cool of you to have bought the CPU for that much from them. I'm sure they found themselves a nice new one

I’m so happy you acknowledged the possible scenarios at the end. I appreciate keeping a skeptical eye while not being vindictive about it.

There is a special place in hell for these scammers, sadly they manage to evade it.

I fell victim to CPU swapping back in 2011... I ordered an 8130 and the box had an 8150 in there, worked out in my favour I guess

The 'reseating couple of times' troubleshooting tip helped me fix my old lappy. Thanks Linus.

This PC: Takes 3 seconds to open a folder My laptop laptop: "Woah dude you fast"

This, this is why I hate legitimate online stores turning into online marketplaces. So many scammers and scalpers

Here is what I think happened. A customer (scammer bought a Ryzen 5 3600, swapped the unit and then returned it as an "unwanted" item. BestBuy would have no reason to return this item to AMD for inspection as there is no fault, so no suspicions are raised and the customer (scammer) innocently walks away. BestBuy re-list this item as it was just an unwanted item. Legitimate customer buys this item, unknowing that it was tampered with.

1:20 You can tell the seal was tampered with because of how it was lifting at the bottom and was slightly wrinkled. BB will open and check a package if you tell them that the product was opened/defective, but if you don't, it wouldn't be hard to get away with swapping a product and returning it if the seal is in tact.

Best Buy employee here! Naturally I can't speak on behalf of the company, but in my time working sales on the PC floor I've definitely seen this happen a few times in my store. Unfortunately, Linus' initial description of how this happens is completely correct.

Removing the CPU while it is running, that's why I am here

the creativity going into sponsors is gonna blow my mind one day. i literally never see it coming unlike literally every other youtube channel...i love u guys

It's interesting to see how the returns of electronics have evolved to protect against this sort of behavior. I remember returning electronics in the old days, and nobody even looked at the stuff you were returning. Was something vaguely electronic-looking in the box you brought back to the store? Good enough! That changed - at places like Best Buy, they'll actually bring over the Geek Squad employees to examine the merch and make sure it is exactly what you originally bought. Obviously this process isn't fool-proof, but I have to think it catches a lot of the scams.

Me: "oh this computer isn't that bad" Linus: "disgusting" Me: "disgusting"

"there's a vise there.." Linus reluctantly walks over to $600 milling Vise conveniently on the table

i love the tonal cut from “new age havin fun linus” to “back in the day trying to be professional linus”

I literally love the way you segway to talking about sponsors, every video you somehow make me excited for the sponsor