UK online PC retailer publicly rebukes claim it sent a customer an RTX 3050 instead of an RTX 4070 Ti

Nvidia graphics cards on a black background
(Image credit: Nvidia)

You've probably seen posts on social media platforms before that go along the lines of 'I ordered this product from that company, but they sent me something else.' Sometimes the tales are genuine, sometimes it's made up to garner attention, but it rarely goes any further than that. But when one Reddit user claimed that UK online store Overclockers returned a GeForce RTX 3050, when they'd sent the company an RTX 4070 Ti for RMA, the retailer turned to Twitter to vigorously and publicly deny the claim.

The story began with a short post on the PCMR subreddit just a couple of days ago, where it's claimed that the OP sent Overclockers an Inno3D GeForce RTX 4070 Ti that they'd bought from the retailer six months ago. I'm assuming that an RMA was requested and the store obliged, requesting that the card was sent to them for testing and whatnot. This is something that I've done myself, many times over the years, and I'm sure you have too.

However, the OP included a picture of an RTX 3050, claiming that this is what Overclockers had sent back to them. Reddit sleuths determined that the card in question was most likely to be an OEM model, possibly from a Dell or HP prebuilt PC. Cue much back and forth between the various commenters on whether the story was genuine and so on.

It's not clear exactly what had been said between the OP and Overclockers, but the latter felt aggrieved enough to post a comment on Twitter about the whole situation, in which it says that it would never have such a card in store and that the package that the OP had sent Overclockers weighed significantly less than the RTX 4070 Ti in question does.

I must admit to finding the response somewhat unusual. I've experienced situations in the past where I've had to question the actions of a retailer, and in some cases, I've been at fault and in others, it was the store. At no point, though, did the seller ever turn to a public forum to air its stance on the matter. Then again, I've never turned to social media to share my issues.

Overclocker's response naturally made its way back to Reddit, where the fun and games continued to a new discussion, with some commenters taking the retailer's side and other's backing the OP's claims.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't pay any attention to such things, but with it being dragged out to a wider audience, it's worth seeing just how the matter will be ultimately resolved. Why? Because if the OP's claims are false and they were hoping to bag a free RTX 4070 Ti, then having such a thing exposed and shot down is a good thing. On the other hand, if the retailer is deliberately avoiding replacing a genuine RMA, then that's worth reporting, so that others can consider the matter before placing any future orders with it.

It could be a simple misunderstanding, an error in the warehouse, or crossed wires in the inventory tracking system. It could've been someone else that had hands on the package, such as a courier, which could complicate things further. Hopefully, the whole matter is resolved peacefully, but it'll be interesting to see if either party publicly announces the resolution, with or without any apologies, retractions, or admissions. Watch this space, as the saying goes.

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Nick Evanson
Hardware Writer

Nick, gaming, and computers all first met in 1981, with the love affair starting on a Sinclair ZX81 in kit form and a book on ZX Basic. He ended up becoming a physics and IT teacher, but by the late 1990s decided it was time to cut his teeth writing for a long defunct UK tech site. He went on to do the same at Madonion, helping to write the help files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a short stint working at Beyond3D.com, Nick joined Futuremark (MadOnion rebranded) full-time, as editor-in-chief for its gaming and hardware section, YouGamers. After the site shutdown, he became an engineering and computing lecturer for many years, but missed the writing bug. Cue four years at TechSpot.com and over 100 long articles on anything and everything. He freely admits to being far too obsessed with GPUs and open world grindy RPGs, but who isn't these days?