Amazon Sues Over Refund Scam Involving GPUs, Laptops

A group of scammers stole $4 million worth of products from Amazon, including graphics cards and laptops, by using fake police reports about missing packages to dupe customer support. 

In a lawsuit filed in a Washington state District Court this week, Amazon alleges that a person in Kazakhstan orchestrated the scheme using the chat app Telegram. A group called RBK has been selling services to help Amazon customers commit reimbursement fraud by exploiting how the company issues refunds for packages that aren’t delivered, according to the 41-page complaint. In return, RBK charges between a 15% to 30% cut of the refund. 

“Users provide their Amazon login credentials to RBK, and RBK contacts Amazon customer service posing as the user,” the company’s lawyers wrote. “Typically, RBK claims the item received was an empty package.”

(Credit: Amazon)

To dupe Amazon’s customer support into believing the claim, RBK will use elaborate, fake police reports about the missing package, among other social engineering techniques.

“While Amazon Customer Service representatives believed the reports were legitimate and authorized refunds based on the reports, closer inspection suggests the reports are, in fact, fraudulent. In at least one instance, an Amazon customer service employee called a number on the fake police report and spoke to an individual posing as a police officer,” the lawsuit notes. 

The group has been targeting Amazon in the US, Canada, and Europe, as well as other retailers. “RBK’s main channel, ‘MAIN RBK,’ had over 1,000 subscribers as of June 2025. Since February 2023, RBK has posted over $4,000,000.00 in vouches for Amazon refunds,” the lawsuit adds.

The company uncovered the scheme after an Amazon investigator posed as a buyer interested in RBK’s services. The company’s investigation also uncovered a video and an image on the RBK Telegram channel that appeared to reveal the mailing address and phone number of the alleged administrator of the scam group, Kazakhstan-based Dias Temirbekul Zhumaniyaz. 

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“Amazon’s internal investigators used this information to identify login information, including IP addresses located in Kazakhstan, that were used to access Amazon accounts associated with Zhumaniyaz,” the company says. The same login information was connected to other customer accounts involved in the refund fraud, including for high-value items such as laptops and drones, as wellas “two PowerColor AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT Graphics Cards for $2,054.43.”

(Credit: Amazon)

Amazon is Zhumaniyaz and two other defendants—Michael Bauschelt of Lakeside, California, and Adnan Islam of Astoria, New York—who allegedly used the refund fraud services. 

The lawsuit claims Bauschelt tapped RBK to obtain refunds for two Dell gaming laptops ordered in 2024, while Islam received a refund for an Apple MacBook Pro purchased in 2025.

The company is now demanding that the suspects pay restitution for the fraud and cover the company’s attorney fees in the lawsuit. The e-commerce provider is also urging the court to block the defendants from using Telegram or Amazon trademarks to engage in similar schemes.

The company’s complaint also says 20 other unidentified co-conspirators worked with Zhumaniyaz on RBK’s activities. Following the lawsuit, the RBK channel on Telegram seems to no longer be available, suggesting the group shut down the operation to erase evidence or that Telegram took action. 

In 2023, Amazon filed a similar lawsuit against an underground fraud ring called REKK that used hacking and bribing company employees to secure refunds for products. The lawsuit identified 20 people who allegedly bought services from the group, along with the employees involved. Amazon later secured settlements from the defendants, while the court also issued injunctions restraining them from abusing the company’s services again.

About Our Expert

Michael Kan

Principal Reporter

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Experience

I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.

Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.

I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.

I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.

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