Amazon closes AI creator's account after he attempts to buy seven Nvidia DGX Spark mini-PCs — Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says his regular orders were canceled before arrival after he tried to buy two GPUs | Tom's Hardware

AI creator Nick Saraev says on X that Amazon closed his account after he tried to buy seven Nvidia DGX Spark AI mini-PCs. The closure email cites a verification process and gives no reason. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney chimed in that his regular orders would go through, then get canceled before arrival, after he tried to buy two GPUs.

Saraev puts it plainly that “Amazon just closed my account” and that “Buying even modest amounts of compute immediately puts you on a watchlist.” He was “4 orders deep,” and Amazon will no longer allow him to buy DGX Sparks.

The shared screenshots indicate those orders were all canceled, with each stating, “Your order was canceled. You have not been charged for this order.” Although he does not give a unit count, the screenshots indicate he tried to buy seven DGX Sparks in total. All show the same listing, with 128GB of memory and 4TB of storage.

Amazon’s support account did respond to his earlier post, about three hours before his closure post, offering a review. The shared email shows that Amazon had “made the final decision” to close his account after review; no reason was given. However, it did mention “previous attempts to verify your account,” and he says he did go through the verification process, but seven DGX Sparks is a significant amount that might draw suspicion. Either way, Amazon’s Conditions of Use reserve the right to “refuse service, terminate accounts” or “cancel orders in its sole discretion.”

He’s not alone in running into trouble with the company. Sweeney says that “Amazon didn’t cancel my account but continued accepting all my regular orders and canceling them just prior to arrival dates, after I tried to buy two NVIDIA GPUs. Rather bizarre.” Nvidia GPUs are often used for local inference. Saraev replied that everyone would “appreciate a bit more transparency.”

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Also, in September, Dracones89 on the Nvidia developer forum shared that one Amazon account was hit with “suspicious activity locks” while trying to buy a pair of Asus GX10s; the user ended up with two DGX Sparks from Micro Center instead. Another X user, @PurzBeats, wrote, “They canceled the order when I tried to buy my 5090, twice.” This is a different trajectory than the OpenClaw days of Mac minis, when buyers faced long delivery waits rather than canceled orders or closed accounts.

With local inference remaining of high interest to many, particularly AI influencers, the event is potentially disturbing, especially after recent comments about self-owned DRAM by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. While this time it was a guy who helps entrepreneurs and small businesses implement AI and claims 500K on YouTube and 700K on Instagram, the slope is slippery, although Saraev’s orders are hardly typical.

The 128GB DGX Spark has an MSRP of $6,950, but it may be found at 20% or more over that: two Amazon listings showed $8,499.99 and $9,499.99 when we checked today, which would put seven at roughly $59,500 to $66,500. Both showed Prime delivery tomorrow, so the hardware is still on sale there.

Hardware has been climbing in price, largely due to rising memory costs. As open-weight models have become more popular, so has local AI inference. The combination may make retailers uneasy, as you’re dealing with high ticket prices and there has been uncertainty about the safety of models as they have improved, with open-source AI agent tools reportedly being used in multiple recent cybersecurity incidents.

Micro Center, a different retailer, required one buyer to sign an Advanced Computing Product Purchaser Declaration with photo ID, end user, and an install location, just for a workstation with an RTX 5090. This form specifically forbade exporting or reselling the hardware, which might give a little insight into Amazon’s reasoning, too. Amazon’s conditions also say customers “must comply with all U.S. or other export and re-export restrictions.” China and the U.S. remain locked in a fight over exports of AI hardware.

Amazon hasn’t explained itself, but the attention this is getting may motivate a more detailed response. Right now, it’s a warning signal to users looking to buy significant amounts of hardware for AI work, at least from traditional online retailers. Brick-and-mortar stores, like Micro Center, may crack down further to prevent workarounds designed to export the hardware illegally.

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