[Developing] Consumers mass troll 3080 scalpers and potentially cost them in fees

[rcmaehl]

Summary

It seems some consumers have had enough with scalpers on eBay lately, with reports of people heavily overbidding on 3080 listings and not paying to cost scalpers eBay fees and other inconveniences.

 

Media

 

Quotes

Quote

Unfortunately, a lot of RTX 3080 graphics cards didn't ship to gamers, falling instead into the hands of scalpers, those who purchased the graphics card to sell for profit elsewhere. With many sellers asking for over £900 for Nvidia's newest graphics card. This fact has left many gamers annoyed. PC gamers are fighting back against eBay scalpers. PC gamers from across the world are inflating RTX 3080 prices with false bids that will never be paid. This tactic will prevent scalpers from profiting from RTX 3080 shortages, and force them to sell when they can no longer profit from the sale. On the Geforce Forums, a user called skateordiedgk has created a bot which makes eBay accounts and puts "ridiculous bids" on RTX 3080 graphics cards, ensuring that no one will win and pay for the auction. Nvidia has assured us that they, and their hardware partners, have more RTX 3080 graphics cards which are currently shipping to retailers worldwide. While we are no encouraging our readers to inflate these RTX 3080 eBay prices further, we must admit that it is satisfying to see these RTX 3080 scalpers receive their comeuppance.

 

My thoughts

Oh god, this is great. Pure popcorn level chaos. Hats off to the madlads risking their existing ebay accounts, ebay fees, and unlikely, but possible, legal action. I salute you and your chaotic goodness.

 

Sources

Overclock 3D (quote source)

G-Force Forums

Greg Salazar

Ebay

[TVwazhere]

I've noticed this, random accounts jacking up prices on bids to 5 digit price tags.

GOOD.

[rcmaehl]

Since I no longer am allowed to put catchy taglines in the topic here's a meme:

 

[tikker]

Hehe I saw it on the GeForce forums: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/discover/398094/i-wrote-a-bot-to-inflate-scalper-prices-with-no-in/

Good, they made their bed, now they get to sleep in it

[minibois]

Quote

Seriously, go get f*cked you piece of shit, leave us resellers alone, you just cost me thousands in fees

[SolarNova]

I approve.

 

Those greedy fkers are damaging to the market the rest of us rely on for our hobbies and interests, just so they can try make " a quick buck" as you yanks say.

 

I hope this tactic picks up in pace to force either the 'scalpers' to stop, or at the very least result in the selling platforms to enforce rules that also discourage 'scalpers'.

[Deli]

Just now, tikker said:

Hehe I saw it on the GeForce forums: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/discover/398094/i-wrote-a-bot-to-inflate-scalper-prices-with-no-in/

Good, they made their bed, now they get to sleep in it

No, they dig their grave. Now they have to lay in it.

[TheSLSAMG]

"go get fucked you piece of shit"


mmm yes, the  i  r  o  n  y

[Tristerin]

I  this, and I dont even want a 3000 series card

[RejZoR]

Good. It's what they deserve, assholes. If you want a cool graphic card to play games on, great, buy one. If you're buying one just to inflate the price and sell them to gamers who want them, go eat s**t. These are the same idiots who were hoarding toilet paper in the beginnings of coronavirus. Exact same assholes.

[TheSLSAMG]

8 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Good. It's what they deserve, assholes. If you want a cool graphic card to play games on, great, buy one. If you're buying one just to inflate the price and sell them to gamers who want them, go eat s**t. These are the same idiots who were hoarding toilet paper in the beginnings of coronavirus. Exact same assholes.

It's like that prick who hoarded all the hand sanitizer just to try to scalp it online, then got banned by eBay and Amazon and got guilt tripped into giving it away. (Just to clarify, I don't look at the RTX 3080 as being on an equal level of importance as an actual life-saving item.

 

I was one of the people this morning fighting at the chance to get an RTX 3080. Had I lost out honestly to other people who wanted to buy the card to game on, I could accept that and move on. But what pisses me off so much is that they're just the shittiest lot of unapologetic sweaty fucks who resorted to using unfair and scummy tactics to get their hands on way too many cards, just to resell them at exorbitant prices. I hope more people fuck with them on eBay, they deserve only that.

[IAmAndre]

2 minutes ago, TheSLSAMG said:

like that prick who hoarded all the hand sanitizer just to try to scalp it online, then got banned by eBay and Amazon and got guilt tripped into giving it away.

I get your point but I wouldn't compare someone restricting access to something that can save lives during a pandemic to someone hoarding a piece of gaming hardware.

[TheSLSAMG]

Just now, IAmAndre said:

I get your point but I wouldn't compare someone restricting access to something that can save lives during a pandemic to someone hoarding a piece of gaming hardware.

That's fair, I don't view both on an equal level of importance, obviously restricting access to a life-saving item is definitely worse.

[TetraSky]

Pretty sure Ebay and Paypal will literally refunds any fees if a sale doesn't go through/is cancelled.

 

Had that happen recently with my Switch that I sold. Dude said his kid bought it and wanted me to cancel it. All fees were cancelled once that was done.

 

And frankly. FUCK resellers. They deserve all the hate and the trolls.

I get wanting to make a quick profit when you can, but they are preventing people who would actually enjoy the product from getting it at the real price.

[IkeaGnome]

This is probably a dumb question due to me not using eBay ever. How does this cost the scalper fees? Or is he talking about what he could have made by selling it sooner?

[Lurick]

Just now, Voluspa said:

This is probably a dumb question due to me not using eBay ever. How does this cost the scalper fees? Or is he talking about what he could have made by selling it sooner?

Exactly, if they think they own the fees from the sale they are idiots because the fees are only paid if you sell the item and get paid

I don't think I've seen anyone get listing fees for electronics in forever and those are usually like $0.50 or $1 per item.

[RejZoR]

3 minutes ago, TheSLSAMG said:

It's like that prick who hoarded all the hand sanitizer just to try to scalp it online, then got banned by eBay and Amazon and got guilt tripped into giving it away.

 

I was one of the people this morning chomping at the chance to get an RTX 3080. Had I lost out honestly to other people who wanted to buy the card to game on, I could accept that and move on. But what pisses me off so much is that they're just the shittiest lot of unapologetic sweaty fucks who resorted to using unfair and scummy tactics to get their hands on way too many cards, just to resell them at exorbitant prices. I hope more people fuck with them on eBay, they deserve only that.

I tried too, probably failed miserably because I had to do it on the go and ordered a card that had "Unknown" status lol XD I decided for one ahead of time, when store opened orders webpage was shitting bricks and not dealing with it in peace I did that. Oh well. Later on I noticed one card, I think it was from EVGA actually had "In stock" status for a short time. But I already committed myself so that's that. I tried my chance and now I'll see what happens. I'd actually easily wait till this crap settles down if it wasn't Cyberpunk 20077 launching in the meanwhile and I want to experience it all out in all its glory. Which means, if I don't get RTX 3080 now, I'll have to postpone playing of Cyberpunk 2077. It's just the sort of game I want visuals really be up there because it's the Deus Ex sort of game where things move slowly and you have time to observe.

[CarlBar]

I bet some clever souls are going to create a bunch of ebay bots to put in silly bids to block these people before long.

[RejZoR]

3 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Exactly, if they think they own the fees from the sale they are idiots because the fees are only paid if you sell the item and get paid

I don't think I've seen anyone get listing fees for electronics in forever and those are usually like $0.50 or $1 per item.

Well, someone wasted their time and hyped them thinking they're earning trillions just to get screwed in the ass in the end. That's worth of few grams of virtual gold too in my eyes.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

If only we can troll those who partake in housing speculation... Those people are literally the scum of the earth as they're toying with a human need to make huge profits. Not to mention they have completely decimated neighborhoods. Metro Vancouver, once an area deeply connected to nature, yea not it's all condos and apartments now thanks to developers and speculators. 

[Fasterthannothing]

Fees aren't paid out until the product is actually sold.

[COTG]

good. continue this for another month and let them sit on thousands of dollars of locked up capital. 

[SolarNova]

1 minute ago, Shorty88jr said:

Fees aren't paid out until the product is actually sold.

Aye indeed, its not costing them money, its costing them the time and possibly stress of re posting them.

 

If enough people run the bots for long enough, these fkers will never sell the cards. At least until stocks are high enough that people dont need to go to ebay to get one, at which point the 'scalpers' will be out of pocket as they will be forced to sell them at a loss just to get rid of them.

[tikker]

23 minutes ago, Voluspa said:

This is probably a dumb question due to me not using eBay ever. How does this cost the scalper fees? Or is he talking about what he could have made by selling it sooner?

22 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Exactly, if they think they own the fees from the sale they are idiots because the fees are only paid if you sell the item and get paid

I don't think I've seen anyone get listing fees for electronics in forever and those are usually like $0.50 or $1 per item.

I think it's the other way around. It's not such much them earning fees, but them having to pay fees to eBay. They'll have to sell to the highest bidder, but nobody is going to pay 50k for a 3080. They then have to cancel the auction and then eBay charges them for cancelling an auction early even though it has bidders.

 

 

Edited September 17, 2020 by tikker
I don't understand eBay

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, tikker said:

I think it's the other way around. It's not such much them earning fees, but them having to pay fees to eBay. They'll have to sell to the highest bidder, but nobody is going to pay 50k for a 3080. They then have to cancel the auction and then eBay charges them for cancelling an auction early even though it has bidders.

 

Ebay will refund/cancel the fees if you don't get paid. I've had it happen on a couple things before. They might have to pay listing fees though but those are usually pretty cheap so unless they listed 100s of the same item it won't cost them thousands for sure. There is a second chance offer but you don't have to use it.