Order of 1000 PS5(s) is taken down by retailer

[Acid Panda]

A UK retailer by the name of Very.com has cancelled around 1000 orders placed by a scalper group after they boasted about in in social media, also Very.com stated that they had to cancel other peoples orders in resolving this issue.

Quote

Online retailer Very has cancelled what scalpers have claimed were more than 1,000 orders for the new Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles, which they intended to resell at a higher price.

Limited supplies of the new consoles have driven numerous parties to the money-making tactic of attempting to buy more than one and then sell them on for a marked-up price.

 

Retailers, including Very, have attempted to suppress scalping by limiting purchases to one per address, but the demand for the consoles is so much greater than supply that reselling has become a lucrative market.

 

 

My thoughts

I feel this is a massive win but is realistically only a small step in combating the plight of people using bots and large groups to collectively gather large amounts of stock of an item. Though this really is not a new phenomena with a combination of many new and great hardware releases the demand for products has been very high as its also covered much more actively by media outlets as areas like gaming and PC hardware become more relevant to culture and media. So its great this has been caught and end of lesson is don't facilitate their activates as it will attract more to do as they are doing if it works. (the AMD reddit has an amusing post about what 'not' to do with scalpers).

 

Sources

https://news.sky.com/story/online-retailer-very-cancels-orders-placed-by-scalpers-for-over-1-000-consoles-12147197

https://www.gamesradar.com/uk/online-retailer-cancels-1000-next-gen-orders-placed-by-scalpers/#:~:text=UK retailer Very has canceled,very well known online retailer."

[Mark Kaine]

In the end this is on manufacturers, no one is forcing them at gun point to release items before they have produced a reasonable amount to satisfy initial demand, like they used to do pre the 2000's...

 

 

Thing is I believe they quite enjoy the "hype" that is generated by various internet sites and users, such as indeed internet message boards - though that is just my theory and in the end quite irrelevant, the point is they simply don't have enough units at launch anymore, and that's not just because of "covid" because the phenomenon started much, much earlier, around ps360 launch with all the drama of Microsoft beating Sony to the punch by over a year and the following "2 jobs" farce... 

 

Also its not just electronics, it's concert tickets and stuff also, all enabled by the so called "community" that is the mostly highly anonymous internet. 

[Master Disaster]

This article is being wildly misreported (not in the least bit surprising for Sky News), they didn't just cancel the orders from the scalpers, they cancelled almost all the orders they had received including the ones from the scalpers.

 

The scalpers worked out how to trick the ordering system into ordering more than one unit per cart which resulted in more units being sold than they had in stock so Very simply cancelled all orders that had more than one item on them but they also had to cancel normal orders as well, they even say the cancellations will effect ordinary members of the public in their statement.

 

It wasn't a targetted attack per se, just Sky being Sky and trying to spin something into being much bigger than it actually is.

[Beskamir]

On 12/2/2020 at 4:52 PM, RejZoR said:

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It's capitalism, not scalpers. Without the capitalistic incentive, scalpers wouldn't exist.

Edited December 5, 2020 by LogicalDrm

[Bombastinator]

Scalping isn’t new, though this methodology might be.  It’s been an endemic problem with theatres for a very long time.  I understand there is or was also a big issue with train tickets in India.  A lot of things have been tried to control the problem. 

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, Beskamir said:

It's capitalism, not scalpers. Without the capitalistic incentive, scalpers wouldn't exist.

No not really true at all. There are laws against scalpers in key areas for products during emergencies and natural disasters so scalpers are prevented even though there would still be an economic incentive to scalp emergency supplies. If they had laws against scalping then this would easily stop. Unfortunately current scalping laws are limited to emergencies and natural disasters and are only on essential products not luxury goods like a console. 

[jagdtigger]

I hope the store also got word to the tax agency too so they can have "fun" with the scalper regarding how he/she got the funding for doing this....

[Jet_ski]

22 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

This article is being wildly misreported (not in the least bit surprising for Sky News), they didn't just cancel the orders from the scalpers, they cancelled almost all the orders they had received including the ones from the scalpers.

 

The scalpers worked out how to trick the ordering system into ordering more than one unit per cart which resulted in more units being sold than they had in stock so Very simply cancelled all orders that had more than one item on them but they also had to cancel normal orders as well, they even say the cancellations will effect ordinary members of the public in their statement.

 

It wasn't a targetted attack per se, just Sky being Sky and trying to spin something into being much bigger than it actually is.

Realistically how many did they have in stock? If 1000 were bought by one scalper group, it must have been that most of the orders were made by scalpers.

[Beskamir]

On 12/3/2020 at 10:24 AM, Brooksie359 said:

No not really true at all. There are laws against scalpers in key areas for products during emergencies and natural disasters so scalpers are prevented even though there would still be an economic incentive to scalp emergency supplies. If they had laws against scalping then this would easily stop. Unfortunately current scalping laws are limited to emergencies and natural disasters and are only on essential products not luxury goods like a console. 

I'd consider those laws to be anti-capitalistic.

 

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Edited December 5, 2020 by LogicalDrm

[Brooksie359]

8 minutes ago, Beskamir said:

I'd consider those laws to be anti-capitalistic.

At least you can justify making scalping illegal when everything is owned by the collective.

No society today is a 100% capitalistic anymore. Governments put in laws to stop exploitation like antitrust laws. Just because a country has antitrust laws that does not mean that capitalism ceases to exist. Laws can be put in place to stop exploitation of the people by scalpers and then this wouldn't be a problem. It would be fairly easy to do as well as you would only need to target where they sell them at. If they have no place to sell the product then they no longer can effectively scalp. 

[Beskamir]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

No society today is a 100% capitalistic anymore. Governments put in laws to stop exploitation like antitrust laws. Just because a country has antitrust laws that does not mean that capitalism ceases to exist. Laws can be put in place to stop exploitation of the people by scalpers and then this wouldn't be a problem. It would be fairly easy to do as well as you would only need to target where they sell them at. If they have no place to sell the product then they no longer can effectively scalp. 

Agreed, no society can truly be 100% capitalistic due to the countless anti-consumer problems inherent to the system. As for using laws to curb scalping, that could help but it'll also create a black market opportunity as laws often tend to do.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

7 minutes ago, poochyena said:

an extra few days

Umm... Im going to have to check my math here. 

OK, take what they said, add the 2, carry the one, multiply by 3..... Thats weird.

If im doing my math right, FULFILLING ORDERS IN SPRING OF NEXT YEAR is more  then a few days.

But that cant be right, a random guy on the internet said it would just be a few days, and nothing on the internet is a lie!

[poochyena]

1 hour ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

But that cant be right, a random guy on the internet said it would just be a few days, and nothing on the internet is a lie!

countless thousands of people already own one. I don't know where this idea is coming from that you won't be able to get one for months. Just check the reviews on amazon, bestbuy, walmart, etc. There are thousands of reviews from people who have gotten one.

[Brooksie359]

2 hours ago, Beskamir said:

Agreed, no society can truly be 100% capitalistic due to the countless anti-consumer problems inherent to the system. As for using laws to curb scalping, that could help but it'll also create a black market opportunity as laws often tend to do.

I don't think so. They wouldn't make money from scalping if they did it through a black market. They would likely not be able to sell their inventory before supply became better. The reason it works right now is that there is nothing illegal about it currently so they can use prominent online stores to sell the scalped goods quick and efficiently. As soon as you add hoops to go through by requiring black market trading then they no longer have the ability to sell all their product resulting in a loss. 

[LogicalDrm]

*** Thread cleaned ***

 

Removed stuff was politics and other things which are out of line as per our rules.

[Letgomyleghoe]

On 12/2/2020 at 6:58 AM, Mark Kaine said:

In the end this is on manufacturers, no one is forcing them at gun point to release items before they have produced a reasonable amount to satisfy initial demand, like they used to do pre the 2000's...

the thing is, the demand pre 2000's was nowhere near what it is today, the amount of people building their own PC's has skyrocketed, the amount of pc users has skyrocketed, Online retail has made it easier to buy, shipping to more people along with internet access in places that didn't have it etc, has increased demand in insane amount.

[SteveGrabowski0]

On 12/2/2020 at 8:58 AM, Mark Kaine said:

In the end this is on manufacturers, no one is forcing them at gun point to release items before they have produced a reasonable amount to satisfy initial demand, like they used to do pre the 2000's...t. 

Nintendo was notorious for stuff like this in the 1980s. It didn't all start once the millennium flipped. Then I remember how hard it was to find a PS1 back when it came out. None of this is new.

[BuckGup]

On 12/3/2020 at 4:07 AM, jagdtigger said:

I hope the store also got word to the tax agency too so they can have "fun" with the scalper regarding how he/she got the funding for doing this....

Why would there be any suspicions of fraud? Some people blow $50K on risky investments to make fast profits

[AlwaysWong]

My local area offerup have tons of xbox series x and ps5 on sale for $800 - $1000. Fuck these people. I hope no one will going to spend that much money on these scalper consoles because you know you can't file for warranty without proof of purchase. 

[SteveGrabowski0]

9 hours ago, AlwaysWong said:

My local area offerup have tons of xbox series x and ps5 on sale for $800 - $1000. Fuck these people. I hope no one will going to spend that much money on these scalper consoles because you know you can't file for warranty without proof of purchase. 

Could always troll them

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jagdtigger]

14 hours ago, BuckGup said:

Why would there be any suspicions of fraud? Some people blow $50K on risky investments to make fast profits

We dont know that, for me it would be a pretty huge red flag and i would definitely report it. If nothing else it would give the scalper a sour lesson.....

[RejZoR]

"I bought 4 on my credit card" XD Well, if you bought just 1 and used it yourself, you weren't in such dire need to sell them quickly lmao

[HumdrumPenguin]

As long as there are people willing to pay, this will never end. That's how the market works, be it for tech, cars, or anything really.

[BuckGup]

8 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

We dont know that, for me it would be a pretty huge red flag and i would definitely report it. If nothing else it would give the scalper a sour lesson.....

Scalping is 100% legal and is actually a great example of good business. How ethical it might be is up to you lol

[jagdtigger]

28 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

Scalping is 100% legal and is actually a great example of good business. How ethical it might be is up to you lol

Not 100% legal because there are off limit zones. And it is a bad example for a business, its really short sighted and causes a lot of collateral damage. As for ethics everyone with a spine wont condone this.