UK politicians call for "making the resale of goods purchased using an automated bot an illegal activity"

[PCGuy_5960]

This is stupid, bots aren't the problem. It's the people willing to buy 3080s and PS5s for $1000+. It's simple supply and demand, if no one bought scalped products, bot buys would stop being a thing. Not to mention that even if you think this is a good idea, it's pretty much impossible to enforce, so this is basically just "hello fellow kids"

[RejZoR]

58 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Also not untrue.  The big question seems to be what are the unintended consequences of such a move, and can they be mitigated?  How much automated “just in time” buying do companies do? Would such a law affect that? If so, how do you differentiate scalpers from, say, a grocery store?  The definition of wholesale vs retail seems to be a thing here.  One option I can see for the EU would be to use VAT. 

Contracts. Grocery stores don't just buy randomly. They usually have a contract with a supplier that grants them special rebates, but also obligations and have a general reliable sales models. Where scalpers don't do anything most of the year or more and then suddenly only when new interesting product is released, they jump on it like there is no tomorrow. Where stores selling those products usually buy them across entire year and just crank up stocks of more sought after products because they expect higher demands.

[suicidalfranco]

sorry but this is next gen epic level bullshittery.

 

[Video Beagle]

15 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Seems like just a political party trying to jerk off some dumb people by going "see we care about you" when in reality it won't lead anywhere.

 

Seems like a political party wanting to distract their online constiuients from that they're not going to be able to buy cheese in 3 weeks.

 

--------------------

How do you determine if something being sold was bought by a bot or not?

[DoTr]

So what if you buy something by a bot and after 2-3 years you decide to sell it ?

[Drama Lama]

I guess this won't include stock stonks

[Spindel]

This is just stupid. I have no love for scalper but still think this is just stupid. 

 

Having these kind of rules for non-essential goods makes no sense, you might as well make it illegal to buy (non essential goods) at a markup from MSRP. That would probably have more effect on scalping. 

 

The problem is there are people willing to pay scalper prices, and as long as those people exist, scalpers will exist. 

[poochyena]

8 hours ago, Sauron said:

...how is preventing that "essential"?

I didn't say it was

 

8 hours ago, Sauron said:

Uhh yes it does result in financial harm if you end up buying it at an inflated price.

then.... don't.

[wanderingfool2]

10 hours ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

This is stupid, bots aren't the problem. It's the people willing to buy 3080s and PS5s for $1000+. It's simple supply and demand, if no one bought scalped products, bot buys would stop being a thing. Not to mention that even if you think this is a good idea, it's pretty much impossible to enforce, so this is basically just "hello fellow kids"

Agreed.

 

Well if anything, enacting such a law (that is pretty hard to enforce) might give an excuse to the online business to not prevent bot activity.  After all, why should they invest in resources to stop bots from purchasing if it's "illegal" to resell it anyways...i.e. It makes bots easier to use, since storefronts might not care about blocking bots.

 

Not saying that it would happen, but could see it being a real possibility.  The bot-makers would likely also just come up with a way to make it look like they aren't mass ordering stuff anyways.  If anything, there should be the discussion of putting laws in place for the online retailers to lets say limit the quantity to only a single household.  (Not saying I would agree with that kind of law...but it's better than what currently is proposed

[Theminecraftaddict555]

This seems easier said than done. How would users be able to differentiate between a bot and a legit seller? and I highly doubt it will be easy to get rid of the bots that do this. 

 

Unless they somehow are able to implement this well, which I doubt 

[aDoomGuy]

I honestly don't think any law will change this "scalper situation". How is it going to be enforced? Seriously, how? How will they prove in a court of law that a particular card was purchased via bots and how many trials would fill up court rooms that should be occupied with more important things?

 

The responsibility here lies not with governments or courts of law but with the sellers and the consumers. If nobody buys from the so-called scalpers then they wont have a business. If sellers have systems to detect that 200 game consoles or 3070 video cards was purchased by bots they can cancel the suspected purchases.

 

Besides just because it's illegal wont stop people from doing it.

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

I honestly don't think any law will change this "scalper situation". How is it going to be enforced? Seriously, how? How will they prove in a court of law that a particular card was purchased via bots and how many trials would fill up court rooms that should be occupied with more important things?

 

The responsibility here lies not with governments or courts of law but with the sellers and the consumers. If nobody buys from the so-called scalpers then they wont have a business. If sellers have systems to detect that 200 game consoles or 3070 video cards was purchased by bots they can cancel the suspected purchases.

 

Besides just because it's illegal wont stop people from doing it.

Scalpers have been a problem in many sectors and a really good fix has yet to be found in a lot of those.  There have been several successful partial fixes though.  I’m not going with a “just NO” here.  I’m not a fan of defeatism. “why even try” seems like a recipie for failure to me.  it’s a hard problem though and needs to be thought about carefully.

[aDoomGuy]

8 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Scalpers have been a problem in many sectors and a really good fix has yet to be found in a lot of those.  There have been several successful partial fixes though.  I’m not going with a “just NO” here.  I’m not a fan of defeatism. “why even try” seems like a recipie for failure to me.  it’s a hard problem though and needs to be thought about carefully.

I get it, I do. But lets say we have a person who is into mining crypto, he makes a bot to make purchases for himself. Obviously he needs video cards and obviously he is going to need to upgrade again. Why should he risk being penalized to sell his old ones? My post wasn't a why even try sort of thing, it's just that the whole thing didn't seem very thought out and that can be bad for a number of individuals.

 

Would I support such a legislation? Hell yeah if it have been thoroughly thought over and not just rushed into existence to try and mend a *bleep*ed up situation...

[SADS]

Whilst I agree that scalping isn't really a breach of any laws and there's free markets and all that. This kinda makes me think akin to the purchasing of stolen goods as a law and something to think about.

Obviously that law goes more in hand with someone else's original possession of goods, but the law affects the 3rd party (second buyer), to deter them from purchasing stolen goods.... not that its effective in any way, as theft and re-sale of those goods is still rife.

 

But maybe something could be said for something along the lines of buying items at prices way over retail being illegal. Spending £10,000 for a paperclip would probably start to arouse suspicions for money laundering for example.

[Bombastinator]

12 minutes ago, SADS said:

Whilst I agree that scalping isn't really a breach of any laws and there's free markets and all that. This kinda makes me think akin to the purchasing of stolen goods as a law and something to think about.

Obviously that law goes more in hand with someone else's original possession of goods, but the law affects the 3rd party (second buyer), to deter them from purchasing stolen goods.... not that its effective in any way, as theft and re-sale of those goods is still rife.

 

But maybe something could be said for something along the lines of buying items at prices way over retail being illegal. Spending £10,000 for a paperclip would probably start to arouse suspicions for money laundering for example.

Scalping in general is the purchase of retail goods which are then flipped and marked up drastically without adding value.  It’s fairly common to see money laundering stuff on eBay such as you described.  I’m not sure they aren’t different problems, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be dealt with both at once.  Makes the problem even more twitchy though.

[Kavamale21]

Probably it's dump too say but scalpers making business from it because there is plenty of idiots ready too pay. And this year launches was heavily understocked. 

As I live in UK I don't expect government to make any meaningful impact. How they plan to enforce it or check? Hunt everyone selling on eBay? Raid homes? And even if it comes to laws will take few years and it won't be understaffed police priority.

[Mark Kaine]

On 12/16/2020 at 8:35 AM, yolosnail said:

I want to buy all the graphics cards, I should be able to.

If I want to use a bot to buy them, I should be able to. 

If I want to then sell them at an egregious mark up, I should be able to

Nope to all 3 of those. And that's exactly the problem why some regulations are *needed*

[HM-2]

Entertaining totally unenforceable legislation when there are far bigger issues at hand deserving of attention? Of course.