Banning Scalpers and BOTS

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I think it would be a good start if AV Forums banned reselling at inflated prices like it used to be!
 
agree totally
 
The PS5 classifieds are starting to fill with PS5s obviously bought and sold immediately for a quick buck.

I liked the good old days when the classifieds were a service to Forum members rather than a selling platform for scalpers. Profiteering used to be specifically banned in the rules but for some reason that rule got rescinded - not sure why.
 
Whilst I am being hypocritical, as I sold a "spare" on here at an inflated price, I have been a member for 15 years with an impeccable trading record. I dont believe any members with less than [insert number of months here] should be allowed to trade at all.

Will stop people joining for the sole purpose of selling fee free on the site.
 
Whilst I am being hypocritical, as I sold a "spare" on here at an inflated price, I have been a member for 15 years with an impeccable trading record. I dont believe any members with less than [insert number of months here] should be allowed to trade at all.

Will stop people joining for the sole purpose of selling fee free on the site.

I do agree, but also think the profiteering should be banned as it used to be.
 
The PS5 classifieds are starting to fill with PS5s obviously bought and sold immediately for a quick buck.

I liked the good old days when the classifieds were a service to Forum members rather than a selling platform for scalpers. Profiteering used to be specifically banned in the rules but for some reason that rule got rescinded - not sure why.
It was removed to allow flexibility for members to sell items that were worth more than RRP. It was too restrictive, but the downside obviously, is hot ticket hardware releases such as now.

Whilst I am being hypocritical, as I sold a "spare" on here at an inflated price, I have been a member for 15 years with an impeccable trading record. I dont believe any members with less than [insert number of months here] should be allowed to trade at all.

Will stop people joining for the sole purpose of selling fee free on the site.
Lots of proposals have been raised over the years and most are unworkable.

Scalping, or more properly, profiteering, will always be the unpalatable side of classifieds trading, and restricting the practice would not solve the issue of those who are after a system and can't get one. The profiteers/bots will still buy up all the systems - they'll just sell them elsewhere. By indulging the minority who simply dislike the practice on principle, the only people who would genuinely be affected by this are those who ARE prepared to pay the inflated price, and there are plenty who will as evidenced in the classifieds.

The simple fact is, if you don't like profiteering/profiteers, ignore it/them and move on. I want a 3080/90 and can't get one. There are a few for sale in the classifieds at inflated prices, but I'm not going to stand here and rail against them for my not being able to get one. They had the foresight to purchase or pre-purchase one or many, and I didn't. It's as simple as that. If they can get the inflated price, good luck to them, but I won't be paying it and nor will I complain.

Also, it's probably worth mentioning that this situation is almost unique in that 2 major consoles have been released alongside Nvidia's new GPU's (and AMD's Ryzen CPU's) - just before Christmas. The chronic shortages we're currently experiencing will probably not be seen again for another decade, at least, and it can be no coincidence that it's only now, that the complaining about profiteering has reared its head. Why does no one complain about watches/trainers/media/collectables etc being sold over RRP?

The reason I ask is that choosing a hugely in-demand item that cannot be purchased due to chronic stock shortages, just smacks of selective criticism.

Apologies if that sounds ranty, I get fed up of answering the question 😤
 
I agree, they use this site because of the target audience but because the guys who want one and cannot are the target audience they get pissed off with it.

or some do, as you say.
 
I'm surprised that Sony haven't chimed in at this point; they're the ones losing out by having consoles sitting in peoples' spare rooms and garages rather than in the hands of gamers. They're not selling the games to go along with the consoles, and any budget which buyers might have otherwise had for games and accessories ends up in the hands of scalpers instead.

The sad thing is, the only real advantage a bot has over a legitimate buyer is the speed with which it can click through the checkout process. This would be trivial to overcome, if the merchant's checkout software did a few simple things for purchases of popular items:

1) Insert a random delay - say, 30 to 60 seconds - between receiving the 'checkout' click and actually processing it.

2) Release stock gradually (at unpredictable intervals) over a period of time - perhaps an hour or two - rather than all at once.

3) If a sale is unsuccessful, ignore repeat attempts from the same IP address for 60 seconds.

Any purchase can still be completed in a minute or so, but there's absolutely no advantage in clicking really fast, the moment new stock starts to become available.

Arguably retailers have no incentive to do these simple things, but Sony does. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see future deliveries being made contingent on retailers' systems having a degree of bot-proofing built in.
 
It was removed to allow flexibility for members to sell items that were worth more than RRP. It was too restrictive, but the downside obviously, is hot ticket hardware releases such as now.


Lots of proposals have been raised over the years and most are unworkable.

Scalping, or more properly, profiteering, will always be the unpalatable side of classifieds trading, and restricting the practice would not solve the issue of those who are after a system and can't get one. The profiteers/bots will still buy up all the systems - they'll just sell them elsewhere. By indulging the minority who simply dislike the practice on principle, the only people who would genuinely be affected by this are those who ARE prepared to pay the inflated price, and there are plenty who will as evidenced in the classifieds.

The simple fact is, if you don't like profiteering/profiteers, ignore it/them and move on. I want a 3080/90 and can't get one. There are a few for sale in the classifieds at inflated prices, but I'm not going to stand here and rail against them for my not being able to get one. They had the foresight to purchase or pre-purchase one or many, and I didn't. It's as simple as that. If they can get the inflated price, good luck to them, but I won't be paying it and nor will I complain.

Also, it's probably worth mentioning that this situation is almost unique in that 2 major consoles have been released alongside Nvidia's new GPU's (and AMD's Ryzen CPU's) - just before Christmas. The chronic shortages we're currently experiencing will probably not be seen again for another decade, at least, and it can be no coincidence that it's only now, that the complaining about profiteering has reared its head. Why does no one complain about watches/trainers/media/collectables etc being sold over RRP?

The reason I ask is that choosing a hugely in-demand item that cannot be purchased due to chronic stock shortages, just smacks of selective criticism.

Apologies if that sounds ranty, I get fed up of answering the question 😤

The problem I have is the chronic stock shortages are caused by scalpers through the use of bots. The foresight they had is to pay to join a bot group (or knew someone who has) . Its no different to ticket touting, in my book.

The ability to distort/control the market is not something to support as it causes harm (in a competitive/market sense)
 
The problem I have is the chronic stock shortages are caused by scalpers through the use of bots. The foresight they had is to pay to join a bot group (or knew someone who has) . Its no different to ticket touting, in my book.

The ability to distort/control the market is not something to support as it causes harm (in a competitive/market sense)
I don't support profiteering - I never have, and most of the moderation team don't either. I can, however, appreciate why the rule was relaxed in order to allow flexibility for members to sell in-demand/rare/collectable items that are worth more than their RRP. Any new console will always fall under 'in-demand' during the first quarter of release, and prohibiting those from taking advantage would achieve nothing.

Regarding profiteers, though, you could equally blame those with more money than sense who pay the inflated prices for perpetuating the scalping. One cannot exist without the other and if everyone decided not to pay the inflated prices and wait for new stock, there would be no profiteering. So I find it a little disingenuous to lay the blame entirely at the scalper's feet.

Quite honestly, I do not know of any way it could be successfully combated. Sony as the manufacturer does not care. As long as they sell their release runs to retail, that's all that matters to them. Even if Sony sold the units at an arbitrarily high amount to retail, it wouldn't make the slightest difference. Retail know gamers will still pay it, and if they are prepared to pay it, scalpers will know they can prosper.

The area of concern for me, or certainly, where I would look to tighten the net (and @AndyC_772 brushed on it), is what happens beyond the production release point. While Sony/MS can only produce and release X amount of systems to retail (and you could blame them for releasing such a limited amount), it's the retailers who control the outcome and create the shortages due to their pre-ordering/selling process to the punters. There's little doubt it's been a shambolic release for both PS5 and XBX and the scalpers have had a field day by using bots to hoover up the systems. Again though, how do you mitigate this? I'm sure there is a way, but when the bottom line is all that matters to retailers and, particularly, in the current situation, do you think they care any more than Sony about who actually gets the systems?

They might release soundbites of support and promise to do better, but they won't. And for all the news that it will affect the PS5's and XBX's market longevity, what a load of boll...s! Two things will happen; the scalper's machines will be sold at inflated rates, or they won't because once the new stock is released, they'll have to sell them at or below retail. Either way, the PS5's and XBX's that no one can get currently will ultimately end up in a gamers possession.
 
Retailers may not care who buys the systems, but Sony most definitely does.

Right now, what's the fist thing that comes to mind when someone mentions "PS5"? Is it:

a) an awesome AAA game title that came out at launch and everyone's been enjoying since Christmas?

b) the fantastic online community?

c) the way it gives a new lease of life to the entire Playstation back catalogue?

or

d) Still can't get one except from a guy on Facebook who only takes cash?

You can't blame Sony for the restricted supply, the world is in lockdown and there's no doubt they're building them as fast as physically possible. Even if they'd stockpiled millions, there's still not the capacity in the logistics network to get one to everybody who wants one straight away.

Again though, how do you mitigate this?

There are plenty of standard techniques in computer system and network design to manage contention for a limited resource. Things like random delays and rate limiting are simple and effective. Even better would be to flag up any buyer with superhuman clicking ability and cancel the order - preferably silently, so scalpers' funds are tied up for a few days.

Negating the benefit of a bot's ability to click quickly really isn't hard - it just needs the retailer's online store software to include the features. That requires an incentive, which Sony has, and the time to introduce the countermeasures, which they haven't had yet.
 
It's a chicken/egg situation really - without the people prepared to pay the silly prices there would be no point buying extra consoles to fleece everyone.
I don't like the 'if we did that then they'd just sell them elsewhere' response either. Even just taking a stand is good and 'principled'. The more that did it the more it could actually have an effect. Like ebay etc. stopped sales of some things a while back.
I was desperate for one for my son for Christmas (he still doesn't have one) but it was really heartwarming the few people here who were prepared to sell at RRP here, it really was.
I'm still waiting for one yet we still have people here who have clearly taken advantage of recent deliveries and got a couple and selling the other at grossly inflated price.
Sadly, it's the 'Me, me, me' world we live in where others suffer but the others make money off the less fortunate ones.
As Sony and retailers appear to actually be doing little to nothing to stop this, then it's places like this that openly allow it that simply fuel the thing. Money, clicks and Ads is probably what it's all about again.
It sickens me, it really does.
 
It's the folk who make crap up about why they are selling one....

"I bought an extra one for my brother and he doesn't want it!'... (The brother would've snapped your hand off for RRP and sold it to CEX!!!)

Or.. " I bought 2, one for the living room and one for the bedroom" (If you had enough money to even think about buying an additional luxury item in the current climate, then you could post it on here for RRP as you are obviously comfortable financially.

Fair enough the rules about selling for more than the RRP were scrapped, as they were 'too restrictive', but that's fair enough if it's for a collector's item or memorabilia, Luke Skywalker's actual hand from ESB or whatever... But something that is new but in short supply should be off the agenda...
 
There are plenty of standard techniques in computer system and network design to manage contention for a limited resource. Things like random delays and rate limiting are simple and effective. Even better would be to flag up any buyer with superhuman clicking ability and cancel the order - preferably silently, so scalpers' funds are tied up for a few days.

Negating the benefit of a bot's ability to click quickly really isn't hard - it just needs the retailer's online store software to include the features. That requires an incentive, which Sony has, and the time to introduce the countermeasures, which they haven't had yet.
I'm not au fait with bot development (coding is not my area of expertise), but even so, I wouldn't be confident of saying whether it's that simple. I agree, there are many potential solutions developers could implement, particularly with networking (which I do know in-depth), but even networking restrictions has limits and certainly when you factor in VPN's and IP spoofing (it's just too broad). Also, those who develop bots are equally intelligent and would probably counter anything with smarter AI. It would be a never-ending battle of continued investment that I would imagine many retailers see no benefit in implementing. Other than it being a gesture of goodwill to genuine punters, there is no financial return to be gained - only expenditure. Retailers want to sell consoles and I'd imagine as long as they sell, they don't care who they're sold too. Maybe I'm cynical, but the bottom line tends to be deciding factor in most business decisions. I'd imagine any change to combat it would have to come from a governmental directive - and it may come to that if the disgruntled folks who cannot legitimately get one keep up the fight against it.

It's just been a strange release all round and I've never seen anything quite like it. COVID hasn't helped matters, but the postal service hasn't been affected too badly and going back to the PS1 release back in the '90s - when it was notoriously difficult to get a system - I don't recall it ever being this bad.

Fair enough the rules about selling for more than the RRP were scrapped, as they were 'too restrictive', but that's fair enough if it's for a collector's item or memorabilia, Luke Skywalker's actual hand from ESB or whatever... But something that is new but in short supply should be off the agenda...
I get what you're saying and I don't disagree. But it's very difficult to draw a line without causing wider problems (it's been discussed by moderation to death), and you also have to remember, this is a passing issue. In a couple of months or so, these shortages and the subsequent scalping will be yesterday's news and no one will give two hoots about 'that time when no one could get a PS5 without stumping up way over RRP'.

It's self justification, simple as that. So they don't feel as ****y.
I also agree with some of the comments about those advertising. I bought a spare, just in case - I bought five for the family and they don't want them... I mean, come on. Just be honest and say I bought five to sell for profit. Offering some self-serving garbage in an attempt to be better received by the community is just insulting. From what I've seen, the actual threads where traders have been honest have been more successful.

*****

I don't ordinarily involve myself in discussions regarding profiteering because it can be a never-ending circle of arguments due to the disparate opinions on the subject and the negative emotions it often generates. These are my simply own thoughts on the matter.

Cheers
 
It's the folk who make crap up about why they are selling one....

"I bought an extra one for my brother and he doesn't want it!'... (The brother would've snapped your hand off for RRP and sold it to CEX!!!)

Or.. " I bought 2, one for the living room and one for the bedroom" (If you had enough money to even think about buying an additional luxury item in the current climate, then you could post it on here for RRP as you are obviously comfortable financially.

Fair enough the rules about selling for more than the RRP were scrapped, as they were 'too restrictive', but that's fair enough if it's for a collector's item or memorabilia, Luke Skywalker's actual hand from ESB or whatever... But something that is new but in short supply should be off the agenda...
Whilst I don’t care either way it does make me laugh when they open the advert with the words;

“I’m not a scalper but.....” 😂
 
The amount on sale today, bought with only the intention of making a profit, and thus denying a genuine gamer, is beyond words to me. Just one word, greed.
 
There was one for sale from someone here who didn't want to pay a "ridiculous and greedy price to 'namely a few here.'". The irony is astonishing.
Thankfully were lucky enough to buy two at retail and were prepared to sell one for only £625. One of which I could have bought for my son. Why should they pay a ridiculous, greedy price when they can fund their purchase by enabling others to do it instead?
Conscious decisions were made.... one to deprive somebody of one and buy something to scalp profit from and another to allow a platform to enable it.
:(
 
There was one for sale from someone here who didn't want to pay a "ridiculous and greedy price to 'namely a few here.'". The irony is astonishing.
Thankfully were lucky enough to buy two at retail and were prepared to sell one for only £625. One of which I could have bought for my son. Why should they pay a ridiculous, greedy price when they can fund their purchase by enabling others to do it instead?
Conscious decisions were made.... one to deprive somebody of one and buy something to scalp profit from and another to allow a platform to enable it.
:(

With a bit of luck the one he kept will break....
 
I'm not au fait with bot development (coding is not my area of expertise), but even so, I wouldn't be confident of saying whether it's that simple. I agree, there are many potential solutions developers could implement, particularly with networking (which I do know in-depth), but even networking restrictions has limits and certainly when you factor in VPN's and IP spoofing (it's just too broad). Also, those who develop bots are equally intelligent and would probably counter anything with smarter AI. It would be a never-ending battle of continued investment that I would imagine many retailers see no benefit in implementing. Other than it being a gesture of goodwill to genuine punters, there is no financial return to be gained - only expenditure. Retailers want to sell consoles and I'd imagine as long as they sell, they don't care who they're sold too. Maybe I'm cynical, but the bottom line tends to be deciding factor in most business decisions. I'd imagine any change to combat it would have to come from a governmental directive - and it may come to that if the disgruntled folks who cannot legitimately get one keep up the fight against it.

It's just been a strange release all round and I've never seen anything quite like it. COVID hasn't helped matters, but the postal service hasn't been affected too badly and going back to the PS1 release back in the '90s - when it was notoriously difficult to get a system - I don't recall it ever being this bad.


I get what you're saying and I don't disagree. But it's very difficult to draw a line without causing wider problems (it's been discussed by moderation to death), and you also have to remember, this is a passing issue. In a couple of months or so, these shortages and the subsequent scalping will be yesterday's news and no one will give two hoots about 'that time when no one could get a PS5 without stumping up way over RRP'.


I also agree with some of the comments about those advertising. I bought a spare, just in case - I bought five for the family and they don't want them... I mean, come on. Just be honest and say I bought five to sell for profit. Offering some self-serving garbage in an attempt to be better received by the community is just insulting. From what I've seen, the actual threads where traders have been honest have been more successful.

*****

I don't ordinarily involve myself in discussions regarding profiteering because it can be a never-ending circle of arguments due to the disparate opinions on the subject and the negative emotions it often generates. These are my simply own thoughts on the matter.

Cheers
Could sales be made to be at RRP for a set length of time eg six months? This would mean the scalpers wouldn’t be able to sell for rip off prices but someone selling an OOP steelbook would be able to get market value?
 
Could sales be made to be at RRP for a set length of time eg six months? This would mean the scalpers wouldn’t be able to sell for rip off prices but someone selling an OOP steelbook would be able to get market value?
Why is it ok for someone selling an OOP steelbook to make a profit but not someone selling an in demand console? What about someone selling a brand new Rolex? They are often above RRP due to demand, allowed or not allowed? Ridiculous suggestion
 
Why is it ok for someone selling an OOP steelbook to make a profit but not someone selling an in demand console? What about someone selling a brand new Rolex? They are often above RRP due to demand, allowed or not allowed? Ridiculous suggestion
Because the people selling PS5 are doing it purely to rip off members who are desperate to get their hands on the latest console. They are buying them purely with the intention to sell on at a big profit which I don’t believe is in the spirit of the forums.
 
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