Should Console Scalping Be Illegal? Xbox Series X and PS5 Sales Are Being Abused

KeenGamer: "Console scalping has hit the gaming community harder than it ever has - should it be illegal? Prices on eBay, Facebook, and Amazon are absurd. The gaming community may need to fight back to bring an end to this immoral act. Laws have done nothing, but is there a way to get justice?"

[RaidenBlack]

"Console Scalping" be illegal? And other scalping's cool?
The RTX 3000 cards were scalped even more ...

[Jin_Sakai]

All online sites such as FB Marketplace and eBay should ban high demand product sales until there’s sufficient supply. F the scalpers.

[SullysCigar]

Totally agree with this. It's more of a moral issue than a legal one, in my opinion.

FB, eBay and the like should not want to be seen to support this. The trouble is, eBay for example, makes money from this kind of practice - and with their fees being percentage based, the more these scalpers can mug a desperate parent for right before Christmas, the better for their bottom line.

[ABizzel1]

Ebay would never they get a cut of the sell, and the scalpers are just doing what almost every other company does daily and make millions / billions on the population. It sucks but this is capitalism at its finest and instead of buying just wait.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the companies were using 3rd party resellers to sell their cards for more than MSRP at this point considering high demand is, and not restocking in full until this settles down. There's no proof of it, but again greed can make people do some backhanded things. Why sell our GPUs for $600 when people are willing to pay $1,500 and up to $2,000 right now.

Just don't be stupid or desperate, and wait.

[Spartacus10]

They wont ban anyone unless they get review bombed for not having the ban in place

[neutralgamer1992]

Jin

Places like ebay get high profits the more a item sells for so I don't think they care. It's like when this pandemic started and people were charging like crazy for hand sanitizers. Did y'all forget how people were selling bathroom paper towels haha

[Dee_91]

are there really people paying over msrp? im more annoyed at those people than the scalpers and bots. Like seriously, Sony and MS will flood the market with consoles by the end of 2022, so why would you pay above msrp just to get it early and play a hand full of games? That makes no sense. I don't really care either way I was going to wait before I get new consoles.
Also I wonder how does Sony feel about this? Knowing they sold out of consoles but a lot of people who wanted one, who could have gotten one, didn't because of scalpers and bots. That has to suck for them. Then again they made their money so they probably don't care.

[SullysCigar]

^ @Dee_91, Sony will care because if consoles are sitting around in a scalper's lockup they're no having software bought to play on them.

As for why people buy consoles from scalpers, I wish they wouldn't, but if people are buying it as a gift and can't get them anywhere else, they weaken and pay a high price. People are dumb!

[itsmebryan]

People should stop buying them and the prices will come down. I went and got a new TV and will wait for supply to catch up. The Q80T I got is a big image upgrade from my old 1080p DLP . So, I'm fine with my X1X for now. I might even get a bundle cheaper and they will work out the bugs later.

[UltraNova]

Prohibit reselling of high demand electronic devices during launch period(~3 months). Problem solved.

[northpaws]

The most efficient way to kill off all scalpers is super simple... don't buy from them, if they don't make money out of it, then they won't do it the next time.

[ABizzel1]

This, or waste their time bidding on the products and canceling the order or bid, that way they have to drop the price down to something more reasonable so some other fool buys it, or return it and get their money back.

[neutralgamer1992]

Exactly hold off and wait few months. We will be able to get it for MSRP and systems would be updated and bugs/glitches would be fixed

[Seraphim]

the problem is they will because far to many people do and will pay whatever price. That guy with 42 PS5s. At 500$ profit he raked in $21k on those 42 PS5s alone. I've seen plenty of other posts of bot buys ranging from 8 to roughly 29 as well. And when there's that much money to be made and people to spend it we will never curb the issue. At least not when we allow bots and multiple orders.

As others have said I'd like to see ebay and other places ban the sale of new products such as consoles or even graphics cards for the first 3-6 months. Though ideally these companies would come out with ample supply day one to help combat this. From what I can see it appears Amazon US pulled the option to even sell a PS5 by a 3rd party. All of amazon should be doing the same thing. Also why can't retailers just do a limit of one per payment method/address.... Maybe take it a step further and have a master list that retailers share to flag and cancel multiple orders. Same reason why ebay won't ban sales. Greed. it's all about making that money. Walmart doesn't care long as they get a sale and since they seem to be the only retailer getting them. I'm sitting here constantly refreshing every retailer every night. Even Best Buy who have put up multiple open box units is appears bots are scooping those up. it's also pure greed as to why these people use bots and scalp. and don't site supply and demand because that implies that the consumer/end user is the one purchasing. That is not the case with scalpers. They are helping create an even larger deficiency for their own gain. And don't cite capitalism either. Before the internet people bought what they needed/wanted. We didn't have bots and people loading up on a product for profit. By definition scalping is not capitalism.

[Noskypeno]

But some stuff should be illegal, even tho I'm not for complete dictatorship. For example, Uhaul in San Francisco charges 5 times the rate to move out then to move in because everyone is moving out, which leads to people turning to moving companies that aren't legit and some even holding the belongings hostage.

And with this situation, Bezos is a jerk for cancelling a bunch of pre-orders, but he's a jerk in general so... yeah screw that dr. Evil wannabe.

[Teflon02]

Ban? Hell no. That's not fair for the ones who buy and end up not wanting or say my cousin wants and I grab an extra for them. They can't see it as any different. They got the 1 per household rule already. The most they can do is keep a track on ips or something.

What they should do is, ban it on a marketplace level. Where within a console/graphics card etc release, the first 2 or so months you can't sell on these sites or anything

[Seraphim]

the problem is they don't have a 1 per household rule. Nor a one per payment method, account, etc. Don't mistake only being able to add one to your cart as a limit of.

[rlow1]

Passing a law would only work if it forced retailers to take measures on their own websites. Funny how big retailers do a minimum on combating this, yet they make next to nothing off the consoles. The scalpers wont be buying the extras and that's where the money is at for the stores. So they're basically shooting themselves in the foot and on top of it doing a disservice to their customers. But tough situation that's for sure.

[Rude-ro]

As in your point is logical...
ps5 accessories are sold out too..
Every gen this happens... but not to the extent for Sony where the headphones and controllers sold out
Just imagine if games did not go digital or some would sold out too I bet.

[Profchaos]

We have laws in my country to prevent it however it's only policed as far as concert tickets and toilet paper rolls at the height of covid.

[TheOptimist]

Welcome to reality, a society so deep in the shit of capitalism and materialism where the rich, dumb/selfish and impatient drive the economy.

It's an open market, people can do whatever they please. Since you can't control 7.2 billion people and dont have the resources for it either, all you can do it suck it up.

[IanTH]

I agree with the first part, though disagree with the 2nd.

While it is an open market, the US already has laws in place for "essential" goods - most recently, we saw a lot of sellers getting banned or fined for selling toilet paper/hand sanitizer/etc for many times the MSRP. There's no real reason we couldn't have something in place to help at least curb scalping behavior on the whole. There are other similar scenarios where costs above MSRP are either sensible or necessary - like intentionally collectable or limited run products - but I think I have a potential solution. I haven't thought this through further than this comment, so holes may be poked through it under scrutiny, but here's the gist.

I think we could probably have a law in place for products where for the 1st 6 months after release, any product you sell must be at MSRP or below. That way you could set up something for sites like eBay that could query a product database to find the MSRP & launch date. If you try to list above, it just disallows that unless it notes it has been more than 6 months. If big places like eBay and FB Marketplace disallowed it, the value and ease of scalping would likely be limited enough that it might not even need to enforced on smaller sites. The more people who get the product they want, the less strain there is on retail/supply chain. And 6 months would give plenty of time for supply & manufacturing to meet a good portion of the "actual" early demand. Feels like it could work, or at least help ease some of the most egregious scalping anyway.

[NotoriousWhiz]

Seal it. Stamp it. Send it.

[dragon_rocks]

People will easily bypass that by bundling it with old stuff and overprice the older stuff or will put a signsture on the box and sell it for higher price saying cost of their autograph etc. etc. As long as there are people willing to buy stuff at higher price the scalping will continue.

[specialguest]

I don't like scalping, but to have a law for non-essential items is something I'm totally against. No one owes you a chance to get these non-essential items at fair cost, because it was sold out. It is up to the retailers to set up a way to limit scalpers or make it difficult or not worth their effort to stay in the scalping business

[IanTH]

@specialguest - How anyone could be against scalpers, but for a system that allows them to thrive - see our current situation - is a tough one to reconcile. Kinda sounds like you're a closet scalper lol.

I don't know why if you hold the opinion that no one owes you a chance at items at a fair cost, that that ends at essential items. If we let the free market work as it does, then essential items should be held in the same regard. If everyone was on an even playing field, scalping probably wouldn't likely be quite as much of an issue as it currently stands. But the playing field ain't even.

Scalpers have bots and all sorts of crap to allow them to buy units at the speed of light, fractions of seconds after a page goes live, automating the process, picking up multiple units. Your average consumer cannot do that, so the system is being completely gamed.

The retailers don't care if a scalper buys a non-essential product or someone else does - they get their money either way. They have no incentive to spend the money or effort to make scalpers lives more difficult. eBay doesn't really either, as they get a cut of the obscene sale prices as well. It would practically have to come down to a law to stop it. I don't know why a 6 month moratorium on new products is a bridge too far.

[SmokinAces]

Probably hard to enforce, the best way to stop scalping is to not pay scalpers, stick them with the units they bought and the money lost and perhaps it will stop, but when people pay them two to three times the price they'll just keep doing it, we have the power to stop them, dont buy from them.

[ziggurcat]

"Probably hard to enforce"

Queues can be set up, and limit it to one per person.

[SmokinAces]

Trust me scalpers are smart enough to work around those measures and have.

[GottaBjimmyb]

They have nothing to lose because they have return policies covering their buts until february and can just return unsold units. It is a no risk scenario for them

[SmokinAces]

And that's fine as they still make no profit at all doing that and have to deal with the inconvenience and then they can go onto the store shelves and be sold to people that want and deserve them for the regular retail price..

[GottaBjimmyb]

@smoking there is almost noone who got more than 10 who hasn't sold at least a few, there is still a profit. The stores are to blame TBH. Can't say 1 per customer then let people pickup 50 in store or ship 50 to one address.

[SmokinAces]

Ok you're flip flopping your comments now, you suggested they would just return them to which I said they'd make no profit doing that, now you're saying they're selling them and making a profit, please pick one or the other for your argument. Look I dont disagree with you that the retailer plays a large part in the problem but again the short term solution is for us the consumers to not pay theses people their ridiculous asking prices.

[GottaBjimmyb]

It is not flip-flopping, I am saying there will always be some who buy them. Their ABSOLUTE worse case scenario is wasted time and no money lost. But the reality is they are going to sell most of them way above MSRP and at worse maybe have a few left that they can return cutting any chances of a loss. Not a hard concept.

[SmokinAces]

And I'm saying if people simply stopped buying from scalpers the problem would go away, not a hard concept either.

[GottaBjimmyb]

@Smoking, but yours is not ever going to be a reality, and like I said, their absolute worse case is wasted time and possibly some gas money

[Knightofelemia]

It not console scalping that should be illegal it's scalping period look at those who scalped toilet paper, face masks, concert tickets, sporting event tickets. If you see a PS5 selling for $2000 on Ebay just avoid it people who buy from the scalpers are sheep simply doing an impulse buy. On the retailers end its hard to enforce I can go to Best Buy buy a PS5 if they say limit one per customer I can either get a friend to go in and grab a PS5 or I can simply go to Wal Mart and grab a PS5 from there. On the selling side like putting a PS5 or Series X on Ebay how are you going to prove that I didn't get that extra console as a birthday or Xmas present I didn't know before I went out and bought one now I have an extra machine. I want scalping to be illegal but to prove it is hard to do unless you're a complete idiot and make a video of yourself buying 5 machines.

[Bladesfist]

Yer those who scalp medical equipment at the start of a pandemic are extra disgusting, it's just such a horrible thing to do for profit.

[raiden_188]

Just don't buy of the scalpers or sabotage thier eBay listing by creating a fake account and buying it. I like what Currys did here in the UK. They sent codes to people who pre ordered so they could unlock the true retail price of the console as it was listed for £2449.

[Latex74]

Im sorry but when there are stupid people out there willing to buy at these stupid prices you will never stop it I blame the dick heads that buy them and can not wait

[Noskypeno]

Well you got all those trustfund kids who are mad that Bezos cancelled their preorders.

[Deathdeliverer]

Hell.... if the series X keeps performing the way it has been on the multiplatform games scalpers might have to start selling below cost to get rid of em. After seeing that dirt evaluation what I thought was going to be interesting is turning into a bloodbath. Scalpers better adjust their pricing at this rate....

[DEEHULK88]

Isn't it sold out?

[arkard]

They can return them, there is literally no risk and no reason they would sell under cost

[XxINFERNUSxX]

All scalping actually. They should apply this: "There is no federal law against scalping, but, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), 15 states ban the practice in some way, most labeling it as a misdemeanor with penalties including fines and/or up to a year in jail" But extend that to all states and if they can worldwide. And make the fine bigger and jail time longer.

[GamingManiac]

So you want communism? Get fuc*ed.

[NotoriousWhiz]

You should probably look up the definition of communism.

[GamingSinceForever]

How are the sales being abused? They received their money for the consoles. What happens afterwards is completely up to the original purchaser. No it shouldn’t be illegal, it’s a scumbag practice, however if someone is so impatient that paying triple retail isn’t a problem then so be it.

[Noskypeno]

Do you support U-haul charging people $2000 to move out from san Francisco instead of the usual $500 just because enough people are moving out. Some stuff should have a fixed rate, unfortunately we live in a hustling society where we applaud unskilled strippers making more than doctors and engineers.

[GamingSinceForever]

What are you talking about? That’s not even in the ballpark of this discussion. Neither Sony or MS has anything to do with you being charged $1500 for a console.

Also the practice should never be considered illegal because no should be able to tell you what to do with something that you own.

Scalping is just something that we have to deal with or choose to ignore.

[uth11]

Ticket scalping is illegal, that doesn't stop the practice

Whenever something is in short supply, scalpers will find a way.. there will always be some people willing to shell out a lot of money to have it

[victorMaje]

There’s a guy I usually buy my games & consoles from, a guy who supposedly has a legitimate business, who sends me a picture today of available PS5 stock telling me unfortunately they’re at black market price of $1350 but that I can have it at $1300.

Lol here’s my promise to that person:
I’m never buying anything from you again.

[SullysCigar]

If it's through eBay, I'd be tempted to buy it from him, wreck the packaging and then return it as 'not as described'. He'll have fun trying to prove the damage wasn't caused during transit and since he would have paid for your return label, he'll have to pick it up with the courier. Getting couriers to pay out (assuming he had the foresight to insure it and didn't go cheap to maximise his profits...) is like getting blood from a stone!

A scummy thing to do? Definitely, but so is scalping and the only way these guys learn is if the ROI didn't work out for them. His resale will be affected due to the damaged packaging and he'll have paid out for two extra courier services on top. Imagine if we all did this once...there would be an article about it and they have a new risk associated with scalping lol

[sourOG]

No. Just don’t be an idiot and buy a ps5 for 1500.

[aaronaton]

Of people are willing to wait and pay reasonable rrp then scalping wouldn't exist. If you ignore them, they will go away.

[aarallen1]

The problem is the bots purchasing the consoles.

[ravens52]

Yo please no one buy from these fucks. Let's be patient they wont be out of stock forever, and when they're back in stock these dummies will be stuck with a bunch of ps5s looking stupid.

[TheGreatGazoo30]

Scalpers suck but no, it shouldn't be illegal. You buy a physical thing you should be able to sell it for whatever you want, keep it in the box forever, or record a video of yourself destroying it. Less government regulation is better and we want a free market. Don't blame the scalpers blame the morons that pay them.

[Nacho_Z]

It's just business. Nothing I would get involved with at either end but it's nothing unusual in the grand scheme of things.

[MadLad]

Illegal?
No.

We should allow street justice without legal ramification though. If you can track them down, you can beat them and take their s**t.

Risk/reward sort of thing.

[trippyaaron]

The Purge is an interesting source of inspiration.

[jonny897]

We will be behind bars sooner or later so nope.

[addictedtochaos]

Just don’t buy from scalpers, make them just break even or even take a loss and they’ll stop.

[bondsmx]

Yes.

[Profchaos]

It's illegal in my country doesn't prevent it however.

[Inverno]

Problem is businesses move at a snail's pace. It's 2020 and online shopping has barely been improved, scalping shouldn't even be possible by now for any product. The pandemic has proven to me just how unprepared big and small retailers were and still are.

[Garethvk]

Yet when Amazon vendors jack the price of cleaning products and sanitizer they said supply and demand and free market economy. Should they do it; no. Is it legal as long as people are willing to pay and they are non essential items it is hard to make it illrgal. Ban the practice; sure but illegal; no.

[TheGreatGazoo30]

It actually isn't legal to do that for things like sanitizer during a Pandemic. Famously one of the guys that went around filling his garage full of all the sanitizer at the start of this had to donate (maybe sell at cost) all of it or face charges.

[Garethvk]

My point is that Amazon let hit happen for weeks when the lockdown started.

[shihiro1177]

I think part of the problem is that retail doesnt care who they sell to, the manufacturers/corporations don't care either as they are selling everything they make, plus scarcity increases demand whilst giving impression that their products are selling out and are popular.

I would love to think that manufactures and retailers could coordinate and limit sales to one unit per customer but that, unfortunately does not make any business sense for them. And as much as I would like to stop scalpers, I just don't think you can make it illegal for people to take advantage of a demand for a product. Supply and demand underpins our entire market economy.

[Amplitude]

I hate scalpers as much as the next guy but i accidentally became one this gen.

EB Games limited the number of PS5s to 1 sale per person. The site kept crashing over and over when i was ordering mine. I spent hours going through the checkout, getting to the final step, and then having it crash.
I didnt even score one during the preorder, then 2 days later i got an order confirmation email and was SO excited.

Then, quite literally days before it shipped, i received two tracking numbers. Checked my EB account - two order numbers, two PS5s.

Once i had two PS5s sitting in my house i had a moral dilemma - sell it for a disgusting price to some dude dumb enough to buy it for that price, or be a good person and let it go for the price i paid.

Anyway within minutes of posting it i got 1100 dollars for it on Marketplace, and the dude that bought it plays with me on PSN now and were friends.
I've had numerous people call me hilariously mean and rude names in comments and in real life (an EB Games manager that saw my facebook post called me out for it) for doing this but the thing is: I am 100% confident that literally everybody in the world would do the same in my shoes. I offered it to my friends for retail cost but they couldnt afford it.

Anyway if any of y'all have ever wanted to swear at a PS5 scalper im your man hmu

[SullysCigar]

"I am 100% confident that literally everybody in the world would do the same in my shoes"

Firstly, that's impossible. Second, your wrong. Seems everyone's happy in your situation, at least.

[DFresh]

Yes.
It should at least be a fine ($) to prevent people from doing it.

[gold_drake]

i dont think u can, because the consoles were still bought. of course it fucking sucks, i tried my best to get one, as much as alot of ppl, only to be disappointed that the "in stock" thing never showed up on amazon even with constant refreshing.
but i think its pretty difficult to make laws around that, because again, they still were bought regardless.

[MeteorPanda]

if sony and xbox didnt fucking keep everyone in the dark in a game of chicken and not make more consoles we'd not be in this situation. don't blame the scalpers

[TheGreatGazoo30]

It's not really about keeping people in the dark, at some point they both need to launch the system. They could wait until the have 30 million units sitting in a warehouse and then launch, but that doesn't make any business sense, they need to recover the cost (or most of the cost) of manufacturing them sooner than later. They also need beta tester, which tech early adopters are, to find what they couldn't during product testing. Then they can get the software patched before it reaches the masses. Both MS/Sony have issues with their systems now... Imagine the backlash and much more public issues if they had these issues and each had pushed 30-40 million systems worldwide in the last couple weeks.

[Guitardr85]

Its a two part problem...1. People should not be allowed to buy almost 50 PS5 and 2. People should not encourage this behavior by buying items at absurd prices.

[RgR]

Scalping takes place early in the generation.
People need to relax and not purchase them. That way they simply lost money.

Scalpers only do it because they profit. And they only profit if they're able to sell. Don't buy overpriced consoles and that will send the message

[Ashunderfire86]

It is already illegal since 2018, but the government is not enforcing the Grinch Bots Act.

Yes you read that the Grinch Bots Act:

https://www.congress.gov/bi...

[Hawk198666]

Scalping has been around for a long time. Illegal, no, that's daft. The problem is suppliers selling multiple units to 1 person.

[hercules_]

Probably the only way is to take action once they post their listings online, but I don't think the cops will be interested in such things.

[Gaming4Life1981]

No scalping should not be illegal but it does suck.

[gerbintosh]

There doesn't need to be a law against scalping when technology is available to stop the practice. I mean how hard is it to allow only 1 console per address, 1 per CC number, and a captcha in order to check out? The problem is that retailers don't care where the sale goes they just want it sold

[Ashunderfire86]

The Grinch Bots Act of 2018 look 👀 it up this clearly say people can’t use bots to steal multiple copies of the same item and other stuff.

[gerbintosh]

That's great but how the heck is that going to be enforced and by who? Law enforcement has bigger issues on their hand then trying to respond to bots

[Ashunderfire86]

#gerbintosh

Just stating the facts that the law exists for any politician to enforce it.

[Unknown_Gamer5794]

All the more reason why I'm holding off on getting a PS5 until the madness blows over. I do really want one, but I don't need one this second, and I can wait for a while if it means not fretting over whether I'll be able to get one.

[banshyork]

Where do you think scalping is most rampant? USA?

[Unknown_Gamer5794]

That seems like somewhere it would be particularly rampant, and Americans are known for that sort of thing. I'm sure it's happening a lot up here in Canada too. It's a detestable practice, but I'm sure it happens everywhere the supply doesn't quite match the demand. I'm sure it's especially prevalent in the US though.

[mastaleep]

Scalpers are losers, they will not change though.

[stormhawk]

Some dude on ebay is selling PS5 for $1500 and is already bragging that he sold 10 consoles today

[Unknown_Gamer5794]

I believe him. Some people are so desperate for one they would willingly get ripped off. I don't understand it myself as I'd never pay 3x the cost of something I could just wait a little while longer for, but other people are not me. I'm really looking forward to experiencing the PS5 for myself, but I'll stick to paying what it's actually worth.

[BenRoxio]

Unfortunately it cannot be classified as illegal. In fact there is no provision to even pursue such a thing because the onus is on the buyer, nobody is forcing anybody to purchase.

[Ashunderfire86]

Read my comment above there is a law that the government is not enforcing maybe due to lobbyists paying politicians to look the other way. This law was made 2 years ago called the Grinch Bots Act!

[rigordomnic]

Even the iPhone is subjected to this. Most wanted tech is scalped and its been happening since forever.

[Artemidorus]

One per address.

[Thomaticus]

I think retailers should do more to ensure an even distribution of sales for hot ticket items. We don’t need new laws for this...this is not a. Essential item for an emergency.

[lonewolf10]

And this is why scalping exists (people have to have things now):

https://metro.co.uk/2020/11...

[Einhander1971]

Yes it should be, the likes of Ebay should should shut them down.

[Smitty2020]

While it’s not fair because ppl when actually want a console miss out, you won’t stop it. Just like selling puppies over lockdown has increased to ridiculous amounts but ppl still pay it

Now if they made it harder for ppl to do it
I.e 1 per card,address maybe others will have a chance

[VTKC]

I heard they are also being stolen by the very people who deliver them. People saying they ordering a ps5, tracking it but seeing the delivery person drive away, and those that do arrive they open it and it's something else entirely.

[CptDville]

In North Korea such problem doesn't exist, does that work for you?

[yoshatabi]

No. All types of scalping should be illegal.

[Fluke_Skywalker]

All scalping should be illegal, from consoles and other tech to concert tickets and everything else.
But there is nothing actually illegal about what they are doing. All it takes is for people to stop paying the goddam scalpers prices for these things and they'll eventually give up.
Would also be helpful if ebay etc stopped allowing sales of those items for a certain time after launch. Sure some legitimate sellers would be screwed but its a small price to pay to stop the scalpers.

[TwistedXenos]

As long as there is capitalism no one will care, companies want scalpers to mass buy their product.

[DethWish]

No it should not. You should be allowed to do what you want with a console you've purchased. People should stop buying from scalpers though. Serves them right sitting with thousands of dollars worth of consoles unable to make profit.

[GrizToof]

I hate actual scalping as much as the next person but making it illegal is not the answer and could make things a lot more difficult for the people that are just selling things normally for what they are currently worth. We already have too many laws here in America and don't need to start piling on more, I put most of the blame of scalping on the buyers. If you didn't buy PS5 for $1200 they wouldn't be selling them for that much, we gamers have to willingly stop letting ourselves get taken Advantage of. Personally I would never pay above retail for any new video game item, especially the games themselves. I have been at the point now that I won't even pay $60 for a new game unless it's a limited edition or a rare occasion (Cyberpunk 2077) I definitely wouldn't pay $50 for an expansion or $70 for a remake, I will be waiting for almost every new game to get to $40 or less before I buy and I would recommend that all gamers do this as well. We have to show these game studios and console makers that we will not pay whatever they ask for broken software and buggy hardware let alone get taken advantage of by a skeezy scalper on eBay. But im going to tell you this right now, if people start paying $2,000 for a PS5, im putting mine up for sale right asap, local buyers only, cash only and you have to come to me. Anyone interested? I hope not but if you can't wait I got what you need. Have a great day yall and please be patient and have some pride in your self and wallet.

[Smok91]

Lol not feeling a capitalist open market?

[GamingManiac]

Meh, just simple supply and demand. Maybe ramp up the factories to keep up?

[Mnms2188]

Scalping can be stop if people just stop buying it.

[GoodGuy09]

Yes, It shouldnt go anywhere higher than msrp.

[PlayStation47]

Nope it should if you legalize scalping you better legalize Mega Millions and PowerBall Jackpot winners by distributing money to other people, who you don’t know.

[NomadR3aper]

Scalpers ruin what would be a joyous occasion but people continue to keep them in business. Passing a law would be great but it needs to extend to other products. Dealerships for example. Those bastards take a car and mark up sometimes from $50k to $100k. I don't see a law being passed as a console isn't a necessity. But Sony could take measures themselves.

[toyzombie]

This has been happening all the time. Seems like this generation was more excessive due to COVID so no preorders at actual stores

[Irishrocket69]

No. It’s supply and demand, it’s not like these are life necessities where you will die if you don’t get one. Sheesh!

[d3nworth1]

Scalping in general should be illegal. Supplies are already limited and theyre buy it all up so no one else get to sell for 3 to 4 times msrp. Yes there are people on ebay selling ps5 for $2000. I saw $6200 at one point either they took it down realizing how ridiculous that was or god forbid someone actually paid that much.

[cell989]

They have all this bot software that beats you to the punch no matter of you start your purchase on time, by the dot. I read an article on yahoo how one guy was able to buy 2000 PS5s through various online retailers with his beloved software. Pure bullshit

[blacktiger]

no scalping should be illegal, the law won't allow it, just because you guys are fed up in video games doesn't mean it should be illegal for everything

[OpenGL]

Maybe people should stop buying them instead and wait. There’s almost nothing on either new console worth playing anyway, and I already have both of them.

[SmoothC911]

I got a PS5 already but am trying to land another one or two to sell at no profit to maybe help someone else out--but the bots have beat me out every single time, except for my lucky draw back in September for mine. Screw these scalping jerks (I'd use a different word in other forums) and I hope that no one buys one more at a dollar more than retail.

[FanboysKiller]

Should tech giants act like human ?, I highly doubt it .

[S2Killinit]

Not illegal but they should he controlled. Similar to when idiots buy 50 boxes of toilet paper for the next 10 years in a pandemic. Limit them to one or 2 per name.

[VariantAEC]

People here in the comments are not using their brains.

Stopping scalping for online retailers.
Step 1: Limit purchases one new console item per customer for 1 month. Accounts are registered so this is actually insanely easy to implement.

Step 2: No gift card purchases allowed for these items credit and debit only.

Step 3: Queue purchase requests to prevent bots from crashing websites. Retailers should use their own bots to check for bot activity especially on high demand items.

I can keep going but I will also say that even though electronics are loss leaders these companies should want customers legitimately buying from them instead of scalpers so they have a lot of extra money to keep buying goods from them instead of a moron on the web.

Obviously don't buy from scalpers and report them wherever applicable.
Fu•• scalpers!

[Joe913]

I think it is the retailer's fault 100% they should have a captcha and a limit of one per cart if a high-demand item. The people making the argument that if someone got an extra console somehow is a reach, in that scenario people normally just trying to get rid of it not sell for 3x the value. This may never end if people keep buying at this price I am still trying to buy weights lol.