Players who missed out on securing the PS5 and Xbox Series X are having a nightmare of a time getting one weeks after launch. Though the Xbox Series X pre-order process was chaotic, trying to secure a console this holiday season is no doubt going to be infinitely harder for some consumers.
This is due to a myriad of different factors, but one of the more frustrating factors is thanks to the scalping community reselling consoles for ridiculously inflated prices. One infamous scalper group confirmed that it had secured over 1,000 Xbox Series X consoles over the past few days, but the story doesn't stop there.
For those who may be unfamiliar with the process of scalping goods, it essentially involves buying certain goods and then selling them independently for vastly over-inflated prices to turn a profit. Sony and Microsoft’s brand new consoles certainly fit this bill, being $400 to $500 in price point and being exceptionally hard to find at present. Just days after the Xbox Series X launched, scalpers were selling the console on retail websites like Amazon and eBay for absurdly high prices. Recently, a newly infamous scalper group claimed to have secured a massive amount of Xbox Series X consoles. However, the UK retailer Very, from which the group purchased the consoles, has since reported that it has canceled all the orders placed that day due to a "technical error," including those placed for the scalped Xbox Series X consoles.
The news comes by way of British free-to-air news channel Sky News, who received word from Very that the company had canceled the orders and that customers will receive full refunds in about 10 days' time. The scalper organization, called CrepChiefNotify, rose to notoriety after bragging about scalped PS5s online and getting slammed by consumers who missed out on opportunities to purchase their own consoles. The group claimed it had secured over 2,500 PS5 consoles on November 20 with plans to turn a profit off reselling them. Similarly, the group was planning on doing the same with the now-canceled Xbox Series X consoles.
While the group has a relatively small presence on social media, it has naturally begun to draw the ire of many consumers online. Any party reselling consoles for ridiculously high prices online are often labeled as greedy and malicious, especially when doing so right after a console’s launch. Regardless of the ethics involved with scalping goods, the reality of the situation is detrimental to the average consumer. Thanks to practices of scalpers, consumers have fewer and fewer opportunities to buy goods from a given retailer at market value.
Of course, scalping always has the potential to come with its own set of risks. Ordering consoles online means that the physical goods have to arrive in bulk somewhere. Recently, the official Twitter account of the Toronto police have had numerous reports of consoles being robbed from scalpers, with many reports mentioning the use of weapons or other such violence. Scalping has been in practice for a long time and has only gotten easier with the rise of the digital age. Hopefully, Xbox fans are able to secure their Xbox Series X consoles at their intended price this holiday season.
The Xbox Series X is now available.
Source: Sky News