The coronavirus pandemic continues to affect nearly every industry in America, including the successful sales of the 9th generation of consoles. But sales of the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 have also been plagued by a mass of scalpers who have bought up more console units than ever before. In the latest story of scalpers doing their worst, a scalper bot called Carnage has apparently bought up 2,000 PS5 units from a recent restock for UK retailer GAME, and then the bot took to Twitter to brag about it.
Though nearly twice as many PS5 consoles as Xbox Series X were sold upon launch this past holiday season, the PS5 has not managed to fare any better in the fight against scalpers. Scalpers have taken advantage of the struggle many companies are facing right now in keeping PS5 consoles stocked, and they are buying up the consoles to sell at inflated prices. Scalpers have already succeeded in making millions of dollars over past few months by grabbing up consoles, though not all of them have been as brazen as the Carnage bot. The bot's message on Twitter is not only a frustrating reminder of the unfortunate success scalpers have had with the 9th generation of consoles, but also a bold statement of just how confident scalpers are right now.
This morning, UK retailer GAME received a limited supply restock of PS5's that sold out within minutes. Shortly after the consoles sold out, a Twitter message from "UK/EU dedicated toy and miscellaneous collectibles bot," Carnage, claimed it had bought up at least 2,000 consoles of the restock. The bot then bragged about how easy it was to get the consoles, saying "Just keeps getting easier every time."
It wasn't too long after this that other Twitter users immediately began tagging GAME's customer support services in order to raise the company's awareness of the scalping. Shortly afterward the Carnage bot set its Twitter account to private in order to hide the tweet.
Unfortunately, this isn't the first instance of scalpers bragging about their efforts. UK Scalper group CrepChiefNotify recently celebrated on Twitter that they had bought up 2,500 consoles in one morning, claiming to have made a huge profit. They stated that "reselling isn't going away" so everyone should "jump in now and maximize your profits." For honest buyers simply looking to score one console, the stiff competition from scalpers makes it hard to trust in the system.
In another case CrepChiefNotify had apparently scalped over 1,000 Xbox Series X consoles from retailer UK retailer Very, only for Very to come out and say that all of the orders had been canceled. While this might have been a better outcome than most, there were still individual buyers who saw their orders cancelled as well. The UK government took steps near the end of last year to combat scalpers, with some members calling for a ban on bot accounts. Whether or not this would help long term remains a mystery, but it sadly doesn't help the numerous consumers right now who have been affected by scalpers.
Source: gamingbible.co.uk