Once again, PlayStation 5 scalpers manage to beat out regular customers by using a loophole. Argos is the latest UK retailer to face an onslaught of shrewd scalpers in the race for PlayStation 5.
By this point, many gamers will understand the plight of trying to buy a next generation console. Due to the pandemic, many of the sales have been online specific. Therefore, scalpers and bots are able to abuse vulnerable webstores to claim orders early. Even if a customer tries to log in and buy at the official release time, it may turn out that the stock is gone in minutes.
Unfortunately, the release window on January 26 at Argos closed far too quickly. It turns out that scalpers could buy the rare console a full day early, on January 25. The trick came from the Discord server, Express Notify. Those on the hunt could buy into this server and receive links to the PS5 store page early. This meant that these customers could grab the stock before the general public even knew about release the next day.
Though Argos claims to have shut down the links quickly, it is a mystery as to how many consoles were sold and collected. To make matters worse, the official day for PS5 release on the storefront saw plenty of issues. At first, stock only appeared on the app, not on the browser site. And even the mobile route consistently experienced outages, causing problems for customers. A release full of crashing left plenty of hopeful buyers in the dust.
At the end of the day, most players expect some form of scalping to occur with a new console launch. However, with most sales happening online due to Covid-10, the issue has been exasperated. Even the government can get involved, with politicians seeking to ban scalping. It is unfortunate that a few months after launch, this problem is still happening on a wide scale. While sales are sales to a retailer, it does damage whatever trust a regular customer has in the store.
Nevertheless, the PS5 is by no means a necessity. Even if gamers need to wait a bit of extra time to get a console, it will happen eventually. Both the new PlayStation and Xbox just came out, so it is not surprising that each are hard to come by. But after a few months to a year, stores will most likely have plenty of stock available. Fans should try to hold off from paying exuberant scalper prices that currently exist. While next generation consoles tout great hardware, most of the best games are still available on the previous machines.
Source: IGN