Anyone who has tried to buy a PS5 knows the difficulty of updating the Best Buy website hoping that the “add to cart” button will turn yellow. Not only are production problems limiting inventory, but money changers have been using bots to buy as many consoles as they can.
This obviously created a lot of anger towards the money changers who continue to buy limited stock in the hope of selling consoles at a profit. However, some of them seem upset by all the “bad publicity” they received for accumulating these consoles like a modern Smaug.
Janhoi McGregor of Forbes spoke with the co-founder of a scalping advisory group called The Lab. One person attending for Jordan had strong feelings about how he and his group were being portrayed in the media. Jordan insists that money changers are completely misunderstood and that their negative public opinion is completely unjustified.
“There seems to be a LOT of negative publicity about this incredibly valuable industry and I don’t think it’s justified, we are acting as intermediaries for limited quantity items.”
Intermediate is definitely the wrong word here. Technically, retailers are the “intermediaries”, as they are directly between the manufacturer and the customer. But Jordan goes on to say more.
“Essentially, all companies resell their products. Tesco, for example, buys milk from farmers for about 26 cents per liter and sells it for more than 70 cents per liter. Nobody seems to complain as much as they are doing with us ”.
Nobody complains because it is not the same thing at all. Retailers buy from producers and sell at a profit, of course, but it’s not like Tesco uses bots to buy all of its competitors’ milk and sell it to people for £ 1 a liter.
Basically, Jordan is marketing money changers as the solution to a problem that they themselves created. Because if they didn’t accumulate consoles in the same way that McDuck Scrooge accumulates gold coins, people would simply buy systems at Walmart, GameStop or anywhere else available. There would still be limited quantities, but the situation would not be too bad.
People obviously see it through their transparent excuses, with an anonymous person telling McGregor that Jordan is “deluded. He does not understand that he is another layer of speculation in his own analogy with Tesco. He’s not Robin Hood. “
A member of the Tom’s Guide team also referred to Jordan as the “Martin Shkreli of video game consoles”. Shkreli, nicknamed “Pharma Bro” by some, became infamous in 2015 for obtaining the manufacturing license for the life-saving drug Daraprim and increasing the price from $ 13.50 to $ 750 per pill. He used to justify and brag on Twitter and news programs about his profitability. Shkreli is currently serving a seven-year federal prison sentence for securities fraud.
Unfair advantages
Another scalper from The Lab, known as Regan, also showed McGregor how fast scalping bots are. A bot named Velox was about to buy a Supreme x Smurfs skateboard in less than 2.3 seconds. This is much faster than any human being could do and gives money changers an extremely unfair advantage. In addition, Velox is able to bypass 3D Secure, an extra layer of security that UK retailers need to use. It verifies that the buyer is the legitimate owner of the credit or debit card used and can add extra seconds to the purchase time.
The money changers have such an unfair advantage that Jordan complained that he would sometimes be beaten by other money changers using his own bots. In other words, money changers need to be as vigilant as ordinary customers if they want to make their purchases on the PS5 on time. But it seems that the irony has been lost completely in the members of The Lab.
Still, Regan also claims that the money changers are performing a valid service, and if they did not buy consoles at breakneck speeds, some players would not be able to obtain units.
“The average person who wants only one of the consoles struggles to get close. Many of these sites have minimal or easy to get around protection. Often, they launch actions at stupid moments or without any programming. A retailer who will not mention the stock released from the PlayStation 5s in the early hours of the morning. Which shows their lack of care. The only people who will know about these refills will be people with monitors within groups of cooks. “
Uh huh.
Scalping only helps money changers
“Each villain is the hero of his own story” is the phrase that comes to mind when reading these comments. Jordan and Regan do not consider themselves the bad guys and insist that they are helping people by giving them a chance to steal money from other potential players.
“I mainly try to help others now, that’s all that really matters to me. The whole group came close to the start of the first blockade in the UK and I am very happy to be able to help people earn some extra money for themselves. “
It is an argument that has been used by money changers before, insisting that the pandemic means that people are going through difficult times and that selling scalped consoles to profit is helping people to pay bills and put food on the table. Jordan also claims that Lab is using its revenue to do good.
“We also do a lot for charity. I, or collectively as a group, donate to charities almost monthly at this time. Most notably, during the past month, we donated a large portion of our membership fees to a local food bank to me, ”said Regan.
Unfortunately, Regan did not provide McGregor with details about the food bank the group donated to, which means he was not able to independently verify the donation.
Charity or not, and no matter how they justify their actions, scalping is scalping. You are physically buying consoles and selling systems at higher prices in the hope of making money. Even if you don’t buy a console and just help other people get in on the action, you are just as guilty.
Jordan claimed to have purchased 25 PS5 consoles in January, reselling systems for £ 700 ($ 967) each. For reference, the disc-ready PS5 costs £ 450 in the UK.
Don’t be tempted by staggered consoles
Do money changers deserve the death threats Jordan claims the Lab received? Absolutely not, especially since sending death threats is a serious crime. But they deserve every drop of criticism and bad press sent to them. Because, in the end, they are entering the supply chain with the aim of making money and are doing so at the expense of ordinary people.
But as long as people are willing to pay overpriced prices for a PS5, money changers will be there to receive their money. I also have doubts that trying to make scalping illegal will deter certain collectors.
So, whatever you do, don’t buy one. We understand, it is irritating to try to get a console only to find that they sold out in less than a minute. Buying from a money changer just encourages them to persist, and that means the PS5’s stock problems will drag on for much longer than otherwise.
Be patient, sit back and stay tuned for news in stock with our guide on where to buy the PS5. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth buying a console for $ 500 instead of $ 1,000.