The PS5 remains almost completely out of stock anywhere in the world, and it's due to a lot of factors. But among the most controversial of these is scalping, which is making so-called PS5 scalpers come out of the woodwork and try to explain themselves.
In a report by the BBC, a certain scalper who goes by the pseudonym Sheraz went out to defend his way of earning an income-while also explaining how he actually does it.
According to Sheraz, there are many reasons why he turned to scalping out of all possible ways to earn a living. He mentioned a "sudden drop" in his income, a family to feed, a wife who lost her job because of the pandemic, and a mountain of medical debt as several good reasons. Not to mention, a lack of access to the government's pandemic support.
Scalping was the only way he could muster enough money at a time when his income streams were affected. The term refers to the practice of stashing massively popular products-in this case, Sony's next-generation gaming console-and reselling them for far more than their original price.
How Scalpers Do It
Many (or perhaps even all) scalpers use technology to make their "business" possible. This comes in the form of online bots-software designed to keep track of product stocks and buy them online way faster than humans can.
This kind of software is intended to notify scalpers as soon as a hot commodity gets restocked. At times, some bots are even able to buy items on their own, which is partly why the PlayStation 5 has been almost impossible to buy even over a year since its original launch.
The effectiveness of using bots for scalping can never be understated. As soon as a restock happens, they can snap up any and all stocks in basically the blink of an eye. Humans can never be able to do that, which is what gives PS5 scalpers an insane advantage over real customers just looking to buy the items on their own.
How The World Deals With PS5 Scalpers
Not a lot of PS5 scalpers are like Sheraz, however: people basically left desperate for a way to earn a living. Back in January, Tech Times reported about a certain scalper who defended his "business" by saying he only wants to "give other folks a chance to be entrepreneurs." This kind of argument, however, didn't fly as much with some people on the web:
Elsewhere, people out there believe that scalping is not something cool to do. Several retailers in Japan recognize the underlying problem with this practice, which is why they decided to do something about it.
According to VideoGamesChronicle, Japanese PS5 retailers were intentionally marking (or sometimes even defacing) the packaging of the console's controller to ensure that resellers can't do what they do. Whether this actually worked, however, is hard to determine.
Nevertheless, scalping will likely remain a controversial thing for years to come-even after the hype for the PlayStation 5 has gone down.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by RJ Pierce
