UK politicians want to ban PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC component scalping

[PEnnn]

That's a good measure, but it comes a bit late.
It's a shame that politicians only work when there's a big problem with something.

Funny how criminals are always 10 steps ahead of "smart" politicians.

 

[PEnnn]

I understand everyone hates scalpers.

But there are FREE MARKET solutions to this without using government manipulation (socialism).

For a smart guy, you should really know the difference between socialism and communism.

And no, they can NOT be used interchangeably as most Americans do - especially the conservatives - because they're not the same!

 

[terzaerian]

For a smart guy, you should really know the difference between socialism and communism.

And no, they can NOT be used interchangeably as most Americans do - especially the conservatives - because they're not the same!

Only in the sense there is a difference between a Stage 1 cancer and a Stage 4 cancer

They'll both ****ing kill you, one is just far closer to the finish line

 

[PEnnn]

Only in the sense there is a difference between a Stage 1 cancer and a Stage 4 cancer

They'll both ****ing kill you, one is just far closer to the finish line

I suggest you do some research and that thing called "reading" before you post such nonsense.

You know anybody on Social Security? Medicare? Have a Fire Dept nearby? Have any kind of car insurance?? Any insurance?

Guess what's the principle / foundation behind all of the above??

 

[terzaerian]

I suggest you do some research and that thing called "reading" before you post such nonsense.

You know anybody on Social Security? Medicare? Have a Fire Dept nearby? Have any kind of car insurance?? Any insurance?

Guess what's the principle / foundation behind all of the above??

Yes things are looking grim for the United States, I know

 

[Endymio]

Make it illegal to sell above MRSP.

I suppose you've never heard of the law of unintended consequences? This has been tried countless times before. Why not learn from history? The Soviets couldn't stop scalping with hard-labor prison sentences in Siberian gulags, and they only made things worse. You think you can do better?

 

[PEnnn]

Yes things are looking grim for the United States, I know

Indeed. It's very grim for the ignorant ones.

 

[loki1944]

Problem isn't scalpers; it's the *****s sustaining them by buying.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Just don't buy from them.

If you want an idea of how ridiculously impossible that is. Try going house to house around the world convincing everyone. The day you visit the last house. That will be the day your idea succeeded.

 

[Makste]

Disappointments:

1. Manufacturers I.e. the likes of Nvidia, AMD, Sony, etc., are not willing to control how many are being sold to any single bulk purchaser. (Anyway, why should they? They just want to recoup all the expenditures of research and efforts they have expended in producing them and will want to recover everything with profits ASAP.)

2. Suckers (general population) are willing to pay obscene amount of money to get what they want on impulse and greed.

3. No one thinks that a product should not be bought even a single dollar above the MSRP. The manufacturer already suggested the MSRP. Stick to the damn thing.

What can be done:

Don't support scalpers.

Don't pay stupidly like 100% - 200% markup over the MSRP. Don't even pay more than 25% over the MSRP, if you have no self control over your impulse.

Go play your other games in your current platforms. Don't give in to your impulse.There must be lots of games you can play with your current setup. Don't waste them.

The more you pay to satisfy your greed and impulse, the richer you are making the scalpers. They feed on your money.

No matter how hot the new hardware that you got, no matter how much you have overpaid for it, the charm will wear off very soon. And within a short period, another new hardware will soon come and replace it both in power and performance.

Appreciate what you already have rather than over-paying something. The price will soon come down. When other stubborn suckers finish buying them.

Some might ask what if everyone follows this policy? There might not be any incentive for manufacturers to keep producing new stiff every year? - I say that's good. Let not be any product that is being sold that is more than it's worth. Don't waste what we already have. Make manufacturers sell a real worthy upgrade and buy them at the appropriate price.

Don't support these ruthless scalpers. These are the modern day robbers.


You can survive without over-paying these robbers.

Nothing is worth more than it's MSRP.

Bottom line, we need to practice self control

 

[Makste]

While the idea is commendable, I wonder how exactly it is going to be implemented and enforced? The only sure way of enforcing the cards get to the gamers and not scalpers is by limiting the order qty to 1 and by physical pick up. But retailers are not incentivized to employ such measures (also staggered release). Their business lies in selling the highest amount of cards in the shortest amount of time.
The root problem lies in the very limited supply vs high demand so it is ultimately the manufacturers fault.
That's what leads some buyers to pay higher prices from the scalpers. You may hastily rush to blame the scalpers (the scum of the earth) but this is not their fault. They are speculators that provide useful service of enabling everybody to purchase the limited supply of goods (those that did not or could not make it in time) at the cost of higher price which the consumers agree to pay (if this was not the case the price would not increase). In a similar vain - I doubt you could blame a gamer that makes up his mind and decides to resell the just purchased card seeing how high price it commands at resell market. And finally how is this bad scalper any different that a retailer that sells the cards or consoles at the now inflated prices? What incentive does he have to sell them at MSRP?
If not for the scalpers you would not be even able to purchase these cards at any cost and even if somehow you could get your hands on it it would only be through a black market and the price would be much much higher than what we see now.
So blame the manufacturers and not the scalpers and that's where any changes to the law should be directed to because the recent releases are a joke - I know that even big retailers got tens or sometimes single units where the demand in just first few hours was in hundreds and thousands not to mention the vast majority of retailers who could not even secure single units. This is what should be banned and penalized.

Disagreed. It is not the manufacturers fault. If the scalpers are over charging you for a product they bought at msrp, it is the scalper's fault by taking advantage of the situation.
Note that if demand remained as it is, and manufacturers made more products, these products would still be scalped and you'd still be over charged.

What is enabling the scalpers, are the online retail platforms. Because, people have nowhere else to go for shopping these days. If that's the principle route for supply in this time, then the scalp hit is going to be severe.

These platforms (such as ebay) can directly help by making it impossible for someone to resell their product for say 25% more than msrp. This would limit the scalper's marketing window (I doubt many people back in the scalper's community would be willing to buy at obscene prices directly from the scalper).

I don't exactly know how the government could intervene at the "etailer" level.

Either way people are suffering because the routes of supply are narrow/few.

 

[Reehahs]

Can't speak for how it is in other countries, but the UK, such an action would be illegal itself. The Competition and Markets Authority makes it clear that retailers are free to sell a manufacturer's product for more or less than the recommended retail price, and neither the manufacturer nor the government can enforce it - something these MPs seem to not be aware of.

Only illegal until the laws change. This isn't just about retailers but bad players conning the market. It's all fun and games until something essential gets price-controlled or restricted by these con man or the general public. How much fun was getting limited to four pack of toilet roll at 4x plus price during lockdown?

 

[neeyik]

Only illegal until the laws change. This isn't just about retailers but bad players conning the market. It's all fun and games until something essential gets price-controlled or restricted by these con man or the general public. How much fun was getting limited to four pack of toilet roll at 4x plus price during lockdown?

The whole point of having a suggested retailers price is to allow for competition: not just for selling under the given value, but also to enable smaller/more remote retailers to cover costs that larger sellers can easily reduce. Preventing anyone from selling an item over the manufacturer's recommended price would make it harder for smaller vendors to compete. A suitable compromise might be in the form of adjusting the regulations to something like MSRP +/- 15%.

 

[Michael7]

It's very simple - stop buying the cards from scalpers. Let them keep their supply and the prices will start tumbling down. Scalpers don't have infinite resources so eventually they will stop buying the cards unless people keep buying and thus financing the salpers.

 

[Michael7]

Disagreed. It is not the manufacturers fault. If the scalpers are over charging you for a product they bought at msrp, it is the scalper's fault by taking advantage of the situation.
Note that if demand remained as it is, and manufacturers made more products, these products would still be scalped and you'd still be over charged.

What is enabling the scalpers, are the online retail platforms. Because, people have nowhere else to go for shopping these days. If that's the principle route for supply in this time, then the scalp hit is going to be severe.

These platforms (such as ebay) can directly help by making it impossible for someone to resell their product for say 25% more than msrp. This would limit the scalper's marketing window (I doubt many people back in the scalper's community would be willing to buy at obscene prices directly from the scalper).

I don't exactly know how the government could intervene at the "etailer" level.

Either way people are suffering because the routes of supply are narrow/few.

You are wrong because of the simple fact that scalpers just as anyone do not have infinite resources. Scalpers can only make money and continue their operations if customers keep financing them. If people stop buying the cards from scalpers the prices would soon start going down because these cards have no use to the scalpers (with the exception of the units they can use themselves).
If more products were produced and scalped as you say then the demand would quickly be satisfied and prices would have nowhere else to go but down (otherwise the scalpers would be left with thousands of cards worth millions of dollars at prices no one wants to pay).
And the idea of banning the sales above 25% of MSRP cannot be enforced. First of all how does anyone determine that 25%. Why not 22% or 34%? See my point?
Second of all eBay or any such site would never impose such a measure because sellers and hence buyers would stop using that marketplace and move somewhere else so eBay would loose big time.
So yes the paper launches (where the supply is hundreds or thousands of times smaller than the demand) are exclusively the manufacturers fault.

 

[Endymio]

Disagreed. It is not the manufacturers fault.

Of course it's the manufacturer's fault. Scalping only occurs when prices are set significantly below their economically proper level, forcing demand to be higher than supply. This is why scalping is endemic in nations with price controls: in the Soviet Union, for example, scalpers didn't just sell computer parts. They sold everything from radios to jeans to toilet paper, and sometimes staples such as bread, eggs, and milk. The myriad of laws which made these sales illegal did absolutely nothing to prevent them.

In free-market economies, scalping is a short-term temporary situation, instantly terminated when prices float to their proper level. In the case of these consoles, Sony and Microsoft are preventing that from happening, because they don't wish to be accused of "profiteering from the Covid crisis" by a pitchfork-bearing Twitter mob. If they simply raised the price of these consoles for a limited 90- or 120- period, there would not only be no scalping whatsoever, but the additional margin the higher price allowed would enable them to increase demand somewhat as well.

In short: if you like scalping in general -- by all means, vote for price control laws like this. You're ensuring the existence of scalpers.

 

[mrSister]

Scalping wouldn't be an issue if people had some common sense. But since gamers tend to have more money than brains, they are willing to pay whatever it takes to get their fix.

If people could wait to get their console or graphics card when the stock and prices return to normal levels these people wouldn't even exist.

 

[JStacts]

I suggest you do some research and that thing called "reading" before you post such nonsense.

"The goal of Socialism is Communism." Vladimir Lenin

 

[JStacts]

Only illegal until the laws change.

Wonderful example of legalism.

 

[No Longer Human]

"The goal of Socialism is Communism." Vladimir Lenin

"Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country."
Vladimir Lenin, Report on the Work of the Council of People’s Commissars. December 22, 1920
Original Source: Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed. (Moscow, 1975-79), Vol. 36, pp. 15-16.
SO please enlighten me as to where Lenin says any such thing as you have written

 

[Endymio]

SO please enlighten me as to where Lenin says any such thing as you have written

Coming from someone who went to school in Soviet Russia, I can tell you that standard Marxist-Leninist theory, as expressed by Lenin himself on countless occasions, advocated a multi-step process that he termed "vanguardism":

a) Formation of a Communist Party
b) Party advocates socialism to gain absolute control.
c) Convert Socialism to Communism
d) Repeat above steps in new areas until Communism had spread worldwide.

 

[mailpup]

Back on topic please. Thank you.

 

[BobHome]

This is nonsense , becoz a few nappy waerers don't get their consoles before Xmas, they enact a law? This should be a general law about any profiteering, not just consoles. The whole thing will be a vague memory in a years time when the supply and demand are in line.
Bad laws are dangerous.. it took them nearly 100 years to repeal the drinking hours brought in for the First World war! Dangerous Dogs Act? How many family pets needlessly destroyed.? the list goes on.

Gus, you're missing the point. It's not that they can't get the consoles, it's the rage they'll get from their kids and/or grandkids come Dec 25. (You Promised!!! You @%#&*^~!!!!)

 

[Maxiking]

The whole point of having a suggested retailers price is to allow for competition: not just for selling under the given value, but also to enable smaller/more remote retailers to cover costs that larger sellers can easily reduce. Preventing anyone from selling an item over the manufacturer's recommended price would make it harder for smaller vendors to compete. A suitable compromise might be in the form of adjusting the regulations to something like MSRP +/- 15%.

If you have no clue about economics, don't post. There is a shortage, tell me, what happens, when there is a shortage of something and government or any entity fix the price of something?

The goods will be either

sold on the black market for a higher price

or

no goods in that area because people will buy it cheaply first and then resell abroad or the UK won't get any goods whatsoever because it will be more profitable to sell in other countries for a higher price.

LIKE LOL economics 101

 

[neeyik]

@Maxiking - first of all, I was pointing out that in the UK there are no regulations on fixing the prices of items, because of the rules laid out by the Competition and Markets Authority. Secondly, I suggest a compromise that might take the form of regulating retailers pricing of setting a cap on the limit to what that good may sell for; I didn't actually say that this would be a good or bad idea.

Price cap systems already exist for electricity and gas prices, for certain tariffs. Obviously one cannot go and buy nationally distributed electricity and gas on the 'black market', but should such a cap ever be considered for over-the-shelf goods, manufacturers could simply respond by raising their MSRP for the UK market, but keep their retailer prices at their original levels. Which is precisely what did happen to energy prices when they caps came in.