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UK retailer GAME has promised to introduce measures against scalpers.
PlayStation 5 consoles have been increasingly difficult to purchase, and the problem has been exacerbated by the prevalence of scalpers using bots to secure pre-orders before regular customers can. GAME’s entire allotment sold out in under 10 minutes.
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As reported originally by VGC, a social media account for a scalping network known as Carnage has claimed that it managed to successfully process 2000 purchases from GAME on January 19.
The Twitter account for Carnage is now locked ,after a backlash against the posts containing the claims. Carnage usually deals with limited edition toys, figures and Disney products, but the limited stock and high resale value of the PlayStation 5 as seen them target the next-gen console too.
In a statement sent to VGC, a GAME spokesperson wrote: “PlayStation 5s continue to be in very high demand and that demand far outweighs current supply. We have strong measures in place to help ensure that our ‘1 per customer’ statement is maintained to allow for as many individual customers to successfully purchase as possible.”
The statement continues: “All pre-orders are subject to automatic checks and order updates such as cancellations following these checks take place after a customer will have received a valid order confirmation email.
“At the present time these orders are still pre-orders and as such no payments have yet been taken from customers. Payments will commence once our order checks have been completed.”
Stock issues have plagued the PlayStation 5 since its launch in November last year, when Amazon warned customers that their stock would be “limited” on launch day.
As a result of these shortages, second-hand retailers such as CEX have been reselling second hand consoles for more than £200 over their RRP, whilst scalpers on eBay have been attempting to resell the consoles for similarly extortionate prices.
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