This British company has been able to track down the main online stores and grab part of the stock.
The new generation of consoles has been commercialized in a difficult year, especially marked by the coronavirus crisis. Given this situation, PS5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S have come out with a very limited amount of stock. Stores open reservations online from time to time, but they sell out in a matter of minutes (or less). One of the explanations is provided by Business Insider, which has published a piece in which it confirms that groups of speculators acquire consoles only to resell them. One of the examples is a British company, which through bots has managed to get ahead of the interested parties and has obtained more than 3,500 PlayStation 5.
In a popular Discord chat, a group of speculators with hundreds of members organized to buy as many PS5s as they could for resale. “Our total number of PS5 consoles is 2,472 among all members,” a CrepChiefNotifty manager told Business Insider. To this figure must be added another 1,000 machines approximately, which were offered to reserve in September. In short, they have obtained practically 3,500 consoles to resell.
Groups competing with each other
And how did they do it? “We knew where to go before it was announced.” ChepChiefNotify is made up of 12 hired employees, who offer a subscription to its service, through which customers can access their desired purchases for resale. These groups compete against others that operate in a similar way.
In addition to monitoring stores, these companies work with bots to make purchases. “Bot developers have seen that the demand for next-generation consoles has increased,” commented another company employee. Since this class of bot is faster than any human, everyone is at a disadvantage.
The article also includes the fact that those who engage in these practices are not usually private individuals, but rather organized groups.
