The description and title of the lot honestly indicate that the picture is being sold, and not the real product. But there are still buyers, and they are not people
"Scalpers" on eBay are classic outbiddings, which at the moment of appearance of rare goods buy them up, and then sell them at exorbitant prices. For example, on November 5, sales of Ryzen 5000 processors started. They were almost immediately sold out in most countries, and then put up for sale for the second time at a double or even triple price tag. The same thing happened with Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 graphics cards. As if nothing illegal.
I don't think you need to explain who scammers are. A variety of such scammers also exist on eBay - those who display images of real goods instead of real ones. To do this, buy a good account with a large number of reviews, or use purchases of $1 to upgrade a zero account. Next - it's a matter of technique.
EBay's security mechanisms help detect fraud cases, but not all of them and not always. Many people manage to sell a photo of a top-end video card for hundreds of dollars. And here "all without cheating", the description honestly indicates that the picture is being sold. How and why does it work?
Scalpers, bots, and the shortage of video cards and processors in 2021
Because of the quarantine, tens of millions of people are forced to pass their days in self-isolation. When all the TV shows are watched and the fridges are empty, it's the turn of games. Demand for gaming PCs and laptops has increased significantly. And if everything is still good with the latter, then suppliers cannot meet the growth in demand for PCs by 300-400%. Game system builders complain about the lack of video cards and processors of the latest generation.This is partly the fault of manufacturers who failed to foresee a surge in demand. But outbidders are also responsible for what happened, because they buy tens of thousands of video cards and processors at the time the latter appear on sale, and then set a horse price tag on eBay and other marketplaces.
It is clear that all these people are not sitting in front of screens, trying to catch the moment when a new card or processor is released. Instead of people, there are bots that search for lots based on keywords and a certain price. When a suitable lot is found, it is immediately redeemed. Scalpers have always worked like this, but now there are a lot of them. There was an equally ingenious trick to their trick.
Photos at the price of a cast-iron bridge and bot buyers
Scammers who put up product photos instead of the product itself have always been on eBay. Only a few people can be deceived in this way, and eBay also protects customers, so in most cases they get a refund. But still, a certain number of fraudulent operations can be pulled off, and the margin is sufficient to continue further.
They sell not only photos, but also empty boxes from under the goods. This works even better, because you can shoot the box from different angles, including places where the content characteristics are described.
In General, now there are scammers who form a description of their lots based on the interests of scalpers. The latest launch in the work of bots, and they are buying products that match the specified characteristics. The problem is that the bot does not analyze the description or title, it is guided in the search solely by keywords and price.
As a result, something similar to the lot below goes away in a few hours.
It is clear that then the deception is revealed, but nothing can be done: everywhere it is honestly indicated that the lot is not a product, but a photo. Often, the description says something like this: "the Buyer will receive a PRINTED PHOTO of the product. This post is made for bots, people, don't buy this product!". Examples of lots are the first and second.
Often at the end of the description there is a PostScript "all sales are on a non-refundable basis, money is not returned!".
Why all this?
First of all, of course, money, but there are also ideological personalities. Managed to contact several sellers of the photos. One of them was quite talkative. This person even gave his name and said that he is an information security specialist. He spent several months studying the impact of overbidding on the market and realized that it has an extremely powerful negative impact.
In this somewhat strange way, this person is trying to worsen the working conditions for scalpers. But, of course, in most cases, people want to make money.
Another user said that he accidentally noticed the work of bots and found that they buy a lot, and in some cases the price tag is 2X of the normal price, if the product is really rare. So I decided to make money and started placing similar lots. Some even put up for sale poems dedicated to video cards. And it happens...
