Imagine looking everywhere for the fabled PlayStation 5 and finally giving in to the demands of an overpriced scalper. Only to find out that you were scammed by this scalper, who sent you a piece of concrete instead? According to Fox 13 news, this happened to an unwitting customer who paid double the list price to secure a PS5.
The Utah resident who was the unwilling participant of an eBay (opens in new tab) scam paid $878, nearly twice the price of a PlayStation 5. The victim, who was convinced they would receive a PlayStation 5 was shocked when they ended up with a concrete block instead. We can only imagine how frustrated the 38-year-old victim was, but thankfully eBay has stepped in and will issue a refund.
Paying more than the original asking price is a bad practice. Still, in the current climate, where consoles and GPUs go out of stock instantly, it is a known and undesirable situation where scalpers have the advantage largely due to automated bots. When making any online purchase, just be careful with who you are dealing with. Make sure wherever you go that there is some form of buyer protection, and if you can, make sure to pay via a credit card.
As for when we'll see more PlayStation 5's in stores, Sony says it won't have more stock until early 2021. Even then, there will still be the little issue of scalpers using bots and grabbing all the stock before we humans can even blink an eye.