Price Gouging on Amazon

[KingBlackpixel]

This is the notice for Amazon sellers'
"As you are aware, we are experiencing a global health crisis due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus. With increasing customer demand for critical safety products, we have seen examples of egregious pricing from third-party sellers in our store. Price gouging is a clear violation of our policies, unethical, and in some cases, illegal. As a result, we are suspending selling accounts and removing all listings for sellers who engage in price gouging in violation of the Amazon Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy. We encourage you to audit your prices to avoid this problem."

I'm reporting every VR product that's purchased in bulk and resold with 50% percent markup... 

It makes me sick.

 I wanted to upgrade my Rift and get a Rift S so I wouldn't have to have so many sensors connected to my PC and could improve resolution a little and, they just ruined my plans with all this ridiculousness. 

[DaftnDirect]

I just checked Amazon UK for Rifts and Quests and just see one seller with 64Gb Quests, marked up quite a lot but I assume they don't have many as they're just not available anywhere else for them to get hold of. I don't see any Rifts, marked-up or otherwise.

Haven't checked other headsets though so there's no doubt some speculation going on elsewhere. There's the usual profiteering happening on ebay but that looks to be just individuals with single units to sell and not many of them, some high prices being asked for Quests though... £1,690 for one, new unopened!!!

[KingBlackpixel]

24 New Listings of Rifts for sale in the USA for 600$ and those are listings from individuals with multiple Rift S's available.

68 Listings of the Quest 64gb for 600$ NEW and like I said above these are listings from individual sellers that have multiple Quest and Rifts for sale 

[Anonymous]

Gotta love scalpers taking advantage of a dire situation that is affecting availability of product.

[Anonymous]

I will sell you mine for £999.99.





















Plus £99.99 postage and packing.

 😛  😄 😄 😄

[DaftnDirect]

I think it was probably worse when CV1 first went on sale, a lot of pre-orders started appearing on ebay with big mark-ups. It's annoying but still very limited in number. Overall, it's the virus that's the sad thing, affecting many aspects of life in a lot of countries now.

[bigmike20vt]

BlackPixel_ said:

This is the notice for Amazon sellers'
"As you are aware, we are experiencing a global health crisis due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus. With increasing customer demand for critical safety products, we have seen examples of egregious pricing from third-party sellers in our store. Price gouging is a clear violation of our policies, unethical, and in some cases, illegal. As a result, we are suspending selling accounts and removing all listings for sellers who engage in price gouging in violation of the Amazon Marketplace Fair Pricing Policy. We encourage you to audit your prices to avoid this problem."

I'm reporting every VR product that's purchased in bulk and resold with 50% percent markup... 

It makes me sick.

 I wanted to upgrade my Rift and get a Rift S so I wouldn't have to have so many sensors connected to my PC and could improve resolution a little and, they just ruined my plans with all this ridiculousness. 

honestly I am no fan of scalpers, and I always like it when things backfire on them..... however equating selling VR devices for over RRP to critical safety products is equally click baity bollocks imo.

its not the end of the world if little jimmy has to wait a couple of months extra to get his oculus quest.

[Anonymous]

I see it both ways - but side on the idea that scalpers should get punish. If there is a shortage - I can understand why someone would want to sell their items for a little more - supply and demand. On the flip side - if you are charging almost double the price then that shouldn't be allow either. 

[bigmike20vt]

Mradr said:

I see it both ways - but side on the idea that scalpers should get punish. If there is a shortage - I can understand why someone would want to sell their items for a little more - supply and demand. On the flip side - if you are charging almost double the price then that shouldn't be allow either. 

I do agree but as a society we bring it on ourselves..... personally when the inevitable PS5 shortage happens and people are taking the **** on ebay or what ever I just wont  buy it. I didnt buy a gtx 1080ti when it launched, and then later when i wanted one they had sky rocketed thanks to bitcoin miners (such a waste of the planets resources, arguably that is more criminal than the profiteering of the gpu but i digress)...... so i waited... and waited and eventually got a gpu at rrp. not ideal but i refuse to line the pockets of people taking the mick.. and in a rareity it wasn't even nvidia to blame, they were charging rrp when they got them in stock.

I suspect we will see a whole bunch of valve indexes hit the bay in a few weeks time from that limited sale from valve.

yes people buying with the intention just to sell are scummy, but like i said if people actually stayed strong and didnt pay the prices it would blow up in the sellers faces.... Also companies who sell multiple units of an item they know will be in short demand take some of the blame........ they could easily limit sales to 1 per account/houshold which would at least make it more annoying to make multiple purchases..... indeed often the likes of amazon etc themselves are happy to profiteer, one could argue why should big companies do it but not the little people?

Again tho, my objection is trying to equate selling health critical products for profit as comparable to what 99% of people use as toys.   Both may be scummy but one is far worse than the other.

That said...... I have some toilet roll for sale if you want it... £5 per roll and then postage at cost to where you live 😉