The Great RTX 3080 Scalping event has begun!

Well, it's illegal and immoral, so it's also got that going for it.

I don't know if I'd use the term illegal since technically all you're doing is violating the TOS of Ebay. I don't think there is technically any criminal behavior.
 
It's tortious interference. It's one of the oldest common law crimes in history.

Yeah, so show me where that's codified in USC or state law in terms of a prosecutable crime as it relates to an eBay fake bid. Second, show me a prosecutor who would prosecute this as a crime. Nobody I know would touch this. At best it would be a civil case.
 
Wonder if the sentiment analysis algorithms are slowly but surely catching up with the NVIDIA Hype Train manipulation launch?

think it's gonna get bad? cause apparently you can OC a 3080 on Air to within 5% of the 3090 ... really closing down that 10% gap

think the AI algorithms analyzing sentiment on the RTX 30-series is gonna catch up and wreck NVIDIA's hype / manipulation?
 
Fine. Go ahead and defend these crimes. Crimes with multiple victims. Because they're hard laws to enforce.

It's not like these crimes affect anyone's livelihoods.

Once again, show me where it's codified as a crime to violate the TOS of Ebay. You can't because it's not a crime. I'll agree that it's immoral. I would say that using a bot to snag multiple cards for the sheer purpose of exploiting a product launch is probably immoral also, but neither is illegal.

Not everything that's immoral is illegal, and not everything that is illegal is immoral.
 
Once again, show me where it's codified as a crime to violate the TOS of Ebay.
I did, it's called tortious interference. Just because people aren't filing suits doesn't make it less of a crime.

I would say that using a bot to snag multiple cards for the sheer purpose of exploiting a product launch is probably immoral also
But the people running auction scams don't know that. It could be someone who used bots to buy the cards, but it could just as well be a single parent who won the Microcenter lottery and realized that their $700 card is worth thousands and now they have something they can turn into Christmas presents and rent money for the whole family.

It doesn't matter if the perception is that it's scalpers getting scammed. I guarantee you real people are being hurt by this.

And in both cases, people should be able to sell hardware to other people for whatever amount of money they want. Being envious of someone else's property or business doesn't justify any auction scams, ever.
 
I did, it's called tortious interference. Just because people aren't filing suits doesn't make it less of a crime.


But the people running auction scams don't know that. It could be someone who used bots to buy the cards, but it could just as well be a single parent who won the Microcenter lottery and realized that their $700 card is worth thousands and now they have something they can turn into Christmas presents and rent money for the whole family.

It doesn't matter if the perception is that it's scalpers getting scammed. I guarantee you real people are being hurt by this.

And in both cases, people should be able to sell hardware to other people for whatever amount of money they want. Being envious of someone else's property or business doesn't justify any auction scams, ever.

Tortious interference is a civil issue, not a criminal one. There is no criminal code that codifies false bids as illegal with criminal penalties.

You're using warm and fuzzy anecdotal examples to justify your position. That's not how the law works.

If some random ebay seller wants to jump through hoops and sue someone civilly for false bidding. Have at it. I'm not saying they can't (even if it would be virtually impossible to do). I'm saying it's not an issue for a criminal investigator/prosecutor.
 
was this posted already?

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Why are people defending scalpers? Fuck 'em. They know what they're doing.

But low sell high? Seems ligit too me.

Nvidia just needs to play everyone at this point and release a card with a huge amount of stock behind it. Let the scalpers buy 20 each and let everyone else get one too
 
Why are people defending scalpers? Fuck 'em. They know what they're doing.
People "defend" scalpers because at the end of the day they are not the problem. Its an economics problem, and trying to force prices to some arbitrary price doesn't solve anything. You want nvidia to sell the cards at MSRP? That's fine, you are still not going to get a card within the 1st week (they will sell out long before you ever get one).

With respect to video cards its not even a problem, I dont know why everyone gets pissed about this. There is a temporary shortage on release, and its going to last maybe a month or two? If it lasts longer then that the problem is nvidia does not have enough supply and is setting prices unrealistically.

Temporary prices on luxury goods should be resolved by market forces. This is literally the last place where society or government should intervene. Telling people to not profit on something for reasons like "because i want one and want to pay less" is unrealistic.
 
Why are people defending scalpers? Fuck 'em. They know what they're doing.
Nvidia isn't against this, as Nvidia is going to profit from scalping. Remember 2017 when the crypo boom happening and suddenly every graphics card jumped up in price? It's also a common strategy to artificially limit supply at first in order to create more demand, which scalping just enhances this strategy more so.

Temporary prices on luxury goods should be resolved by market forces. This is literally the last place where society or government should intervene. Telling people to not profit on something for reasons like "because i want one and want to pay less" is unrealistic.
This is exactly when you want society and government forces to intervene, because usually the consumer has no power otherwise. As a consumer you have a right to fight back at price gouging. The graphics card market is a duopoly, and that creates a huge problem with competition and pricing. While not illegal, it's borderline a monopoly. This is where price fixing and other factors become a problem. This is also why I'm glad Intel is entering the discrete GPU market. We've had a duopoly for 18 years, so fuck market forces.
 
I don't get where people think Nvidia is ok with scalpers. Anyone who has owned a business, knows to treat their loyal customers first.

Having been through quite a few launches, the way the hype train works is: first get the leaks going, do release announcement with inflated PPT charts, get glowing pre release reviews, launch with whatever inventory you got, hope that consumer evangelists get cards to keep hype going in forums/reddit/streamers as retail channels get replenished.

Scalpers have totally f'd with launch cycle this release by keeping the card out of consumer evangelists (ie. do you see anyone in the forums making posts how thrilled they are with their 3080s, nope). The worse thing that can happen is scalpers causing change of hype mentality in the impulse buyers in short term (ie. buyer starts thinking "no chance in competing with bots so might as well take wait and see approach" to point where "I'm good with I got, let's buy a PS5" instead) and long term. Long term, this release can kill hype for next release as people start thinking that release unavailabiity is the norm so why bother getting hyped up, people distrusting reviewers because haves vs have nots jealousy (ie. "fuck Steve saying 3080 isn't food/water. We know that asshole and you can say that cause you have one") and so on.

Of course, people are sheep so all above is moot if Nvidia actually gets enough stock back in retailers hand so consumer evangelist hype train can start.

TL;DR Launch consumers are irrational, scalpers causing consumers to be rational by making launch purchasing an impossibility is something Nvidia Marketing wants to avoid.
 
I did, it's called tortious interference. Just because people aren't filing suits doesn't make it less of a crime.


But the people running auction scams don't know that. It could be someone who used bots to buy the cards, but it could just as well be a single parent who won the Microcenter lottery and realized that their $700 card is worth thousands and now they have something they can turn into Christmas presents and rent money for the whole family.

It doesn't matter if the perception is that it's scalpers getting scammed. I guarantee you real people are being hurt by this.

And in both cases, people should be able to sell hardware to other people for whatever amount of money they want. Being envious of someone else's property or business doesn't justify any auction scams, ever.

LMFAO. The poor mom and pop down to earth single parent who used bots to buy cards and resell them for Christmas presents :( real people? Bull shit. This post is laughable.
 
Amazon is allowing scalpers to resell on their website which is pretty shitty. They should be blocked from that but Amazon would never do that. I just saw a MSI Trio 3080 sell for $1300.
 
All this has basically soured my love for PC gaming. Companies are just soulless profiteering monsters. Selling my rig and just leaving all this behind me. The companies, the rabid fans, the profiteering, it's all about money now and not about games.

It always has been about money. Companies aren't in business to not make money or break even.
 
All this has basically soured my love for PC gaming. Companies are just soulless profiteering monsters. Selling my rig and just leaving all this behind me. The companies, the rabid fans, the profiteering, it's all about money now and not about games.

I don't blame you but then again every hobby is full of profiteering companies, it's just the nature of capitalism in a capitalist society.
 
All this has basically soured my love for PC gaming. Companies are just soulless profiteering monsters. Selling my rig and just leaving all this behind me. The companies, the rabid fans, the profiteering, it's all about money now and not about games.

Even the game companies now are shitty for the most part. But hey, I still love PC gaming despite all the capitalist bullshit.
 
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Yeah, so show me where that's codified in USC or state law in terms of a prosecutable crime as it relates to an eBay fake bid.
Totally unrelated came across multiple bidding/shill bidding fraud is just lumped into criminal wire fraud under 18 USC 1343.

I'm pretty sure the feds can make anything a crime...eBay is in California and I'm sure they have some kind of criminal auction fraud or wire fraud statutes on the books, too.
 
Totally unrelated came across multiple bidding/shill bidding fraud is just lumped into criminal wire fraud under 18 USC 1343.

I'm pretty sure the feds can make anything a crime...eBay is in California and I'm sure they have some kind of criminal auction fraud or wire fraud statutes on the books, too.

Unlikely that a prosecutor is going to try it, but no worries. A defense attorney could likely argue that it isn't the same offense but you never know with the feds. Probably result in some sort of plea/ slap on the wrist as nobody is going to risk 20 years. I doubt jail time would ever be involved.
 
All this has basically soured my love for PC gaming. Companies are just soulless profiteering monsters. Selling my rig and just leaving all this behind me. The companies, the rabid fans, the profiteering, it's all about money now and not about games.

LOL, console gaming is no better. The mighty quan rules all.

 
People "defend" scalpers because at the end of the day they are not the problem. Its an economics problem, and trying to force prices to some arbitrary price doesn't solve anything. You want nvidia to sell the cards at MSRP? That's fine, you are still not going to get a card within the 1st week (they will sell out long before you ever get one).

With respect to video cards its not even a problem, I dont know why everyone gets pissed about this. There is a temporary shortage on release, and its going to last maybe a month or two? If it lasts longer then that the problem is nvidia does not have enough supply and is setting prices unrealistically.

Temporary prices on luxury goods should be resolved by market forces. This is literally the last place where society or government should intervene. Telling people to not profit on something for reasons like "because i want one and want to pay less" is unrealistic.

Pretty much. Didn't buy one up front? Too bad. Hot ticket items always sell out quick. Same deal with consoles which we'll see in a month or so. The demand will outstrip the supply but they'll come back in stock. Maybe Nvidia could've produced more day one, but I am assuming there are production/logistic reasons for this. I'm sure they'd rather keep them in stock and sell before AMD gets something out.

Last time it took maybe 14 days for stock to start appearing for the RTX 2070 at least. Otherwise they'd come in stock and sell out quick. Maybe it was sooner, but it took a while for a $400 card to show up consistently in stock.
 
Pretty much. Didn't buy one up front? Too bad. Hot ticket items always sell out quick. Same deal with consoles which we'll see in a month or so. The demand will outstrip the supply but they'll come back in stock. Maybe Nvidia could've produced more day one, but I am assuming there are production/logistic reasons for this. I'm sure they'd rather keep them in stock and sell before AMD gets something out.

Last time it took maybe 14 days for stock to start appearing for the RTX 2070 at least. Otherwise they'd come in stock and sell out quick. Maybe it was sooner, but it took a while for a $400 card to show up consistently in stock.
 
Feels like I've seen this story before.
I seemed to remember being excited at the prospect of $599 AIB partner cards leading up to the launch of the 1080.

Then at launch we found out there was $100 premium for the FE version with no AIBs available.
On top of that, FE versions were as rare as hens teeth, and it was many months before you could get a 1080 at anything close to MSRP.

To be honest, I'm not sure why we're all surprised again. Shame on us.
 
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