Scalping: Young people who make thousands of dollars buying and selling things online(PC: BBC Urdu)
Wikibon cards, two PlayStation Five S, and a thousand designer shoes worth a thousand pounds. 18-year-old Jack (name has been changed) is in his bedroom with all these things.
He is one of those scalpers whose number is increasing day by day. These young people buy and sell high-demand items online with the help of bots, that is, profiteering through the internet.
Politicians and gamers are demanding a ban.
What is scalping?
The word was first used when some people bought a large number of tickets to an event and then sold them at higher prices in black. That's how they made a profit.
Ticket scalpers also used bots. Bots are computer software that can be used to search and buy and sell goods on the Internet faster than humans.
In 2018, singers such as Ed Sheeran and The Arctic Monkeys backed the campaign against it, and the British government outlawed buying tickets with the help of bots.
But bots are still allowed to buy high-end items such as video games or gym equipment.
Due to the closure of shops during the global epidemic, it was a golden opportunity for scalpers to buy and sell anything from online markets to video games to hot tubs with the help of bots.
Jack doesn't say how much money he's made from scalping, but it's considered too much.
"It simply came to our notice then. Probably پا 10,000 since November.
He has been doing this for many years, buying and selling Yazidi or Jordan trainer shoes, but now he is in the business of more lucrative goods.
When the stock was limited, I could easily sell a PS5 for 800 800. '
This is almost double the retail price. This is one of the reasons why many gamers have not been able to buy PS5 or Xbox Series X releases so far.
Ryan, 26, is one of them. He is a Cambridge graduate and wants to buy a new PlayStation, but the experience has been "disturbing" for him.
He says a friend of his bought it at the time of the release, but "most of us were asleep at the time." We had to go to work in the morning or some of us have children. It's not possible for me to buy one. "
'It is painful. I saw in a picture that a man had 15 games in his house and he was selling each game for پا 600.
Christina is trying to buy a game for her autistic brother. She waited in the virtual queue for about two hours and by the time it was her turn, all the games were sold out.
"It's really annoying," says Scalper. "It's just business."
One of them is 17-year-old Sam, who is applying for admission in various universities.
"I'm probably the only 17-year-old who doesn't have SnapChat, TickTalk or Facebook," she says.
She says she runs a business that earns more than پا 2,000 a month when other people her age are "violating lockdown rules". They use the Discard app, which is popular with bots.
"I'm not a fake, I'm an entrepreneur," she says. The fact is that the purchase and the price are determined on a large scale. Some people do this to support their families.
"I don't think I'm a good person, but that's the business, isn't it?" Says Jack.
"I'm not playing video games in the bedroom like the other 18-year-olds who have nothing to do with their lives. It's easy to make money that way. It's out of pocket. "
Threatening messages
But there are also risks in making money through online profiteering. Sam has received threats of violence.
"People even said I should be stabbed and left injured on the road," she said.
She has only filed a complaint against the person who threatened to rape her. "It's my right," she says.
She says she did not report any further threats to police because it was a waste of time.
"Girls face it all the time online. When people are with a screen and a keyboard, they do all sorts of things.
Jack has also received threatening messages.
"Many of the messages are from men in their 30s or 40s. "I think I'm just 16 and they can threaten me."
That's not fair. "
So what's going on to help gamers like Rhine? Many politicians have joined the debate because of such complaints. They include Scottish National Party MP Douglas Chapman.
So many people raised their voices that Douglas raised the issue in Parliament. Last week, he introduced a bill to the government calling for a ban on online purchases of goods by bots.
"It's a good idea for consumers," he says. If you wanted to buy a PS5 at Christmas but couldn't, it was probably because of the bots.
"There is nothing wrong with making money," he says, but there is a "moral argument" that people should pay the market price.
The government says it is in talks with relevant trade associations in the market to ban scalping.
Sam says there is a possibility of "legislation to ban boats" but then people will start buying things on their own.
Even without bots, people will be able to buy large quantities of goods.
"You can buy things like everyone else and then sell them. You can't ban commerce. "
0 Comments