Question Where can we file a complaint regarding GPU prices in the EU?

[psolord]

Hello.

As you know perfectly well GPU prices have gone out of this world.

For me this is unacceptable. You may say that that this is the law of supply and demand and to wait it out. Sure that's an option. The other option is to file a complaint and to see what the regulatory authorities in the EU have to say about this and who really is making crazy money in the expense of the people.

So where do we file a formal complaint?

Thanks

 

[BarkingGhostar]

VL, I'm not belittling the guy for scalping, but let's call the scalper a scalper and be done with it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

OK, fair enough, seems like to most reasonable people, the cover story was bunk, and he was just really looking for an "excuse" to scalp. I'll agree with you there.

But have you ever considered, "profit margining" may be held in similar esteem by "normal" people, as "speed margining", aka Overclocking, something that many of us have done or continue to do. Just a thought.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

He worse than just your every day scalper. He's trying to scalp his so called AVS friends. I don't think I could continue to be friends with someone I thought was a friend but then tried to mug me (ahem, scalp me).

 

[Mopetar]

It is counter intuitive to believe that the person is selling it USED because of the reason they gave and expect 50% above price on a new, current item.

The going rate for a new in box console is more than $750. Many eBay listings are over $1,000 and even those below that without a buyout option are around $850. I think you even said yourself in your original post that it was at the lower end of scalper pricing.

OK, if that's the case return it. But returning something you don't like is not the goal, here. The goal was to make $250 profit on it. Plain and simple.

Suppose he'd just come out and said he's a dirty scalper and the price is $750. Does anything actually change here? Is it his fault that there are people who value a new Xbox at $750 and want to buy it from him for more than other people are willing to pay?

Seriously, how many of you bought something recently, chose NOT to return it and instead put it up for sale for 50% more than what you paid for it?

I take it you don't own any stock then? I'll assume you have some kind of retirement account that financed by investments. Be glad the person managing it for you doesn't act the way you're proposing.

 

[MrTeal]

It's unrealistic to expect someone to sell something for less than the going rate just because they bought it for less. If I get tickets to a playoff game or concert and then can't go or don't want to go, why should I sell them from the $100 I paid if the market value is $150? Same with GPUs, if I preorder a 3080 and a buy a 3060 Ti to have something, why should I sell the 3060 Ti for MSRP when my 3080 comes in if the going used rate is 50% above that?

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I think the going rate was defined by the authentic sales, which was $499.

 

[Borealis7]

brand new GIGABYTE RTX3080 from a reputable chain store in my country is now 1500-1600$ US inc. tax. granted, the USD conversion rate is the lowest its been in 10 years, but still there is no justification for double the MSRP. even if i compare local currency to launch prices of previous gen cards, its about 66% higher.
also, the AIB RTX3090s are around 2750$. no one is going to buy that, you'd have to be incredibly dumb or stupid rich.

 

[WelshBloke]

I think the going rate was defined by the authentic sales, which was $499.

The going rate is what people will pay for it.
If he's being unreasonable in his asking price then he won't sell it at that and he'll either end up reducing the price or keeping it.
I'm not seeing the problem here.

 

[Midwayman]

I don't have a problem with scalping. The market will bear what it will bear, at least on nonessential goods like this. What I do have an issue with is the bots. Its just unfair competition. I'm just not sure what the solution is. Best Buy has been doing in-store sales only where you can buy online, but you have to pick up in person. That combined with an ID check to enforce quantity limits seems like it would be the most effective manner make bots not worth it. Sure a person might be able to get a couple, but it would limit geographic reach and a single scalper would quickly run out of people willing to be their proxy for a pick up.

 

[DooKey]

No one is entitled to buy a luxury good for the price they want it to be. You buy luxury goods at the price they are or you don't buy.

The price of doing business varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The EU has MANY regulations and other hoops to jump through that can make the price of goods there much higher than other regions. The people there seem to like it since they are remaining there and voting for the politicians that put these regulations in place.

 

[Mopetar]

I don't have a problem with scalping. The market will bear what it will bear, at least on nonessential goods like this. What I do have an issue with is the bots. Its just unfair competition. I'm just not sure what the solution is.

Same as it's always been, but everyone hates it so we'll never get it. All you need is for AMD or the AIB partners to auction the cards off. Once the auction is over work backwards through the bids and give people a window to lock in their purchase. Those who don't get tossed out of the queue.

This makes bots pointless and removes any profit for scalpers. Add in a 10% restocking fee to discourage people from buying and returning and there aren't a lot of remaining ways to game the system. Additional revenue to the manufacturer goes into increasing production to better meet demand. Repeat process until market price reaches MSRP and then everything can go back to normal.

But some people just love to stick their head in the sand and complain that companies like AMD/NV would be gouging them, even though it's obvious that the companies aren't setting a fixed rate when it's an auction. They'd rather spend days or weeks watching some discord server or camping out store openings to have the barest of chance at getting a card at MSRP as opposed to an online process that could be done in 10 minutes or less. I get that some people enjoy doing that for it's own sake, but when you add up all the hours and the cost of fuel, you're only saving money if your gas is free and your time is worthless.

 

[Jimminy]

To understand this phenomenon, one must study the rules of acquisition:

Rules of Acquisition - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[BarkingGhostar]

The going rate is what people will pay for it.
If he's being unreasonable in his asking price then he won't sell it at that and he'll either end up reducing the price or keeping it.
I'm not seeing the problem here.

In your world, not mine. I do not buy into scalping. Maybe you do?

 

[WelshBloke]

In your world, not mine. I do not buy into scalping. Maybe you do?

If you're not buying it whats the problem?

People can sell their stuff for whatever they want. I'll choose if I want to buy it from them.

Its not like they have cornered the market in insulin here.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

If you're not buying it whats the problem?

People can sell their stuff for whatever they want. I'll choose if I want to buy it from them.

Its not like they have cornered the market in insulin here.

They will now that you gave them the idea.

 

[WelshBloke]

They will now that you gave them the idea.

I think that's already happened in the US hasn't it?

 

[VirtualLarry]

In your world, not mine. I do not buy into scalping. Maybe you do?

You don't believe in capitalism? Specifically, the "Invisible Hand", Rules of Supply and Demand, and "the Market" correcting itself, through various individual actors? This is not a monopoly or collusion that we're talking about.

 

[CP5670]

To be honest, if I wanted a card right now I would just buy from a scalper at a markup. It's better than waiting outside Microcenter for hours, refreshing Newegg/Amazon pages the whole day, etc. I don't have the patience for that anymore and would rather spend the time playing games.

 

[WelshBloke]

To be honest, if I wanted a card right now I would just buy from a scalper at a markup. It's better than waiting outside Microcenter for hours, refreshing Newegg/Amazon pages the whole day, etc. I don't have the patience for that anymore and would rather spend the time playing games.

Or just turn down a couple of settings and stick with a previous gen card. Its not like those cant run anything out now.

 

[CP5670]

That's what I'm doing. The 1080ti is still pretty good at 4K at medium settings. Some people sold their old cards expecting to buy one of the new ones though, and have nothing on hand now except the IGP.

 

[RasCas99]

You don't believe in capitalism? Specifically, the "Invisible Hand", Rules of Supply and Demand, and "the Market" correcting itself, through various individual actors? This is not a monopoly or collusion that we're talking about.

Not directly to you but , ticket scalping is illegal in many countries for years now , folks who say "if i have a ticket , cant i resale it balbalbla" , no you cant for most things that has some regulation to them , if you go outside a soccer stadium and try to resale 100 tickets , you will get arrested and fined , scalping creates a real problem for the original goods distributer and causes a real harm to their brand and customer loyalty and satisfaction , many many things are being done to mitigate such scalping in the sports/entertainment world and they all comes down to the willing of the distributer to allocate money in infrastructure that helps avoiding scalpers buying in mass , in World cup and other sporting events you get your tickets associated with your name as one example .
But the easiest way was already suggested , the big sellers need to be able to have a system where you buy the goods and get in a queue with estimated shipping dates , they can cross reference credit cards and what not to block multiple buyers , but the important thing is that most scalpers wont buy 1,000,000 GPU`s worth of stock with 250,000 credit cards , so what will happen is you will as a private consumer will get inline , and you will get an estimated delivery date.

Apple are doing it for years now , and every iPhone thread we have this "ohhh i just missed the first week delivery , i am now 1 month / 2 months delayed" or what not , BUT they have their purchase guaranteed , and they dont have to fight bots to even get the permission to buy the goods.
In this GPU case , the scalpers are able to buy -> sell -> buy ->sell ..... , which gives them streams of money to buy more with each sale.

So capitalism is nice and dandy , but when there is manipulation of the market that is harmful ,we have regulations that helps , capitalism != do whatever you want to earn money.

 

[VirtualLarry]

that helps avoiding scalpers buying in mass , in World cup and other sporting events you get your tickets associated with your name as one example .

but the important thing is that most scalpers wont buy 1,000,000 GPU`s worth of stock with 250,000 credit cards

Look, I agree that "monopolies are bad for the consumer", and if, in the ticket scenario, there is one singular entity buying up most of the tickets, only the resell them for a higher amount by unlawfully cornering the market (and thus becoming a monopoly), then that's one thing.

It's another thing entirely for "opportunistic resellers", to step in and individually obtain GPUs and re-sell them, to take care of bubbles of "market inefficiencies", and make themselves some sweet $$$ in the process.

Besides, tickets are kind of a special case, those are usually one-of-a-kind events, and not something (a good) that is more-or-less continually-produced until it hits EOL in a year or more away. (So for tickets to a certain event, say a "farewell tour rock concert" by some group, the buyer doesn't really have the option to NOT pay the scalper prices and "just wait", like they can for GPUs, and drive the scalper's price margins' down.)

 

[Fallen Kell]

Besides, tickets are kind of a special case, those are usually one-of-a-kind events, and not something (a good) that is more-or-less continually-produced until it hits EOL in a year or more away. (So for tickets to a certain event, say a "farewell tour rock concert" by some group, the buyer doesn't really have the option to NOT pay the scalper prices and "just wait", like they can for GPUs, and drive the scalper's price margins' down.)

"Just waiting" sure does work even in the case of the one off event. If the scalper is left holding onto the tickets when the event starts or passes, he losses the investment in the ticket and wasnt able to use it. So at the beginning of such events the scalpers left holding inventory of tickets will finally drop their prices to what they paid for them or even less as they become worthless in a few more moments.

This is the same with "scarce inventory" items. Once the production meets demand, all the scalpers need to dump their inventory at cost or less since it is now a second hand purchase and not necessarily worth the same as a brand new purchase from the manufacturer.

 

[Midwayman]

"Just waiting" sure does work even in the case of the one off event. If the scalper is left holding onto the tickets when the event starts or passes, he losses the investment in the ticket and wasnt able to use it. So at the beginning of such events the scalpers left holding inventory of tickets will finally drop their prices to what they paid for them or even less as they become worthless in a few more moments.

For venues close to me I'm actually just driven down and waited in the parking lot until start time. You can get some great deals 5minutes after start time and you generally don't even miss the opening band.

 

[Mopetar]

For something like a concert or sporting event the easy solution to scalping increasing prices is to tie purchase to an ID such that a ticket can't be transferred if tickets won't be auctioned. Of course you probably need some kind of lottery system if the tickets are sold at below market rate because more people will want them than there are tickets available. The other (which isn't always possible for various reasons) is to just add additional performances until supply and demand equalize at the original price, which makes scalping pointless since it removes the profit. If you want to fix a price you need to be able to increase supply to meet the demand for it or you invariably end up with some kind of arbitrage.

Even though people are tempted to argue that this doesn't work for so-called required goods like medicine, food, etc. it doesn't change the underlying realities. If something like medicine is being priced artificially high it's probably due to a government granted monopoly or rules that prevent citizens from buying from sellers outside the country. In a truly open market the moment someone tries to price gouge at obscene rates is the moment that everyone else smells a great opportunity to make money undercutting. Practically every economist agrees that rent controls just make housing shortages worse and a historical glance at any former communist state shows that price controls for any other good or service were similarly ineffective at achieving what the economic planners were aiming at.