Many gamers have been keeping an eye on the release of Nvidia's new GeForce RTX 30-series graphics cards. After all, a coveted, limited-supply item that goes on the market, often becomes a likely target for scalpers, and that's exactly what happened to the 3080.
Some were surprised when the Nvidia 3080 graphics card sold out instantly, meaning only bots could have been fast enough to put those orders in. Scalpers use bots to purchase limited-edition items with the intent of reselling them for a profit, and the practice tends to be bad news for both buyers and sellers. Customers become frustrated when limited supplies of an item are quickly bought up, and it negatively impacts their experience of the brand. Nvidia is trying to fight back.
Customers who were waiting at 6:00 a.m. PT this morning to pre-order a GeForce RTX-3080 may still have a chance if they were able to get an order in. In a statement to PCMag Nvidia said, "We’re doing everything humanly possible, including manually reviewing orders, to get these cards in the hands of legitimate customers." It is unlikely that many legitimate orders made it through, but a human eye should be able to weed outbot-submitted requests.
There are indications that consumers are fighting back against scalpers as well. Listings for GeForce RTX-3080 graphics cards on eBay are closing for as much as $50 to 70k, and it seems likely these bids were made by users who have no intention in actually paying that much for a graphics card. When scalpers sell an item and do not receive the payment, it may slow them down on the whole.
The terms of service put down by eBay state that a buyer can decide not to pay for an item, and the seller would have to wait until four days of nonpayment have elapsed before they can file an unpaid item dispute. This will result in a black mark on the buyer's account, but frustrated consumers may consider this a small price to pay for an opportunity to waste a scalper's time.
Unfortunately, there is currently no indication on Nvidia's website when the cards will be available again, so eager customers will have to be patient while Nvidia takes precautions. The GeForce RTX-3080 reviews so far have been positive, but that does not mean much if the hardware is not getting into the hands of actual customers.
Source: PCMag