Topic: Scalpers: They are not the problem...we are!

All the police would do would be to pass the information on to the taxation office, then who knows what will happen. But Scalping is considered a business

You know, I could swear you are MTP

You're overthinking this and getting caught up on the particulars of each scenario. All I said was that "victim blaming" in both scenarios was equally the wrong approach. The victim "enables" it but they're not the ones we should be blaming for the practice.

Anyhow, because for whatever reason you can't look beyond the particulars let me change the analogy a bit. Lets pretend that instead of a phone/internet scam we're talking about a guy who goes door to door charging people way too much to mow their lawn, cut their trees or something. That is a thing. I've heard of plenty of stories of less able people being charged $100s for similar such things. Now how is that any different from what a scalper does? And does it not end with the same conclusion? Are we going to say it's "not dishonest" because the person actually did "provide a service"?

In all of these scenarios people like to blame the victims and people always talk about how they are smarter than the victims. But that doesn't make it the fault of the victims.

Simple, Nintendo's MSRP is too low for amiibo.

If someone came to my door saying they would cut my lawn for $100 I would say 'no thanks' and send them on their way. If he said he would cut it for $10, maybe I would say 'yes' because that is what I value the job to cost. Am I then being a victim for paying $10?

A person buying a $35 amiibo isn't a 'victim', it's a person making a conscious purchasing decision. They are paying a price they are comfortable paying. There is no victim. There is no gun to their head. They are making the decision to buy the toy on their own, without any coercion from the seller (who if on eBay, has no dialogue with the buyer until the purchase is made).

All the scenarios you bring up in your analogies imply the seller is deceitful and is trying to trick the purchaser into buying something they don't really want or need. Someone who consciously goes online and clicks 'buy it now' on an eBay auction for a $25 amiibo is not being tricked, and they are not being victimized.

I'll admit, it is the buyers fault for paying so much, BUT scalpers buying merchandise in bulk are part of the reason that they do that in the first place! Yes, there are other reasons for people not being able to find the amiibo they want (like stock issues), but that doesn't mean that scalpers don't play a part in the problem. Seriously, there needs to be a freaking limit to the amount of amiibos you can purchase in stores.

The greater problem is the things we as a society place value on, limited addition pieces of plastic being one of them.

And that was precisely my point. You wouldn't pay someone $100 to mow your lawn, you wouldn't get sucked into a phone scam, you wouldn't buy speakers out of someone's van. You would tell them to go away in the same way that you would not pay 300% markup on an Amiibo. Pat yourself on the back for being "smart" enough to not be sucked into it, go on a rant about how it's the buyers who are enabling this. You're right. But that doesn't change the fact that people are being exploited and it is the people doing the exploiting who are to blame. Because of that I'm going to call the buyers victims and call scalping a scam, because I feel like that's the most appropriate way to talk about this.

I mean just look at some of the things Amiibo scalpers are doing. People are selling pre-orders and are exaggerating the rarity of them in their ads. They're going to shops and clearing shelves and putting them online immediately for huge margins. Less savvy or patient people are getting caught in the trap. And again, the only reason crap like this isn't illegal is because it's impossible to police. I know for a fact that in some places there have been attempts to put in place laws against ticket scalpers. To say that it's not an unethical, dishonest or sketchy thing to do ignores entirely what's happening here.

I think the problem would have been easily avoided by offering an exclusive online pre-order option to people with an actual Nintendo Network account, limited to one copy each to purchase with the credit card connected to your NNA. They can send you tons of sh!t€ about their newer products but couldn't do something 'that' easy?!

I agree the problem is the customers, not the scalpers. Scalpers exist because of customers, it's not the other way around. If everybody decides that paying 90 bucks for a Little Mac figurine is too much, then scalpers are defeated for good.
Amiibo have an inherent value, which is 12.99. That's it. If customers decide that paying x2 or x3 times more is legit, then they are supporting the system and only hurting themselves. Nobody buy an overpriced amiibo and next wave you'll find them all in stores.

Here in Italy nobody wanted them when they first came out. I clearly remember the Villager and WiiFit Trainer sitting on the shelf of my local GameStop gathering dust for weeks. Then comes the news that Americans are getting crazy for these things, and everybody realizes that amiibo might have a monetary value that goes beyond their actual price tag. This attracts both collectors and scalpers. Most collectors don't collect things that have zero $$$ value beyond their pricetag.
Everybody wakes up tomorrow and thinks "not gonna buying it" = problem solved. I belive you have more chances of getting the amiibo you want and for a cheaper price a year from now when dust settles than today in the gale of amiibomania. You just wait.

(Not me)

While a lot of people are to blame for Amiibo scarcity and their ridiculously high resale value, I think those who buy them in bulk just to profit off of them are the worst offenders.

yup, also just so I can ram this point home. People who disagree with what I said earlier and in particular this bit

I think I have a point here.....

I don't believe in blaming the buyer, especially when they often have little choice if they actually want to purchase the item. It isn't as if they walked away from a store brimming with stock and decided to overpay. The issue I have is morality behind the practice, it is selfish and mean spirited (yes humanity is inherently selfish but going out of your way to cheat someone?...yeah jerk move), however due to the inherent nuances of morality its hard to present that point to others. Just because I feel that the scalper mindset is unethical and rude doesn't mean that others feel that way and thus they feel no reason to change their actions. I do agree to a limited point that not buying from the individual is a source of control the consumer has over scalping. I will need to import a few amiibo, but I'll be doing so from an import store rather than an individual scalper. Yes, many of the import stores are also taking advantage of the low stock, but at least it is an authorized retailer that I've used for readily available goods.

Definitely the better move. Mostly because said stores aren't usually charging huge margins and the main reason it costs more is shipping. Also because that's kinda what Nintendo is doing to ease the problem in some regions anyways. In Australia at least.

When I went to the shops the other day I did see more Amiibo than usual. Usually you only get Mario and Pikachus in the stores around here, the other day I saw Mario, Pikachu, Kirby, DK and Link with the Kirby and DKs having Japanese packaging.

There are very few things in life that are purchased where the buyer has no choice. Medicine, food, shelter are some of the important ones. Cheap plastic toys are not one of them. Nobody needs to buy an amiibo to survive, therefore someone deciding to buy one is making their own decision. Hence, if they are buying one from a reseller for $35, they are making a choice based on their own free will. Nobody needs an amiibo...it's a 'want'. It's a choice.

That is why I said if they want to purchase it. I never implied or stated that it was a need. Again if someone wants to purchase something and the normal stock is cleared out then if they still desire that item their only recourse is a scalper. Again, it isn't as if someone walks out of a store brimming with product and decide to overpay.

For now I'm going to import the store exclusive ones because I have no chance of getting those... the rest I still hope that Nintendo will do a reprint...I'm not paying 70 bucks for a villager. Otherwise I may have an incomplete collection. Same with the Lucina Figma...not sure if it is going to be released in America so I'm importing just in case.

I think all the websites and the press who ranted about low stocks and scalpers have actually done the fans a huge disservice by creating a pandemic frenzy - I know many people who didn't want amiibo and now that they know they are scalping for them, they either got some from the scalpers or have become scalpers themselves.
Many people are getting them now at doubled prices because they think that once they are gone, they are gone forever but this might not be entirely true. Nintendo might decide anytime to produce more of the ones that got sold out in a blink of an eye - actually, now that the demand is so high, they would be stupid not to do so. Amiibo are not a "strictly for collectors" item and were never intended to become one, so Nintendo is free to reprint them as much as they want - they owe the collectors no subscription.
Besides, we complain a lot about scalpers, but take the New 3DS Majora's Mask Edition...they are fetching for $350 on ebay but are people really buying them in droves? I wonder how many scalped machines will remain unsold at those prices when the dust settles.

A greater problem is when people get self-righteous about what other people value when any inspection of their life would almost certainly reveal that they value something that someone else could look down on.

But the greatest problem is that you don't know the difference between "addition" and "edition." Go back to school, then get hypocritically condescending about other people's values.

Another bit of info I feel I have to mention: today I went with my cousin to a few GameStops because he wanted to buy some Amiibo - he's much younger than me and even though he doesn't have a WiiU yet, he has always liked Nintendo and wanted to get a few figurines. So he looked on the GameStop website for availability and came up with a list of stores that had the Amiibo he wanted in stock.
Well, we went to four or five GameStops and all said the same things: yes the figurines are in the store but they are reserved for another customer. After one afternoon of useless driving around one of the biggest cities in the world, I got seriously pissed off at hearing that another stock was all reserved and asked "How is it possible?".
The guy said the figurines were pre-ordered and they were waiting for the guy to come collecting them.
So I said that some of those Amiibo were released more than 2 months ago - how is it possible that they are still being held out for customers?!
Then the guy behind the couter said "You know, some people have pre-ordered 20 or 30 Amiibo months ago, and they come every week and collect one or two pieces.".
So what people are doing over here is taking advantage of GameStop's pre-ordering policy - by giving them €5 a piece, they can reserve for themselves everything and collect their pre-orders little by little. So they are pre-ordering every rare amiibo to come in the store, putting them on ebay and when the customer pays they go to the shop and get one of their reserved copy - GameStop acts as a garage that holds their goods.

So let's say every GameStop gets 20 "rare" Amiibo for each wave. By investing €100, you can reserve all these amiibo for yourself and they are yours to collect little by little whenever you need. You don't have to pay nor to collect them all in one go - at least that's what the idiot behind the counter told me.
Say there's around 20 GameStops in Rome: with €2000, you can practically control almost the whole stock of rare amiibo in a pretty big city. That's pretty scary. I hope these people realize that if someone buys 20 pieces of the same item is for reselling purposes and not for fun.

He's telling you BS. I've read GameStop's policy. Uncollected preorders should be picked up within 3 days (or a week) or else they could sell it to anyone. It happened on my MK8 Limited Edition guscio preorder last year. I've no problem with GameStops here in Turin except on stock shortages, over pricing their products 9 to 99cents higher, or asking your purchase change to donate on some charity.