The study by a cybersecurity company explains that scalpers programmed bots to buy thousands of iPhone 15s, all models combined, in order to resell them for more. A hard blow which further extends the wait for real buyers.
Since the official release of the range on September 22, it’s not easy to get your hands on an iPhone 15. In France, Apple Stores went on strike the same day. On the Internet, delivery times are getting longer and longer depending on the desired model. And as if that wasn’t enough, the slappersas is their habit now, are having a field day in scooping up thousands of new Apple smartphones right under the noses of real buyers.
If you’re not familiar with the term, a slaper is a person who massively purchases a product in high demand with the aim of reselling it immediately, for more than its purchase price of course. According to the cybersecurity company Kasada, the “scalp” of the iPhone 15 represents a value of several million dollars. To get there, there is the “classic” method: you go to an Apple Store and buy 20 or 30 iPhones before trying to resell them to passers-by or on an online sales site. There is also the automated method using bots.
Scalpers ordered iPhone 15s using bots, worth millions of dollars
The scalpers highlighted by the study simply reprogrammed existing bots so that they take care of order iPhone 15. Originally, they bought sneakers (shoes). A user can be seen boasting about the validation of 3000 purchaseswhile another says they have secured 2500 iPhone 15 in a single day. These are bots said AIO, for All-In-One. They take care of the entire process from monitoring inventory to paying for the order.
By imagining that these people will resell each device around $300 above the base price, the potential profits are very high, in the order of a million. It’s easy to tell yourself that just don’t buy, but unfortunately there are always people who do that. If the company cannot identify the bots quickly enough, the only solution remains to quickly restock the products. Sony did it with the PS5 to pull the rug out from under the feet of scalpers.