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We've all seen the PS3 go like very expensive solid gold hotcakes on eBay. We've all see the huge queues. And those of us in Europe will know that it's a while yet until we get it. And with SCEE going on record to say they regarded importing of non-european models of PS3 or even PS2 and PSP as illegal, surely they'll respond to the eBay scams.

What are the facts? The individuals buying such goods and reselling them had no intention of playing PS3, merely sought money, therefore, they denied a PS3 to someone who actually wanted one, then, made a vast profit.

Therefore, I have been pondering asking SCEE and eBay what countermeasures they will take to prevent this scandal at the european launch. If SCEE were "iltimately... trying to protect consumers from being sold hardware that does not conform to strict EU or UK consumer safety standards," with such a heavy handed approach to imports, surely they therefore would wish to pretect the consumers from being swindled with £1200+ PS3's on eBay in 2007? Such a move would discourage scams and would ultimately protect the rights of the consumer to have access to the console at the fairest price: And I feel the "rights" of scammers to make a fast buck and swindle persons should be damned.

Edit

The poll refers to the resale of european PS3's at inflated prices, not the sale of import PS3's on eBay or elsewhere

Edit

EUROPEAN PS3's. And in hindsight, Wii's. This has nothingto do with Japan, that's just an example.

What does everyone else think?

This post has been edited by Del S on 18th November 2006 14:29

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"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

yes i agree with you,
e-bay knew this was going to happen, especially after the xbox 360
auctions

the re-sellers are the equivilent of music ticket touts and e-bay should take countermeasures:(

There is nothing that pisses me off more than asinine, whimsically drawn borders preventing the trade of goods. That the government is now stepping on the shoes of people who completely and totally own the product in the question and are preventing them from doing what they want with it is a violation of ownership laws.

That said, these safety regulations should only have teeth if they are regularly enforced. In addition, if the PS3 and all other electronic devices that do not conform to these 'strict safety standards' are illegal to own in the country, then stopping imports can be morally justified. Otherwise, it's just another government stepping in and protecting corporate interests instead of consumer ones (much like 'regions' with DVDs).

Look at it this way; if these were merely American AC adaptors that were going across the border, would these governments give a shit? They do not conform to the safety standards, so is it illegal for me to take one across the border? To possess one on European soil?

No? Then the government needs to shut up and stop protecting Sony's dubious attempt to maximize profit in the world with their staggered launches. Their complaint of regulations-violation is thinly-veiled bullshit.


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Visions of Peace - Four Generals, One Empire, and the Returners caught in the middle.

There's nothing they can do about it. There's already as much of a quantity limit as it's possible to impose (one per paying customer), but there's no way to stop someone from paying their 50 friends to go get pre-orders, and there's no way to stop someone from buying a PS3 just to put it on eBay. Heck, I even considered going that route.

It's sad, and, yeah, it's really annoying that people suck up the supply just to make a huge profit, but there's just nothing you can do about it. There's nothing Sony can do about it, either.

I'm with Elessar about the artificial zones to keep merchandise easier to track, or whatever. If I want a Japanese PS3 and I can somehow get my hands on one, why should anyone else give a damn? It's too bad that the corporations run the governments--as long as they do, Sony's right to keep Europeans from having PS3s until they want them ot have them is going to outweigh my right to send one to Del out of the goodness of my heart.

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

It should probably be noted a judge is not strictly speaking a part of the government and that's the only involvment from officials in the case in that a judge ruled it was illegal, and I disagree with the move to prohibit importing like this in principle because of its violation of ownership laws I intend to possibly use in the near future if the worst comes to the worst and some pen pusher in whitehall thinks my plan to buy a few airsoft goodies from Hong Kong won't fit into Airsoft's exemption from the Violent Crime Reduction Bill (which oddly will increase the number of things defined as violent crime). The difference of course is that the maker of an airsoft M4 won't care if I'm in Taiwan or New Mexico, I'm still buying their product and still able to use it without it being incompatible with anything sold locally. Except placebo laws, of course.

I feel it would have made more sense to force importers to have to get the express permission and seal of approval from SCEE to have the importers ensure that the power adaptors were safe for use in the EU, that the consoles were safe for use, and that the buyer knows it cannot ever play any european content without breaking the law and the console in the eyes of SCEE.

However, this is not about trademark laws, which is what the import issue is (And oddly enough there is nothing to actually stop you once you buy something elsewhere and take it to the UK following the legal procedures) but the fact that consumer rights are being threatened by the risk that touts will snap up vast swathes of the available product to sell at inflated prices in violation IMO of the notion of fair trading. And the question is, shoudl eBay take action to prohibit anyone reselling PS3 on eBay in europe, especially considering that it's technically illegal for them to sell import PS3's anyway? If they can prohibit the sale of charity tickets because it's people inflating prices to make a profit, surely the same applies to an item of electronic hardware? I feel that eBay's action in this would be a stand for consumer rights and to not act is support for practices that amount to nothing more than a legalised form of robbery.

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"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

Quote (Elessar @ 17th November 2006 23:44)

There is nothing that pisses me off more than asinine, whimsically drawn borders preventing the trade of goods. That the government is now stepping on the shoes of people who completely and totally own the product in the question and are preventing them from doing what they want with it is a violation of ownership laws.

That said, these safety regulations should only have teeth if they are regularly enforced. In addition, if the PS3 and all other electronic devices that do not conform to these 'strict safety standards' are illegal to own in the country, then stopping imports can be morally justified. Otherwise, it's just another government stepping in and protecting corporate interests instead of consumer ones (much like 'regions' with DVDs).

Look at it this way; if these were merely American AC adaptors that were going across the border, would these governments give a shit? They do not conform to the safety standards, so is it illegal for me to take one across the border? To possess one on European soil?

No? Then the government needs to shut up and stop protecting Sony's dubious attempt to maximize profit in the world with their staggered launches. Their complaint of regulations-violation is thinly-veiled bullshit.

well I agree with you there

I just meant that e-bay should do something about people deliberately ripping off others

if they sold the console at a reasonable profit of let's say 20%

I would have no problem

I'm all for importing games and consoles
(heck i just got FFXII and FFT from America )

but these people had no intention of buying a ps3 for themselves and are denying the japanese of a console in a severely understocked situation

Quote (john aiton @ 18th November 2006 06:54)

I just meant that e-bay should do something about people deliberately ripping off others

if they sold the console at a reasonable profit of let's say 20%

I would have no problem

I'm all for importing games and consoles
(heck i just got FFXII and FFT from America )

but these people had no intention of buying a ps3 for themselves and are denying the japanese of a console in a severely understocked situation

You are kidding me, right? So someone buys a console legally (let's assume that it's legal and that they didn't just beat up some poor skinny Japanese kid for it, for the purposes of the argument). That means it's THEIR PS3, to do with what they want. If they wanted to keep it and play it, that's okay to you, clearly, even if it denies some poor skinny Japanese kid his happiness. So why is it not okay to get what the market will bear for it instead? They're not determining what the "reasonable" profit is. The market is. If there wasn't someone who wanted to pay five times the retail cost to get their hands on it, the seller wouldn't make five times the retail cost when selling it.

Now, to the topic at hand, as opposed to whatever the post above was actually about..

I think the only reasonable barrier to resale on ebay is mandated escrow. But I think any high-cost transaction online should have mandated escrow, honestly. The seller should be willing to do it as an act of good faith, and the buyer should WANT to do it for his or her own protection. Beyond that, telling people what they can and can not buy and what they can and can not pay for it is just silly. If it is truly a "scam," then ebay should be doing something about it by punishing the sellers. But if all that is happening is that people are selling legally bought, working machines for whatever they can earn from them, caveat emptor.

Now, as to the legality of doing so, ebay can't specifically take down all Japanese PS3s being sold on the Europe site, I don't think. It would depend upon whether the British judge's ruling was broad enough to cover all imported electronic entertainment or just that specific PSP model, AND if the ruling applies to both retail and resale or just the former. The law isn't even in ebay's own interest, so I don't see why they should even consider stopping PS3 sales until specifically told to do so.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (Rangers51 @ 18th November 2006 13:45)

Quote (john aiton @ 18th November 2006 06:54)

I just meant that e-bay should do something about people deliberately ripping off others

if they sold the console at a reasonable profit of let's say 20%

I would have no problem

I'm all for importing games and consoles
(heck i just got FFXII and FFT from America )

but these people had no intention of buying a ps3 for themselves and are denying the japanese of a console in a severely understocked situation

You are kidding me, right? So someone buys a console legally (let's assume that it's legal and that they didn't just beat up some poor skinny Japanese kid for it, for the purposes of the argument). That means it's THEIR PS3, to do with what they want. If they wanted to keep it and play it, that's okay to you, clearly, even if it denies some poor skinny Japanese kid his happiness. So why is it not okay to get what the market will bear for it instead? They're not determining what the "reasonable" profit is. The market is. If there wasn't someone who wanted to pay five times the retail cost to get their hands on it, the seller wouldn't make five times the retail cost when selling it.

Now, to the topic at hand, as opposed to whatever the post above was actually about..

I think the only reasonable barrier to resale on ebay is mandated escrow. But I think any high-cost transaction online should have mandated escrow, honestly. The seller should be willing to do it as an act of good faith, and the buyer should WANT to do it for his or her own protection. Beyond that, telling people what they can and can not buy and what they can and can not pay for it is just silly. If it is truly a "scam," then ebay should be doing something about it by punishing the sellers. But if all that is happening is that people are selling legally bought, working machines for whatever they can earn from them, caveat emptor.

Now, as to the legality of doing so, ebay can't specifically take down all Japanese PS3s being sold on the Europe site, I don't think. It would depend upon whether the British judge's ruling was broad enough to cover all imported electronic entertainment or just that specific PSP model, AND if the ruling applies to both retail and resale or just the former. The law isn't even in ebay's own interest, so I don't see why they should even consider stopping PS3 sales until specifically told to do so.

ah, I have contradicted myself

you make some great points Rangers51
and put me to shame for my slightly biased opinion


I guess i'm just unhappy that I could never afford 1000 for a ps3


there has been some rumours of further delay of the European ps3 launch
which might put prices even higher

I dont think they should block selling ps3s and stuff on ebay just ecause the prices go high, but i do agree its unfair on people to have to either beat the people selling them to a ps3 ina shop or have to go and spend hundreds more than they should. but its their right to do what they want wehn they buy it even smash it up if they want but thats even dumber

Quote (Rangers51 @ 18th November 2006 08:45)

Now, as to the legality of doing so, ebay can't specifically take down all Japanese PS3s being sold on the Europe site, I don't think. It would depend upon whether the British judge's ruling was broad enough to cover all imported electronic entertainment or just that specific PSP model, AND if the ruling applies to both retail and resale or just the former. The law isn't even in ebay's own interest, so I don't see why they should even consider stopping PS3 sales until specifically told to do so.

eBay reserves the right to take down whatever auctions they want, regardless of whether the sale is legal. I don't think they should do it, but they will if Sony wants them to.

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

theres nothing wrong with selling your play station 3 on ebay if you want to. i just got one and i would have paid thousands of dollars for it so why shouldnt someone be allowed to sell it to me. and if i want to sell mine which i dont because i have plenty of cash i should be allowed to. and theres nothing wrong with it. these people waited in line to get their system and if theyd rather sell it and earn something for their hard work than keep it thats their business. people who are mad about this are just jealous.

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moetsuki
moetsuki
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