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'Grinch Bots' Are Here To Ruin Your Holiday Shopping (nbcnews.com) 86

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Consumers may think they're avoiding the crush this holiday season by shopping online, unaware that as they're trying to get through the digital doors, so too are hordes of bots. And they're throwing elbows. From a report: Up to 97 percent of all online traffic to retailer login pages this holiday shopping week comes from bots, largely operated by organized gangs of cybercriminals, according to estimates by cybersecurity firm Radware. The bots fill out online forms and navigate retail sites faster than a real person can, and try to swiftly purchase limited supply gifts before you've even filled up your cart. The items are then sold for a higher price on third-party sites. The cyber thieves also crack into accounts, drain accounts of rewards and other digital currency, conduct credit card fraud, and more, said Ron Winward, a Radware spokesman. "Website operators are seeing uptick in bot activity leading up to Cyber Monday from people trying out their bots," said Winward. "People are really competing with automated infrastructure and bots to get hot holiday items."
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'Grinch Bots' Are Here To Ruin Your Holiday Shopping More

'Grinch Bots' Are Here To Ruin Your Holiday Shopping

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  • Saw this today on Facebook (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Monday December 02, 2019 @04:15PM (#59477794) Homepage Journal

    There is a "mini gameboy" with "168 games" that they are selling on Facebook for $20 + S&H ($22)

    If you go over to alibaba they have it for $15.78 or whatever, plus $3.75 shipping; $19.53

    $2.47 isn't a very high profit margin but if they take the orders from Facebook, and then use alibaba to drop ship them you don't need more than about a $0.20 profit for this to be worth your while, especially if you are already doing it with 100 other items. There's probably a point of diminishing returns when you factor in the facebook ad fees but you're probably more than breaking even since you never have to carry inventory or hire people to ship things for you

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      There is a "mini gameboy" with "168 games" that they are selling on Facebook for $20 + S&H ($22)

      If you go over to alibaba they have it for $15.78 or whatever, plus $3.75 shipping; $19.53

      $2.47 isn't a very high profit margin but if they take the orders from Facebook, and then use alibaba to drop ship them you don't need more than about a $0.20 profit for this to be worth your while, especially if you are already doing it with 100 other items. There's probably a point of diminishing returns when you facto

      • How safe is it to buy from places like alibaba, or aliexpress?

        Also, if you buy from one of these chinese sites, I thought I heard after you click buy....at the end they tack on whatever the tariffs are onto the shipment.

        Also, thought I heard that they are now trying to charge local (to us) state sales taxes? Is this true?

        I mean, I can't see any chinese vendor remitting these taxes back to the individual US states....

        Anyway, I've seen a nice camera I wanted over there and was really reasonable on "singl

        • Any sort of nice camera is probably worth just buying locally. You can verify it is not a knockoff. If you are spending 5-10K on a camera you can afford the taxes.

        • I buy lots and lots of low-value items from Aliexpress, and the only complaint I have is that sometimes the shipping is really slow. (More than 60 days).
          I am unsure if I would buy a high value item from a Chinese website, but more because of the warranty situation than anything. A friend bought one of those low power PC's with multiple NICs to use as a router from Banggood and got exactly what he paid for, so I don't think you need to worry about getting ripped off.
          • Thank you.

            The camera I'm looking at, is actually made IN china...a shen hao view camera....

            • Holy Moly!
              That is amazing, I can't remember the last time I saw one of those.
              I suspect you will be fine if you purchase through Aliexpress or Alibaba, apart from possible import duties, or if you have to claim on the warranty.
              I really hope you get one, and have lots of fun with it.

    • Why not just contact the manufacturer, and buy 10,000 at the wholesale price?

      • +1

      • Cash up-front for the order, and the potential to not sell all of them, and end up losing money.

        • How is that different than using bots to buy retail at sale price? You definitely still need the cash up front, and you have the same resale risk.

          Don't forget to get your thinking cap on snug before you start typing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Because then you need space to store them and have to package and ship them individually yourself. You will also get hit with customs charges and other taxes.

        This is a way to dodge all that and make some easy money copy/pasting text all day long. Low effort, low skill.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      People have been doing that for years. For example a lot of eBay listings are just stuff you can buy from Farnell or Radio Spares with a big mark-up. They drop ship direct from them.

      I'm actually kinda surprised that Farnell and RS even bother. I order 10 resistors or something at a fraction of a penny each and it must cost them more to cut them off the reel and put them in a plastic bag with a label than they make in profit. Then they decide to send my order of 5 items in 6 different jiffy bags (one from th

  • conflating free market activity with criminality? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chromal ( 56550 ) on Monday December 02, 2019 @04:19PM (#59477816)
    While nobody is going to defend fraudulent unauthorized entry to a computer system with stolen credentials, that is hardly the same thing as buying items on sale for later price mark-up and resale, which as far as I know is how a free market system is supposed to work. I'm a little confused as to why this article is trying to conflate apparently lawful free market activities with computer-based fraud. You want to be critical of fraud, I mean, that's great. If you want to be critical of free markets, then you are the enemy of the west and the free world, no?

    • We should be appalled that these horrible criminals are taking advantage of retailers psychological marketing games of artificial scarcity in order to fan the flames of rampant consumerism. We desperately need to protect our material way of life even if that means propping up an obsolete business model.

    • Apparently it was enough to smear Aaron Swartz.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chromal ( 56550 )
        The wrongful persecution and the resulting subsequent tragic demise of Internet Saint Aaron Swartz does not apparently have much at all to do with web bots lawfully making purchases during end-of-year holiday sales on e-commerce websites.

    • which as far as I know is how a free market system is supposed to work

      Sorry, no, a proper free market needs to have as close as possible the same information and access available to all participants. In this case, the humans trying to place orders have neither the same information (that bots are being used to scalp the items) nor the same access (bots are many times faster). Arguably, the sellers also do not have proper information (that the items are priced too low).

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Chromal ( 56550 )
        So you'd agree online sales are anti-free market because not everyone has an equal level of access to the Internet? In other words, according to your rationale, how can e-commerce be free market if actual Internet access in 2019 is neither universal nor equal in nature? I don't believe this interpretation is credible. Allowing buyers more control or ways in which to automate purchases doesn't appear to be directly relevant as to whether or not a market is in fact a free market. Sellers know what they paid a
        • Except in the case of 'competing against bots' the consumer has absolutely no way to know that this is happening; which means they don't know they are participating in an unfair market. In fact, they are led to believe that it is a fair market. Surely it is not fair to mislead people about how fair the market is!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Chromal ( 56550 )
            Having more buyers does not make a market not-free or even not-fair any more than people lining up in front of a closed retailer's doors for a holiday sale would. All money is treated equally, regardless of who holds it. If you don't want to wait outside in the freezing weather overnight, you could even hire someone to do that for you. If you don't want to write your own bot, you could even hire someone to do that too. Or just shop elsewhere. Or wait a month or two for the fashionable item to become more wi
            • This is more like having 5% of buyers that are speedsters who will be at the checkout with their stuff before the regular people have even crossed the entrance.

        • Not at all; first I made sure to specify "as equal as possible" and perfect equality isn't possible. Further, people who are not in a market are not market participants. People without internet access are not internet market participants the way New Yorkers aren't in the market for hair salons in Des Moines. My only point is that the bots are inherently anti free market because they are such lopsided participants, unlike the person who I was replying to who seemed to think they were ultimate examples.

          • Ok, what about people with very slow internet (maybe still on dialup), and disabled people, like the late Stephen Hawkins. To make things "as equal as possible" you are proposing we slow everyone down to dialup speeds and limit the number of clicks per minute to match the slowest person able to connect to the site? How about people who have to work at midnight when the sales open up, shall we hold everyone off the site until every single person who would like to take advantage of the sale is off work and ab

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Lack of internet access/skills certainly leads to people being ripped off.

          For example in the UK you get massively fleeced if you don't switch energy supplier once a year. Keep getting your gas and leccy from the same people and they jack the prices up every time. Car insurance is even worse - they will send you a renewal offer but then you go look for deals and they suddenly offer you the same thing for half the price.

          Problem is a lot of people don't go on the internet to look for better deals so end up get

    • they're talking about scalpers. e.g. bots that buy up the most desirable holiday gifts and then resell them on ebay/Amazon for huge markups.

      As a former toy collector who gave up in disgust ($35-$60 dollars for a single Ephant Mon figure when the figure wasn't rare) Scalpers suck. I watched scalpers ruin Gundam Seed (yeah, it's a goofy show, but the toys were _amazing_) by buying up _all_ of the toys in the US market. Later after the collectors had given up and moved onto Master Grade model kits they toy

      • So the idiots took a bath? I hope they learned their lesson.

        • I hope so too as scalpers are scum. But it's possible they made a killing selling them at 3-4x markup, and once they had bled the market dry, dumping the remaining inventory at firesale prices was just extra money in their pocket.

      • they're talking about scalpers

        You are assuming the scalpers exist. Perhaps the retailers are pulling the ol' bait-n-switch scam: Advertise an absurdly low price to attract shoppers, and then when they are ready to check-out, it turns out that item is "sold out" ... because of "scalpers" ... when it was never really available at that price.

        • Yes, because such a bait-and-switch deal is easily worth the $40K and 1 year in prison that such an FTC violation carries...

          • Yes, because such a bait-and-switch deal is easily worth the $40K and 1 year in prison that such an FTC violation carries...

            P = penalty
            p = probability of getting caught and prosecuted

            deterrence = p*P

            If p is small enough, then P doesn't matter.

          • It's easy enough to make it legal. Just have a small number on hand that you sell at the advertised sale price. Maybe a few lucky shoppers will get them, or maybe a scalper, but it doesn't matter. After that they are "sold out" and they can try to upsell you on something else.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chromal ( 56550 )
        I agree scalping sucks. I dislike the idea of middle men who insert themselves in a transaction and contribute nothing I consider to be of value into the equation. It seems parasitic and exploitative at best, just... instead of it being a systemic corporate activity and an integral part of the economic infrastructure, it's sporadic, irregular, and individual. But why should we call out the individuals and give a free pass to the large-scale systemic institutionalized versions of reselling at great retail ma

        • I agree scalping sucks. I dislike the idea of middle men who insert themselves in a transaction and contribute nothing I consider to be of value into the equation.

          Suppose they buy it for $10 and put it on eBay for a $1 starting price. Now people who didn't want to wait out in the cold can buy it for as little as $1 from the comfort of their task chairs. I think there's some value in that.

          Of course the price is likely to get bid above $10 if the scalpers know their customers, but at least nobody will be ove

        • Yeah whatever Lenin. Scalping fucking rules and is indeed both heroic and rational when performed at massive scale by great men.

        • What, you don't like being able to buy something, have it shipped to your door, return it if you don't like it or it's broken? The middlemen take these risks. They buy in volume, they send it to where it's selling, they process the returns (for most items), they handle delivery to customers. Call up General Mills and ask to buy one box of cereal. Let me know when they stop laughing.

          I have a friend who sells a limited-market widget. His big customers are specialty shops for the hobby, who go out of their wa

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            I'll bet your friend doesn't have a trunk full of disguises so he can buy up the entire supply from retailers one at a time posing as separate customers then double the price "due to the shortage" and sell them back.

    • Because probably on page number 5 or so of the fine prints of the merchant's "terms and conditions", there is a long sentence in legalese that boils down to "Special limited supply gifts and rebates are limited to one (1) per client. Client shall not use methods such as (but not limited to) multiple accounts to circumvent those limitations and acquire more than one (1) such item. Failure to comply to this etc..."
      (should be right next to the restrictions against people whose middle name is "Martha" to buy it

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chromal ( 56550 )
        I think this is a core issue, or aptly-phrased 'can of worms,' sellers who don't intend to enforce trying to hold buyers to terms of agreement that the buyers don't intend to comply with (or may not even consider legitimate). An easy solution would simply be not to play games with retail sales like creating artificial scarcity of an item priced below market cost in a threadbare attempt to manipulate the public and lure in shoppers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jythie ( 914043 )
        And that is the libertarian ethical work around. If it is not enforceable, than it is ethically ok. "if they can not stop me, then it is their fault'
    • Scalping is certainly a property of free markets. I'm not sure I'd say it's a desirable one, though. You can support a system generally while still disliking certain aspects. There may even be ways to curtail that without hindering the core benefits of having a free market, though I don't care to speculate on that here.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      Well, it is in a bit of a grey area of fraud, though legally speaking it is fully legal. The intent of these sales is to get end customers in with deals that they have a chance of getting. these bots are fraudulently creating accounts to look like individuals and snap up all the products intended for individuals and then sell them back to the intended audience at a markup. They are pretending to be someone they are not in order to defraud retailers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chromal ( 56550 )
        Or, of course, the bots could be replaced with low-cost Indian workers if that would make it all seem somehow better. The retailer's difficulties implementing their marketing schemes are not really anyone's problem but their own, in my opinion. They'll have the same kinds of problems if customers can walk in and buy a limited-purchase item from a brick-and-mortar store, perhaps utilizing different check-out lines to get new cashiers with each transaction. As a consumer, I don't really care because I avoid m

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by vux984 ( 928602 )

      I'm a little confused as to why this article is trying to conflate apparently lawful free market activities

      Lawful maybe. But unfair and in violation of both the vendors intentions and most customers expectations of what is fair and right.

      The majority of the customers don't like this botting, because they feel its unfair and prevents them from being able to get access to the deals that are advertised.

      The vendors don't like the botting because it pisses of the majority of their customers and undermines goodwill and other intangibles that the sale is supposed to generate.

      If the seller and the vast majority of custo

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      that is hardly the same thing as buying items on sale for later price mark-up and resale, which as far as I know is how a free market system is supposed to work.

      Actually, that is known as "rent seeking" and is generally considered harmful to a market economy and so is to be prevented. If you really support a market economy, you will be against things that harm the market. Thurston Howell III and Gomez Adams are not good sources of economic or legal theory.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday December 02, 2019 @04:19PM (#59477818)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • This was the last surplus. The low price was to empty the warehouse and shutdown the supply chain. Clearly they wanted all this finished before 2020.

    • It's an intentional scam. Advertise absurdly low prices to get people in the door and perhaps buy other things. Only the sale item has absurdly low supply, so nearly none of those have to be sold. At least some of the people that remain will buy something else and not cancel their entire order.

      If it was not a scam, they would simply honor the sale price with a note of "sorry this is out of stock and will ship at a later date."

      But, this is Valve we are talking about, so shady business practices are expected.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by vux984 ( 928602 )

        "If it was not a scam, they would simply honor the sale price with a note of "sorry this is out of stock and will ship at a later date."

        For a discontinued item, that isn't being manufactured anymore, whose sales had dropped off, being blown out at clearance pricing?

        Get real.

        Even the most honorable business in the world isn't going to retool a production line for a discontinued product just to sell every single new unit at a huge loss.

        At worst Valve should be criticized for allowing sales to complete after stock had been depleted to zero.

        In Valve's defense, their system simply may not really be setup to handle a huge run on a clearance physi

    • Mine arrived at the local distribution center today. Order Earlier?

    • well, i mean, maybe, but it's kinda unlikely. see, the point of scalping is to buy desirable items at a lower price than the resale market commands.

      Valve probably has better-than-average bot detection (which is not to say it's good exactly, but merely that it has _some_ efficacy, as opposed to many e-commerce sites), and steam controllers aren't exactly in high demand (with all due respect to how important it seems to be to you personally) market-wise, at least not the way limited-edition sneakers are.

      i mea

  • It would be like a world without lawyers.
  • Hope this turn of events turn out to be some small thing that helps the neighborhood store from the onslaught of on line giants.

    Game all their products all the time and skim off all the freebies.

  • Don't buy from scalpers, if no one did then eventually they'd go away.

    Another solution is what stores are doing around targeting customers who return a lot of goods, without that scalping goods is a no-risk scenario as they can be returned for cost.

    • HAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah...no.

      You can't fight human nature and the "need" to please little Sally on Christmas morning.

      The best solution I can come up with is one that will annoy the hyper-paranoid Slashdot crowd. Make online shops work like membership clubs, such as Sam's or Costco. Verify the identity of the shopper. Certify the account. Prevent [b]ANY[/b] account created in the last 24 hours prior to the sale from purchasing anything.

      How do you "verify" an account? Well, for one thing, you can require a v

  • Seriously though, this is the normal model of commerce.

    Middlemen pop up where there is opportunity to exchange resources (camping in front of a store, using tech like bots, or in the old days taking horse and cart direct to the farmer) for preferential prices on supply, then use that to make profit as a middleman to those who didn't want to invest [enough] to get that special supply.

    This is the model for (just to name a few):
    * almost all markets when distance was a burden - everyone could go to the farmer b

  • Pricing is too low (Score:3)

    by registrations_suck ( 1075251 ) on Monday December 02, 2019 @06:58PM (#59478334)

    Al this really means is manufacturers, distributors and retailers are pricing their products too low. They should charging what the products are selling for on the re-seller sites.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Terwin ( 412356 )

      Al this really means is manufacturers, distributors and retailers are pricing their products too low. They should charging what the products are selling for on the re-seller sites.

      It sounds like the bots are pursuing the 'loss leader' items which are being sold at a loss to get people in the door(a long black-Friday tradition).
      As such, the normal prices are probably reasonable, it is only the ones being sold at a loss that can be re-sold profitably(and for less then the normal price).

  • ..is 'commerce'.

  • Nothing new here. Same old "warnings", "scary messages", "FUD", and "don't click on links that [you don't know the sender; look suspicious; look too good to be true; look like links, etc.]

    There's nothing to see here, and NBC should be ashamed for running it.

    E

  • largely operated by organized gangs of cybercriminals, according to estimates by cybersecurity firm Radware. The bots fill out online forms and navigate retail sites faster than a real person can, and try to swiftly purchase limited supply gifts before you've even filled up your cart.

    Um ... that's not a crime.

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