There is a very significant aspect of the scalping situation that is being largely overlooked in this conversation, which is that the scalper groups employ unethical line practices to maximize their profits. It is essentially organized cheating.
When I arrived at the shopping mall where my local Apple Store is located, it was 7:30 pm the evening before launch. I counted heads and I was the 27th person in line. Now, the atmosphere is these situations is usually tense until you have established a place in line and marked your territory so to speak. You're going to be there all night, so you learn who is in front of you and who is behind you, you set up your chair or your sleeping pad, and you settle in. But as the night wears on, it becomes clear what the scalping organizations have planned and I got to watch it take place first hand. When the mall closed at 9pm and security allowed the line to move from the parking lot up to near the doors, many loiterers took the chance to sneak in and take place next to their acquaintances. The growing number of people in line in front of me began to inflate more drastically in the later hours of the night. A lone person in the line would welcome three buddies under the rope as most people slept.
Now, I want to go ahead and say that I saw people from several different ethnic groups employing this strategy, and who it is doesn't really matter to me. What does matter is that they use dishonest methods to gain their advantages. By 6 am when we were allowed to enter the mall and wait directly in front of the Apple Store, there were 117 people in front of me. What...the...actual...*******? Pardon my language, but that is just not right. When I and many other honest people waited 12.5 hours outside, during which we endured a thunderstorm with rain so heavy there was standing water on the asphalt, only to have our efforts subverted by coordinated cheaters...that isn't right.
And how do I know they were scalpers, you might ask? Well, they weren't discreet at all. They had mangers that were handing out stacks of sheets of papers with apple gift cards printed on them from home. They bought phones and then congregated in the parking lot to wait for their colleagues to join them, seemingly to consolidate their newly gain inventory. Their ring leaders (the gift card distributors) actually went through the line multiple times, on occasion. Now I am not the type to take that kind of thing lightly. I verbally called out to Apple employees and identified line cutters and repeat buyers multiple times. Mostly mine and everybody else's concerns were met with apathy. All the store reps want to do is sell phones as fast as possible and avoid fights and stuff. I can't really blame them for that, considering what they get paid and the general high stress involved with handling such an event. The problem is that the scalpers posses zero shame. When they would get called out when they were in line, the would ignore the people around them or pretend not to speak English for a few minutes. When they got called out as they left the store, phones in hand, they would hurry away. I literally saw couples run out of the mall as the people waiting inquired about how they had appeared at the head of the line.
It was definitely ridiculous. The problem was certainly exacerbated by the fact that the digital reservation system that Apple had prepared completely failed, and our store had to use a backup method that resembled years past with the barcode stickers on index cards signifying the phone in the back stock that you would have claim on. This system definitely enabled some of the line hoppers. These are issues that certainly can be addressed with better planning from the Apple retail department, but only if they care enough to enact changes.
The truth is that I don't disagree with scalping in its essence. I was actually hoping to buy a second iPhone 6+ at full price that would have personally flipped on local classifieds or eBay to help fund the purchase I made for myself, but of course there were zero remaining by the time my turn came. If all those people had actually waited in line the whole time and arrived before me, then more power to them...but they didn't. They cheated. The employed organized tactics, exploited their power in numbers, and used other unethical means to obtain more phones than what they were truly entitled to from an already limited supply.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that I have no problem with a scalper who is just a scalper, grinding away to make a buck. I have huge problems with the shameless, dishonorable pimps that that I witnessed, and such types were present in abundance. There is nothing anyone here can tell me that could successfully justify such behavior. And, there is very little a bystander can do to limit it, for fear of being booted from the line themselves for creating disorder. This is the gripe that many among the general launch day iPhone customers feel and would like to express. Our question is, who is going to listen?
