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Walmart Blocked 20 million Bot attempts in 30 min to buy ps5 on last drop

MiguelItUp

Member
I figured they did this on the more recent drops because I knew quite a few folks that finally got one. Good stuff.
 

ethomaz

Banned
20 million? Goddamn.

Hopefully this won't turn into forcing every customer to provide and verify their IDs and residence in the future, that would effectively put a giant blockade to buying stuff from abroad.
I believe some type of control will need to have to do the order.
Like a dynamic code send to your email or sms to insert in the site up to 1 minute to finish the order... that makes sure you are not a bot I believe.
 
Maybe if they could open up their stores and sell them the good ol' fashioned way it wouldn't be such an issue, but I guess we gotta get the gov't to fix problems caused by the gov't. 🤷‍♀️

Here is an example of retailers spending money / giving attention to the scalper issue (which they should) and the best you can do is handwave it.
Theyre open. I got a ps5 at Walmart in person.
 
I got a PS5 from Walmart during this restock. I think it's a pretty good bet you can get one from them too next time they restock.

My advice:

1. Obviously set up your account, address, and billing info ahead of time.

2. When it launches, use a keyboard shortcut to refresh the page and use your mouse to click the add to cart button when it appears (this will take several refreshes but once you have the button it will stay there until consoles are out of stock). If you get an out of stock message refresh and try again.

3. The captcha is random, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get a console. Just click it and keep refreshing like normal.

4. Last time Walmart dropped consoles in ten minute increments. Once you see that message instead of the usual out of stock message you can stop refreshing and try again at the next wave.

5. Once you get it added to your cart just click through like a madman, the only info you'll have to enter is your credit card code on the last page.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
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Can you imagine this scene in 2020 with today's social media era?!?! Covid killed this. Maybe in a different Multi-verse we could have seen this.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
I got a PS5 from Walmart during this restock. I think it's a pretty good bet you can get one from them too next time they restock.

My advice:

1. Obviously set up your account, address, and billing info ahead of time.

2. When it launches, use a keyboard shortcut to refresh the page and use your mouse to click the add to cart button when it appears (this will take several refreshes but once you have the button it will stay there until consoles are out of stock). If you get an out of stock message refresh and try again.

3. The captcha is random, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get a console. Just click it and keep refreshing like normal.

4. Last time Walmart dropped consoles in ten minute increments. Once you see that message instead of the usual out of stock message you can stop refreshing and try again at the next wave.

5. Once you get it added to your cart just click through like a madman, the only info you'll have to enter is your credit card code on the last page.
There shouldn’t be a formula for buying a video game console.
 
If it was me looking at the data I'd cancel any order that did not include and add on sales of controllers or games. I'd be pretty confident that people with bots just scoop up solo consoles. Few false positives maybe, but as a company I'd make more money.
Terrible idea.

There are more reasons now than there ever have been for purchasing just the console and nothing else (Xbox Game Pass, Backwards compatibility enhancements, all games being offered digitally). That will likely account for more than "a few false positives."
 
I believe some type of control will need to have to do the order.
Like a dynamic code send to your email or sms to insert in the site up to 1 minute to finish the order... that makes sure you are not a bot I believe.

Something inevitably will have to be done. I just hope this won't make importing stuff even more of a hassle than it already is.
 
If it was me looking at the data I'd cancel any order that did not include and add on sales of controllers or games. I'd be pretty confident that people with bots just scoop up solo consoles. Few false positives maybe, but as a company I'd make more money.
That would cancel 70% of all orders.
 

Woggleman

Member
Why not sell them over the phone? You have to talk to an actual human who takes down your address and payment information and then you get your console. That would be a way to cut down on scalpers and make your we don't have stampedes.
 

dorkimoe

Member
My buddy got one in the last Walmart drop but his credit card flagged it and he had to approve the purchase and by then it was too late lol
 

Hinedorf

Banned
Interesting to know and really fucking sad to think as a consumer you're sitting there online trying to order one when they announce it and these are the odds you're facing lol. I'll wait till I can walk into a brick and mortar (while they're still around) and make the purchase.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
They are probably talking about http requests, not individuals. The reason sites crash is one person running bots can end up making thousands of thousands of requests, causing the strain of thousands of users.

Good stuff though.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
I dont understand, how hard would it be to add a human verified captcha or similar to every checkout? Would that take this from a huge problem to a minor one in a very simple step?
 
Walmart coming through this year. First they open preorders early so some Gaffers can sneak in an order, now they declare war on scalpers.
 
Managed to get the Xbox which I needed the most. Won't deliver until the 8th.. oof.

Meanwhile my PS5 orders got cancelled... twice.... one at 12:31 and one at 12:41. My local Best Buy didn't even had any disc PS5's in stock. Talk about bad luck on getting the PS5.
 

BadBurger

Many “Whelps”! Handle It!
Damn, this is madness. I've never been an early adopter of practically anything, but I have never seen such insane demand for a product before. Even the Wii wasn't this bad, this long after launch. They just had shitty supply issues from Nintendo. Sony literally can't build PS5's fast enough, and each week the demand seems to grow even higher.
 
Damn, this is madness. I've never been an early adopter of practically anything, but I have never seen such insane demand for a product before. Even the Wii wasn't this bad, this long after launch. They just had shitty supply issues from Nintendo. Sony literally can't build PS5's fast enough, and each week the demand seems to grow even higher.

The Wii didn't have to deal with the number of scalping bots we have now. COVID doesn't help either.
 

TheMan

Member
That's impressive. I really thought a big box retailer wouldn't give a shit who bought the console as long as they got paid. Maybe they're looking for some goodwill?
 
That's impressive. I really thought a big box retailer wouldn't give a shit who bought the console as long as they got paid. Maybe they're looking for some goodwill?

They need it after that stunt they pulled the day before PS5 preorders were supposed to go live.
 

Zog

Banned
20 Million in 30 minutes eh? Are we still pretending that scalpers and their bots are just capitalism at it's best?
 
I like the way Best Buy is doing it now. It's basically bot proof since it requires you to wait for a second action to occur in order to add it to your cart, and then once its in the cart you have to get a code from your email address and enter it before it lets you finalize the order.
 

Zog

Banned
That's impressive. I really thought a big box retailer wouldn't give a shit who bought the console as long as they got paid. Maybe they're looking for some goodwill?

..or maybe they want to sell games and accessories too which is what people who want PLAY these consoles tend to buy!

Not like this hasn't been said many times before.
 

Entroyp

Member
PS5 will be available at Walmart at 12 PM PST. Get ready people. I snatched one a couple of days ago by using their app. Keep spamming the add to cart button until it works.
 
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Xbox series x available at Wal-Mart online 12/17 at 12 Pacific. Screw you if you get one and I don't heh.

Series X seems to be in stock a lot of places, a lot of times. I've had a 2nd one in my cart so many times but don't pull the trigger. I'd like to replace one of the other Xboxes with a Series X as well, but just don't need to yet.. also I'm hoping there is a Halo Infinite edition.
 

baphomet

Member
No, i didn't realised.

For each bot they can send thousands of attempts from thousands of different accounts with thousands of different payment methods.

If they do hit a captcha, they either solve them automatically, or there are captcha farms where people literally just sit and solve them.

On the retailers end they look exactly like every other order.
 
chill, man. scalpers are a real problem for PS5, not xbox.
What is with all the idiotic fanboying here? Did you guys get banned from ERA or Gamefaqs? And just looking at Ebay, Amazon and Craigslist shows that scalping is very real for both consoles still. You'd see that if you removed your head from your ass.
 
what did they do



They decided to ignore Sony's request for the time pre-orders were going live. This caused basically every other major retailer to do the same, resulting in PS5 preorders to be completely gone before the time/day that Sony announced to fans.
 


They decided to ignore Sony's request for the time pre-orders were going live. This caused basically every other major retailer to do the same, resulting in PS5 preorders to be completely gone before the time/day that Sony announced to fans.

And then they failed to deliver PS5s to many of the people who pre-ordered from them. I'd never order from them. At least with Target I know I won't get pre-orders day one most of the time, but they're reliable. Red Card also helps bring the price down as well.
 

Ceadeus

Gold Member
For each bot they can send thousands of attempts from thousands of different accounts with thousands of different payment methods.

If they do hit a captcha, they either solve them automatically, or there are captcha farms where people literally just sit and solve them.

On the retailers end they look exactly like every other order.

God damn , that's discouraging..
 

Entroyp

Member
And then they failed to deliver PS5s to many of the people who pre-ordered from them. I'd never order from them. At least with Target I know I won't get pre-orders day one most of the time, but they're reliable. Red Card also helps bring the price down as well.

Yup, they had to cancel my order because it ‘never got to the fulfillment center’. Luckily I don’t trust them and had a backup at Best Buy.

They did sent me disposable link to buy one without a shipping date given. I just got it this week lol.
 

Blond

Banned
Damn, this is madness. I've never been an early adopter of practically anything, but I have never seen such insane demand for a product before. Even the Wii wasn't this bad, this long after launch. They just had shitty supply issues from Nintendo. Sony literally can't build PS5's fast enough, and each week the demand seems to grow even higher.

Oh the Wii was definitely bad the first six months lemme tell ya. I had a holiday gig at a Best Buy the holiday it came out and management's response would always be to just drop a pallet in a crowd of busy shoppers in the evening and watch 50-200 consoles get snatched up in seconds. It was NUTS! This was before e-commerce was as good as it is now so a full store of people with 30-40 minute lines was normal.
 

saintjules

Member
Woah Walmart actually has a message talking to the public? They always seemed like a faceless and voiceless corporation that was always just... there.

Well, no doubt this sparked outrage and I'm sure active talks from the Public as well as a skit from SNL pushed it over the edge for them to acknowledge the issue at hand.
 
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dave_d

Member
Just wondering given 20 million attempts how many bots there were in total in the first place. I mean for all I know it was something like 1000 bots retrying 20,000 times. (I have no idea how fast a bot can retry but I wouldn't be surprised if its that much.)
 
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