Apple Vision Pro being resold on eBay at a premium
No one was surprised that the Apple Vision Pro sold out nearly immediately. However, it’s worth taking a look at what was behind the purchases.
Kasada, a bot mitigation company, discovered that scalpers used bots to successfully order thousands of Apple Vision Pro headsets, in much the same way that concert tickets are snatched up before fans can buy them at face value. Most notably, in the case of the Apple Vision Pro, they seemed interested in the base 256GB model.
The company monitored betting communities, noting that many seemed interested in the Apple Vision Pro as a big scalping opportunity. Bot developers updated existing bots and created new ones designed specifically to buy the Apple Vision Pro.
While it seems like the requirement of Face ID would stop bots dead in their tracks, that didn’t appear to be the case. As it turns out, many of the scalping bots were hardcoded with the developer’s face scan value.
Of course, this meant that the Apple Vision Pro ordered would be sized to fit the developer’s head, not the head of anyone purchasing the device. And naturally, most of the resellers don’t accept returns on the devices, either.
The Apple ID requirement was also not a deterrent. Kasada points out that this was likely due to scalpers obtaining a combination of new and existing Apple IDs before the event.
Reseller prices are well over what you’d pay should you order the Vision Pro from Apple directly. If purchased from Apple, you’d have to fork over $3,499 for the base model with 256GB of storage. For 512GB, the price is $3,699, and for a 1TB edition, it’s $3,899.
Currently, resale prices still vary wildly from seller to seller. However, certain sizes seem to be trending higher than others, with Kasada noting that “those with the largest light seals are currently up for sale at the highest markup, with a price of $9,000 for a U.S. Small Band, 33W Light Seal.”
