Scalper group claims it's scored another 2,000 PS5s

Scumbags snap up the highly sought after new console.

A UK-based scalping group has boasted about scoring another 2,000 PlayStation 5 consoles.

As spotted by The Gamer, the group – known as Carnage – took to Twitter to say that it had secured 2,000 PS5s from UK retailer GAME. No doubt by boasting about this fact on social media, GAME is probably looking into these sales and could possibly cancel orders it thinks are done by scalpers. The Twitter account is currently private, but there's no indication whether this is a new development. Carnage's website is also down at the time of writing.

To become a member of Carnage, you need to pay £250 on top of a £25/month fee.

This follows another group, CrepChiefNotify, claiming that it had scored around 3,500 PlayStation 5 consoles when the hardware was released in November 2020 in the UK. The group said that it snapped up 2,472 consoles on launch in the wake of securing "just under 1,000" pre-orders for the hardware.

CrepChiefNotify also thought it had secured 1,000 Xbox Series X machines from UK retailer Very, but the company cancelled all of these orders.

CrepChiefNotify was using bots to help users jump online queues and quickly check out, giving them an unfair advantage over other customers. It seems that Carnage is using similar tech.

Politicians in the UK submitted a motion to Parliament, suggesting that it be illegal to resell goods bought with bots.

Since release, PlayStation 5s have been in short supply, something that's pretty common for console launches. Sony's new machine is currently going for as much as £800 on platforms like eBay, while the Xbox Series X is commanding prices in the region of £500. Second-hand retailer CEX is also still charging £815 for PS5s and offering customers £625 cash to sell them their new machines.