PlayStation 5 Pre-Orders Selling For Over $10k On eBay

Either something fishy is happening, or people have finally cracked from the pressures of 2020. Because right now on eBay, people are putting up over $10,000 to pre-order a video game console with a $499 price tag.

This week, Sony's PlayStation 5 had it's price tag(s) announced, with their main console coming in at $499, and their "digital only" version coming in at $399. The consoles won't be released until November, but pre-orders started on Sept 17th (yesterday).

Then what happened on eBay is unreal.

People who got their pre-order info locked in with retailers brought their pre-order info to the digital marketplace to sell it at a premium. That's not out of the ordinary, but the response those people got was. Because at least 5 separate consoles all sold for over $10,000 yesterday.

Now for most seasoned eBay users, the price that someone has something listed for isn't always a reflection of true value. There are plenty of mundane items listed on the auction site with "Buy It Now" prices in the 6-figure range. Sometimes that's through typos, but most of the time its someone trying to draw attention to something or set their own market for an item.

But the results posted above are not random "Buy It Now" results...these all have bids on them. Completed, sold auctions with dozens of bids. With each carrying anywhere from 30-92 bids on them.

But that could be something else too. Perhaps these aren't multi-millionaires looking to lock up their pre-orders from someone randomly on eBay. Maybe these were people trying to make a point.

There's already a theory online that these bids were all made by "bots" or fake accounts online. Someone may have created a system to bid through fake bot profiles to artificially drive up these prices, without the intent to pay. As some have phrased it on social media "to teach these greedy people a lesson".

Whether these are real bids or not, this is just another example of how weird 2020 is, because we have to seriously consider that these consoles are actually going to sell for this price tag.