Steam Deck resellers flood eBay with expensive listings

The pocket PC recently announced by Valve, the Switch-type Steam Deck, has not yet been released. But people can pre-register for the option of purchasing it at a later date and some scalpers are already trying to reverse those registrations for hundreds of dollars.

the Steam bridge was revealed on July 15th and yesterday Valve opened the store allowing people to deposit five dollars to sign up and have the option to purchase one. The device will allow people to play many of their already owned Steam games on the go via the powerful hardware inside the device. The base model starts at $ 400.

During the first hour or so on July 16, after Valve began accepting these pre-registrations, things fell apart and people encountered error messages and down servers. But eventually things calmed down and it became easy to pre-register for a Steam Deck.

Even though things calmed down and with that $ 5 registration fee, none of it stopped resellers, who in the last 24 hours have flooded eBay with offers to buy Steam Decks at high prices, some of which ask for up to $ 2,500.

A lot of these ads claim to be pre-sales or confirmed pre-orders, saying things like “CONFIRMED ORDER * PRE-SALE Pre-order ships in December. Others promise that the Steam Deck will ship in December and the order is locked. However, to be clear, according to Valve, none of this is true.

If we visit Valve’s Steam Deck FAQ page, you’ll see a bunch of helpful answers on Steam Deck hardware, version, purchasing process, etc. The most important answer can be found roughly in the middle of the page:

When can I order?

We aim to start sending order invitations by December 2021. We will do our best to convert all bookings to orders, but we are unable to guarantee availability.

This response explains that these handhelds won’t start shipping in December 2021. Instead, Valve aims to send purchase invitations this month to people who have pre-registered. And while Valve claims it will do anything to “convert all reservations into orders,” it does not “guarantee availability” of Steam Decks. So to be clear, even if you donate $ 5 by the time the pre-registrations launched on July 16, Valve cannot 100% guarantee that you will get your device by the end of the year or even. if you will get it at all.

Read more: eBay bans the sale of “adult video games”

Compare this information with the vast majority of eBay resellers who claim the contrary. It is strange that all of this is still on the site as it appears to be ads with potentially fraudulent claims.

Kotaku contacted eBay regarding these Steam Deck listings and whether they will remain on the site.

While I understand many of you might be feeling the FOMO after you didn’t go into the pre-registration craze yesterday, I would hold back from buying any of these eBay listings and support these resellers. Instead, go to Valve’s website and place your own order. While it can be a long wait to get one, it’s a better use of your time and money.

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