It turns out that thousands of Apple Vision Pros were pre-purchased by resellers, what is the method?

Reservations for Apple's first spatial computing device ``Vision Pro'' have begun in the United States from January 19, 2024, and despite the high price of $3,499 (approximately 517,000 yen), it is only a few days away. It is estimated that 160,000 to 180,000 units will be sold . However, it has been reported that thousands of these units were reserved for resale.

Are Bots Behind the Apple Vision Pro Pre-Order Sell Out? - Kasada
https://www.kasada.io/are-bots-behind-the-apple-vision-pro-pre-orders/

Vision Pro scalpers used bots to place thousands of pre-orders
https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/24/vision-pro-scalpers-bots/

Products that attract attention in advance, such as popular smartphones and gaming consoles, become much more competitive for reservations as expected demand far exceeds limited supply. There are people who buy these products on auction sites and flea market apps even if they are priced much higher than the list price, so there is no shortage of 'resellers' who resell them to make a profit.

Some of these resellers use bots that can automatically complete the reservation process in advance to purchase multiple units at once. Kasada, a company that handles bots, has been observing the resale bot community, saying that Apple's Vision Pro is the product that will receive the most attention in 2024.

According to Kasada, resellers believe that ``expected demand far exceeds limited supply,'' ``Vision Pro itself is expensive, so you can expect big profit margins,'' and ``Thanks to our 14-day return policy, The Vision Pro was seen as an attractive product for resellers because it minimized the risk of holding inventory.

However, Apple has made it mandatory to register facial recognition information using Face ID in addition to Apple ID when reserving Vision Pro. Kasada predicted that this Face ID registration may be a resale measure where one person attempts to purchase multiple units using a bot.

On the reservation start date of January 19, 2024, reservations for online delivery sold out almost immediately, but as far as Kasada can confirm, several thousand units had already been purchased by resale bots. I understand that. One bot was able to successfully place 1,592 Vision Pro pre-orders with just one bot.

According to Kasada, it turns out that Face ID was not used to prevent resale bots, but to check 'the fit of Vision Pro to the user's face.' Regarding Face ID registration, the bot was programmed to simulate running a check and send hard-coded data in response. Face recognition by Face ID is used to check the size of the Vision Pro, and is not used to judge individuals, so there is no problem if the reseller receives it.

Furthermore, since it was possible to purchase by creating multiple Apple IDs, there seemed to be no actual quantity limit. It has been confirmed that some resellers also tracked the inventory of physical Apple Store stores and used multiple Apple IDs to visit multiple stores and make reservations. Kasada analyzes that this is a possible method because there are multiple Apple Stores in major metropolitan areas, and they are likely to have more inventory.

The Vision Pro that resellers have collected in this way is already being sold on sites such as eBay and StockX. StockX has a price of 9000 dollars (about 1.33 million yen).