I mean, the act of people scalping stuff has existed before the digital age. Even a century ago: scalpers would pay a third party to hold a spot in line on purchasing concert or theater tickets to resell at a higher price since the internet didn’t exist back then. Like, in the 90s: scalpers showed up in person (paying someone to hold the spot for you whilst in line) for acquisition of the product, that’s how they’ve done it.
At the time, pre-orders for an upcoming console or game were done in store (you physically went there placing an order after seeing an ad on TV or a magazine). But, how common were scalpers during that era? It would be like a group of scalpers pretending not to know each other or split into smaller groups heading to different retailers on buying the same product whilst playing as another customer.
Usa over there? ;-)
Here we had reliable money transfers through the banking system (very affordable, provable) for decades earlier, and it was made accessible online in the 80s, long before the www was invented.
UK 🙂
Heck, that would have been tons easier! I remember the dread of seeing the seller say they don’t accept cheques, and having to hoof down to the Post Office to pick up those stupid Postal Orders.