Apple is limiting iPhone Duo orders to a maximum of two per customer in the US, UK, and elsewhere after shipping dates slipped into January of next year within minutes of pre-orders opening.
The move appears to be an attempt to tackle the problem of scalping, where people buy large volumes of supply-constrained devices in order to resell them on eBay for well above the retail price …
Engadget reports that it tried to add more than two iPhone Duo units to its cart on the Apple stores in the US, UK, Japan, and Spain, and received a notification advising it of the limit.
We’ve tried adding more than two units to our cart on the Apple Stores for Japan, Spain and the United Kingdom, in addition to the US, and we’ve received a warning notice across all the online stores. The notification said: “A maximum of 2 iPhone Duo can be purchased per customer. Please adjust the total quantity of iPhone Duo in your order before checking out.”
The site said that the same limit applies no matter what configuration you select.
The company is almost certainly implementing the move in a bid to reduce scalping. We’ve already seen dozens of iPhone Duos listed on eBay by scalpers, some with prices exceeding $5,000.
It’s not the first time Apple has imposed limits on supply-constrained iPhones. The company has done this in China multiple times, with limits applied to walk-in purchases in retail stores as well as those made online. The company has also done it in the US before, with the first example being the iPhone 5 way back in 2012.
9to5Mac’s Take
Industrial-level scalping is hard to defeat. Organized gangs use multiple virtual credit card numbers, email addresses, and delivery addresses in order to circumvent limits. Others pay people to place orders on their behalf.
All the same, it’s good to see Apple at least attempting to reduce the scale of the problem. It’s also possible the company is implementing other behind-the-scenes measures to detect and reject more sophisticated bulk purchase attempts.
As we predicted, some customers have seen improvements to their estimated delivery dates. It’s also worth trying for a walk-in purchase if you live close to an Apple store – just not on day one.
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