If you look at any news website over the last week you will have seen noise about scalpers or groups and or gangs or people buying the new iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, and paying in cash for onward sale abroad.

More is then written detailing the third world conditions some of these people are queuing in, the mess left behind, how one member lets 100 plus people in front thereby preventing a real Apple customer and fan making a purchase and so on.

So this raises some questions. Should Apple allow scalpers, gangs or groups to make these purchases? Could Apple and the security on site do more to prevent queue jumping?

My thoughts are as follows. I believe Apple could do a considerable amount more to stop this practice. I have no qualms with a scalper buying stock, so long as they queued properly and didn’t queue jump and Apple implemented more measures to make the queues more sanitary. Apple is a technology company. So every buyer of a phone needs some form of identification like a driving licence. Next payment can only be made by a credit card. Next using facial recognition software, every person’s face is photographed and if they reappear for another 7 days trying to buy more iphones then they will not be allowed. Next Apple should employ security from the night before to manage the queue and provide a ticketing system which with all the other measures will prevent unsightly queues and allow normal people to buy the product. Now once stock levels are plentiful Apple could relax the credit card only rule and maybe a few more. Apple could also make sure that all the countries where the stock is sold on the black market is made available at the same time as all other countries.

But what incentive does Apple have to undertake all these actions? Over the weekend this was a sight witnessed in an Apple Store. 5 people arrive in the queue. Clearly 4 of them where under instruction to buy as many iphone 6’s as possible. Preferably the 6 Plus. Apple told them that they could only sell 2 phones to each person and each person would have a separate transaction. The ring leader then gave each person the respective cash required. So that was £7,000 in to the tills. Would any store want to lose this amount in a space of 5 minutes?