Say I purchase a laptop from Amazon/Walmart/any big box store. I assume they note down the unique identifier for the device and link it to the purchase, which has my credit card information.
How would Ebay do this? I’m curious about the extent of information that the marketplace giants have of consumers purchasing electronics from them. Cheap Chinese gizmos might not have unique identifiers but a Dell Laptop certainly has a few.
I’m sure some here can imagine the technical reason for the question. Have a good day ahead!
The fraud prevention department would like a word.
I’m not in a position to know exactly what the big retailers do, but chances are high that they scan the serial number RFID or bar code before shipping, in order to detect when someone returns a different unit.
Big-ticket items like PS5s and laptops have serial number barcodes on the outside of the box for that reason.
If you really don’t want it tracked for some reason, buy from a third party seller who, while they might record that info, isn’t going to share it with anyone and will probably lose the sticky note it was written on in a few weeks. Or go to a pawn shop and buy one in cash.
But if you’re going to use a PS5, aren’t you going to have to link a payment method for stuff like online services anyway?