Researchers say Scalper bots take over 90% of RAM shopping site traffic

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If you shop online, chances are you’ve at least once tried to purchase an item only to click on the checkout link and learn that it’s sold out. Maybe you spent too long filling your cart, or maybe the item was so popular that it sold out in minutes. Or maybe the scalpers used illicit means to get their hands on the product. The more valuable the item, the more attractive it is to scalpers.

Recently, IT security company DataDome (which specializes in monitoring and blocking bot traffic) released a study that confirmed your worst fears: scalpers are making the global RAM crisis even worse by flooding retailer websites with bots. According to the study (summarized on LinkedIn), scalping bots outnumbered “legitimate” customers 6:1 in March 2026 alone, and the situation has only gotten worse. DataDome’s vice president of threat research, Jerome Segura, said the ratio of bots to actual customers recently jumped as high as 10:1, and that “91% of the traffic arriving at a retailer’s DDR5 RAM product pages” were bots.

RAM prices have reached record highs in 2026 due to continued shortages, and scalping bots are only making the scarcity (and prices) worse. Say what you will about the RAM companies are rushing to use in AI data centers – and the damage to data centers – at least the chips are actually being used. But when resellers use bots to buy RAM in bulk, they sit on their ill-gotten inventory, waiting for people to pay their stealing prices. Meanwhile, the RAM is gathering dust.

While AI companies focus on RAM chips, they know that programs can’t run on RAM alone. Many other components are crucial to data farms and are therefore highly sought-after products. Unfortunately, scalpers follow the market, so it doesn’t matter if people buy Labubus, Jordans, or trading cards; all are equal avenues of profit. When it comes to computer components, GPUs are a popular target for scalpers.

When Nvidia launched the RTX 5090, resellers bought supplies in bulk before many real customers could even respond, leading to an artificial scarcity that drove up component prices. The market has not yet fully recovered. Even if you’re lucky enough to find a store with a 5090 in stock, you won’t be able to purchase it without spending several thousand dollars. You’re better off buying a cheaper option like the RTX 5070. Of course, all of this raises the question of how scalpers even know what items to buy and where to send bots. As antithetical as it may seem, scalpers have built a community around mass purchasing items.

Many scalpers run online groups that tell people not only what to buy, but also which stores sell them. Anyone can join these “cooking groups,” so it’s not uncommon for legitimate customers to sign up simply so they can purchase these highly sought-after items. There’s nothing wrong with using scalpers’ own tools against them to level the playing field, as long as you don’t use bots and only buy what you need/want. You don’t want to become a scalper yourself, because then you become part of the problem.