PETITIONOpenPetition · petition.parliament.uk
Ban the use of bots to make purchases on websites
Make bot-assisted online purchasing illegal by expanding the 2018 Breaching of Limits on Ticket Sales Regulations to cover all high-demand goods, including collectibles like sneakers, trading cards, and even essentials such as toilet paper.
Last fetched 03 May 2026 · petition.parliament.uk
Signatures
86
signatures
Government response threshold (10,000) · 86/10,000
Debate threshold (100,000) · 86/100,000
Background
We believe hobbies like sneaker collecting and trading card games now resemble the stock market, with bots bypassing purchase limits to secure multiple items. We feel captchas are no longer effective as bots have evolved beyond them, creating a grey area under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We also believe this practice is harmful and unethical, as it can inflate prices by allowing items bought at retail to be resold at a higher cost.