Around the time that dedicated collectors started pitching tents outside sneakers stores, winding so far down the block that police sometimes felt it necessary to shut the whole thing down, sneakers stopped being something we just put on our feet. In the last few decades, and especially the last five years, sneakers have become something else entirely: sought-after commodities that bring immediate returns to a buyer. They’re lottery tickets—and, as in actual lotteries, people have discovered ways to work the system to their favor. “Bots”—computer programs that can work their way to e-commerce checkouts faster than any human—are the most popular hack.

They’re also a great source of frustration for retailers, who prefer to sell sneakers to customers who won’t immediately flip them to the highest bidder—your local shoe store, after all, doesn’t get a dime of that increased resale price. Recently, though, retailers have been taking stronger measures to combat the phenomenon. The situation came to a head this month when the drop of several hyped shoes, like the Fear of God x Nike, the “Not for Resale” Jordan, and the Nike SB x Concepts “Purple Lobster,” coincided with the growing anger at the non-humans snapping them up. That’s how someone ended up paying $10,000 for sneaker that almost certainly won’t fetch that price on the aftermarket.

When online skate shop Berrics Canteen set up its release for the Purple Lobster last week, manager Anthony Reyes wanted to make sure the shoe would end with someone who actually wanted it. So he set a trap that only a bot would be stupid enough to fall for: a $10,000 product page for the shoe that was only meant to direct people to a lottery. No human would drop $10,000 on a shoe, Reyes reasoned, but a bot charged with only buying its target as quickly as possible wouldn’t be deterred. (We know these programs aren’t that bright—programmers can stop bots with CAPTCHAs, making them read curvy letters or picking out pictures with stop signs in them.) “I figured that in the off chance someone's card did go through, I'd give them a scare,” Reyes said. “In the product page's description it clearly said, ‘This is a placeholder. Enter the raffle below. (If your bot buys this, all QS sales are final.)’”

And then, like clockwork, on the day of the drop, a purchase went through for the 10-grand shoe. Five minutes later, Reyes had an email.

“Just wondering if the price is correct?” the email read, according to Reyes. “I’m hoping it wasn’t a $10,000 purchase.”