The Scam/Not a Scam debate storyline

[MagikFingerz]

What I would personally like to see is a reputable argument against the suggested changes. A few have been posted, like...

 

1) It could introduce new bugs into the GTN.

 

This is a valid concern in my eyes. Almost ever time they have made changes to the GTN in the past it has caused bugs, some that actually broke the GTNs function entirely.

 

2) None (or some) of the changes would provide buyers protection from dishonorable sellers.

 

I agree that this is a valid statement. I do not agree, however, that this is a reason to ignore many of the good changes suggested. In the end, IMO, there is NO way to protect sellers or buyers in the GTN system.

 

And that is it as far as what I have seen.

 

With all due respect: I would say that the QoL changes you propose doesn't even belong in this thread. All the reasons for making them are irrelevant to this topic. Make a separate suggestion topic with no ties to this non-issue, and you're likely to get more support (or at least less opposition) IMO.

Edited November 10, 2014 by MagikFingerz

[ReverendAnderson]

Exactly this!!!

 

You go online and order a pizza, they're listed for:

$5.00 and $499...you mistakenly purchase the one for $499 thinking it was $4.99. Sure...stupid mistake, but a mistake no less and one that was set-up with the intention of tricking you...hence a "scam". It's exploiting the UI shortcomings.

 

Same as a cloaked, flagged assassin hiding out in the rakghoul caves waiting to last hit the mob an unflagged Pub is fighting. The intention is to exploit the targeting and PvP flagging systems to maximize the chances of being able to grief somebody.

Turning off auto targeting is a simple solution for that problem. Sorting by price is a simple solution for GTN scammers. At the very least, these steps will hold us over until Bioware actually improves PvP flagging and the GTN UI.

Edited November 10, 2014 by ReverendAnderson

[HelinCarnate]

Yes, it is the buyers fault for being inattentive, but it's also Biowares fault for implementing a fractional pricing system that allows the scammers to take advantage of others like this.

 

I can't buy things for 1200.46 credits, I pay 1201 credits. There's no reason to display fractional prices if we can't pay in fractional prices.

 

A lot of people here defend this pricing scam, but if it's allowed to continue, the problem will multiply. Short of that, my only other recommendation to prevent abuse would be implementation of an upfront non-refundable deposit on GTN sales.

 

You are not paying in a fractional price. You are buying a several items at a set price for the bunch and the several items together combine for an even credit amount. The unit price listed can be fractional in this case.

[Jimvinny]

These aren't one time events, obviously. None of us are asking for some kind of automated system to figure this stuff out. It would be a manual investigation process done by a CSR (like, their job). If there's a ton of items all around 10k and then a bunch priced at 1m...the intent is very clear.

 

With the number of unique items on the gtn, that would be a full time job for several people. Try again.

 

Edit* also, someone could exploit this system of yours to attempt to get someone in trouble by posting several items at a lower price, trying to make it look like the higher priced item is a scam.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Jimvinny

[TUXs]

Same as a cloaked, flagged assassin hiding out in the rakghoul caves waiting to last hit the mob an unflagged Pub is fighting. The intention is to exploit the targeting and PvP flagging systems to maximize the chances of being able to grief somebody.

Turning off auto targeting is a simple solution for that problem. Sorting by price is a simple solution for GTN scammers. At the very least, these steps will hold us over until Bioware actually improves PvP flagging and the GTN UI.

No, not the same, but nice alt account lol.

 

PvP doesn't cost you a cent, only a tiny amount of time.

[izeil]

Exactly this!!!

 

You go online and order a pizza, they're listed for:

$5.00 and $499...you mistakenly purchase the one for $499 thinking it was $4.99. Sure...stupid mistake, but a mistake no less and one that was set-up with the intention of tricking you...hence a "scam". It's exploiting the UI shortcomings.

 

Pretty sure if you don't check the bill before you hit the Submit Order button, you deserve the headache that's incomming for paying 500 for a pizza. As for the GTN stuff, if you blow a million or more credits because of said action, that's completely on you. Hopefully you're like me and chalk it up to your own stupidity and not whine on the forums about getting scammed.

[HelinCarnate]

It's the same reason I have an account I use specifically for internet purchases. I know there are people out there looking to make free money by stealing CC information but I'm not going to cry out for the 'gubmint' to ban internet sales. Instead, as a smart consumer, I pay attention to who I buy from and I've set up a safeguard that ensures I don't lose money due to a breach in security of my card.

 

It's my responsibility as a consumer to ensure the safety of my money in real life as well as in this game. Crying out for a change that will do nothing to "fix" the problem is just another case of wanting something to be done just to have something being done.

 

To be fair, I had my card info stolen after I activated it and before I used it for my first purchase. Thankfully my bank caught it as fraud as they noticed that it was a POS transaction in London which would be pretty hard for me to accomplish since I made purchases a couple hours later that day stateside.

Edited November 10, 2014 by HelinCarnate

[Cernow]

What's lazy is failing to take your time while reading the price in the GTN interface THEN expecting a game manufacturer to fix your problem.

 

What makes it worse is that said "problem" is with DIGITAL CURRENCY.

IT HAS NO VALUE IN THE REAL WORLD! ZOMG!!!

 

 

Virtual currency still requires time to earn via legitimate methods. And in many ways, time is the most precious commodity there is. Which kind of begs the question what we're all doing wasting it here .... but still

[Theeko]

So did the seller get scammed?

 

No cause he put it up for what he wanted without checking or asking first.

[LordArtemis]

I'm curious...how exactly is this harmful? If BobVader finds a way to craft something for far less than you, who cares what he sells it at? Buy his and stop making your own...find something BobVader doesn't craft.

 

It's difficult to quantify. But I can say that there are two specific sellers that sell items at costs far below what it costs to make them on a consistent basis, and they are well known to do so.

 

Obviously I can not name them. But this is a known practice. The idea is to root out competition by underselling the market, then return to selling items at normal prices when your competition has moved on.

 

Buying the low priced items only works as long as the undercutter is willing to stop doing so at one point. To give an example, I ended up with 495 items that I "cleaned" off the GTN from one of the sellers over time, trying to buy low. It took me a year to sell them all, at a substantial loss I might add. The two sellers I speak of moved the market on this item to it's semi-permanent "below cost" position at present, and has created a drought for that particular item.

 

They were both playing the long game. Losing big early on to clean up the market later when most of the competition has moved on.

Edited November 10, 2014 by LordArtemis

[Jimvinny]

Virtual currency still requires time to earn via legitimate methods. And in many ways, time is the most precious commodity there is. Which kind of begs the question what we're all doing wasting it here .... but still

 

Forum PvP, yo. The best kind there is.

[Cidanel]

Right. Flagging yourself for PvP costs you a few minutes and 0 credits, not millions of credits.

 

A poor kill record is a bigger loss than any amount of credits.

[Gomla]

So basically what people really mean is "BioWare, people keep doing stupid things like not paying attention to what they are doing, please find a way to stop us being idiots because we're not capable of doing it ourselves".

[LordArtemis]

With all due respect: I would say that the QoL changes you propose doesn't even belong in this thread. All the reasons for making them are irrelevant to this topic. Make a separate suggestion topic with no ties to this non-issue, and you're likely to get more support (or at least less opposition) IMO.

 

Fair enough, but I disagree. They are the topic IMO. The discussion, or argument between both sides is the irrelevant part of the issue and discussion IMO.

 

it may be the most prevalent, but it is also the most useless. The only useful part is the suggested QoL changes IMO.

 

However, I will not argue against the point that as a separate suggestion this might gain wider support. It has good visibility here though. I think that is a plus.

Edited November 10, 2014 by LordArtemis

[TUXs]

Pretty sure if you don't check the bill before you hit the Submit Order button, you deserve the headache that's incomming for paying 500 for a pizza. As for the GTN stuff, if you blow a million or more credits because of said action, that's completely on you. Hopefully you're like me and chalk it up to your own stupidity and not whine on the forums about getting scammed.

Arguably so. But turning someone off to pizza.com (assume that's where the pizzas are ordered) because of one a-holes scam, isn't good for the pizza.com's business either. Pizza.com would be wise to remove the scammer from their site to prevent them from hurting business.

[TUXs]

A poor kill record is a bigger loss than any amount of credits.

Huh?! Where is this logged exactly?!

Edited November 10, 2014 by TUXs

[MillionsKNives]

To be fair it's my interpretation of the above quote, that has me saying the official response for this GTN practice is not a scam.

 

It's a bit ambiguous and I can certainly see how you interpreted it that way. I interpreted it differently though.

 

There has been a lot of chatter this weekend in General Discussion around how players are posting on the GTN, specifically around use of decimals/commas, and whether we feel it is an exploit or not. For starters, we definitely don't want to see any players scammed out of their hard earned credits and we will work to stop those situations wherever possible. Unfortunately, this is not one of those scenarios.

 

I took the complete phrase to be, "Unfortunately, this is not one of those scenarios where it would be possible to stop those situations."

Because of the wording, it could also be taken to be, "Unfortunately, this is not one of those scenarios where we believe that players have been scammed."

 

However, because of the context in the next paragraph I do believe that the intended meaning is my first example.

 

What someone is doing in this scenario is posting something at a higher value than the market would typically have that item listed for. For us, it would be impossible to tell if a user was posting an item at a higher value to try to "scam" another user, or simply because that is what they want to sell it for.

 

In the second paragraph he goes on to explain that it would be impossible for them to be able to tell the difference for every listing. This goes hand in hand with what I believe he is trying to say in the first, that they would be unable to tell the difference and couldn't police this, and not that they explicitly don't consider it scamming. It's also worth noting that by saying that they would be unable to tell if it was a scam, he leaves open the possibility of the practice being a scam. Otherwise there would be nothing to figure out, it wouldn't be a scam.

 

He also takes care to quote "scam" in an effort to not take a stance on it one way or another. I think by the way the response was written it's plain that they don't want to weigh in on the discussion of semantics, and are merely telling us that we can't expect them to police the GTN for us.

[HelinCarnate]

It might be yours, but it shouldn't be Bioware's answer. You never want to say that to paying customers (which is what anyone who loses a million credits is, a sub, a paying customer.

 

Hey folks,

 

There has been a lot of chatter this weekend in General Discussion around how players are posting on the GTN, specifically around use of decimals/commas, and whether we feel it is an exploit or not. For starters, we definitely don't want to see any players scammed out of their hard earned credits and we will work to stop those situations wherever possible. Unfortunately, this is not one of those scenarios.

 

What someone is doing in this scenario is posting something at a higher value than the market would typically have that item listed for. For us, it would be impossible to tell if a user was posting an item at a higher value to try to "scam" another user, or simply because that is what they want to sell it for.

 

When purchasing items on the GTN, aside from the initial sorting and purchase we also have a secondary window pop-up as confirmation of sale. If you feel you are at risk of buying something off of the GTN at an intended value, take your time! Make sure to read over exactly what they are selling it for and then double check that number when you receive the pop-up. Also, we highly recommend using the sorting functions for both total and unit prices to make sure you are paying what you want.

 

With that in mind, I am going to pass these issues back to the dev team and see if there is anything we can work towards in the future for the GTN to help alleviate these issues. Thanks everyone!

 

-eric

 

They kinda just did.....

[TUXs]

It's difficult to quantify. But I can say that there are two specific sellers that sell items at costs far below what it costs to make them on a consistent basis, and they are well known to do so.

 

Obviously I can not name them. But this is a known practice. The idea is to root out competition by underselling the market, then return to selling items at normal prices when your competition has moved on.

 

Buying the low priced items only works as long as the undercutter is willing to stop doing so at one point. To give an example, I ended up with 495 items that I "cleaned" off the GTN from one of the sellers over time, trying to buy low. It took me a year to sell them all, at a substantial loss I might add. The two sellers I speak of moved the market on this item to it's semi-permanent "below cost" position at present, and has created a drought for that particular item.

 

They were both playing the long game. Losing big early on to clean up the market later when most of the competition has moved on.

Gotcha...way beyond my understanding because I just don't craft...but I can understand how that's an issue.

[TyrannisWP]

Dear Bioware

 

Using my eyes is too hard. Please hold my hand when I use the GTN.

 

Sincerely,

 

Everyone that wants changes to the GTN to protect against this "scamming"

[Thoronmir]

You people really are becoming tiresome.

 

If you put half as much effort into your GTN shopping as you do into spamming the boards you wouldn't have a problem.

I chortled at this. Fundamental truth is fundamentally true.

[LordArtemis]

Gotcha...way beyond my understanding because I just don't craft...but I can understand how that's an issue.

 

...not a super serious one to be sure, its all part of being a crafter, part of the "game" so to speak. But I do not expect Bioware to protect me from such practices. Instead, I try to band together with fellow crafters to convince them this is a practice that is bad for all of us, and convince folks in game to avoid those sellers at all costs.

 

I've had varying levels of success as you can imagine.

[TUXs]

Dear Bioware

 

Using my eyes is too hard. Please hold my hand when I use the GTN.

 

Sincerely,

 

Everyone that wants changes to the GTN to protect against this "scamming"

Mockery, while fun at times, speaks more for you than it does those getting scammed.

[MagikFingerz]

He also takes care to quote "scam" in an effort to not take a stance on it one way or another. I think by the way the response was written it's plain that they don't want to weigh in on the discussion of semantics, and are merely telling us that we can't expect them to police the GTN for us.

 

That's a given, taking either side of the argument couldn't possibly have a better outcome for them compared to staying neutral.

 

I also think it's redundant to discuss semantics (both of the issue and Eric's response) at this point because he stated that it's not possible to do the radical changes the vocal "victims" of this seem to want. Whether the GTN UI has room for improvement is another matter, but one that would have minimal impact on this issue IMO. The behavior of inattentive people is likely to stay the same unless they learn from mistakes, and no tweaks to the game will change that.

Edited November 10, 2014 by MagikFingerz

[Brewski]

It's difficult to quantify. But I can say that there are two specific sellers that sell items at costs far below what it costs to make them on a consistent basis, and they are well known to do so.

 

Obviously I can not name them. But this is a known practice. The idea is to root out competition by underselling the market, then return to selling items at normal prices when your competition has moved on.

 

Buying the low priced items only works as long as the undercutter is willing to stop doing so at one point. To give an example, I ended up with 495 items that I "cleaned" off the GTN from one of the sellers over time, trying to buy low. It took me a year to sell them all, at a substantial loss I might add. The two sellers I speak of moved the market on this item to it's semi-permanent "below cost" position at present, and has created a drought for that particular item.

 

They were both playing the long game. Losing big early on to clean up the market later when most of the competition has moved on.

 

In real life terms, this can be compared to the standard pricing practice of "loss leader". Stores routinely price items well below cost to draw a customer in, with the belief that those customers, once in the store, will do enough other shopping to make up for the lost income on the sale item.

 

So although I know the practice you outline exists, it would be even hard to police than overpricing items in misleading ways. Both of which lend credence to Biowares stated policy of not policing prices at all.

 

Fair enough, but I disagree. They are the topic IMO. The discussion, or argument between both sides is the irrelevant part of the issue and discussion IMO.

 

it may be the most prevalent, but it is also the most useless. The only useful part is the suggested QoL changes IMO.

 

However, I will not argue against the point that as a separate suggestion this might gain wider support. It has good visibility here though. I think that is a plus.

 

Spot on. Although there is no way to 100% protect people from this kind of behavior, and Bioware has no responsibility to police it, they do have a vested interest in making the GTN easier and safer to use. Quality of Life improvement suggestions like the ones specified on the first are exactly what this thread needs more of, not less.