The Scam/Not a Scam debate storyline

[Dras_Keto]

Why are people still yapping about this? Not that making this post helps the situation any, heh. But I digress.

 

Are there people out there looking to make money off the carelessness and stupidity of others? Yes.

Is this a scam? No

Is Bioware going to do anything about it? No.

Should they? No.

 

Why? Because there is absolutely ZERO way for people to actually take advantage of someone through the GTN. The exact price that an item or stack of items is listed for is clearly displayed for all to see. If you are so lazy that you dont even bother to look at the price youre paying before you click the accept button, thats your own fault. If you cannot pick up on the difference between Unit Price and List Price and then make your purchase decisions off of incorrect information (when the correct info is right there in front of your face), that is also your own fault.

 

People keep acting like those who make a careless decision that costs them more money than they intended are some kind of victim of an unavoidable and lamentable tragedy perpetrated by a group of vile and deceptive frauds.

 

Its not. Its a lazy person not reading.

Edited November 12, 2014 by Dras_Keto

[LordArtemis]

Buyers and Sellers have to both take responsibility for their behavior. Since most are unwilling to do that, this argument continues despite the efforts of some folks to just discuss the merits of the suggestions as QoL improvements for the GTN.

 

I will list the items again for the folks new to the thread.

 

1) The ability to ignore a character name on the GTN, so the items sold by that character are not shown in searches.

2) The ability to place a red flag on sellers you do not like, green flag on ones you prefer, and a sort function to move red flags to the bottom of a search, green flags to the top. Only you would see the flags you apply.

3) Remove the ability for the system to display fractional currency in the "price per unit" field.

4) Have the formatting right justified instead of left justified.

5) Have the ignore list also apply to the GTN.

6) Add a price per unit option for posting items for sale.

7) Default the GTN to sorting by lowest price first, or lowest per unit price.

8) Larger text for the price display.

9) Add a toggle to remove the display of fractional currency in the "price per item" field.

10) Line up all prices on the decimal, and display .00 for non fractional amounts.

 

I support 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9. I really like 2, 6 and 9. 6 seems to be the most popular one so far.

[Knorlac]

Why are people still yapping about this? Not that making this post helps the situation any, heh. But I digress.

 

Are there people out there looking to make money off the carelessness and stupidity of others? Yes.

Is this a scam? No

Is Bioware going to do anything about it? No.

Should they? No.

 

Why? Because there is absolutely ZERO way for people to actually take advantage of someone through the GTN. The exact price that an item or stack of items is listed for is clearly displayed for all to see. If you are so lazy that you dont even bother to look at the price youre paying before you click the accept button, thats your own fault. If you cannot pick up on the difference between Unit Price and List Price and then make your purchase decisions off of incorrect information (when the correct info is right there in front of your face), that is also your own fault.

 

People keep acting like those who make a careless decision that costs them more money than they intended are some kind of victim of an unavoidable and lamentable tragedy perpetrated by a group of vile and deceptive frauds.

 

Its not. Its a lazy person not reading.

 

You're right in that the fault lies almost entirely with the buyer, but I see no reason why BW shouldn't alleviate the problem without restricting every GTN user to price their items at the cost they desire. Fact is we're all only human and make mistakes all the time. Insulting the people this has happened to as stupid, lazy etc. is inappropriate IMO.

 

And while the mistake is surely not unavoidable, the people basing their business model on this "scam" are indeed vile and deceptive frauds IMO and it should be made harder for them to engage in such practices. I can see this having a very real and devastating effect on players. Just imagine someone falling for this scheme and loosing all their credits that they bought with real money(via cartel packs). I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

 

Concerning the proposed solutions I'd favour a combination of getting rid of decimals altogether and rounding prices up or down to the next full cr and having the GTN sorted from cheapest to most expensive as a default.

 

Personally I have no sympathy for people stating that nothing should changed to make people pay for their mistakes/stupidity/laziness. Why anyone would be against such simple but effective safety measures is simply beyond me(assuming they're not partaking in said dishonest business practices themselves). Most of us are living in civilized countries that have safety measures implemented in real life. This whole "serves them right" mentality is just egoistic and antiquated thinking IMO.

Edited November 12, 2014 by Knorlac

[Heal-To-Full]

And while the mistake is surely not unavoidable, the people basing their business model on this "scam"...

The person.

Same one running it with bots across multiple servers. Where does the money go? Well, since he doesn't seem to have any real characters, it probably goes back to the players as "xxx.com best credits $7.99/kk bonus up to 10%".

[Knorlac]

The person.

Same one running it with bots across multiple servers. Where does the money go? Well, since he doesn't seem to have any real characters, it probably goes back to the players as "xxx.com best credits $7.99/kk bonus up to 10%".

 

While I find it plausible that some credit farmers have hopped onto that train as additional income, there is nothing that suggests to me, that there is only one person doing this. On my server there are a lot of chars involved selling different kinds of mats.

 

And how do you know they have no real characters? If I were to do this I'd use a char specificly created to do it who doesn't display my legacy name.

[Theeko]

I don't think its bots selling the mats, they're farming the CM for that. One weird ascii name lvl 1 had 80+++ Hypercrates all at once, also tons of account unlocks as well.

[undiess]

Definition of a scam:

a confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, especially for making a quick profit; swindle.

From: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scam

 

Official statement from Bioware is that there is no clear way to identify a scam versus an honest listing mistake.

 

 

 

What is occuring is a scam, by definition. There are specific individuals purposely listing items in clever ways to trick people into spending more credits than they mean to spend by using commas instead of periods in specific places.

 

Here's the eye opening irony for you all. I see a lot of the same common " AH AH AH!!! OFFICIAL STATEMENT SAYS OTHERWISE !!!! SCAM IS OBVIOUS JUST PAY ATTENTION NEXT TIME!!!". According to the official statement, it is too hard to distingush an honest listing from a potential scam listing.

 

Bioware should make it much more transparent what you're ABOUT to do on the GTN. The warning/alert messages that people bring up are a good point and would work well.

 

I will say that I, myself, am careful on the GTN and have never been a victim of the issue. That does NOT mean it's not a scam, just because you CAN be careful to try to avoid it does not mean that people aren't trying to scam others. It's not what an innocent person is doing to avoid it, it's what the scammers are TRYING to do with their own actions that makes it a scam.

Edited November 12, 2014 by undiess

[Theeko]

yeah I really don't get why people needed to resort to selling mats at high prices anyway when there's so many more things in game to make creds on.

[robertthebard]

No i disagree its not what it means . what it means is they need to take Eric's and everyone that agrees with him advice and stop the careless behavior that you yourself have mentioned.

 

 

 

 

Its not about protecting people from themselves either if you take care and attention there is absolutely no way to get scammed on gtn ..

 

Did you read Eric's quote? It's pretty interesting that, considering what it says, you'd want to lean so hard on it, since, in closing, he states that he's going to forward it to see what can be done. So, maybe we are taking Eric's post to heart while we continue to discuss what QoL improvements could help prevent this in the future. Again, you come down so hard on a QoL change, one has to wonder why.

[TheBBP]

Seriously folks, if the GTN is too hard and you guys need the devs to make it easier for you, they might as well strip this game down to 5 actions that can be mapped to an XBox One and/or PS4 controller and port it to consoles.

[Deewe]

Buyers and Sellers have to both take responsibility for their behavior. Since most are unwilling to do that, this argument continues despite the efforts of some folks to just discuss the merits of the suggestions as QoL improvements for the GTN.

 

I will list the items again for the folks new to the thread.

 

1) The ability to ignore a character name on the GTN, so the items sold by that character are not shown in searches.

2) The ability to place a red flag on sellers you do not like, green flag on ones you prefer, and a sort function to move red flags to the bottom of a search, green flags to the top. Only you would see the flags you apply.

3) Remove the ability for the system to display fractional currency in the "price per unit" field.

4) Have the formatting right justified instead of left justified.

5) Have the ignore list also apply to the GTN.

6) Add a price per unit option for posting items for sale.

7) Default the GTN to sorting by lowest price first, or lowest per unit price.

8) Larger text for the price display.

9) Add a toggle to remove the display of fractional currency in the "price per item" field.

10) Line up all prices on the decimal, and display .00 for non fractional amounts.

1) Yes, if someone is a jerk I certainly don't want to buy from this person even if it's the cheapest one.

2) A flag for preferred players is nice, others I don't care and might add some clutter.

3) Option to hide decimals, as some seems to like them

4) Right formatting would be of great help

6) Missing that one every time I post items.

7) Seems to me this one is better than 1 as if someone is a scammer in the GTN I certainly don't want to have himher in my pugs and guild.

8) Don't have that good eyes but don't need it, although would totally love to have a different font as the bold one is tiring for the eyes to read.

9) be it 3 or this one looks fine for me.

10) Seems bit overkill and will add some clutter.

 

But first fix the damn search so it ignores under 3 letters strings and make sorting consistent so we don't have to always sort stuff again.

[Heal-To-Full]

On my server there are a lot of chars involved selling different kinds of mats.

Yeah, lots of chars, all very low level, with random names.

Look at the time between listings, the pattern - all these chars list within minutes of one another, so they belong to the same operator. There may be 2-3 overall, but that's it, not a widespread activity, just a couple botmasters.

 

And how do you know they have no real characters? If I were to do this I'd use a char specificly created to do it who doesn't display my legacy name.

Add the character to friend list, spot them by the GTN - harder to do now when they just drop level 1 in a stronghold, but this hasn't started yesterday - and click "inspect achievements". Under 100 achievement points, leaving the noobworld and credits, is very telling.

 

These are legacy-wide, and the toons are subbed. You'd use a special char, sure, but would you create a separate account and pay for subscription on it only to engage in an activity that won't get you banned or suspended or otherwise punished? Credit sellers, on the other hand, only need one account for this across all servers, and the activity certainly pays off.

 

 

SWTOR isn't the first game where it's happening either. It has been operated in WoW for ages, but only started in SWTOR on a significant scale a few months ago, simultaneously across multiple servers.

Edited November 12, 2014 by Heal-To-Full

[TheWookiee]

Buyers and Sellers have to both take responsibility for their behavior. Since most are unwilling to do that, this argument continues despite the efforts of some folks to just discuss the merits of the suggestions as QoL improvements for the GTN.

 

I will list the items again for the folks new to the thread.

 

1) The ability to ignore a character name on the GTN, so the items sold by that character are not shown in searches.

2) The ability to place a red flag on sellers you do not like, green flag on ones you prefer, and a sort function to move red flags to the bottom of a search, green flags to the top. Only you would see the flags you apply.

3) Remove the ability for the system to display fractional currency in the "price per unit" field.

4) Have the formatting right justified instead of left justified.

5) Have the ignore list also apply to the GTN.

6) Add a price per unit option for posting items for sale.

7) Default the GTN to sorting by lowest price first, or lowest per unit price.

8) Larger text for the price display.

9) Add a toggle to remove the display of fractional currency in the "price per item" field.

10) Line up all prices on the decimal, and display .00 for non fractional amounts.

 

I support 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9. I really like 2, 6 and 9. 6 seems to be the most popular one so far.

 

A lot of these listed implementations would be nice to have, but thinking realistically, I would prefer to have some check boxes added to the preferences where you can turn decimals on/off, have a few boxes to determine your default search filter for both price and/or Unit price and a text font editor for the GTN (Color and size).

 

IIRC, there was mention of a lot of UI changes in the works for 3.0 and some of them were not going to make the 3.0 release deadline. It seems to me adding some user preferences for the GTN that are Toggleable (So all the people in this thread who think the GTN is fine will not be affected) would be the way to go. Down the line, the Ignore, flagging, rating, etc. could be added in as other QoL features.

[Brewski]

Official statement from Bioware is that there is no clear way to identify a scam versus an honest listing mistake.

 

 

 

What is occuring is a scam, by definition. There are specific individuals purposely listing items in clever ways to trick people into spending more credits than they mean to spend by using commas instead of periods in specific places.

 

Here's the eye opening irony for you all. I see a lot of the same common " AH AH AH!!! OFFICIAL STATEMENT SAYS OTHERWISE !!!! SCAM IS OBVIOUS JUST PAY ATTENTION NEXT TIME!!!". According to the official statement, it is too hard to distingush an honest listing from a potential scam listing.

 

This thread has (mostly) moved on, and is primarily dedicated to talking about potential quality of life changes that would be beneficial to all with the added effect of reducing the number of occurrences of this kind of thing.

[TUXs]

If this doesn't qualify as an in-game scam, what exactly does? A scam is simply using deceit or confusion to take advantage of others. In this case some players are manipulating their listing price per item in order to confuse others. In my opinion, that absolutely meets the scam definition.

 

Do you think that it's good that some players are trying to take advange of the less attentive players? Should stupid people not have any protections? Where do you draw the line? Regardless of how stupid some may be, they are still PAYING CUSTOMERS, (F2P and Preferred players have credit caps that prevent them from losing large amounts of credits) and as such, Bioware should consider their welfare in addressing this issue.

 

Personally speaking, I find it offensive that so many people defend the "they're stupid, and thus shouldn't be protected" argument. It's very probable that people who get scammed will leave and not come back. People that don't come back are a permanent loss of revenue that would otherwise go towards keeping the servers operating. People that get scammed will tell all their friends about how SWTOR caters to scammers, and they will cause more revenue loss. Do you find those repercussions acceptable? Sorry, but I don't.

 

Beyond that, I'm annoyed when I look for things on the GTN, and have to weed out the idiots who price Plasteel at 330,333 credits ea, phobium at 350,333 credits ea, and bondite at 800,333 ea. Do they really think that a single bondite is worth 800k credits? Of course not. Their only motivation is, of course, to trick others into paying their hyper inflated prices. If I were able to pick the people that I want to spend time with in-game, I'll take the friendly moron over the scammer EVERY TIME.

I find it shocking how many people are ignoring your post. FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC reply!!!!!!! Seriously, best post of the entire thread imo!!!

[Deewe]

It seems to me adding some user preferences for the GTN that are Toggleable (So all the people in this thread who think the GTN is fine will not be affected) would be the way to go. Down the line, the Ignore, flagging, rating, etc. could be added in as other QoL features.

Totally agree, client side is always the best route as the choice is left in the players hands.

 

 

I find it shocking how many people are ignoring your post. FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC reply!!!!!!! Seriously, best post of the entire thread imo!!!

Not ignoring, this was indeed one of the best post in this thread, made by someone you'd be happy to know and discuss about things.

 

Add LortArtemis try to gather the QoL improvements to this and you got the best part of this tread for sure.

Edited November 12, 2014 by Deewe

[HiddenRogue]

These threads are hilarious, it's funny as hell to see people get so serious over a game.

[Theeko]

These threads are hilarious, it's funny as hell to see people get so serious over a game.

 

Well you have to admit you take real time to play games, so its just like an argument in the real world tbh.

[Smuglebunny]

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.

no scam

 

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

 

oh i didnt see this before, so basically they said its not a scam and they will do nothing. ok im done here.

 

oh wait not nothing, they will pass it on to "work toward" in the "future"...SEE if there is anything we can work on...for the future..lol. ok

[HiddenRogue]

Well you have to admit you take real time to play games, so its just like an argument in the real world tbh.

 

I suppose, but at the end of the day it's still just a game.

[eartharioch]

Buyers and Sellers have to both take responsibility for their behavior. Since most are unwilling to do that, this argument continues despite the efforts of some folks to just discuss the merits of the suggestions as QoL improvements for the GTN.

 

I will list the items again for the folks new to the thread.

 

1) The ability to ignore a character name on the GTN, so the items sold by that character are not shown in searches.

2) The ability to place a red flag on sellers you do not like, green flag on ones you prefer, and a sort function to move red flags to the bottom of a search, green flags to the top. Only you would see the flags you apply.

3) Remove the ability for the system to display fractional currency in the "price per unit" field.

4) Have the formatting right justified instead of left justified.

5) Have the ignore list also apply to the GTN.

6) Add a price per unit option for posting items for sale.

7) Default the GTN to sorting by lowest price first, or lowest per unit price.

8) Larger text for the price display.

9) Add a toggle to remove the display of fractional currency in the "price per item" field.

10) Line up all prices on the decimal, and display .00 for non fractional amounts.

 

I support 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9. I really like 2, 6 and 9. 6 seems to be the most popular one so far.

 

I'm surprised you don't support (10), since that is just asking for BW to display numbers in the standard format that everybody dealing with money has been using for hundreds of years and requires the least effort (it should be just changing one or two characters in one line of code).

 

Also, you didn't mention my variant one (1)/(2), which was that listings from people on the ignore list would still be shown, but they would be grayed out and have the purchase button disabled (being modified to warn that you are purchasing from an ignored seller or prompting you to remove seller from ignore list would be acceptable, but just disabling is probably easier). It's not a trivial difference -- I don't support (1) because even if I wish to choose not to do business with certain sellers, I don't want to lose the ability to see what they are doing in my markets of interest. Personally, I don't see the need for a "favorite sellers" indicator like you want in (2), although it wouldn't bug me if BW added it, but I'd rather leave their listings (and the "ignored" sellers' listings) where they lie in the sort order. An "only show favorites" option would be ok, as long as the ability to see the listings relative to other listings is preserved. If the prices are close, you should still see your favorite sellers, but if the prices aren't close, how much do you really like other sellers?

 

 

EDIT: Also, you didn't mention:

o Changing the current Pop-Up option from a check box (so, "always on" or "always off") to a "slider" (so popping whenever the [total] price is over a given value). A value of '0' would retain the current "always on" behavior, but if users can control the degree of risk they want to accept, they should in theory be less likely to automatically hit 'ok', and thus the Pop-Up would be more effective. Also, should be easy to program.

 

o Adding a second Pop-Up trigger (still one box) with a slider (as above), but for the price-per-unit instead of the total price. To be useful, this trigger should only be applied to stackable items (i.e., ones where the price-per-unit and total price could be different).

Edited November 12, 2014 by eartharioch

[Orizuru]

I find it shocking how many people are ignoring your post. FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC reply!!!!!!! Seriously, best post of the entire thread imo!!!

 

I was ignoring it because its largely irrelevant.

 

Whether or not the behavior is a scam is not really important because a computer will never be able to tell the difference between a legitimately overpriced listing and a listing from an unscrupulous seller who is trying to take advantage of the foolishness of the buyer. There simply is no clear distinction without involving a human being in the determination.

 

This prevents the system from doing anything to suppress the listings short of taking action against every listing that is "over-priced". The problem is complicated further by the fact that "over-priced" is fairly ambiguous as well. Any attempt to have a system that can weed out these listings will be over-reaching and would also destroy the concept of a free market because it would have to action or punish sellers simply for setting a price the system has deemed to be too high based upon criteria that was largely inconsistent and potentially biased.

 

All you can really do effectively is give players the tools to sort and filter listings in ways that help them manage the frequency with witch these listings show up in their searches. However, no matter how many tools you give them to do this, the listings still exist and will still show up in searches from time to time. Couple that with the number of players who simply don't or won't use the tools and the problem continues to be a problem.

 

The only clear solution is to be careful and pay attention to what you are buying. Some UI improvements would help. Some QoL improvements would help as well, but until players take responsibility for using the tools they are given in a manner that is effective and efficient, then the problem will continue to remain an issue.

[Deewe]

I was ignoring it because its largely irrelevant.

 

Whether or not the behavior is a scam is not really important because a computer will never be able to tell the difference between a legitimately overpriced listing and a listing from an unscrupulous seller who is trying to take advantage of the foolishness of the buyer.

A simple algorithm could easily narrow 95% of the scams, if not more.

[Reno_Tarshil]

A simple algorithm could easily narrow 95% of the scams, if not more.

 

You didn't read his post at all. It would destroy the concept of a free market.

[MillionsKNives]

You didn't read his post at all. It would destroy the concept of a free market.

 

True free markets are overrated.