The Scam/Not a Scam debate storyline

[Reno_Tarshil]

I forgot about this thread and was shocked to see it necro. My stance on it hasn't changed

 

The fault lies within the buyer for not paying attention as anyone can list anything on the gtn for any price.

[Muljo_Stpho]

How are they not unmistakable? Search for item....click sort by price so the lowest price is the one you see. Follow said action with basic literacy and basic math skills. It is unmistakable if you take those three simple steps.

 

As I recall from the deepest and dankest bowels of when this subject was previously active, it did seem like some of the people raising the most ruckus over this seemed like they might prefer to sort by item name or seller name or whatever else that isn't sorting by price or unit price. Basically just going out of their way to find trouble.

 

Not to mention however it is that they would seem to believe that 100.10 looks identical to 100,100.

 

Or how they conveniently ignore the fact that the formatting that swtor uses always goes to exactly 2 digits after the decimal when there's a decimal shown, never 3 digits.

 

They're being more misleading in their attempt to explain how there's a "scam" going on than is actually possible in-game because their argument is relying entirely on "you can't tell the difference between commas and periods when comparing two 6 digit numbers" when in actual practice there are only going to be five digits in the low price that the six digit "scam" price would have to imitate. The two numbers are going to look a little different anyway even if you didn't make note of comma or period placement.

 

Quick! Which is lower? 310.70 or 301,500? It should be blatantly obvious, and I'm sure anyone reading this line must have had the correct answer before they reached the word "it". (Unless there's some sort of dyslexia-like condition out there which would cause someone's mind to rearrange the first number to 310,700 as they read it and without them even realizing that it was happening? If that's a thing, someone point it out. Because if it's a thing, that should be the focus of the request. Like how there could be requests to provide options that would make certain parts of the game more accessible for colorblind players. (I forget what the example was but I know I've seen a topic on that subject before.))

Edited July 2, 2015 by Muljo_Stpho

[Banthabreeder]

Well, my poor, broke mama told me

When I was twelve years old

Said, you eatin', talkin' 'nare too fast

There's one thing you should know

Should take your time, my sweet baby

Take your time, my blue eyed son

Well, you might never have his money

But you won't miss no rich man's fun.

 

Lynyrd Skynyrd – Take Your Time

[Tjarin]

The reason it is a scam is it is very specific. A scammer lists bogus items, usually crafting material,

example: scammer lists 10 level 3 crafting-items, such as blue goo, which usually sell for, say, 300 credits each, and lists them instead for 300,000 credits each;

 

that's 300,000 credits for 1 blue goo.

yep,

300,000 credits for 1 blue goo.

 

There is no reasonable player who would look at that and say that's a fair markup on a lvl 3 crafting material.

That is why this is a scam/exploit of the GTN UNIT sort numberical display.

 

Now the current way the GTN displays the UNIT values makes it appear as if the item is valued for much less. The commas and decimals are deceiving. If you purchase in bulk to craft and use the UNIT sort to purchase quickly, chances are you are at great risks of being a victim of this scam.

 

Bioware has gone on the record in the above post saying they will do nothing to help us, the community, and fix this error in the display of the GTN UNIT Price Sorting Value Exploit.

 

Therefore I am urging you all to file tickets and to write to support@swtor.com in regards to this issue. Tell them straight out we as a community will not stand for exploiters and scammers abusing our GTN. Demand the developers implement a fix on the GTN display that properly indicates the UNIT values of a group of items for sale.

 

Please, together we the community are the heart of this game. Are we going to stand back and just hand a corporation money as they tell us what our experience is going to be - or are we going to be gamers and demand that the game honors its contract with us by providing a safe and stable environment for us to game in.

 

Write - speak out - demand - the GTN UNIT Price Sorting Value Exploit be fixed, now.

[Tjarin]

There's also a lot of chatter on the SWToR forums about this not being a scam, well,

as defined: a scam is " a fraudulent business scheme; a swindle. "

 

So when an item normally selling for around

300 credits,

is listed for

3,000,000 credits,

it means the seller is probably trying to deceive, grief, swindle, the buyer.

 

Let's use Occam's Razor, i.e, the simplest answer probably being the right one:

what's more likely,

Player X lists various crafting mats for multiple millions of credits because he is storing them

individually on the GTN as a sort of 'backup' or has a spastic finger repeatedly hit five extra

0's by accident on his 50 listings of 10 stacks of lvl 2 crafting items

or

Player x is trying to swindle credits out of buyers by exploiting the comma , and period . displays

of the unit sort on the GTN.

 

you can usually predict a person's behavior if you figure out their incentives.

So what's more likely here? I believe the incentive to make fast money no matter the means.

[Thoronmir]

Now the current way the GTN displays the UNIT values makes it appear as if the item is valued for much less. The commas and decimals are deceiving. If you purchase in bulk to craft and use the UNIT sort to purchase quickly, chances are you are at great risks of being a victim of this scam.

How so? Precisely how are the commas and decimals deceiving? How does someone mistake 3,000 for 300?

 

I don't condone taking advantage of stupid people, but neither can I condemn anyone for posting an item for sale on the GTN for a specific price and delivering said item for said price. I don't care if the price is tenfold (or a hundredfold) the "standard market price" for that item. The primary power--and, hence, primary responsibility--for avoiding mistaken GTN purchases lies with the buyer. I'd rather BW not devote any resources to tweaking the GTN display ... at least until they address some more pressing issues. I mean, if the programmers fixed every other valid complaint any player has and they have a few hours before closing time, sure, take a look at GTN.

 

Also, in the US at least, delivering the item promised at the agreed-upon price is the antithesis of a "scam" or "swindle".

Edited July 16, 2015 by Thoronmir

[XiamaraSimi]

This things been raised from the dead more times then Jason Voorhees...

 

Another poster has it summed up best in his sig

 

"Decimals are haaaaaaard, Bioware fix the hard."

 

Sort first, sort often, when in doubt, sort! (Or ya know, put a max price limit? Thats what that text box at the bottom is for...)

 

Apparently its too hard to click a sort by button, much more efficient to come complain on the forums because you fail to use tools already in place to prevent derpage...

Edited July 16, 2015 by XiamaraSimi

[Banthabreeder]

TAKE YOUR TIME

 

...and take some responsibility for your stupidity

[branmakmuffin]

There's also a lot of chatter on the SWToR forums about this not being a scam, well,

as defined: a scam is " a fraudulent business scheme; a swindle. "

 

So when an item normally selling for around

300 credits,

is listed for

3,000,000 credits,

it means the seller is probably trying to deceive, grief, swindle, the buyer.

 

you can usually predict a person's behavior if you figure out their incentives.

So what's more likely here? I believe the incentive to make fast money no matter the means.

You need to look up the word "swindle." It would be a swindle if the person could list the item for 300 and then get 3 mil from the buyer without the buyer's consent.

Edited July 17, 2015 by branmakmuffin

[Muljo_Stpho]

Let's use Occam's Razor, i.e, the simplest answer probably being the right one:

what's more likely,

Player X lists various crafting mats for multiple millions of credits because he is storing them

individually on the GTN as a sort of 'backup' or has a spastic finger repeatedly hit five extra

0's by accident on his 50 listings of 10 stacks of lvl 2 crafting items

or

Player x is trying to swindle credits out of buyers by exploiting the comma , and period . displays

of the unit sort on the GTN.

 

Both are equally absurd.

 

Yes, the notion of someone "storing" materials one at a time at way-beyond-unreasonable prices should sound insane to anybody. (And yeah, people can occasionally miss a digit or add a digit when setting a price but it's a really hard sell to suggest that many extra digits were mashed without noticing that your price didn't look like what you had intended to enter.)

 

The notion of somebody expecting and relying upon anybody in their right mind actually getting "tricked" by some misconception about number formatting is just as insane a suggestion though. Maybe they can hope that some inattentive idiot will come along and click something which nobody in their right mind ever should have clicked on (which of course does not mean that it's not kind of a crummy thing for people to be putting out there), but there is absolutely no sane reason for anybody to expect it to ever actually work.

 

Both situations would most likely involve the futile reposting of these absurd GTN listings over and over and over every other day for many months or perhaps even years before somebody out there makes that one careless and phenomenally idiotic mistake.

[Dragoon-]

They should fix it. If not to protect tried eyes from being scammed, than to reduce the workload on their database. Which they(Bioware) already stated is currently the limiting factor to the development new features for the GTN,

[Iram]

Is anyone getting accounts banned/locked for scams like this?

 

I just bought an item that I thought was priced 4,320.101 per unit only to find out it was really 4,320,101 per unit. I opened an in-game support ticket (no reply yet) and called the support line (told to wait for the in-game ticket response).

 

If this isn't a considered a scam / TOS violation, I'll probably join the darkside and try to sell it for 4,310,201 to get some of my money back. Sure seems dirty though, but I'm not happy with loosing 4 million credits.

[MadDutchman]

Is anyone getting accounts banned/locked for scams like this?

 

I just bought an item that I thought was priced 4,320.101 per unit only to find out it was really 4,320,101 per unit. I opened an in-game support ticket (no reply yet) and called the support line (told to wait for the in-game ticket response).

 

If this isn't a considered a scam / TOS violation, I'll probably join the darkside and try to sell it for 4,310,201 to get some of my money back. Sure seems dirty though, but I'm not happy with loosing 4 million credits.

 

This is scummy behaviour, not a scam or TOS violation.

 

Use the price filters provided, read carefully. It really sucks but can be avoided.

[Anaesha]

This is scummy behaviour, not a scam or TOS violation.

 

Use the price filters provided, read carefully. It really sucks but can be avoided.

 

That is literally the FIRST thing I do after I set my parameters and hit search. BW gives us ways to sort the GTN items by Price and god gave us eyes for a reason.

 

I suggest using both.

[LordArtemis]

Since this was dredged back up, I would repost my suggestions for GTN improvements.

 

Here are the suggestions so far...I see them as QoL changes that would be nice to have.

 

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) Change total price to price per unit, or just 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.

 

Any of them would be welcome changes IMO.

 

I would personally love to see the ability to price per unit when placing a sale, and having a flag system so I could flag sellers based on how I rate them...for my eyes only. The flag with a sort function would be very convenient.

 

It seems the ability to price items per unit as an option is the most popular suggestion.

 

To add to this old suggestion, I would love to see an actual auction ability added to the GTN.

Edited November 11, 2015 by LordArtemis

[idnewton]

I just bought an item that I thought was priced 4,320.101 per unit only to find out it was really 4,320,101 per unit. I opened an in-game support ticket (no reply yet) and called the support line (told to wait for the in-game ticket response).

Sucks, but:

BW gives us ways to sort the GTN items by Price and god gave us eyes for a reason.

 

I suggest using both.

Also, if memory serves, GTN never shows unit prices with more than two decimal places.

[Uruare]

Not a scam. If you won't read, you'll bleed.

 

Fools and their money are soon parted, yes?

 

I'd be entirely sympathetic if an actually scam took place, but when the whole premise boils down to 'I did a stupid and screwed myself over', it's not someone else's fault.

 

Welcome to reality, where you sometimes very well do have to live with the mistakes you make. I know that the schools and some parts of society have turned some of you into permanently offended and perpetually distraught malcontents, but the simple fact is that when you crap your own pants, you're not making a point by howling about how the clothing manufacturer should have done something to prevent this from being possible and you demand retribution.

 

You just look like a child that's never actually dealt with reality yet.

 

Life: It's going to offend you and nobody cares.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Uruare

[Muljo_Stpho]

I just bought an item that I thought was priced 4,320.101 per unit...

 

It would never be that, because the GTN only ever shows 2 decimal places when it shows a number that includes decimal places. If there are 3 digits at the end of the number, you can 100% guarantee that they are following a comma, not a period.

 

Not that saying this will help anyone since it's been said thousands of times before in the overblown annoying history of this subject and nobody yelling about the so-called scam ever seems to acknowledge it.

[g_land]

When was the last time outside of gas prices was anything marked with more than 2 spots after the decimal? Stock market maybe?

[Joesixxpack]

The Scam/Not a Scam debate storyline

 

It's not a scam, just cheesy as ****.

 

/thread

 

inb4 I can't /thread with my own post

Edited November 13, 2015 by Joesixxpack

[idnewton]

Not a scam. If you won't read, you'll bleed.

 

Fools and their money are soon parted, yes?

 

I'd be entirely sympathetic if an actually scam took place, but when the whole premise boils down to 'I did a stupid and screwed myself over', it's not someone else's fault.

 

Welcome to reality, where you sometimes very well do have to live with the mistakes you make. I know that the schools and some parts of society have turned some of you into permanently offended and perpetually distraught malcontents, but the simple fact is that when you crap your own pants, you're not making a point by howling about how the clothing manufacturer should have done something to prevent this from being possible and you demand retribution.

 

You just look like a child that's never actually dealt with reality yet.

 

Life: It's going to offend you and nobody cares.

 

So true.

[Deyjarl]

Yes, I am trying to collect all of these into one thread just to keep track of all these topics. If I missed any, please post the links.

 

Or you are trying to resurrect threads that have died because no one cares but you and a few others.

[Alec_Fortescue]

Noticed credit sellers using this trick, having augments made by those oddly named characters which are quickly deleted ("crafter's name erased"). Yeah, fell for it somehow and lost 50 mil.... I am gonna quit if bw won't help me this time, i lost 120 mil to scammers over the course of 4 years.

 

It can happen to anyone and cs should be frakkin' helping when it comes to larger sums. That's 2 months of work lost.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Alec_Fortescue

[anonnn]

Noticed credit sellers using this trick, having augments made by those oddly named characters which are quickly deleted ("crafter's name erased"). Yeah, fell for it somehow and lost 50 mil.... I am gonna quit if bw won't help me this time, i lost 120 mil to scammers over the course of 4 years.

 

It can happen to anyone and cs should be frakkin' helping when it comes to larger sums. That's 2 months of work lost.

 

That these types of scams CAN be avoided means absolutely nothing.

 

It's only about needing automated tools that can't be switched off, that ALWAYS activate in the situations that would be devastating if the purchase qualifies as in ANY way an accident for the buyer. Something very simple such as a popup for any purchase for 1M+ credits with a 5-second delay on the "OK" button would almost certainly suffice - because in the case of a deviously priced item that's 1000 times more expensive than it's meant to be mistaken for, the visually discernible price (the mistaken price that the scammer MEANT it to be mistaken for) is almost certainly less than 1M credits, so a price-level popup alert would be the immediate alert to the buyer that something is outside of the perceived expectations.

 

It would be negligent to not add something to the GTN of this sort, to defeat these types of scams that are obviously still going on. A lot of us pay to play this game, and also go to a lot of effort to earn credits to make the game more rewarding and in-game luxurious for ourselves, and so we deserve to be protected against both scams and innocent buying mistakes.

 

The responsibility for preventing horrific buying mistakes needs to be put ALL on the game features. Otherwise these bad mistakes will just occur over and over and making select individuals miserable from not being protected.

[ekwalizer]

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

 

Only use whole numbers. There is no such thing as a percentage of a credit. Problem solved, problem staying solved. Not that I ever thought there was a problem other than too lazy to read players.

Edited February 11, 2016 by ekwalizer