scammer got me

[beattlebilly]

If I had the ability to look at people's GTN sales, I would love to know how many of you blaming the OP for his carelessness have been selling green mats and other assorted everyday items for millions of credits each.

I haven't sold mats for a very long time. I sell the items I get from the packs I open. The one time I sold an item for millions when it was supposed to be for hundreds of thousands, I sent the difference back to the person that accidentally bought it as soon as I noticed the error when I got the credits from the mail(and thank God the mail that told me about the sale didn't delete itself after one hour and I was able to get the buyer's name from it). And I'd imagine that not very many of the people that have chimed in here to say the OP should be more careful are the type of person that would set up the prices in the hopes of catching careless people. It's nice though to see you try to invalidate our opinion by making us out to be the bad guys

 

but isn't that only in the price per unit area section? because I never sold a single item for a price with a decimal, only stacks telling the price per unit.

Yes, and even then we can't put decimals in ourselves, we can only put a price in that covers the whole stack, and the decimals show up after we make the listing. Me personally, I hate seeing the decimals in my listings only for aesthetic reasons, so I will sit here with a calculator to figure up the price of a stack with whole number per unit price :p

Edited November 30, 2015 by beattlebilly

[SanjayaP]

ahahahahah - didn't realise people fell for this kind of trick - to also post this on the forums..mmm tasty.

[Lord_Sleepy]

I haven't sold mats for a very long time. I sell the items I get from the packs I open. The one time I sold an item for millions when it was supposed to be for hundreds of thousands, I sent the difference back to the person that accidentally bought it as soon as I noticed the error when I got the credits from the mail(and thank God the mail that told me about the sale didn't delete itself after one hour and I was able to get the buyer's name from it). And I'd imagine that not very many of the people that have chimed in here to say the OP should be more careful are the type of person that would set up the prices in the hopes of catching careless people. It's nice though to see you try to invalidate our opinion by making us out to be the bad guys

 

 

Yes, and even then we can't put decimals in ourselves, we can only put a price in that covers the whole stack, and the decimals show up after we make the listing.

 

I usually, when selling, look for the lowest price, then if reasonable, mark mine down just enough to show as lowest but not enough to change the market for it. If someone is undercutting by large amounts I put it in storage and wait. Like most people I am sure.

[MasterSpatula]

How so? There was no deception perpetrated.

 

The deception is in willfully taking advantage of certain features of the GTN to manipulate the unwary into mistaking the price they're about to pay. Businesspeople of conscience and ethics don't need to rely on customer unwariness.

 

The buyer simply didn't pay attention. Where I come from, we call that the 'Stupid Tax.' A tax on being stupid.

 

Where do you come from, exactly? The Heritage Foundation?

[Noyjitat]

I accidentally priced an a purple gemstone for 250k that was meant to be priced at 25k like the others I was selling but didn't know this until I read my emails and seen where the same person had bought all of them.

 

So I refunded the extra back to the person although they had not emailed me or sent me a tell I doubt they even noticed it. Lucky for them I actually read my gtn emails most of the time.

[XL-Jedi]

In that case...

 

I wish to report myself.

 

I have scammed myself out of several thousand credits by clicking too damn fast on the GTN screen and posting GOOD stuff accidentally for their suggested market prices.

[Hunterkat]

This is a scam, plain and simple! We are not talking about someone who accidently added a zero here or there, we are talking about those who intentionally try to fool buyers with deceptive pricing. This is a scam just like the person on JC who is selling 186 relics for 800k. They are dropping a 208 mod in them to boost their level to 64 so when you search by level they look like higher relics than they really are.

 

It's not about who is to blame, the scammer or the person who falls for the scam, it's about if it's right or wrong. It is wrong to try and scam someone. Con artists use trick mathematics all the time to try and scam people. Check out Abbott and Costello's 7x13=28 skit to see a classic mathematics scam. It's no different than all those E-mail scams. Sure, 90% of the people don't fall for those but they make a fortune on the 10% that do.

 

A scam is a scam. It is when someone intentionally tries to mislead, confuse, or trick someone into giving them more than what they deserve or earn. It doesn't even matter if someone fall for it, it's still a scam.

[Avalyssia]

I nearly fell for this last night when I was sleepy and wanting to buy adaptive circuitry - thank goodness I'm so cheap and check far too many times before making my mind up.

 

I'm not too sure if this 'trick' is happening more lately or I'm just on the gtn more nowadays.

 

Anyway, I feel for you OP but let's hope this thread helps others check many times before making gtn purchases.

[XL-Jedi]

I wonder... if you ignore a user, can you see their GTN entries?

 

Edit: just checked and unfortunately, no.

 

Although, that seems like it would be a pretty nifty way to deal with the problem. Allow right-click on users to ignore in the GTN window. ...or maybe a user defined preference entry that makes you confirm a purchase over "x" credits?

Edited December 1, 2015 by XL-Jedi

[Infernixx]

The deception is in willfully taking advantage of certain features of the GTN to manipulate the unwary into mistaking the price they're about to pay. Businesspeople of conscience and ethics don't need to rely on customer unwariness.

 

 

 

Where do you come from, exactly? The Heritage Foundation?

 

That's a lot of words to say "Guy posted something at a high price, I didn't pay attention to what I was doing and bought it."

 

Oh, and it's completely unethical, but it's neither manipulative, nor deceitful nor against the rules.

 

Pay attention to what you're doing and this will never happen to you.

[Joesixxpack]

I can't find any positive reason for decimals to exist. They should be removed. That's all.

 

Now you're making great sense yes pls get rid of the stupid decimals.

[Deyjarl]

Moral of the Thread: Sorting by Unit Price is hard.

 

Or get rid of the decimals in the listings, which is part of what helps the scam.

 

Times you have to look really close, and ask did I single or double click that, and start all over sorting because they list them so similarly.

[Spartanik]

That's a lot of words to say "Guy posted something at a high price, I didn't pay attention to what I was doing and bought it."

 

Oh, and it's completely unethical, but it's neither manipulative, nor deceitful nor against the rules.

 

Pay attention to what you're doing and this will never happen to you.

Yes lets blame the victim, always, because that is always the right thing to do....

Its because of things like this, slowly but surely people lose interest in the game. A part of it at least.

 

For some reason the MMORPG genre is dying and in decline. And MOBAs are taking their place, for quite a while now.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Spartanik

[MaximusRex]

That's not true at all. It simply takes a tiny amount of common sense, nothing more.

 

We're talking about items going for 1000x's the "normal" rate, not paying 8mil for a speeder that's then listed for 6 a day later.

 

Both would flood them with tickets, which we currently have plenty of posts complaining they aren't being answered timely now. No MMO will ever get into adjudicating disputes over transactions completed in their Auction House system, they simply don't have the manpower to do so.

 

The truth is the GTN is a Free Market, anyone can place any good up for any price, and it is up to the individual buyer to determine what is a fair price for them.

 

There are tools on the GTN to help buyers sort those out, from a filter that will remove any listing over a certain price, to sort by price and sort by unit price, and the GTN even asks you when you buy something if you are sure you want to buy that quantity of that item at that price.

 

At what point does a buyer have to take even the modicum of responsibility for their purchase? That this not a scam, per BioWare, is basically people saying "I'm not only refusing to use the plethora of tools BioWare already is providing to help protect me from errant purchases, I also can't read numbers at the third grade level, and I can't tell the difference between a 6 and 9 digit number".

[MaximusRex]

I can't find any positive reason for decimals to exist.

 

They exist so that buyers can easily determine which stack of items has the best unit price.

 

If saving credits isn't a positive reason, then I have to think the push to remove decimals is so that sellers can manipulate the per item price and stack size to make it look like they have competitive prices when they are actually charging more per unit. I guess the best way to be a scammer is claim the very tool preventing you from doing it is causing scamming, in the hopes it gets removed.

[Tarkashae]

Stay the hell out of Jita.

 

That is all I would like to say.

[Deyjarl]

They exist so that buyers can easily determine which stack of items has the best unit price.

 

That can be calculated by sort without displaying that.

 

If not eliminating, then change the display so it is far more clear with couple spaces between the decimal display and base amount.

[Beltane]

They exist so that buyers can easily determine which stack of items has the best unit price.

 

If saving credits isn't a positive reason, then I have to think the push to remove decimals is so that sellers can manipulate the per item price and stack size to make it look like they have competitive prices when they are actually charging more per unit. I guess the best way to be a scammer is claim the very tool preventing you from doing it is causing scamming, in the hopes it gets removed.

I have no idea what you're saying. Removing the decimals would basically remove the scam.

 

1,200.50 lowest

1,200,500 highest

 

Remove the decimals so you'd get 1,200 lowest... what could the highest do to make it look like the lowest price? Nothing.

 

1,200

1,200,500

 

Suddenly there's no comparison, no confusion, no scam.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Beltane

[-Spc]

Thats not a scam, you saw the price and you bought it.

This is like saying buying a porsche is a scam because its price is higher than normal cars.

 

And was i scammed because i bought revan armor set for 7 million ? it should be priced for 300k credits because i say or think so ?

[JediRelentless]

OP, you didn't get scammed. You made a fool's mistake.

There's no one to blame but yourself.

Edited December 1, 2015 by JediRelentless

[Reno_Tarshil]

I have no idea what you're saying. Removing the decimals would basically remove the scam.

 

1,200.50 lowest

1,200,500 highest

 

Remove the decimals so you'd get 1,200 lowest... what could the highest do to make it look like the lowest price? Nothing.

 

1,200

1,200,500

 

Suddenly there's no comparison, no confusion, no scam.

 

There's no confusion even with Decimals.

[BaronV]

There's no confusion even with Decimals.

 

Precisely. Someone who can't tell that 158,680 is HIGHER than 158.69 is just outright stupid. Nothing more.

 

The intent of the person who listed it is irrelevant. All the information is presented upfront. But to some people they will point fingers at everyone else but themselves.

[Joesixxpack]

Yes lets blame the victim, always, because that is always the right thing to do....

Its because of things like this, slowly but surely people lose interest in the game. A part of it at least.

 

For some reason the MMORPG genre is dying and in decline. And MOBAs are taking their place, for quite a while now.

 

Negligent or dumb shopping =/= victimized

[Sheelah]

It's absolutely a scam and I don't know how there are even people doubting this. The only intention by setting prices like this is scamming people. They use a very badly designed UI for their trick. It's also against the 'good faith principle' which at least in civilized countries is part of trading laws.

 

And if you use decimals they should be always shown, i.e. you show 300.50 and also 300.00. This would make the scam a lot more difficult.

 

Also it's very confusing and user unfriendly for at least where I come from in Europe (not sure if it's true for every European country). But we use the comma ( , ) and the dot ( . ) for separating decimals, i.e. 300.00 = 300,00. We either us nothing or an apostrophe for thousands separator, i.e. 4000 or 4'000.

 

So if they would change their UI to always show decimals and use an apostrophe as thousands separator the scam wouldn't work anymore and lots of people wouldn't have lost their money.

 

1'800.00 instead of 1,800,00 (<- that notation looks almost unreadable for me, I don't recognize the last two digits clearly as decimals, it more looks like someone wanted to write 1'800'000 and just forgot the last 0).

 

To make things worse sometimes the UI doesn't correctly sort when you click the first time and you have to click a second time.

 

And since by selling items you bought with real money people can also scammed of real money, so it's not just about some fantasy game currency. I wonder why no one made a case out of this yet.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Sheelah

[Joesixxpack]

It's absolutely a scam and I don't know how there are even people doubting this. The only intention by setting prices like this is scamming people. They use a very badly designed UI for their trick.

 

First if you use decimals they should be always shown, i.e. you show 300.50 and also 300.00. This would make the scam a lot more difficult.

 

Also it's very confusing and user unfriendly for at least where I come from in Europe (not sure if it's true for every European country). But we use the comma ( , ) and the dot ( . ) for separating decimals, i.e. 300.00 = 300,00. We either us nothing or an apostrophe for thousands separator, i.e. 4000 or 4'000.

 

So if they would change their UI to always show decimals and use an apostrophe as thousands separator the scam wouldn't work anymore and lots of people wouldn't have lost their money.

 

1'800.00 instead of 1,800,00 (<- that notation looks almost unreadable for me, I don't recognize the last two digits clearly as decimals, it more looks like someone wanted to write 1'800'000 and just forgot the last 0).

 

To make things worse sometimes the UI doesn't correctly sort when you click the first time and you have to click a second time.

 

And since by selling items you bought with real money people can also scammed of real money, so it's not just about some fantasy game currency. I wonder why no one made a case out of this yet.

 

Is it an intended rip? Yeah. Is it a scam someone is the victim of? Nope. It doesn't matter what the sellers intend since they still have their price plainly posted like everyone else that posts sales. Do you think it's strong armed robbery when a 1 year old cries and waves their fists around for a bottle? If they managed to mask their ripoff price with a lower price on our screens, not deliver the mats, etc. that'd be different. But it isn't. All of us who've been ripped just didn't pay adequate attention in our haste to what is actually really obvious.

 

Those are facts and all of you who disagree are wrong. Deal with it instead of spewing your emotionally-driven nonsense.

 

I agree BW should get rid of the decimals. I made an oops and bought junk mats for millions after forgetting about the Euro/US decimal and comma difference in usage. I'd gotten used to one way and didn't pay enough attention after back in the US. I don't see their practical value but how they could "help" someone not pay good enough attention.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Joesixxpack