Question: Scamming method exposed to support

[Mitch113]

Here is the 2 questions i asked recently to the support, i got the answer for the first, but not for the second yet.

I see often the following kind of scam :
A new item drop, or a player decide to sell a rare item. Their is no real MU for this item as it was never sold or as it is so rare that we can't consider the MU of 5 years ago (economy of the game was different).

Lets imagine i loot a UltimateIncredibleLaserRifle unlimited. It seems many people want it but I overpriced it, people are not ready to pay more than 50Kpeds for it.

I create a second avatar. I sell this item throw auction. People fight till 50Kpeds and stop little by little, but my second avatar continue to bid and bid. And finally someone who really want this item reach 75 Kpeds and get my nice new weapon.
But the price should never had reach this level, in reallity other buyers stopped at 50 K and it is my alter who have broke the bidding system.

So i asked this question to the support. According EULA this is something forbidden because :
- It is forbidden to use 2 avatars
- It is forbidden to manipulate MU and this is a kind of manipulation

The support answered me that they will do nothing in such case !! They will not punish the guy with 2 avatars and they will not revert the auction. (Exact answer is : "if investigation team does not contact you it means the auction will not be reverted")

So i asked them a new question : Does it mean it is allowed to do so ? Does it mean i am allowed to create a second avatar and manipulate auctions in the way i described ? Because if you do nothing against many current price manipulation we can see at auction (in current time period where lot of new items are looted), it means you allow people to ALL do in the same way. No reason only 4 or 5 people are allowed to act like this and others not !!

I am waiting the answer from the support. And i will copy it here.

What do you think about this ? Am i wrong ?

P.S. If i asked this question is that i was victim of such process once ! I learnt after to never buy an ubber item if one of the bidder is unknown or if he has no tracker stats that proof he really exists.

 

[Thark]

Hey,

i feel like the multiple avatars thing is hard to handle. On the one hand you can always argue it's your girl friends, moms, dads w/e avatar playing from the same network so it's hard to prove. On the other hand if the second avatar is not used in an harmful way, whats the problem. In both cases it's hard for the developer to do anything about it without limiting the game experience for families. (one avatar per IP or what not)

The price manipulation is also kind of shady. Would it be ok to tell a friend to buy the item if the price does not reach the price you had in mind and then you trade the item back from him? Or you just really wanted to know the actual value the item has. Say 50k is what people wanted to pay but you didn't really wanted to sell. So you again have a friend buy it. But then someone came along and keeps on bidding until it reaches 150% of what you figured to be the price and you think to your self, fine for that price i'll let it go, and tell your friend to stop bidding.

I don't think it's unreasonable, but i do "know" (pretty sure) in real life auctions this kind of pushing is forbidden. (dunno how much it happens though)

So for me using an alt instead of an existing friend or socmate is fine as it doesn't really matter if it's you yourself or someone you are on TS/Scype with doing the bidding. As for the legitimacy of the pushing itself, i dunno, a clear answer from support would be appreciated BUT in any case they can't outlaw the bidding of a friend even if it's way over price. Cuz you can't forbid socmates to buy overpriced items, and you can't forbid the trade back as it might have also been a mistake.

Either way, using an alt to push prices seems unfair and a market manipulation but i am unsure what can be done about it.


Regards
Thark

Edit: as for the name of the topic, well ... is it really a scam? i kinda feel 50/50 on that, dunno why - can't express my feelings on this better.

 

[FallenAngel]

Edit: as for the name of the topic, well ... is it really a scam? i kinda feel 50/50 on that, dunno why - can't express my feelings on this better.

but i can, anyone with a second avatar bidding up their own items to trick someone into overpaying is a scammer, a parasite is how the dictionary defines this type of behaviour?

 

[Mitch113]

My question to the community is particulary linked to the answer of the support, not about "is it a scam or not".

I mean : if support says "we will not invert an auction and we will do nothing when such process is detected", in my opinion it means : we are all allowed to act like this now ! Why will I not use the same methods than others to get a better price for my items ?

 

[Killahbee]

Basicly they don't give a shit.

Why? If people pay more money for items, that means more money for MA.

 

[Ludvig|MindArk]

if support says "we will not invert an auction and we will do nothing when such process is detected", in my opinion it means : we are all allowed to act like this now ! Why will I not use the same methods than others to get a better price for my items ?

But they didn't say that.

You quoted them as saying "if investigation team does not contact you it means the auction will not be reverted", which means that they are investigating it, and if the investiation does not show anything, it will not be reverted. That is very different.

Could you post the entire support answer, unaltered?

Why? If people pay more money for items, that means more money for MA.

No, it doesn't.

 

[Mitch113]

Could you post the entire support answer, unaltered?

FIRST POST FROM THEM
Mitchos,

This has been forwarded to our investigations team, if they need more information from you or they need to contact you I'll update this case.

Cameron | Planet Calypso Support

SECOND POST FROM THEM

Mitchos,

If you haven't been contacted by our investigation team it probably means that the auction won't be reverted.

Cameron | Planet Calypso Support

 

[aia]

Seems like there are two separate things.

First, is it "legal"?
By thinking of EULA, market manipulation has been explicitly forbidden.

Secondly, will MA reverse an auction?
Historically, MA has only reversed auction in case of a bigger issue, like someone using a stolen CC and been shopping around, or someone has gained PEDs by using some kind of bug (mining, deposit system etc).

 

[Mitch113]

The question is not really about my case. We saw many items these last weeks, new looted items, sold at auction for strange price with one bidder unknown.

This has occured for many different items and it was discussed on the forum.

A noob with no tracker who buy a 10 Kpeds chip level 25, it is strange, we all know it, MA also.

MA does nothing against that, even when evidence shows their was an alteration of the market. So i simply asked them : if you do nothing does it means we are now ALL allowed to use same kind of practice !

 

[Luckycharm]

Interesting as you are known to place things on auction with massive rip-off prices for BO. The kinds that make people loose all they got on the card huh...

 

[SHY]

Interesting as you are known to place things on auction with massive rip-off prices for BO. The kinds that make people loose all they got on the card huh...

This

 

[Thark]

Hey,


well i'd say. No.

they investigated one reported case. Either they found it to be legit, or found it to be insignificant and closed/stoped investigation. (like when the police found 1gram of grass and droped the case or what ever, not familiar with the english terminology)

Should we all start doing this, it might not be deemed insignificant and we might get punished.

I personally wouldn't risk it, but i'm easily scared, i just can't loose so much money


Regards
Thark

 

[Killahbee]

No, it doesn't

Yes, it does.

 

[Ludvig|MindArk]

they investigated one reported case. Either they found it to be legit, or found it to be insignificant and closed/stoped investigation. (like when the police found 1gram of grass and droped the case or what ever, not familiar with the english terminology)

They do not even have to have proven it legit... It's enough if they lack the proof that it's not legit. They can't punish someone for a "possible infraction", just like no one would be given a fine or prison sentence IRL for having "maybe stolen something" or such

 

[Neil Stockton]

Shill bidding, which is what you're talking about, would be included under the heading of market manipulation. It could also be called scamming in as much as it's against the EULA and so the shill is implicitly deceiving the other bidders into thinking they're an interested party. They are breaking the rules to gain an unfair advantage over other players.

Some cases are worse than others... for instance, a friend buying the item because it did not reach a certain "reserve" amount or because the seller changed his mind and doesn't want to sell anymore. But the only difference is in motivation. In practice, the end result could look identical to price manipulation, but that wouldn't be their intention. In EU auctions, if you have a "reserve" amount, set the SB. That's what it's for.

 

[sawachika]

Shill bidding, which is what you're talking about, would be included under the heading of market manipulation. It could also be called scamming in as much as it's against the EULA and so the shill is implicitly deceiving the other bidders into thinking they're an interested party. They are breaking the rules to gain an unfair advantage over other players.

Some cases are worse than others... for instance, a friend buying the item because it did not reach a certain "reserve" amount or because the seller changed his mind and doesn't want to sell anymore. But the only difference is in motivation. In practice, the end result could look identical to price manipulation, but that wouldn't be their intention. In EU auctions, if you have a "reserve" amount, set the SB. That's what it's for.

Just adding some foundation (an example) to what Neil's saying...

Reference:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8632357.stm

Although different in context, but might probably be still useful in detecting and avoiding these auctions...
http://www.ebay.com/gds/Shill-Bidding-How-to-Find-Avoid-and-Report-The-Scam/10000000001368684/g.html

Adding an in-game example:
I remembered the time when I was interested in buying a synchronization chip I or II (UL) and couldn't find any on caly's auction. So I went and posted a buying thread on forums.
https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...2857-Synchronization-Chip-I-or-II-(Unlimited)

No one pmed me or left any selling offers but a day or two later I spotted quite a few of these Synchronization Chip IIs on auction in caly and thought that I lucked out...but the thing was all of them had no buyouts.

Anyway, I went and bidded on the cheapest one I could find and waited, but someone else outbidded me and it went above what I deemed was a fair price for it. No prob....I guessed and I went on to bid the next best one.....and guess what....that too got outbidded and as for the next few ones that were placed on auction, they all had a spike in MU.

Before, when the first one was placed on auction, I took a check of its MU and deemed that my bidding price range for them would be approximately TT+5 to TT+15 peds. Which was then considered to be a pretty generous range for some sync chip which would have no other uses other than to sweat.

And here's the SS of the MU for the next few days after my post on forum. And naturally, you can bet that I was no longer interested in bidding nor buying one....they just smelled fishy.



And if you check the MU for the chip now....its back to the normal TT+5 to TT+15 ped range.

 

[Futurama]

FIRST POST FROM THEM
Mitchos,

This has been forwarded to our investigations team, if they need more information from you or they need to contact you I'll update this case.

Cameron | Planet Calypso Support

SECOND POST FROM THEM

Mitchos,

If you haven't been contacted by our investigation team it probably means that the auction won't be reverted.

Cameron | Planet Calypso Support

So you are misinterpreting their answer in your first post. They didn't say they won't do anything at all, they said if they don't contact the parties involved, they won't do anything in that particular case. Which is understandable since not all cases are the same.

 

[Thark]

Thanks Neil and sawachika, didn't know the term but that's what i meant when i said i "know" it's illigal in RL. cool info



Regards
Thark

 

[Mitch113]

Interesting as you are known to place things on auction with massive rip-off prices for BO. The kinds that make people loose all they got on the card huh...

Thats true ! And i explained to people who asked me : the only purpose for me is to advertise the item (to show it on the first page when people sort auction throw BO like i do cause most of the time i do that).
Lot of people knows me and i guaranty you that if anyone one place BO of any of my item by mistake i will refund him. I have noticed that in case 2 same items placed at auction, one with big BO and one with low or no BO, the one with big BO is more often bought. Particulary for BP.

You can open a subject about this practice if you want, i have no problem to talk about this. But this is not the subject of this post.

P.S. I am experienced enough to know that if someone would place a BO by mistake and i do not refund him i will have trouble with all comunity. People who do that usually don't use their avatar but alter one ...

 

[JD RACING]

its not worst that 5 or 6 year ago when the robot war was on and needed part for certain prize

and i baugt robot lense for 2k each come to find out they were worth tt

they were new and the first person to sell them made money poeple down the line paid for it

ma didnt explain how the prize was going to be handed out

if you bid on a over price item

your the only one at fault

there alot of item now coming down in price since 6 year ago

 

[Mitch113]

its not worst that 5 or 6 year ago when the robot war was on and needed part for certain prize

and i baugt robot lense for 2k each come to find out they were worth tt

they were new and the first person to sell them made money poeple down the line paid for it

ma didnt explain how the prize was going to be handed out

if you bid on a over price item

your the only one at fault

there alot of item now coming down in price since 6 year ago

Did the seller used an alter to manipulate the price ?

 

[Mitch113]

May be i should explain my own opinion, before to ask the community one

I think MA does not really care about us using alter avatar or not. At the end it does not create any trouble for MA, the trouble is only for players.
MA wrote it is forbidden in the EULA but MA never tried to work and organise something to block such kind of practice. Worst, MA, when it is evidence, never sanction the avatar who do that. I will give you an exemple at the end.

About this story i think it is bad, not only for the guy who loose some PEDs. But at the end the MU is changed forever, and other people trading this item have a false information in MU history. So the price of this item is alterate for a while and for all community. Some items are difficult to trade after such situation occurs because sellers think their item worth a value that nobody is ready to pay for.
This can't occur on a real stock market system as the way bidding are manage is completly different, and i always thought MA should implement the same bidding system (force people to fix Min and Max value, automatically trade the item when seller Min and Max correspond to a buyer Min and Max, like any exchange market system).
Problem is that such system require lot of orders (sell and buy orders) to make it works, so it can be difficult to implement it inside EU (but not impossible).

P.S. about the promished exemple : i think i am one of the only guy who was refund by MA because i was looted in space and i prooved to MA that the guy who had loot me used 2 avatars in the same time in such way that it was difficult for me to not be killed (it gave a huge advantage to the PK). MA refund me all my ores/enmatters at a 150% rate. MA did nothing againt the well known PK who did that.
For me this confirm MA never do anything against people with many avatars.

Hi,
Thank you for your patience. I forwarded your feed back to the management again and discussed it with them, and although it is not the usual procedure, we have decided to refund you the value of PED's that were taken from you, since this issue is regarded as a special case.
Our logs show that you were looted to a value of X PED, but since you have been caused such inconvenience over this issue, we have updated your PED card with Y PED.

Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Kind regards,
Patricia | Planet Arkadia Support

P.S. Why a alter avatars is forbidden to help you to heal your main avatar when you want to hunt big mobs without using an external fapper ? You do nothing bad, you dont stole money of other players ... But when some exploit are made, making some players loose peds, and it is proved it was used 2 avatars MA do nothing ...

 

[Mitch113]

Shill bidding, which is what you're talking about, would be included under the heading of market manipulation. It could also be called scamming in as much as it's against the EULA and so the shill is implicitly deceiving the other bidders into thinking they're an interested party. They are breaking the rules to gain an unfair advantage over other players.

Some cases are worse than others... for instance, a friend buying the item because it did not reach a certain "reserve" amount or because the seller changed his mind and doesn't want to sell anymore. But the only difference is in motivation. In practice, the end result could look identical to price manipulation, but that wouldn't be their intention. In EU auctions, if you have a "reserve" amount, set the SB. That's what it's for.

+1, you are true

It is not easy to understand if what was done is a scam or just a honnest player who decide to cancel his sell order.

 

[Amar]

Is this a widespread problem? My experience of trying to sell high end things on auction is that sometimes they will go the full 7 days and not sell at all, and yet other times they will sell at the same or even higher price. I would have thought that having a second avatar bid on your own item would carry significant risk of you ending up getting stuck buying your own item which, assuming the price was almost all markup, would cause you to lose a big wedge of PED to MA as tax. You would then have to try to sell the item at even higher MU to cover your losses.

I know market manipulation happens... and I hate it because IMO it acts to slow the economy. I just find it hard to imagine that someone could be truely sucessfull using the strategy in the original post.

 

[Mitch113]

Is this a widespread problem? My experience of trying to sell high end things on auction is that sometimes they will go the full 7 days and not sell at all, and yet other times they will sell at the same or even higher price. I would have thought that having a second avatar bid on your own item would carry significant risk of you ending up getting stuck buying your own item which, assuming the price was almost all markup, would cause you to lose a big wedge of PED to MA as tax. You would then have to try to sell the item at even higher MU to cover your losses.

I know market manipulation happens... and I hate it because IMO it acts to slow the economy. I just find it hard to imagine that someone could be truely sucessfull using the strategy in the original post.

MA can avoid this problem by refunding the fees if the item is not sold ... MA does not want ... It costs MA nothing if we use auction, thats not a real life auction.

I think the method i exposed is used often. I saw 2 or 3 posts already about this subject these last months, if i am right. I think it occured on the Asto TEN unL recently also.

 

[xaph]

market manipulation happens... and I hate it because IMO it acts to slow the economy. I just find it hard to imagine that someone could be truely sucessfull using the strategy in the original post.

Correct, usually it leads to hyper inflation of a item cost giving diverse results on what markets are willing to pay: thus market hesitancy to invest at all !

 

[Jimmy B]

The support answered me that they will do nothing in such case !! They will not punish the guy with 2 avatars and they will not revert the auction. (Exact answer is : "if investigation team does not contact you it means the auction will not be reverted")

Well, like others have said, MA may decide there is no evidence of shillbidding in a particular case. But also, just because they don't decide to revert the auction doesn't mean they'll do nothing. MA don't typically publicise bans, it doesn't mean they don't happen.

In general, it's tough for MA to revert an auction in the way you describe. There's no easy way to be sure that someone else wouldn't have bid if the alleged shillbidder hadn't. At the end of the day whoever won the auction made a voluntary choice to bid the price they did. I'd say shillbidders are more detrimental to the community as a whole, and to the reliability of market histories, than to any one individual.

 

[SHY]

Thats true ! And i explained to people who asked me : the only purpose for me is to advertise the item (to show it on the first page when people sort auction throw BO like i do cause most of the time i do that).
Lot of people knows me and i guaranty you that if anyone one place BO of any of my item by mistake i will refund him. I have noticed that in case 2 same items placed at auction, one with big BO and one with low or no BO, the one with big BO is more often bought. Particulary for BP.

You can open a subject about this practice if you want, i have no problem to talk about this. But this is not the subject of this post.

P.S. I am experienced enough to know that if someone would place a BO by mistake and i do not refund him i will have trouble with all comunity. People who do that usually don't use their avatar but alter one ...

Maybe lots of people know you if you say so. But not everyone knows you and are updated about what you are up to. When i saw your stuff at auction the first tought what came up in my mind is: This guy is trying to trick people. You are saying that you can guarantee that you would give the peds back, but those are JUST words.

How about this: A player makes a mistake, didnt read your name and loses his peds. HOW will you give the peds back? And even if you would make a topic on forum or scream around on the chat trying to give the peds back about this mistaken sale, how will you know who the real person is that bought it?

And when this item of yours gets sold at the immense high MU. It will show in the MU graph... so wouldnt that be market manipulation? Because its a sale that should not be happened at the BO, because that BO is for "Advertising", and not the price you are looking for to get it sold at.

If you want to "Advertise" like this, be my guest. But there are other ways to advertise i believe making it less risky for other players.

 

[Luckycharm]

Maybe lots of people know you if you say so. But not everyone knows you and are updated about what you are up to. When i saw your stuff at auction the first tought what came up in my mind is: This guy is trying to trick people. You are saying that you can guarantee that you would give the peds back, but those are JUST words.

How about this: A player makes a mistake, didnt read your name and loses his peds. HOW will you give the peds back? And even if you would make a topic on forum or scream around on the chat trying to give the peds back about this mistaken sale, how will you know who the real person is that bought it?

And when this item of yours gets sold at the immense high MU. It will show in the MU graph... so wouldnt that be market manipulation? Because its a sale that should not be happened at the BO, because that BO is for "Advertising", and not the price you are looking for to get it sold at.

If you want to "Advertise" like this, be my guest. But there are other ways to advertise i believe making it less risky for other players.

Well to be honest... the thought I had when I saw this thread was hey here's that auction rip-off scummer. Now he is also trying to get MA and public support for using an alt to skew up his bids in hopes someone will accidentally make a disasterous bid.

I try to keep an eye on people doing this kind of things and pirating etc so I know who to be careful or unwiling with when conducting trades, bidding on items or providing services to.

 

[jetsina]

I'm not surprised that support aren't doing much if people have a lack of information to make their suspicions clearer in the first place.
Being able to show that a kill in space was aided by using an alt is a bit lucky, in my opinion, but helped by seeing the names of those involved.

With auctions, no player sees who buys an item at BO, and the seller will not know who bids in the last few minutes either if not at an auction terminal. Although I want to get a high mu for what I am selling, I want to know that my sales are genuine too.

I think it would thus help a lot to be given the name of the buyer on the info message that comes after a sale. If better advertising results from putting a high BO, getting it higher up the sort lists, then at least the OP would know who to contact if someone clicks BO by mistake. It is possible to want to be clever AND honest at the same time!

It would also be easier to see if a market you are involved with is suffering from any kind of manipulation attempts. This would be a first step towards being able to report suspicious activity more reliably!

Please consider this MA! - Name the buyer on the auction sale info message! (maybe even inform all bidders of the buyer when the auction ends...)