Is selling ice to eskimos considered bad anywhere in the world? I always presumed it was something positiive to show how good a salesman is.
In Sweden, there are "phonesalesmen" that calls elderly people, and (by not taking "no" as an asnwer) make them subscribe to phone services, and when a relative of the elderly person Contacts them they get the information that they got a phone subscription with "Corporate" terms (ie, no regret policy and takes 3 years to resign from).
Or call someone "You just won a competition", and when the person on the other side just says their name they take it as a "yes". Time after time. In some cases it's the same people behind, but they just change to Another Company name.
Often these shady compaines hire Young people that gets fired up by the competition, so they would put all their efforts into it to get a "yes". There is a proposal that agreements made over the phone shouldn't be valid until there is a signed agreement, but then the compaines respond with "we provide good jobs for Young people"...
Back to the original question. Sometimes it's about Selling a Product that seems to be unnecessary, but then it shows up that the customer wants a ´quality´ that isn't availible just by picking from the ground. For instance, Saudi arabians importing sand, because they want a finer sand than what they can find in the desert (to make Concrete). Or even snow plows ... to plow off sand off their roads.
But on the other hand there are shady Sellers also. IRL it's the provision drived phone salesmen that won't take "no" as an answer even if the buyer is 80+, senile and hearing-impaired; in Entropia it's the people who sells Jester D-1 to beginners claiming it's a good "noob gun". Even if it's possible to sell anything to a hearing impaired elderly person, I woun't call that elderly person "a natural born buyer". Or that mentally challenged person who during a festival passed by a Booth with phone subscription Sellers, got a bag with iphones and ipads and next month got a subscription bill at 1000 SEK [Think PEDs]/month. (Think of it: How likely is that that someone who actually need two ipnones and an ipad seeks up a temporary stand in the middle of the street and signs up for a very expensive agreement, rather than visit the store of the phone Company that is located 250m from there...)
For Entropia, the problem I guess would be compulsive gamers. Just Think of how it works: If there are great loot swings and you have a budget, yuo will get down to 0 pretty fast, and if you then telling them "you're sampling over a for short period", it's like telling someone who bought 10 lottery tickets to keep on buying until they hit the jackpot. Some people do manage that, others don't - and the problem with those who don't aren't in the end paid by the ticket vendor, but rather things like employers and insurange companies, when the one who's been playing above their budget starts to commit frauds and thefts to continue their compulsive gaming. Just consider since there are peopel who are withdrawing five (and maybe six digit) numbers - sometimes as profit, there must be people who have deposited the same amount.
