San
Elite
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- Aug 5, 2007
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- Sandal San Tolk
Since we have increased awareness of wrongdoing now 
, I think it is high time for getting serious about battling another menace in this RCE, namely more or less blatant attempts to trick you out of your money using various means of manipulation and exploitation of known human weaknesses using the auction house.
To do this, I would like to dedicate this thread to the posting of screenshots of auctions or auction orders you believe are created with malicious intent. There shouldn't be lengthy discussions about them right here, though it's probably unavoidable sometimes to clarify false positives.
In keeping with forum rules and to prevent all previous work from getting wiped, you MUST edit out the names. This is easily done with the simplest of all graphics programs, if you don't know how and don't want to learn it please refrain from posting. In the (foreseeable) event that people can't remain reasonable for half an hour and insist on getting it closed or deleted, there is the Wayback Machine and other domains but we'd be robbed of a tool right where it matters. Hence those who go about destroying it may be seen on the side of the fraudsters it is targeting.
We know that MindArk monitors this forum. We will not get to learn about individual actions taken and there is no point asking about them. The purpose here is to increase public awareness of patterns of fraud, and by this to counter frustration about perceived lack of closure-giving responses when submitting such cases to support. You know why they can't, but you also need a way to deal with the feeling of powerlessness. I have filed several support cases in this vein but can't keep up with the sheer frequency of these things appearing, much more so since the ability to file a support ticket from within the game was removed.
Remember also that such a deceptive transaction would be reversible and punishable under Swedish law, which is above the "all trades are final" rule inside our little bubble. The company's canned response "you should always pay attention..." will not be sufficient once someone decides to fight. Only the trouble of going through the motions, and people obviously not needing their money or they would, makes most perps get away so easily. Shaming and bullying folks who come forward having made such mistakes serves no purpose other than making the game less safe for yourself.
So, I want to start this with a scheme I see quite frequently, the creation of an auction with the obvious purpose to entrap players with a large ped card who, blurry after hours of grinding or lazy or inattentive for any other reason, would use the leftmost up arrow to buy out an item instead of doing it the safe but tedious way. The buyout price here is so cleverly set that the last two digits show the usual or a plausible markup for this item, exploiting a psychological property in human perception which is liable for blinding out the zeroes to the left all the way up to the hammer. It must be working often enough since they are even willing to pay a substantial fee for the listing. (Another possible explanation might be that they're attempting to pull markups up, but deem it unlikely here. Also that this listing itself is made in error seems unlikely since the price is targeted so accurately.)
Please post what you find, and please don't forget to edit out the names.
, I think it is high time for getting serious about battling another menace in this RCE, namely more or less blatant attempts to trick you out of your money using various means of manipulation and exploitation of known human weaknesses using the auction house.To do this, I would like to dedicate this thread to the posting of screenshots of auctions or auction orders you believe are created with malicious intent. There shouldn't be lengthy discussions about them right here, though it's probably unavoidable sometimes to clarify false positives.
In keeping with forum rules and to prevent all previous work from getting wiped, you MUST edit out the names. This is easily done with the simplest of all graphics programs, if you don't know how and don't want to learn it please refrain from posting. In the (foreseeable) event that people can't remain reasonable for half an hour and insist on getting it closed or deleted, there is the Wayback Machine and other domains but we'd be robbed of a tool right where it matters. Hence those who go about destroying it may be seen on the side of the fraudsters it is targeting.
We know that MindArk monitors this forum. We will not get to learn about individual actions taken and there is no point asking about them. The purpose here is to increase public awareness of patterns of fraud, and by this to counter frustration about perceived lack of closure-giving responses when submitting such cases to support. You know why they can't, but you also need a way to deal with the feeling of powerlessness. I have filed several support cases in this vein but can't keep up with the sheer frequency of these things appearing, much more so since the ability to file a support ticket from within the game was removed.
Remember also that such a deceptive transaction would be reversible and punishable under Swedish law, which is above the "all trades are final" rule inside our little bubble. The company's canned response "you should always pay attention..." will not be sufficient once someone decides to fight. Only the trouble of going through the motions, and people obviously not needing their money or they would, makes most perps get away so easily. Shaming and bullying folks who come forward having made such mistakes serves no purpose other than making the game less safe for yourself.
So, I want to start this with a scheme I see quite frequently, the creation of an auction with the obvious purpose to entrap players with a large ped card who, blurry after hours of grinding or lazy or inattentive for any other reason, would use the leftmost up arrow to buy out an item instead of doing it the safe but tedious way. The buyout price here is so cleverly set that the last two digits show the usual or a plausible markup for this item, exploiting a psychological property in human perception which is liable for blinding out the zeroes to the left all the way up to the hammer. It must be working often enough since they are even willing to pay a substantial fee for the listing. (Another possible explanation might be that they're attempting to pull markups up, but deem it unlikely here. Also that this listing itself is made in error seems unlikely since the price is targeted so accurately.)
Please post what you find, and please don't forget to edit out the names.
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