It sucks, and is a shady tactic but is quite common. I see someone’s alt constantly listing stuff like that in the hopes they they will snag some sucker. It would require real GM’s to be able to take any sort of action, and blizzard does not value its customers enough to provide such a sort of service.
6 Likes
It is a scam and the player didn’t notice the scam. So that is blame on the scammer. An unfortunate lesson to the player that got scammed. However next time they might be aware of the scam.
6 Likes
Buyer beware, her fault for not taking 5 extra seconds to check the whole auction.
18 Likes
The seller didn’t hide the price, or pull the rug out from under the buyer.
He posted an item on the AH for a price, and the buyer paid the price. The lesson here is the buyer needs to pay attention.
14 Likes
Blizzard’s role shouldn’t be in policing this stuff outside of more direct scams (ie: offering a service and running off with the mats).
Their role should be reducing the capability to perform the more gray area ones which have followed the rules, but resulted in a lopsided trade.
For example what if you could only list a buyout price for 50 times greater than your list price? Suddenly you can’t list a 5g AH with a 2500g buyout, you’d have to go to 50g to get there and no one will see it because they aren’t looking down at 50g purchases.
This would also limit the amount you could get scammed since a 5g buyout can only be a 250g lose rather than a 2500g one. The only problem with this kind of changes (besides this being classic) is people tend tend adapt. If you break their scam they don’t give up and go home, they find a new way to scam.
1 Like
Fundamentally, everyone knows this is scam. Saying, “you should have known” or “you should have read” just reveals that you know it’s dishonest.
If this kind of scheme didn’t work, nobody would be using it. It is precisely because you can take advantage of unwary bidders and buyers that this is even practiced.
In reality, there’s no reason why the AH doesn’t give you the option to filter things by both lowest bid and buyout price at the same time.
This is the way Amazon and eBay work too.
12 Likes
Dishonest would be having the numbers hidden or being deceitful. The entire transaction was very clear, the buyer chose not to pay attention and read it. Not a scam.
16 Likes
So you think that phishing emails aren’t scams too? Those are also easy to avoid if you know how to read email headers and sender addresses.
A scam is a scam.
10 Likes
People need to stop blaming their own stupidity on others, you make the mistake so own up to it. I know in today’s world everyone is taught to be the victim, so this is common. Doesn’t make it right tho.
26 Likes
How is it a scam when items are posted for significantly higher costs than normal, you then click the item, click buyout, THEN CLICK ACCEPT WITH THE PRICE NEXT TO IT?
Serious question.
16 Likes
People actually fall for this stuff?
8 Likes
Buyer’s fault. Price is in plain sight.
Buyer pressed the wrong button, not the sellers fault.
It asks for confirmation you are paying XXXX gold for whatever. Buyer confirmed, again not the sellers fault.
Buyer’s fault.
I accidentally sold a Blood of the Mountain for 40s instead of 40g. Horrible feeling but nobody’s fault but my own.
Using a banking alt with limited funds so it cannot happen again.
9 Likes
“she” should probably make a ticket and you should probably stop whining on public forums that wont get “her” anywhere
1 Like
It’s a scam because the seller intentionally set it at that price in hopes somebody would click on it by accident. It was bait.
Do you know what a scam is?
8 Likes
Phishing emails are nothing like this situation lol
8 Likes
I haven’t ever fallen for one of these scams but I intentionally try to screw with them. If you bid on an item (not buyout) and they cancel it before the auction is over they have to pay the AH cut (5%) as a penalty for cancelling the auction.
Now the trick is not to just do the 1c bid which then only penalizes them 1c but type in a bid that will hurt to cancel (but they most certainly will)
Let’s say for example they are trying to sell things that normally go for 50g (like void crystals) with a 1c bid and a 5000g buyout. What you do is you type in a bid of 25g. You then continue to do this for as many items as you can/want. If they cancel (which they almost always will) they pay 1.25g on each cancellation while if they forget to cancel you just got something for half price and can resell for profit.
My motto, scam the scammers.
14 Likes
You don’t think the auction was a scam?
The dishonesty comes from “hiding” the true price with a super low bid price. While the true buyout price is still visible, the intent is to TRICK someone out of their money by buying something at a grossly inflated price.
Its trickery. It’s dishonest. It’s a scam.
5 Likes
Sounds like a personal problem for not paying attention
9 Likes
It’s scummy, and everyone obviously knows what the seller was trying to do.
But no it isn’t a scam. The price wasn’t changed, or manipulated in some way. The buyer just didn’t pay attention and hyper over paid for something. It was clear as day for the buyer to see what the price was, and had to confirm that they wanted to pay that much for it.
I more agree with Eonwe on this really.
11 Likes