It’s been happening off and on for a while, but they keep changing slightly.
Now my server has a couple of AH bots who post a single stack of a trade item, like desolate leather as an example, at half the current normal price.
Just 1 single leather at a time, but every 30s or so they post another.
If you keep buying them out at half price, they just keep going. They stop and buy up anything posted at the same price if the qty goes over 200, then right back to posting a single piece of leather.
Any time of day, I see the same bots on the same items. I don’t always play at the same time of day but I always run into the same one posting leather any day of the week and any time.
Sure it could be coincidence and this guy has the same erratic schedule as me, but it feels… unlikely.
Either way this odd behavior is a bane on the AH and this isn’t the only item impacted, I’ve seen them on all kinds of goods and most of em go away after a couple reports. This leather bot is resilient though and just won’t die.
They do it to get ppl to accidentally post their goods for cheap, and then the bots buy it up and resell it. This scam is only possible because some people don’t look at the screen when they post on the AH.
il admit if i have a item for example Ore and a stack is lets say 4k ill put mine up for 2k if i have 5 stacks all 5 will go up for 2k…I always undercut by a lot
Wyrmrest Accord auction house is under attack by a bot, buys up every food/pot/flask 24/7 and sets them up 10,000%. Needed a regional auction house years ago, big servers have the same kind of market a regional market would be already, and dead servers are used to exploit to extreme degrees.
On my server some lowlife posts a few of common trade goods at absurd prices. 411,000g for a Large Brilliant Shard, 723,000g for a Peacebloom, etc. All the common trade goods have these listings, and sometimes they are the only ones available.
The other day I was trying to buy 100 of an herb, and I must have fumble-fingered when I typed it in because I watched it select all of the herb that were available (which were something like 100 at 1g, 500 at 5g, and 3 at 525,675g). I thought it was a “bug” then I realized I must have accidentally typed that I wanted to buy 1000 instead of 100, and it highlighted all that were available. I didn’t even have the gold on hand if I’d carelessly/autopilot gone ahead with the purchase, but I bet some people have the gold and mis-click and those occasional goofs are what make it worthwhile for this miscreant to keep posting this smorgasbord of absurdly inflated auctions.
Someone also keeps buying armor I’ve listed, and re-listing it at inflated prices. It’s crafted gear from rare/discontinued recipes and they must be following some sort of guide or addon that tells them to buy it at such-and-such price. This seems kind of stupid to me, because I keep re-crafting and relisting those items at reasonable prices. Awhile back they added the “made by” to the AH interface so you can actually see that this genius is listing something “made by” me. And that I’m listing one, also made by me, at a fraction of the price. I have no idea if there is any profit to be made by this flipper doing this, but I can’t see how there could be.
By the auction houses I always put raid markers on the bots heads and then ask the people who are in the area to report them.
Usually they report them, which is a big help to blizzard. Out in the world I aggro mobs so they can kill the bots. I enjoy watching them splat on the ground and stay there for an inordinate amount of time.
I hate bots with a passion. You want to see a million more bots than I’ve ever seen in WoW? Do pvp in FFXIV LMAO!
I used to farm super hard core mode.
I would farm everything you could think of and sell it on AH.
This was back when Auctioneer was sort of new.
I would do this all day sell, farm,sell farm… then I wake up in the morning.
2 players ran up to me and they both whispered to me exclaming:
Holy cow man you have tons listed in AH! like WTH!! LOL
Yeah and I undercut a lot very often.
The latest tactic on AH I see is for example of any item:
30 leather buy for 3,000 gold
But if you want 31 leather then that 1 extra lather is 700,000 gold lol!!!
AH manipulation like this happens all the time. Over in Classic, for example, you will often see a herb on the AH for a 1s bid and a buyout of 10g. Thats done to put their item at the top of the AH list because it has the lowest price on Bid even though the buyout price is higher than most of the other sales. Its to trick people into buying their item at a higher price because the person doesnt want to scan down and find out the cheaper items on buyout. If they dont use some form of AH add on, they can easily spend much more than they intended.
They list a single item, like 1 piece of leather, every 30s without fail for half the going rate.
They will keep doing this until someone lists 200+ at the same price buy them all out and continue listing at that price.
It’s eerily consistent and can be a good way to stock up cheap if you snipe the bots goods.
I don’t know for 100% certain they are bots, but if it quacks like a duck…
Its likely a bot. Its one reason I believe they need to put a dismount zone around all mailboxes. Most of this is done by bots on bruto mounts because they can do the turnaround very fast. If they have to go into the AH to do it then go out to the mailbox it puts a time gap in when other people can snipe lower sale items. And if they cant access the mailbox by doing that on their bronto, they have use the mount AH just to buy and sell without access to immediate incoming mail.
Its a legit tactic. A jerk move? Yes but, its still something thats allowed within the rules. Its not even really clear whether they’re botting to do so or not.