Beware scam in auctions: (in General)

A Blade of Thuringwethil [74x20] (+20) (Katana -- name expires in 10 months 9 days) for sale by jamenjaw

This KATANA is for sale for 1 million cb2. Its NW is about 500k.

Just watch before you think its a great deal.

Just a friendly warning since I almost bid on it myself.

You know, the whole, naming equipment the name of other equipment thing was cute at first, but now its simply annoying because its a joke that isn't funny anymore, and people seem to be using it to actually try and deceive people into buying something because they think it is something completely different.

I think it is funny as hell. All you have to do is click on the item and in the bidding window it shows you if it is named. :^)

You know, the whole, naming equipment the name of other equipment thing was cute at first, but now its simply annoying because its a joke that one person finds funny, and people seem to be using it to actually try and deceive people into buying something because they think it is something completely different.

They are purposely setting a minimum bid well above it actual value. If 'G.I. Joe Kung Fu Grip' was on sale in FS/WTB it would sell for much less and if I remember it has much better stats then that weapon. This is then a deliberate attempt to deceive someone.

I however am no stranger to this weapon as I have even managed to bid on it as it traveled from one person to the next. Don't laugh because aside from me when I was a complete newb there were also a host of respectable people who have fallen for this 'harmless' trick.

Stupidity tax (or carelessness if you prefer). The base damage is not the same as a BTH, which you see on the main auction page.

Congratulations, you've found the $1,000,000 cash stash hidden by the on the 26th May 2006.
Make a new thread in the general forum telling everyone what you've found then let Admin G_Beee know and he'll make sure you get the Pirates treasure. [Update: treasure found ]

The line between being stupid and being trusting does NOT exist. They would only be stupid if they had to assume that anything or everything in this game is a scam. Honestly, I don't think people should have to think that way all the time.

Or, another way to put it (in my eyes) is as the difference between fraud and outright stealing. Stealing is easy -- you take something that belongs to someone else. Fraud, on the other hand, can sometimes be judged by the "intent" to it, and even though I am not a lawyer, I watch a lot of Law & Order on TV. This could definitely be argued as "fraud", and throwing it in the "stupidity tax" bucket is somewhat of an apathetic cop-out.

Since the starting bid and BIN are not proportional to the market value of a katana, this has been setup to extract stupidity tax.

IMHO another definition of a scam.

It all has to do with the intent of the seller.

If the starting bid had been like 250k and people outbid each other and reached a very high price, i could see it as a stupidity tax, now unfortunately not

Phaete,

You got the point exactly.

At 1 million min and 4 min buy now, its looks like a normal set of bids for a BoTH.

Lately there's been a lot of unusual auctions.

There should be something done to scammers who sell stuff like lessers and compounds for stupidly high prices.

Well, it isn't all that bad. It's pretty obvious actually. If such an occasion did occur where somone did fall for it I'd side with them. But I think your making a big deal over something quite harmless.

Also admins don't protect you from loaning banned money or they don't return thing why should they intervene here?

They are not required to intervene, the community is just protecting itself. If Ranger wanted an admin to do something specific about it then he would have posted in public record and not in general.

Basically I posted this thread in a hope that anyone who goes to auctions will first read this, and then be prepared when they check the auctions.

Just so someone does not "fall" for the "scam" that I see it being.

Perhaps a way to "fix" this problem in auctions would be to display named items in a different font/color, so it would be more apparent to would-be bidders

The last person to buy that particular item in the Auctions was Nixon for $450k. How it got back into circulation is the main question we should ask, if I had it, I'd sit on it until it expired.
As a newer player myself, I'm highly offended that someone would try to scam someone like this. There is enough "scamming" in the game already.

I said I would do the same thing Mikel if I had ever ended up with that thing. Glad it's not just me.

Well, I don't see the problem. A Blade of Thuringwethil [74x20] +(20). We all know that 74 is a Katana. It is even listed in auctions with the other Katana's. What is the problem? You see 74 and know that it is a Katana. Very simpel :)

Wow, thanks Ranger! I almost wanted to bid for it. Almost paid stupidity tax.

Mokaba, Your answer is nothing more then a "it's not my problem" solution. I bet you would never fall for such a scam, but let's put you into the shoes of a new player. Imagine you just got your first million and you see the deal of a life-time, BoTH for only 1 mil, you don't have the base damage memorized yet so you can't remember that a Kat is 74x and BoTH is 75x and so you bid all you have. I mean why should you know any better, have you at this point even owned a BoTH? No, instead what you know is that a BoTH is worth having and it's not bad to build a tank around it.

Now as you go to see if anyone outbids you you notice something. It's not what you thought it was and now you're about to pour your first million into a worthless named Kat. Yeah, maybe the new player is stupid, or maybe he just isn't jaded and paranoid yet, but this experience will make him very untrusting from here on. Maybe you know better and that's good for you, but I bet a new player putting his first million into a worthless item will hurt him more then it would hurt you to waste a million now. So who loses most in this set up? The person who can afford such a mistake the least is who.

BoTH is 73 Base Damage, not 75, but this only expands your example Vestax :)

woops
i put on the dunce cap sence i did not even see that myself until i read the post.
will not be put back into auctions until name time runs out.
sorry guys

and yes i was trying to make some money so i could pay down my loan
but sence it is a named katana it would help a bit but not much
lates
jamenjaw

Thanks for the correction Phaete, as you can tell I myself haven't owned or forged or borrowed one myself.

one second jamenjaw.....if you thought it was a BTh before you saw this thread.....well, put it this way no matter what....

Why, in God's name, would you put the price at 1 mil for either the katana, OR the BTh. I think you did know and you tried to get money off of it...lol...=X Not trying to be mean here, but thats what it seems like.... >.<

I think people are a little overprotective of what they say. This is a scam and certainly appears to be mean-spirited. Period.

Obviously, the most that I say should be done is maybe changing the auction color names and alerting potential buyers. Otherwise he can sell his item for what ever he wants you can't guess his intentions, It's the same if someone sold a corn to the store and someone picked it up and kept it.

Enough. It's taken care of and won't be happening again, at least not with this stupid item.

As for this: "It's the same if someone sold a corn to the store and someone picked it up and kept it." Yes, we frown on that, too, really.

Thanks, Bast. I was going to buy it from the seller, but they told me you got it first.

i think we should just forbid naming items with names that are already used by the game, such as dagger, sling, BoTh, exe, ect.... everyone knows there isnt an item sold by the store named A Super Soul Slaying Katana of Darkness, so everyone would know its named.

the problem is just allowing this process to happen, when i assume it would just take a simple code with a list of names you cant use when trying to name an item. change month anyone?

Sure, Soul - it's been a quiet change month, anyway.

"Just a named katana. [74x20] (+20) (Katana -- name expires in 22 months 4 days) for sale by Bast"

Almost unrecognisable.
Nice solution.

/me bows for Bast

I remember when the following items were all spawning (yes spawning) in the CB1 stores as genuine items.

Wispy Silk Negligee
Scarf
Leg Warmers
Satin Gloves
Wonder Women Bracelets

Needless to say Todd and Mushu got all excited.

Jon introduced the items to us via stores and auctions on April 1 2003 ;)