There are many shady methods that players utilize to make money on the auction house. The methods try to trick a player with confusing quantity and price strategies that look like legitmate prices but are really just a visual trick that can easily go unnoticed if you don’t have certain auction house addons showing you price per unit.
This trick I’m about to explain has been around for a while but the use of it has grown in recent weeks, particularly with Mammoth Cutters and Saronite Razorheads.
The Scam
A player will post a stack of 100 mammoth cutters or saronite razorheads at a price just under the going rate of 1,000 ammo. What ends up happening is a buyer sees a stack of Ammo going for 2 gold cheaper than the next auction and buys it up (assuming it was a stack of 1,000) but is duped when they collect and discover the auction was 900 quantity short.
The reason this is easy to manipulate is because the default blizzard auction house UI sorts auctions by lowest “total” price, so those 100 auctions show up first.
As you can see, the price of the first batch looks very attractive to a buyer, half the normal price! but in the heat of trying to grab a quick deal, they fail to realize that is a stack of 100 and not 1000.
If you mouse over the icon you can clearly see you are paying 6s 65c per UNIT, which is 6x higher than the average price of 1s 7c.
The scam is even worse when people are utilizing the Auctioneer UI, look at the screenshot below how it shows item quantity:
Someone well versed with Auctioneer could tell instantly that the first batch is no good because of the PCT on the far right showing it is at 511% of the average value. The quantity of 1000 being shortened though could confuse new users of auctioneer.
Be careful and always check Price Per Unit
By always using the “show stacks as price per unit” you can avoid a mistake of buying something way over priced.
While it isn’t against the rules to do this, it is in a very grey area and I’ve chosen not to profit from it.
I do believe in getting gold by any means necessary, however this crosses the line for me and I just wouldn’t feel good at the end of the day making someone else feel ripped off and cheated.
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Darn, I tried this scam and it didn’t work. Don’t know if I can be bothered to try it again.
It works, you can see from examples on gevlons blog : http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2009/12/morons-of-week_12.html that people are getting sales from it.. but I think its a scammy way to make gold and there are so many other things you could do.
I wouldn’t say it’s a scam and the players are not duped. As Gevlon would say – “Only the M&S buy them up”.
I agree it works. I bought 1 stack of 1000, split into 10 stacks and sold them all.
It’s hardly a scam.
I suspect someone got caught out by this ‘marketing ploy’ and is now annoyed about it!!!
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They may be stupid for buying them, but you know they are trying to buy stacks of 1,000, who would pay 6x MORE for 1/10th the ammo? I’m trying to help them out and save them frustration.
I understand in other markets you can split up stacks into singles and charge a little more, but that is because people don’t want a stack of 20, they only need singles and are willing to pay a little premium on that.
First of all, this is not a ’scam’!
The default UI, clearly shows that it is 100 as does auctioneer (your screenshot is flawed, mine clearly says 1000 not 10…) Now the fact that ammo normally sells in full stacks, and for some reason someone sells it for 100 instead of the ‘normal’ 1000 does not make this a scam.
People just need to pay attention, I don’t see people whine about a ’scam’ of someone selling 20 linen cloth for 10g and someone else selling 2 for 9g.
If your lazy and not so smart you will make a mistake and click the first thing that comes up, because it has the lowest price, that does not make it a scam, it just makes you as the buyer a moron!
Blizzard is also very clear about this, the item and its price are clearly stated and when you want to buy it you need to confirm that you want to buy -item- for X-gold. If you fail to see your own mistakes, then you deserves to be a victim of this ’scam’
Now please refrain from using words like scam in the future on a legitimate business practice like this one.
@Ceili
I haven’t altered my auctioneer, that is how it shows stacks by default.
The point is that you are prying on people who make a mistake and are buy something quick without realizing it wasn’t actually a full stack. Why would ANYONE pay 6 times the amount for ammo when they could get larger stacks cheaper per unit?
You know that they are only buying your ammo by accident and you are taking advantage of them for that. I made this post trying to help those players be a little more aware so they don’t feel duped and avoid buying stuff from people like you.
If your are happy making gold that way, it is not for me to judge, and this post isn’t aimed at you..but I believe there is a certain line where ethics comes into play.
It’s almost like those people who give mats to someone to craft them an item but the person they gave the mats to never really even had the profession in the first place but they take it and walk away.
You could say “their fault for not checking their armory or asking for a professions link” but really it is a shitty thing to do to someone else trying to enjoy the game.
I am all for making profit, and I incorporate some “goblin” tactics, but I have a certain level of ethics and I want to help my readers avoid getting duped.
Sorry, I don’t buy it. I haven’t altered my auctioneer either, and it clearly shows the difference between the stack sizes. Besides, if you’re using Auctioneer, it ALSO shows you that the price is vastly inflated over market. So really, there’s no excuse.
That said, I do support notifying people about this AH maneuver. That’s what any good consumer watch group would do, after all, and we need those in Azeroth pretty badly. (But still, my bank will continue to use this tactic until people catch on and price it down to the unit price of 1000. It’ll happen eventually, I guarantee you that.)
First of all, i don’t call that a scam, but i don’t use that method to earn money either. Why?
I’m playing WoW to have fun, not to get rich in-game, which means nothing for me in real life.
Of course you always need gold to buy this and that, but why waste time splitting them up and gathering them together again if they don’t get sold?
Well, now to why i think those splitted stacks are getting sold. Now, imagine that you only need 10 Copper ore, either for a quest or for something else. And imagine they could stack up to 100.
Would you buy 100 for 50g or buy 10 for 10g? (100 for 50g = 50s each, 10 for 10g = 1g each). I would, if i wasn’t broke (like only haveing 10-30g in all), buy the stack which is splitted into 10, as i don’t need more.
I’m sure that many others will do as i, because 5g or 10g difference in all won’t make a difference for a lvl 80 (as they can farm for 1 hour and earn 10x that amount). It’s not only the little difference in money that makes me think that people will do as i, but it’s also waste of time to first buy 100 Ores and then try to sell 90 back.
But of course, some would do it.
Scam? Nope
Mistake? I don’t think so.
/CRL
Thecurzer, Rotro, Shatro, Exécútiònèr, etc. etc.
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Gold Source: Auction House