Cranberry of Runetotem found another genius:
Jason found the classic, glyphseller telling you how to price. I love how they always ignore the "if the price is too low buy them and resell" line. I start to think that they are not morons, they just hope that the recipient is moron, follow their "advice" instead of sending it here. However that case they are morons as sending letters to non-morons backfire (as a certain shady figure learned it the hard way):
No week without epic thread! (sender did not give WoW name and I don't post real names of non-morons)
And another one! (by Rhetorical Exodar US)
Geegolly of Runetotem sent me his scheme how he prey on those who don't have auctioneer and also don't see the difference between "000" and "100": "Engineers are the main supply of the Rare(blue) ammo, and these stacks are created in bundles of 1000. Blizzard's default auction UI does not display 1000 properly so the "1000" looks like "000". What I do is list stacks of ammo in 100 quantities. Most people think they are getting a great deal and don't think twice that someone is only selling a stack of 100. In the screen shot of a default UI you will see what I mean, the 100 stack is very hard to tell apart from the 1000 stack. So I am free to sell ammo at 200-400% markup.":
Moonchild & Co. bought a vendored pet for 50G, and sold it on the AH:
Rousallier of Maelstrom US was very proud of her first moron letter. She can also be proud of the classy reply:
Finally: how much spellpower and defense rating needed for an arms warrior? - (by Dmitry)
His Achievements:
- Got outDPSed by a healer in AK heroic
- Used the [STFU L2P Warrior] ability replying to some help attempts in same group afterwards
Jason found the classic, glyphseller telling you how to price. I love how they always ignore the "if the price is too low buy them and resell" line. I start to think that they are not morons, they just hope that the recipient is moron, follow their "advice" instead of sending it here. However that case they are morons as sending letters to non-morons backfire (as a certain shady figure learned it the hard way):
No week without epic thread! (sender did not give WoW name and I don't post real names of non-morons)
And another one! (by Rhetorical Exodar US)
Geegolly of Runetotem sent me his scheme how he prey on those who don't have auctioneer and also don't see the difference between "000" and "100": "Engineers are the main supply of the Rare(blue) ammo, and these stacks are created in bundles of 1000. Blizzard's default auction UI does not display 1000 properly so the "1000" looks like "000". What I do is list stacks of ammo in 100 quantities. Most people think they are getting a great deal and don't think twice that someone is only selling a stack of 100. In the screen shot of a default UI you will see what I mean, the 100 stack is very hard to tell apart from the 1000 stack. So I am free to sell ammo at 200-400% markup.":
Moonchild & Co. bought a vendored pet for 50G, and sold it on the AH:
Rousallier of Maelstrom US was very proud of her first moron letter. She can also be proud of the classy reply:
Finally: how much spellpower and defense rating needed for an arms warrior? - (by Dmitry)
His Achievements:
- Got outDPSed by a healer in AK heroic
- Used the [STFU L2P Warrior] ability replying to some help attempts in same group afterwards
36 comments:
That Arms Warrior is a complete FAIL.
Using spellpower, defense and resilience for Arms PvE.
Even if it was PvP, Def and SP is useless for him.
That's a moron! Thanks Gevlon and Dmitry for sharing the lulz.
I am confused as to why Cranberry would think of buying the undervalued scrolls. It's true that the moron in question is better off selling the mats he "farmed for free" than 100g scrolls, but if someone buys those scrolls, he can never resell them for even price of mats as long as the moron keeps producing them. Therefore, while the moron has made small gains for undervaluing his work, our Cranberry there is making a loss for his investment and is the real moron.
Rousallier lied - now she has another 99 silver, 70 copper after the postage, so she didn't send all her silvers and coppers!
@Lupius: the moron has no infinite amount of mats. He can just sell what he farmed. As long as the demand is higher than HIS supply, Cranberry is fine.
I like how people are sarcastic when they want you to do them a favor. "Y'see, there are these smaller units of currency..." - at that point, I'd continue heavily undercutting you just because I don't like you, regardless of profit opportunities.
I'm gonna have to give that Hatchling a shot - I wouldn't mind ending up with one if it doesn't sell.
That Obsidial Hatchling sale for 800g, the buyer is called Illithia. This is too wierd, but in Greek, that actualy means "a stupid female person". Just FYI, but it made me laugh.
Anyone else notice the level 70 pvp cloak on that Arms Warrior? :)
At the part by "Geegolly of Runetotem",
How is that not a scam? You're trying to sell stuff for 336% of the normal price by exploiting the fact that some people can't see the difference between the two stack sizes... They believe you are selling them a stack of 1.000 arrows/bullets, but instead you only give them 100 for the same price. Surely they can see the difference with a bit of attention, but that doesn't make it not a scam.
How is that not a scam? You're trying to sell stuff for 336% of the normal price by exploiting the fact that some people can't see the difference between the two stack sizes
Exactly, this is a gold scamming blog since these are the only gold making tips you will see here. Sure these people may be morons, but what does that make the rest of you? Goblins or Thieves.
Gevlon their is a saying about throwing stones and living in a glass house. People see right through you.
About the Arms warrior: his armory profile looks quite dumb indeed. But being out-dpse'ed by a healer... happened to me too one time :). Heroic daily, the tank was a ilvl200 warrior twink. I was running my 220 twink ret holding back on damage because the tank didn't make enough threat. The ~230 "healer" (elemental shaman) however did not care about aggro and still was able to keep the tank and himself alive while pushing more damage than me :-)
@Anonymous.
It's called Darwinism.
Yeah, the ammo selling scheme is a bit of a scam. Still... officially there's nothing wrong with it.
That epic thread is quite funny too:
"inscription is not meant to be profitable. ".
And a ton of advice a la "buy them all out and relist them". Because obviously buying out an item that can easily be mass produced is a greatidea.
@ The last Anonymous
Actually there is nothing that could get him banned for doing it. You are free to put your stuff up for any price as long as it isn't ridiculous market manipulation. Additionally that is not a bug, as there are three dots after the number when you got more than 1000 items in a stack it's obvious that Blizzard did intend for it to work that way.
A bug would be if it displayed wrong number or didn't let you post them in stacks of 1000. Sure, it is morally wrong for some people but that doesn't make it forbidden.
I did the bullet thing and now I feel guilty. Was actually online when someone bought them all. Won't be doing that again. I'm a bad man!
The obsidian hatchling "scam" has been going on for a long time. I walked away with 5000g the first day of the patch.
When 3.3 hits they are releasing 2 more pets from the obsidian hatchling vendor. More easy gold:)
(offtopic)
would somebody get this guy a real blog header btw, this looks silly
{offtopic)
@2 posts above me
thats not bad, its being a goblin
prey on the M&S
@Anonymous
There are many types of business opportunities:
(1) Scam: the arrow thing is a scam...admittedly a funny scam - y'can easily make a few hundred a day off of it.
(2) Ignorance exploitation: Vendor pets for 500 g. You can make a few thousand off of it...then you run out of exceptional idiots.
(3) Service: Gevlon's inscription business is a real service. It lets everyone horde-side pick up any useful glyph for < 8 g from the AH. Otherwise, they'd be stuck looking for glyph sellers half the time. Here, you can make a few thousand a day by making everyone else's lives easier.
I suspect that most high-earning goblins fit into the service category.
or a little bit of all :>
@Anonymous said...
"The obsidian hatchling "scam" has been going on for a long time."
When selling vendor-sold vanity pets people actually get what they think they are buying, in this case they get 90% less then they will probably believe they are buying. In the case of vanity pets they either don't care about the gold and thus skip looking for details at websites such as Wowhead, or are simply too lazy to move to the vendor. In the case of the pets you are providing a service to them by spending the 5 minutes to travel to a vendor, buy it, mail it and finally put it at the AH, and once again, they get what they think they are getting.
It's probably not banable and surely only morons will fall for such a scam, but it remains a very lame and silly way to earn gold and it won't earn you any respect.
That ammo listing thing isn't really a scam but it's not very ethical either. I'm all for making tons of gold, and have thanks in part to greedygoblin, but I don't want to take advantage of another player by manipulating the listing because it doesn't display properly.
Re: Arrows
Blizzard isn't exactly known for being lenient in ambigous situations. If they feel its a scam, they will treat it as a scam and reply with bans, ignoring the fact that their fail UI is the real reason for the problems.
If you read Blizzard's TOS carefully, they have a clause that states that they can ban for "actions against the essence of the game".
Take BG afking for example. Maybe people think that afking (and not botting) will not get banned. But they are incorrect, bans have been handed out for "non-participation" in BGs.
I would love to see one of these ammo sellers get banned.
@Azzur, I'll let you know when I get banned.
@everyone else, as a commenter said earlier, the difference in stack postings is pretty obvious in a default UI, even more so in a modded UI. Why not take advantage of a moron that isn't paying attention?
ok saronite ore sells for 15g a stack.
someone lists 50 as single ore listings at 5g each.
Player buys 20 at 5g because he didnt go to second page and bought them because they are listing in order of price listed not price per unit.
This is essentially the same as the arrow "scam" as you are calling it.
Spitting stacks and selling for more is standard practice on AH, so why is it a scam when someon uses arrows to do it.
Caveat emptor.
@morningstar
because in your saronite example the buyer is mostly lazy. He know what he's buying and could have gotten it at a lower price if he scrolled the pages.
In the arrow example you are taking advantage and the buyer does NOT know what he's buying, he gets 10 times less the he thinks he's getting.
In the first you take advantage of someones laziness but the person gets what he is paying for. In the second example you still take advantage of laziness but the person DOESN't get what he thinks he's paying for.
no cant ageree. if a user cant tell the difference between a stack of 100 and a stack of 1000 its either stupidity, in which case its a stupid tax, or lazyness and the assumption that everyone sells full stacks.
The image clearly shows a difference between 100 arrow listing and 1000. the 100 is cut short the 100 isnt. if the user doesnt see this its no different than someone selling something at 10 gold when they meant to type in 100 gold, or buying a vendor pet at 500 times the vendor price. Its just lack of knowledge or shear stupidity or a mistake.
It is not a scam, it is playing on people presumptions and habits. But then so is selling vanity pets with the premise that its for charity and playing on peoples habit of not reading the small print and seeing only some of the money is charitable on only one pet and only for a limited period.
Re: Obsidian Hatchling
I, too, sold a few of these in the weeks after their inclusion in the game.
Consider this: if Blizzard were concerned that selling vendor items were such a horrific scam, they would make them BoA (or BoP) to prevent it. Hasn't happened in the last five years, and it won't happen in the next five. Why? It requires far too much micromanagement for zero return (i.e. where do you draw the line?).
Further, from a personal perspective, on vendor-sold items - I sometimes PURPOSELY buy vendor items from the AH for the convenience factor.
I powerleveled enchanting on a character this weekend for the purpose of stat min/maxing. One of the recipes that make it easier (though not required, but you'll spend a lot more for mats for alternative enchants) is for a Mana Oil (Major? Superior? I don't remember which...) recipe from a vendor in Silithus.
Do I want to spend 15-20 minutes minimum going to the armpit of Azeroth (more if I have to wait on a respawn)? Not really. So I paid 45g for an item that probably cost 2g at the vendor.
If people want to spend their time gathering those - more power to them. I'll happily pay a premium (to a point) for these out-of-the-way items.
about the pet:
one other explanation would be that the person mistook the Obsidian for 5 other kinds of raptors. But most likely it was lack of research.
arrows: when people are in a hurry (logging 2 minutes before the raid starts, for example), they wont pay attention for the things they need. you could say that the person who bought the arrows just bought a lesson: never underestimate the lengths people are prepared to go in making gold, so pay better attention :p
Ammo:
I sense great fail in the "Blizzard's default auction UI does not display 1000 properly" phrase, since, actually, default UI shows these numbers perfectly clear. So it's a "scam" only for those who use modified UIs, hence no pity for them, and let'em SUFFER.
I sold several stacks of 100 mammoth cutters for quite a bit of gold last night. I feel a bit guilty but meh, if people are that stupid I could care less.
LOVE the mammoth cutter AH tip.
This is a great addition to my AH gold making.
Buy 1000 cutters for 8g99s, sell 10 lots of 100 for 8g95s. It works so well!
Ellifain @ Khaz'goroth
One way to define a scam in a market is to ask if the exchange made a person better off or worse off. By any reasonable set of assumptions of rationality, people will only trade in "Pareto improving" interactions. In the case of the vendor pet, it may well be Pareto improving, as the selling is actually offering information value (i.e., she knew where to buy it and the buyer did not). Moreover, the utility of the buyer may have gone up more than the equivalent utilty had from spending the 800g on other products (albeit unlikely).
In the bullets case, however, it is unambiguously not a pareto improvement. Instead, this would be misidentification of product or just straight up deception. It's the equivilent of selling someone a used car without telling them the exhaust has been patched with duct tape. They MAY have been able to notice the flaw in the car, but many will not. In many locations, this transaction is illegal.
Summary: pets not a scam, bullets ARE a scam.
Bullets are not scam for those hunters, who just wanted to fill theyr quiver to [almost]full after the raid.
Selling crystallized elements for (Eternal/10)+n is not scam either.
Well if you just need 1 Crystallized Fire and its up for 4g, and Eternal Fire is up for 35g/piece i would still call this a Service.
I also woudn't buy 5 cars if i only need one.
However selling 100 Arrows when everyone expects them to be sold in stacks of 1000 is like selling half filled bottles.
It, obviously, works. But that is in my Opinion exploiting of the fact that people are used to buy them in stacks of 1000.
I wonder if the number of people who fall for that trick is going to decline after a while? Shure some m&s will always fall for it. But i wonder how many would fall for it twice?
I for myself prefer to earn gold by providing services, not by exploiting people.
I guess im still a social after all :<
Sorry, but the bullet scam is theft. You are deliberately creating a situation where people will make an honest mistake, to your benefit. This is not the case of smaller amounts being sold for a higher "per item" price as a convenience -- the bullets aren't being sold in stacks of 20 or 250, they are intentionally being sold in stacks of 100 in order to trick people.
Grow up Gevlon. You already equip your readers with the knowledge to make tons of money legitimately -- no reason to encourage them to scam other players.
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