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Margin Trading Scam continued...
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Ven Drakkar
One Asterisk
#1 - 2012-12-20 15:57:19 UTC
Look, No matter which side of this topic you come down on...Pro or Con, there is a very real issue of real money involved in this:

There is a weakness in the system that allows an unscrupulous player to exploit another out of a large sum of ISK; which in reality has a real dollar amount attached to it.

If I can buy play time with ISK, that playtime has a value of $15 a month, which then translates to that ISK now in effect having actual money value. This Margin Trading issue allows players to steal real money from others.

Using Margin Trading you accept a contract attempting to then re-sell it. The person that issues that contract is the same that issued the buy order you were trying to fill. Unfortunately that person issued that order via the Margin Trading skill and did not have enough ISK in their wallet to fulfill the transaction so any attempts at selling items to that order will fail.

Your ISK that youve spend hours, days, years accruing legally is stolen from you. Thats real money out of you pocket.
Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#2 - 2012-12-20 18:22:30 UTC
Ven Drakkar wrote:
Look, No matter which side of this topic you come down on...Pro or Con, there is a very real issue of real money involved in this:

There is a weakness in the system that allows an unscrupulous player to exploit another out of a large sum of ISK; which in reality has a real dollar amount attached to it.

If I can buy play time with ISK, that playtime has a value of $15 a month, which then translates to that ISK now in effect having actual money value. This Margin Trading issue allows players to steal real money from others.

Using Margin Trading you accept a contract attempting to then re-sell it. The person that issues that contract is the same that issued the buy order you were trying to fill. Unfortunately that person issued that order via the Margin Trading skill and did not have enough ISK in their wallet to fulfill the transaction so any attempts at selling items to that order will fail.

Your ISK that youve spend hours, days, years accruing legally is stolen from you. Thats real money out of you pocket.


Scamming and stealing are completely LEGIT in EvE.... CCP welcomes it as part of the game. Most of the time, the "weakness in the system" is either intentionally there, or at least willfully left exploitable by our game developers.

Corp thefts regularly amount to tens to hundreds of billions. There have been several scams stealing over a TRILLION isk from other EvE players...

I understand it sucks to be scammed out of a lot of isk.... It may take a while to recuperate from that loss.. Please realize, even when your lost isk represents real-life cash investment on your part, or even if it is only a time investment, it's computer pixels, and CCP fully supports players using ingame mechanics to pry it away from you!

Final note: If it is too good to be true, it usually is.... Think before you buy, and you won't be scammed. It's really simple to avoid 99% of these scams... and if you're spending lots of your hard earned isk, you owe it to yourself to not be stupid....
Michael Loney
Skullspace Industries
#3 - 2012-12-20 18:50:33 UTC
Quote:
Scamming and stealing are completely LEGIT in EvE.... CCP welcomes it as part of the game.


While it is currently legit, that does not mean CCP welcomes it.

This is how laws are made, someone finds a way to game the system, a law is made to close the loophole.

Unfortunately in EvE the people ( or the CSM ) cannot make or change the laws!!

Just because it is not currently illegal does not mean it is not a problem. It means there needs to be change in the system and the start of that process is DISCUSSION! Not simply telling the people with the problem to STFU and play in the sandbox.
Rob Crowley
State War Academy
#4 - 2012-12-20 20:30:57 UTC
Michael Loney wrote:
While it is currently legit, that does not mean CCP welcomes it.
You are right, scamming being legit does not mean CCP welcomes it. CCP welcoming it however means CCP welcomes it.

Quote:
This is how laws are made, someone finds a way to game the system, a law is made to close the loophole.
Except it's not a loophole but working as intended. (I think we might be back to the part where CCP welcomes it.)

Quote:
Unfortunately in EvE the people ( or the CSM ) cannot make or change the laws!!
While it might be quite funny for a short while to have players making laws, generally I would consider it very fortunate that they can't.

Quote:
Just because it is not currently illegal does not mean it is not a problem.
You're right again, I can't help noticing that you're pretty good with this logic stuff. However, it not being a problem means it is not a problem.

Quote:
It means there needs to be change in the system and the start of that process is DISCUSSION!
Ah, I got you now! This is not a logically sound conclusion, just because it can't be proven that something is not a problem by its current legality does not mean that there needs to be a change because the absence of proof for a non-problem does not constitute proof of a problem.

P.S. HTFU!
Gizznitt Malikite
Agony Unleashed
Agony Empire
#5 - 2012-12-20 20:47:31 UTC
Michael Loney wrote:
Quote:
Scamming and stealing are completely LEGIT in EvE.... CCP welcomes it as part of the game.


While it is currently legit, that does not mean CCP welcomes it.

This is how laws are made, someone finds a way to game the system, a law is made to close the loophole.

Unfortunately in EvE the people ( or the CSM ) cannot make or change the laws!!


You are right, that just because something is legit, does not mean CCP supports it... However,

When CCP GM's repeatedly allow it...
When CCP Dev's are openly nostalgic about their in-game scamming activities...
When CCP's Marketing develops Game Trailers centered around Stealing and deception....

I'm pretty certain I can claim CCP WELCOMES IT....

Michael Loney wrote:


Just because it is not currently illegal does not mean it is not a problem. It means there needs to be change in the system and the start of that process is DISCUSSION! Not simply telling the people with the problem to STFU and play in the sandbox.


1.) You opened the thread up for discussion, claiming it's a real issue because people experience real losses.
  • Perhaps I wasn't clear enough: CCP's entire game is built on real losses. How is being scammed out of 70b isk different than having your titan sabotaged and destroyed? A player in either case feels the same value of losses... The entire game premise is that losses are real...

    • 2.) Scamming is a subset of how you can take a loss. Theft, loss of ship/pod, or simply market swings all cause losses... So why should margin trade scams be singled out? What makes a loss from a Margin Trade Scam need to be addressed?

    3.) I did not tell you to STFU.... I told you to play more carefully, and to play smarter... That's how you avoid losses in this game...
    Zol Interbottom
    Blimp Requisition Services
    #6 - 2012-12-29 11:49:28 UTC
    yep, scamming is as legit in EVE as anything, it goes right with the deception aspect of the game

    personally, i dont do it though, even in internet spaceships i am trapped by my morals

    "If you're quitting for the 3rd time you clearly ain't quitting" - Chribba
    De'Veldrin
    Republic University
    Minmatar Republic
    #7 - 2013-01-02 14:14:26 UTC
    Zol Interbottom wrote:
    yep, scamming is as legit in EVE as anything, it goes right with the deception aspect of the game

    personally, i dont do it though, even in internet spaceships i am trapped by my morals


    I don't steal/scam from people in my corp or alliance. E-honor is such a burden.

    To the point of the OP:

    Scamming and outright theft are part of the dystopian universe that is Eve Online. So are murder, backstabbing, betrayal, treason, and bullying. The game is not that way by accident, considering it's been ongoing for 10 years.

    Also, there is no real monetary value associated with ISK. That's like saying Monopoly money has a real value because you bought the boxed game with your credit card. You paid for a service from CCP when you bought the PLEX. That service is the right to connect to the game server for 30 days. The PLEX item is simply a representation of the service owed to you (in that sense it's like a token at a video arcade - you traded your money for token to be able to play the games - but the tokens themselves have no real world value). As an in game asset you are free to trade the PLEX for any other in game asset at an exchange rate determined by the in game market. But like every other in game asset, they have no out of game value. The only thing involved that has any real world value is your time, and presumably you agree you are getting an equitable trade for that time, or you'd go do something else.

    If you propose that in game items have a monetary value, you should be able to use them as a normal medium of exchange. So unless you can buy a cheesburger and a beer for a fully fit Tengu, your argument fails to hold any water.

    De'Veldrin's Corollary (to Malcanis' Law): Any idea that seeks to limit the ability of a large nullsec bloc to do something in the name of allowing more small groups into sov null will inevitably make it that much harder for small groups to enter sov null.
    Reiisha
    #8 - 2013-01-21 16:10:58 UTC
    Scamming is legit, though maybe not this particular form of scamming.

    Personally i'd just remove the order from visibility if the buyer does not have the isk to cover it. I don't see why the ingame SCC should condone scamming in such a way, if they're the ones controlling the flow of isk in the first place.

    If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all...
    TheGunslinger42
    All Web Investigations
    #9 - 2013-01-21 16:56:58 UTC
    Are you new to EVE Online? Scamming has been allowed since forever, some of the most noteworthy things to ever happen in the game revolve around scamming.

    I think you're playing the wrong game.
    Katie Frost
    Ministry of War
    Amarr Empire
    #10 - 2013-01-22 00:48:15 UTC
    Ven Drakkar wrote:
    Look, No matter which side of this topic you come down on...Pro or Con, there is a very real issue of real money involved in this:

    There is a weakness in the system that allows an unscrupulous player to exploit another out of a large sum of ISK; which in reality has a real dollar amount attached to it.

    If I can buy play time with ISK, that playtime has a value of $15 a month, which then translates to that ISK now in effect having actual money value. This Margin Trading issue allows players to steal real money from others.

    Your ISK that youve spend hours, days, years accruing legally is stolen from you. Thats real money out of you pocket.


    Your premise of involvement of 'real money' is flawed. Therefore, your context of the margin trading scam being tantamount to theft is likewise incorrect.

    Let me elaborate. You pay real money for PLEX. This is where the link to real money is concluded though. Your PLEX thereafter converts into ISK or game-time, whatever your preference may be and neither of these things has any real money value from that point on. Why? Because there are no (legal) mechanisms in the game that will allow any player to convert their ISK or game-time into real money. Therefore, there is really no theft of real money in EvE… ever. You have to be careful what you are insinuating by suggesting that a game condones an illegal activity, especially when there is no real basis for it.

    Your ISK is scammed from you because you failed to detect what was clearly a "too good to be true" market/contract deal.

    It's a tough break but you have to learn to spot these types of scams. It's a part of the EvE learning experience and it holds true for every activity undertaken in EvE.
    Mallak Azaria
    Caldari Provisions
    Caldari State
    #11 - 2013-01-28 09:35:15 UTC
    Ven Drakkar wrote:
    If I can buy play time with ISK, that playtime has a value of $15 a month, which then translates to that ISK now in effect having actual money value. This Margin Trading issue allows players to steal real money from others.


    No it doesn't. Player purchases PLEX from CCP for real money & the real money involvement ends there. You get exactly what you paid for & what you do with it afterwards has nothing to do with real money, because you got what you paid for.

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