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HOWTO: Screw a Margin Trade Scammer
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Steve Ronuken

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM

Likes received: 6,759

#21 - 2012-04-24 13:54:09 UTC

DeltaW7 wrote:

please explain this part:

2. This means that they put 60,000,000 isk in escrow to place this order (24% of 250,000,000). Now they have funds in escrow to purchase the item at 60,000 isk per unit instead of the listed buy of 250,000 isk per unit

why is the escrow only 60 mil and not 250 mil?

I'm a trader. I have stock going in and out all the time.

So I set up some orders, buying and selling. Margin trading allows me to bet that I'll have sold enough to cover my buy order by the time someone fills it. Especially with things like Meta 4 modules which tend to trickle in.

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter

Cha Cha Tatina

Lord Jita's Big Gay Corp

Likes received: 1

#22 - 2012-04-25 05:58:18 UTC | Edited by: Cha Cha Tatina

Used this guide to screw up a margin scammer today, thanks for the post! Here's how it went.

First, his quantity was small enough and price low enough that even if he didn't clear his escrow, the total ISK in escrow would have been low enough that it wouldn't be a big hit (it would actually have been pretty close to REAL buy price, probably his intention) , so I didn't even try example 1, and immediately tried example 2, outbidding his cheap buyback orders and undercutting his ridiculous sell orders.

This lasted for about an hour or two at most before he noticed me trying to piggyback his scam and a price war ensued, with .01ing both his buyback and sell orders. After an hour or so I guess he got tired of it so he pumped up his buyback to where he would break even from the units he bought to make the scam in the first place if I followed.

Wise to this, instead I just cancelled my sell order and sold to his scam order at full price, thus clearing it. Well I didn't make any money but neither did he, and I guess he lost his broker fee and sales tax. It was interesting to see how he reacted to someone trying to take over his scam. I'm sure hes not done yet, tomorrow we'll probably do same thing all over again

Caldari Provisions Caldari State 18
Balcony Jumper Caldari Provisions Caldari State Likes received: 18	#23 - 2012-04-25 06:24:09 UTC Nice! Sounds like you're on the right track and hopefully you can find someone with a larger quantity...

Belloche

Caldari Provisions

Caldari State

Likes received: 26

#24 - 2012-04-25 16:39:58 UTC

DeltaW7 wrote:

The person has trained up the skill Margin trading to V

Antigena

Opportunity Cost

Likes received: 3

#25 - 2012-06-26 07:33:09 UTC

Can you elaborate on this a bit? I don't fully understand all of it yet...

As far as I've been able to tell, you can't pick and choose what orders you want to fulfill... The game always matches you up with the best order. I've tried to fulfill a different order, even though it wasn't the best, just to see if i could, and it wouldn't do it - it seems the game doesn't care what order you're interacting with, it just matches you up with the best one. are you saying there is a way to arbitrarily fulfill any order you want?

Teyr Malleis

University of Caille

Gallente Federation

Likes received: 6

#26 - 2012-06-26 14:06:32 UTC | Edited by: Teyr Malleis

He's not saying you are arbitrarily selecting a particular order.

At the time that you try to sell your amassed items to a buy order the scammers order is the best out there.

Instead of selling your items at the price of the order, you change your price to match what would be in escrow if the scammer failed to clear it. This way Eve thinks you're being lazy/stupid and lets the scammer buy your items at an even lower price than what had been initially entered.

Works the same when people select and expensive item where a cheaper is available in station - they pay the expensive price but the person offering the cheapest price gets the lot.

PS. awesome guide by the way - nice work Big smile

Antigena

Opportunity Cost

Likes received: 3

#27 - 2012-06-27 01:12:22 UTC

makes sense, thanks! :)

also, what does it mean to "clear" escrow? i think one person talked about it but i wanted to be sure i understand that part.

So that leads me to the next thing then... how can you screw a margin trading scammer who has already cleared their escrow? seems like in that case the worst you could do is not buy their overpriced items, and then kill their buy order, forcing them to set it up again. doesn't seem like much of a penalty, except of course that they have to lose the broker fee.

although with golden rules like "never fly anything you can't afford to lose" it seems to me that something like "never margin trade scam with broker fees you dont expect to lose anyway" is likely to be afoot - meaning the loss of the broker's fee as a penalty is little more than a sense of false assurance for the victim, and really no considerable loss for the scammer.

Finally, what advice would you give to someone who fell victim to the scam in the following way? (it wasn't me, i swear!)

Buy order on the market for lots of ships at about 3 times their typical value. This could just be someone willing to pay higher prices out of desperation for the item in specified quantity, but of course in hindsight, it wasnt. Victim doesn't buy items locallly for high prices, but instead, spends lots of time going around and collecting up items at very good/low market prices in different regions, etc.

When victim amasses the proper quantity and tries to sell said items, buy order fails as per the typical scam. but since the typical scam usually involves buying the items at inflated prices in-station or in-region, this is more like a scammer inadvertently griefing, whilst gaining no benefit. Victim tries to petition CCP. CCP is unaccomodating. Victim rage-quits game.

"can i have your stuff?"

sure.

now i have about 1.5 bil isk of stuff i could just sell at current average market prices and make a rediculous profit since i was basically gifted about 1 bil worth of stuff i didnt have before. (i lent my friend, the victim, about 500mil to try the transaction)

although honestly, i'd rather make enough profit to cover my friend's losses and get him back in the game. it was funner when he was there to play with me.

thanks.

Yuuki Musashi

Madoff Securities

Likes received: 3

#28 - 2012-06-28 01:56:06 UTC

Steve Ronuken wrote:

Or they already thought of this, made the order twice as large, and sold to it (losing a little in taxes on the way).

So the Escrow is now completely empty.

The OP's other suggestions are also easily countered by a scammer who did his homework beforehand. (As I did back in my scamming days)

However, yes, I have used one or two of these techniques with success against amateur scammers.

Zumra

Hideaway Hunters

The Hideaway.

Likes received: 3

#29 - 2012-06-28 19:27:30 UTC

Antigena wrote:

makes sense, thanks! :)

also, what does it mean to "clear" escrow? i think one person talked about it but i wanted to be sure i understand that part.

This, I'm not really a trader, so I do not really understand all this escrow talk, and trying to search it in google brings up hundreds of links to an eve wide "escrow" system which apparently has been replaced with contracts. But, what I am understanding from this thread is this.

I go to a station, and see a buy order for 2 purple unicorn teddybear sunshine dolls, 1 million isk, min # 2. I happen to have 2 purple unicorn teddybear sunshine dolls, and I hit sell, and somehow it won't sell? Or it will fill orders that are much lower for purple unicorn teddybear sunshine dolls, the hundreds of 1000 isk ones? If the high order is still on the market, why would it not let me sell to it?

Steve Ronuken

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM

Likes received: 6,759

#30 - 2012-06-28 19:49:41 UTC

It doesn't sell, and the order is removed from the market.

Basically, without any skills, when you place a buy order, all the isk needed to pay for things is removed from your wallet and placed in escrow. So, when people sell to your order, they get paid from that isk. If you cancel the order, you get what remains back.

There's a skill which allows you to reduce how much you need to put in Escrow. This is of significant benefit to people who manage many orders and have things being bought and sold constantly (or who have a buy order that's people sell to infrequently). If they don't have enough in escrow to cover the order and they don't have enough in their wallet to cover the difference, when and only when someone tries to sell to it, the order is cancelled, and any remaining isk in the Escrow is returned to the buyer.

If I have a big order at a massively inflated price, and it has a minimum buy quantity that puts any valid sale above the escrow value, then empty my wallet, the order will stick around, until someone tries selling to it.

I then have a friend/alt/corporation put up sell orders for those items, in quantities below the minimum buy, also at inflated prices. So they get the isk from selling, and when someone tries to take advantage of the opportunity, the sell to my order fails, and me + f/a/c walk away with isk. To add insult to injury, I might also put up some buy orders below what it was sold at, to restock from the poor sucker I've scammed.

That's the basic scam. The more complex version involves me putting up an order for double the quantity, then selling to it. This reduces the quantity of isk I have in escrow, so someone can't come along and sell at a re

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter

Zumra

Hideaway Hunters

The Hideaway.

Likes received: 3

#31 - 2012-06-28 20:20:48 UTC | Edited by: Zumra

Oh, thats how the reduced escrow skill works. I always just assumed that if you did not have the money to cover the difference between the escrow you put up and the buy price you put, that your wallet would go into negative. So this means if I put up many more buy orders then I can fill, with this skill to 5 so I am putting up much less money to the market, I don't actually have to worry about what would happen if they were all filled, since eve would just start cancelling the orders once I ran out of isk and someone tried selling to them.

Oh look an edit button:

And so for your advanced version: It would work like this? There are no "jars of mojo" on the market, I put up a buy order for 2 jars of mojo at 1million isk each, and have to put up 50% escrow, so 1 million isk. I then have a second char sell me 1 jar of mojo, and he gets the 1 million isk in escrow, then I give all my moola to this second char. He puts up a buy order for jar of mojo at 1000 isk. SInce I have no money, and the escrow is now empty, if someone tries to sell me a jar of mojo, the 1 million isk order will be cancelled, assuming the 1000 isk buy order is the only other one on the market, what happens to the jar of mojo someone tried to sell for 1 million isk?

Would it a) get sold for 1000 isk, or b) be put up as a sell order for 1 million isk for someone else to buy?

Thanks,

Zumra :P


Steve Ronuken Fuzzwork Enterprises Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM Likes received: 6,759	#32 - 2012-06-28 21:28:04 UTC Assuming that they're using the simple sell option (or advanced, with immediate set): c) It doesn't get sold. If they're not paying attention, and has a duration set, it'll be put up as a sell order for 1 million. Woo! CSM XI! Fuzzwork Enterprises Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter


Zumra Hideaway Hunters The Hideaway. Likes received: 3	#33 - 2012-06-28 22:34:34 UTC I should have known, when in doubt, choose option c! Unless it's a true or false question...

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