EVE General Discussion

So after having last played in 2007, I decided to come back to EvE two weeks ago. Back in 2007 I lived in nullsec so you can imagine I'm not very educated on the markets.

As I was trying to get my bearings, I saw a Tag contract for half a billion. The contract had two tags in it. Normally I laugh at contracts and realize that most of them are scams anyway, but this time I was bored and buzzed from alcohol so I just right clicked to check market details, for fun (why the heck not).

I saw that there were TONS of sell orders for 600 mil. MULTIPLE buy orders for ~500 mil. I was extremely confused. This contract had TWO tags for 500 mil! I spent several minutes, not even kidding, just COUNTING the number of digits in the buy order to make sure it was 500 mil and not something else. Being buzzed didn't help with the counting.

After determining it is indeed 500 mil, I then decided to check what the hell this item is, and why it is so expensive. I googled it and saw it is an officer tag. +1 for legit. I then logged in on my alt in a different empire region. That region ALSO had buy and sell orders for ~500 mil. +1 for legit. I was now convinced each tag did indeed cost 500 mil. Why? Well, I remembered reading patch notes and remembred something about tags for sec status, which is why I figured these items were so valuable.

I bought the contract. Try to sell it... BOOM, can't, minimum quantity is 6! I am undeterred. Flying around, I find two more contracts for 500 mil each having 2 more tags. I figure these are leftover from before the patch that made them jump in value. I buy them.

Try to fill the order with my 6 tags. it vanishes. I then google the tag's name, and then add "exploit" at the end, figuring it was some sort of an exploit. I am finally taken to a forum page where Margin Trading Scam is discussed. Alas, I wish I saw that page earlier.

Lesson: Don't drink and fly EvE

That it was in contracts was your first indication that it was a scam. You nailed it as such.

That it was in contracts and could be bought/sold on the market was the second indication that it was a scam. You missed that point completely.

That it was in contracts, could be bought/sold on the market and was "too good to be true" should have been the final indicator that it was a scam. You missed that point as well.

Don't drink and think. It's bad, mmmm'kay?

It's a scam if it's explicitly indicated in the market window? I guess we are in SCAM online.

True. However, as I last played a while ago, the one thing I remembered about EvE and the very rudimentary 0.0 markets back then, is that if there was a buy order, and I had items, I could fill it no problem. Never had a problem filling a buy order.

So here, granted I failboated on the min order quantity, but after that I escalated my mistake by thinking "well, if I get 6 of them, I will be able to fill the buy order like ive done thousands of times before". When the order vanished upon trying to fill it, I realized my mistake. Illusionary, unfillable, buy orders.... I guess its a reminder that with EvE you can't ever start to feel comfortable, or it'l get you.

just check the market history of items and then you'll see if its a margin trading scam or not. you won't even have to check other regions that way ^^

btw there are sometimes cheap navy slicers for sale in contracts, just gotta be quick enough to get one. check jita for those

as i said he has to be fast. obviously the 1 mill slicers are gone within seconds (and no, not by alts... at least not my slicers; can't speak for the copycats though ^^)

What's the Point of having GD, just remove it, if there is a proper place for every thread,
General discussion allows any discussion about eve.
Sometime I feel GD is only for who post something that doesn't put eve in a bad light, even if,
there is plenty of bad stuff going on to talk about, hiding it won't solve the problem,
there always been good and bad times, but is only when facing the bad things that we'll move on.

Awesome story. Tell us another one!!

Another victim of the EVE market IQ test.

+1 for not calling it an exploit.

While I agree that it's currently a part of Eve's mechanics, I think that something should be done to at least deter these kind of scams, like adding a "Warning, this price is 9001% over average market prices", kinda like when you are buying or selling an item on the market.

It wouldn't prevent these scams completely, but at least it would be something, plus it already exists.

Another thing would be to add an option to hide buy orders who have an higher minimum amount then 1, can be useful when selling a single item to buy orders.

And probably useful: If the buyer doesn't have the money to complete this buy order right now it should be shown in red and be filterable or it should be able to put your wallet into the negatives as you'd have a debt towards the broker, cause I think that not being able to pay for what you owe should be on the shoulders of the seller and not the buyer.

Moar filters.