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Strange buy order
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Dr Pyroxeres
Doomheim
#21 - 2012-12-17 22:52:56 UTC  |  Edited by: Dr Pyroxeres
Ok so if anyone is interested: it didn't work ;)

Here's how it went.

I was happy to get the required amount of the item quite cheap (took me around 90 minutes and 60 jumps ;) Then, back at the trade hub, looking at the price history once again, I noticed that the previous big trading in the item had happened on the same day the buy order was likely set up. There were 1550+ items traded in 20+ orders at exactly 2 mil each on that day.

I figured this was likely the scammer selling to themselves to bring down the escrow (as has been mentioned in a post above). At this point I had a brain fade: I decided that since the order stated 1500 as min amount, and the person had sold 1500+ to themselves, that means I could safely sell to him at slightly below 12% (I actually went for 11%), which would actually still make me a ~150m profit.

Obviously, it doesn't work that way, and what happened is his order went *poof* and I am stuck with some stuff which, hopefully, I 'll still be able to make profit from.

What I figure happened is this: when you have margin trading at either level 3 or 4, your escrow amount is slightly above 50%. You can then set up an order for, say, 2k items with minimal amount 1k, and sell 1k to yourself, leaving next to nothing in your escrow, effectively safeguarding against being counter-scammed.

Except for the broker fees / taxes lost, of course ;).

What I still don't understand is why there were 20+ orders on that day, since apparently u cannot modify the order minimal amount once the order has been set up . There are some plausible explanations though. Anyway, one of those orders would have been a 1500 item sell order by the scammer to bring his escrow down.


In the end just wanted to say thanks to all the people who took their time to be helpful in this thread. It was an interesting learning experience ;)
Cyniac
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#22 - 2012-12-17 23:21:12 UTC
Thanks for the feedback - very interesting insight into the mechanics of this scam.

Sorry you didn't make the profit though!
Dr Pyroxeres
Doomheim
#23 - 2012-12-17 23:31:32 UTC
Cyniac wrote:
Sorry you didn't make the profit though!



I may actually make a small profit out of this yet, only it will take much more time - and a little effort. Still, no biggie, I have taken 10 x bigger losses on a bad day of PvP on my main (which is why I decided to go ahead with this seeing that even if it failed it wouldn't hurt that much).

Also, knowledge is money, so I may actually be able to profit from his in the future (all it takes is to find the right opportunity, and I'll be alert to that from now on ;))

cheers :)
Bugsy VanHalen
Society of lost Souls
#24 - 2012-12-18 17:51:44 UTC
Dr Pyroxeres wrote:
Unfortunately, that's a meta level 3 that doesn't have a BPO (and the scam wouldn't make sense otherwise).

All in all I can see it is sold very cheap in some places, while at some others there's a shortage. The item in qeustion does trade in fair volume, so I figure as long as I don't overpay significantly, my risk is minimal. TBH I am inclined to take the gamble ;).

It is best to just know how to recognize a margin trading scam and just ignore them.

It is very easy to set up a margin trading scam. This order could have been originally for 3000 units with a 1500 unit minimum and the scamer could have already sold 1500 units to his own order for an amount equal to his escrow. What this does is leaves the order for 1500 units with zero isk in escrow. Any attempt to scam the scammer will only cost you.

Of course there are always some wannabe scammer that try to set up a margin scam and do it wrong, leaving themselves open to be scammed right back. The trick is there is no way to know which you are dealing with.

There is one solution if CCP wanted to remove the margin trading scam without affecting the margin trading skill. It might even benefit traders that use it as intended.

Allow players to show info on the trade order. This info would show the amount of available escrow and possibly a number indicating the amount of the order that could be covered by the traders wallet. This will expose margin trading scams, and at the same time allow potential customers to verify the volume of the order that would clear before selling to it.

This would prevent leigit margin trade orders from failing unintentionally, as you could check and only sell the amount to the order the trader has the isk to support. While leaving the order up to be filled once the trader has more isk in their wallet. If this was combined with making orders that have less than 100% escrow showing a different color or labeled some how, you would know when to check the escrow before selling to it.

in busy hubs like Jita margin traders might need to offer a little more isk/unit to keep orders filling,. but for the most part, the largest orders are placed by traders with the margin trading skill trained, so there would be near zero impact for the non scaming traders.
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