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Is there a way to automatically cancel buy orders?
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malaire
#21 - 2012-01-11 06:49:26 UTC  |  Edited by: malaire
Balcony Jumper wrote:
EDIT: Also, are there any other scams or a list of scams somewhere that could shed some light so I don't blow up my wallet again?

Long thread about scams: Scammers in my EVE Online?

New to EVE? Don't forget to read: The Manual * The Wiki * The Career Options * and everything else
Mu-Shi Ai
Hosono House
#22 - 2012-01-11 07:33:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Mu-Shi Ai
Balcony Jumper wrote:
...the safety net it was intended to be.


Margin Trading isn't a safety net. It enables a legitimate, large-scale trading practice.

Sizeof Void wrote:
Perhaps there can be a grace period, when you go negative, to allow you to settle the debt before funds are automatically seized from your other toons, or a game time penalty is incurred. This should not affect honest traders, yet would still penalize the scammer.


If there's a grace period for me, there would be a grace period for a scammer, too. After all, how would you distinguish one from the other?

Seriously, I'll never understand why people focus on the skill when it comes to this "scam," and act as though there were no possible way they could have avoided it, as if somebody forced them to buy ridiculously overpriced goods thinking they'd be able to sell it off to an even more ridiculously hiked-up buy order. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. That's a rule people have been following in EVE since before the Margin Trading "scam" even existed.
Tom Hagen
Twilight Empire
#23 - 2012-01-11 10:51:15 UTC
First off, I use the margin trading skill extensively. I like it in many ways but I still consider it a skill that put new players at an disadvantage and as such should be removed.

Some reasons..

1. For any serious trader it is a must have, much as learning skills used to be for everyone.
2. If you are not aware of game mechanics and how you can exploit it you don't have a chance knowing this is a scam. You just see an order that you can fill.
At least in a contract you can read for yourself and still get fooled, but it isn't because an odd game mechanic that lets things like that happen.
3. This is something I believe more often then not happens to new traders and with a decent share of them also new players. A lot of them will/would probably be put of when they lose almost everything they have.
4. The skill let people control the market. That can be a fun thing to do. But I rather open up the market so that more new players can find deals to come in and start their venture.
As it is now a few traders that are active and competing can control a very big chunk of the market without to much ISK.
If you want to do that I would prefer it to be ISK intensive..

I can see why people want this skill to stay, but the same people probably is just looking out for them self and not at the whole picture.
Mu-Shi Ai
Hosono House
#24 - 2012-01-11 12:24:29 UTC
Tom Hagen wrote:
This is something I believe more often then not happens to new traders and with a decent share of them also new players. A lot of them will/would probably be put of when they lose almost everything they have.


How would it be any different than if it were a legit buy order that just happened to get filled before you could fill it? Is that a scam, too?

The lesson here is to not be so blinded by greed that you miss somebody pulling a trick on you. Again, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. That's a lesson traders have been following in EVE since day one.

Quote:
The skill let people control the market.


Really? Show me how that works, I need to start doing that.

Quote:
but the same people probably is just looking out for them self and not at the whole picture.


Without Margin Trading, it becomes far more difficult to do the kind of trading that I do, which serves off-hub regions. If you don't want anybody buying your trash out in the hinterlands, then sure, take away Margin Trading. That way we can keep even more of the EVE universe empty and dull.
Jack Dant
The Gentlemen of Low Moral Fibre
#25 - 2012-01-11 12:33:33 UTC
Margin trading lets you put up buy orders that can't be fulfilled by any game mechanic. This is a bit like courier contracts to Jove space, which CCP considered an exploit.

But margin trading has legitimate uses. So the real fix would be to rework the escrow system so those fake orders are impossible. The order should autocancel after the last valid transaction, not the first invalid attempt.

For example: Set a minimum amount in escrow (independent of skill) equal to order price * minimum amount. That amount must be maintained (taken from wallet if needed) at all times. If escrow goes below that because of insuficient wallet, the order autocancels.

What happens in lowsec, stays in lowsec, lowering the barrier to entry to lowsec PVP: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=476644&#post476644
Mu-Shi Ai
Hosono House
#26 - 2012-01-11 13:57:21 UTC
Jack Dant wrote:
Margin trading lets you put up buy orders that can't be fulfilled by any game mechanic.


And what's wrong with that? The only way you can possibly get hurt by an unfulfillable buy order is if you try to sell it the bait items that the person who created the order set out.
Cyniac
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#27 - 2012-01-11 14:16:25 UTC
Quick fix -

Nevermind margin trading, Remove the ability to have a minimal amount of materials to fill a buy order. Voila - scam becomes a lot less profitable (or a lot more obvious).

While there are some justifications for margin trading, I struggle to see any huge imperative for the minimal buy order - aside from the fact to try to cut down on transaction spam in some situations, but is that really an issue?
Jack Dant
The Gentlemen of Low Moral Fibre
#28 - 2012-01-11 14:22:36 UTC
Mu-Shi Ai wrote:
Jack Dant wrote:
Margin trading lets you put up buy orders that can't be fulfilled by any game mechanic.


And what's wrong with that? The only way you can possibly get hurt by an unfulfillable buy order is if you try to sell it the bait items that the person who created the order set out.

And how could you get hurt by a courier contract to Jove space unless you didn't check and accepted it? But CCP said that particular scam was not allowed.

But, to answer your question, you could use to artificially drive up the buy order price of an item, at no risk to you. This would be useful when buying out and relisting items. You set a bunch of fake buy orders, then dump your stock on anyone trying to outbid you.

What happens in lowsec, stays in lowsec, lowering the barrier to entry to lowsec PVP: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=476644&#post476644
Mu-Shi Ai
Hosono House
#29 - 2012-01-11 14:45:30 UTC
Jack Dant wrote:
And how could you get hurt by a courier contract to Jove space unless you didn't check and accepted it? But CCP said that particular scam was not allowed.


Those aren't the anywhere near the same thing. A courier contract to Jove space implies that you can actually go there, when in fact you cannot. The two things (the contract and the inaccessible place) are linked inextricably. A buy order that cannot be filled is not linked in the same way to those bait items that are placed on the market to entice the novice trader. They are two separate things, and the association between them occurs entirely in the unfortunate trader's psyche. It's just another form of social engineering.

Quote:
But, to answer your question, you could use to artificially drive up the buy order price of an item, at no risk to you. This would be useful when buying out and relisting items. You set a bunch of fake buy orders, then dump your stock on anyone trying to outbid you.


And, as usual, this is totally detectable by anybody who's paying even the slightest attention to what they're doing. People can and do play that game without the Margin Trading trick all the time.
Balcony Jumper
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#30 - 2012-01-11 14:57:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Balcony Jumper
And like I said earlier.... if purchaser doesn't have the isk to fill the minimum quantity of a buy order (that they set), the order could simply be flagged a different color to make people aware that "this is buy order may not be filled".


Quote:
And, as usual, this is totally detectable by anybody who's paying even the slightest attention to what they're doing. People can and do play that game without the Margin Trading trick all the time.


Then it wouldn't hurt to make it more detectable.
malaire
#31 - 2012-01-11 17:25:17 UTC  |  Edited by: malaire
Cyniac wrote:
Quick fix -

Nevermind margin trading, Remove the ability to have a minimal amount of materials to fill a buy order. Voila - scam becomes a lot less profitable (or a lot more obvious).

While there are some justifications for margin trading, I struggle to see any huge imperative for the minimal buy order - aside from the fact to try to cut down on transaction spam in some situations, but is that really an issue?

That doesn't fix this scam. Margin trading scams works well for single item buy orders when item is rare enough.

EDIT: Also for legitimate buy orders with big range the minimal quantity is a must - you dont want to go fetch 1 tritanium from each station in range.

New to EVE? Don't forget to read: The Manual * The Wiki * The Career Options * and everything else
TR4D3R4LT
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#32 - 2012-01-11 17:38:44 UTC
Sizeof Void wrote:

Actually, this is not true.

In RL, your margin order does not fail - you end up with a negative balance. If you cannot pay off the debt, then your other assets may be seized, by court order, and applied to the debt owed.

In Eve, there is no penalty for failing a margin order.

I've suggested elsewhere that negative wallet balances should be supported, so that if you fail a margin order, then you may end up in debt. If you have a negative balance on one toon in your account, then the funds required to cover the negative balance should be seized automatically from the wallets of any other toons on the same account. If the amount cannot be covered even by all three toons on an account, then game time should be deducted from the account, using the current average PLEX price as the conversion factor for game time vs. ISK.


Actually to be perfectly clear with this. In RL money can be scammed off to "off-sea" accounts etc. Only local suckers and to extent corporation assets and whatnot will be sold to try to offset the negative balance.

In eve, all margin trading scam related "exploits" are tricking person to buy overpriced goods, thats the scam, not the buy order that doesnt get fulfilled. The buy order just helps people to fall to the "buy this stone, it's really solid gold"-scam. After all, the buy order that stays up has had it's broker fee paid when being placed AND the person trying to sell doesnt lose his assets. If he however has bought overpriced goods that by no means differs from real life. Two guys trick you, one is "nigerian royal who cant access bank and requires x amount of goods that he will generously pay you for" and other being guy who sells those x amount of goods at "really good price." If the selling guy in rl transfer the money gained to off-sea account along with himself getting out of the dodge, the person who bought is left quite cold. Even if the persons were caught they would only be depted forever but none of the money gained since "they dont have any money we can seize."

That's the part you want to kill to prevent the scam, the "I stupidly paid extra of said item." To do that you would need to first determine what is "extra of said item," in supply and demand based market that's really hard unless you want to restrict buy and sell orders to some % of history of said orders. Even that wont prevent the scam as people will just adapt and move it to sell and buy contracts or work longer time to move market prices. And how "free" the market in the end is if price of goods cant raise more then 10% a day even if sudden war or somesuch cuts their supply to zero overnight? Sad fact is that the scam feeds on people's gullibility and cant be prevented sensibly by any other way then making them less gullible.

Introducing negative dept only results in people training throwaway trials and just add the cost of the bother to the scam. Or if you look at it, people like me would love to sell to my trial alt overpriced goods to scam deal and receive isk... Money out of thin air was never easier, who cares if the account ends up billions in dept and has it's plexed gametime left lost if I made that much and more in profit to my other alt. If you want to tie it to user instead of account, people will start to proxy themself to appear as different users.

Only "solution" is to kill the margin trading skill, but then people will setup buy orders in lo-sec, in contracts at distant stations and manually kill them before they are fulfilled. People *will* adapt new ways to make "buy overpriced crap" -scam to catch more players and you cant cure player gullibility easy way.
Rakshasa Taisab
Sane Industries Inc.
#33 - 2012-01-11 18:00:44 UTC
Sizeof Void wrote:
I've suggested elsewhere that negative wallet balances should be supported, so that if you fail a margin order, then you may end up in debt. If you have a negative balance on one toon in your account, then the funds required to cover the negative balance should be seized automatically from the wallets of any other toons on the same account. If the amount cannot be covered even by all three toons on an account, then game time should be deducted from the account, using the current average PLEX price as the conversion factor for game time vs. ISK.

Hi, I hear you have an excellent idea for a feature that will give us all infinite (yes, infinite) ISK through an exponential expansion of wallet balance.

I am greatly looking forward to an EVE where we will compete to spend all our time training alt accounts to margin IV in order to be the first guy to make the Nth exponent jump in wallet balance, and as Germany after WWI showed wheelbarrows full of money have nothing on a sun collapsing into a black hole due to the mass of money.

Nyan
Jack Dant
The Gentlemen of Low Moral Fibre
#34 - 2012-01-11 18:25:27 UTC
Mu-Shi Ai wrote:
Jack Dant wrote:
And how could you get hurt by a courier contract to Jove space unless you didn't check and accepted it? But CCP said that particular scam was not allowed.


Those aren't the anywhere near the same thing. A courier contract to Jove space implies that you can actually go there, when in fact you cannot. The two things (the contract and the inaccessible place) are linked inextricably. A buy order that cannot be filled is not linked in the same way to those bait items that are placed on the market to entice the novice trader. They are two separate things, and the association between them occurs entirely in the unfortunate trader's psyche. It's just another form of social engineering.

You make a good point, but I think you reach the wrong conclusion. In the Jove space scam, all the mark had to do was take a good look at the contract to know, with 100% certainty, that it was a scam. In margin trading scams, there's no way to be sure. The game, the user interface, is lying to you, telling you something is possible when it's not. Those of us who know how it works can recognize the signs of a margin trading scam, but we can't be 100% sure it's not a legitimate buy order.

Quote:
Quote:
But, to answer your question, you could use to artificially drive up the buy order price of an item, at no risk to you. This would be useful when buying out and relisting items. You set a bunch of fake buy orders, then dump your stock on anyone trying to outbid you.


And, as usual, this is totally detectable by anybody who's paying even the slightest attention to what they're doing. People can and do play that game without the Margin Trading trick all the time.

Key part was "no risk". When you pump an item that way with actual buy orders, you always risk someone selling to your own inflated orders. If you misjudge the market or your wallet, you can end up with a ton of items at really expensive prices. With the margin trading orders, you don't.

Is there any reason why the fake buy orders from the scam should be in the game? I realize they are a clever scam that has provided a good amount of tears and lols. But can you really argue they are something that should be kept in game? why?

What happens in lowsec, stays in lowsec, lowering the barrier to entry to lowsec PVP: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=476644&#post476644
Scrapyard Bob
EVE University
Ivy League
#35 - 2012-01-11 21:07:10 UTC
malaire wrote:

EDIT: Also for legitimate buy orders with big range the minimal quantity is a must - you dont want to go fetch 1 tritanium from each station in range.


As a corollary - any order with a buy volume of >100 where the minimum quantity is also a major fraction of the outstanding buy volume - should be generally avoided. Which is an easy way to avoid most buy orders which are scams. Especially if you would need at least 50M ISK worth of goods to meet the minimum quantity.
Amy Elteam
No Bull Ships
#36 - 2012-01-11 21:56:08 UTC
Wow so many bad ideas to fix the margin trading skill.....
There's no need for 'negative balances' (people have more than one character and could circuvent that), no need to remove the skill, no need to make orders appear differently, and no need to break the skill for people using it at this time.

1) Adjust the 'minimum escrow' to be either x% of the order, or sufficient to cover a purchase at the minimum volume - whichever is greater.
2) whenever transactions occur, refresh the escrow cash from the owners wallet, if there is insufficient cash at this time then cancel the order.

Thus there will always be sufficient cash in escrow to at least cover the minimum volume.

Now, this does not remove the possibility to create orders which will only buy 24% of the item volume, but it does remove the ability to create orders that will never pay a single isk to the seller. It doesn't remove the skill, nor render it useless to a legitimate user.
Mu-Shi Ai
Hosono House
#37 - 2012-01-11 22:28:03 UTC
Jack Dant wrote:
The game, the user interface, is lying to you, telling you something is possible when it's not. Those of us who know how it works can recognize the signs of a margin trading scam, but we can't be 100% sure it's not a legitimate buy order.


And what I've been saying all along is that that order, even if it were legitimate, is never guaranteed to be there when you want to sell to it. What would have been the substantial difference if the order had been legitimate and had simply been filled milliseconds before you got around to it? There would be no difference. You'd still be stuck with overpriced goods that you shouldn't have bought before researching the markets more extensively in the first place. The scam is not that the order disappears. The scam is that you were tricked into buying massively overpriced stuff. I guess the sleight of hand must be really strong on this one, because it seems like people just can't get over the Margin Trading aspect of it.

Quote:
Key part was "no risk". When you pump an item that way with actual buy orders, you always risk someone selling to your own inflated orders. If you misjudge the market or your wallet, you can end up with a ton of items at really expensive prices. With the margin trading orders, you don't.


You risk the broker's fee that you deposit every time you set up a buy order.

Quote:
Is there any reason why the fake buy orders from the scam should be in the game? I realize they are a clever scam that has provided a good amount of tears and lols. But can you really argue they are something that should be kept in game? why?


Because any change that has been proposed to Margin Trading, as a possible solution to this "problem," completely breaks the skill for the majority of people who use it to great benefit not scamming others. Oh, and the fact that nobody has to buy massively overpriced goods and then try and sell them to an aberrational buy order. There's so much market information available these days, whether we're talking about EVE-Central or whatever, that making stupid trading moves like this can only be considered the product of laziness and greed. The problem is in the psychology of the trader who falls for it, who connects those two separate dots just as the scammer intends. If there were absolutely no way to prevent connecting those two dots and following through on that action, I would agree with you. But this is complete and total social engineering. It's using the laziness and greed one knows is present in a decent slice of the game's population, and manipulating it to drive them to do something utterly stupid and against their best interests. But nobody's hand has been forced in this equation. That's the key.
Mu-Shi Ai
Hosono House
#38 - 2012-01-11 22:30:35 UTC
Amy Elteam wrote:
Wow so many bad ideas to fix the margin trading skill.....
There's no need for 'negative balances' (people have more than one character and could circuvent that), no need to remove the skill, no need to make orders appear differently, and no need to break the skill for people using it at this time.

1) Adjust the 'minimum escrow' to be either x% of the order, or sufficient to cover a purchase at the minimum volume - whichever is greater.
2) whenever transactions occur, refresh the escrow cash from the owners wallet, if there is insufficient cash at this time then cancel the order.

Thus there will always be sufficient cash in escrow to at least cover the minimum volume.

Now, this does not remove the possibility to create orders which will only buy 24% of the item volume, but it does remove the ability to create orders that will never pay a single isk to the seller. It doesn't remove the skill, nor render it useless to a legitimate user.


So, if I only put up an order for one item, it will operate as though I don't have Margin Trading (since I would need enough to cover that one item)? That's stupid, and it breaks Margin Trading.
Jack Dant
The Gentlemen of Low Moral Fibre
#39 - 2012-01-11 22:45:51 UTC
Mu-Shi Ai wrote:
Because any change that has been proposed to Margin Trading, as a possible solution to this "problem," completely breaks the skill for the majority of people who use it to great benefit not scamming others.

No, it only breaks it for orders for 4 units or less. Is that a significant amounf of the people using margin trading? If it is, I assume they are doing small orders for a large variety of expensive items.

Then you could consider the total amount in escrow across all orders instead of the escrow for that particular order.

What happens in lowsec, stays in lowsec, lowering the barrier to entry to lowsec PVP: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=476644&#post476644
Mu-Shi Ai
Hosono House
#40 - 2012-01-11 23:48:17 UTC
Jack Dant wrote:
No, it only breaks it for orders for 4 units or less. Is that a significant amounf of the people using margin trading? If it is, I assume they are doing small orders for a large variety of expensive items.

Then you could consider the total amount in escrow across all orders instead of the escrow for that particular order.


Margin Trading is perfect for placing buy orders in extremely expensive products (think implants) that you know will move in smaller--even miniscule--volumes, and so wouldn't otherwise be worth the cash outlay. It really has nothing to do with how many people use the skill, or what percentage of people with the skill use it for those purposes. I can tell you right now that the Margin Trading "scammers" are probably smaller than any other demographic subgroup with the Margin Trading skill. Why should the skill be altered just to hobble them when it ends up ruining the skill for me as well?