In “WoW Scams 101″, I’m going to take a pretty good look at how some ongoing “scams” work in WoW. Most of them can be easily spotted and avoided by following the simple mantra of “if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is”, however, these grifts still warrant some light shedding.
Scam #1 – Lower Than AH Doesn’t Always Mean Best Price For WoW Gear Or Items
The vast majority of WoW Players have seen it before; someone jumps into Trade Chat (or General chat, but we’ll leave that for someone else to talk about) and says, “Hey, I’ve got <insert item name here> for <insert gold amount here>. That’s <insert another gold amount here> gold less than current price on the Auction House!”.
So, you being the careful, informed buyer that you are, check the Auction House. Sure enough, <instert item name here> is listed for <insert item gold price here>, which is indeed <insert gold difference here> gold more expensive than what the person in Trade Chat is selling it for. It must be a good deal!
Stop. Right. There.
Here’s the grift: A person jumps on Alt #1, checks the AH for <insert item name here>. If it’s not listed, they list it at a grossly inflated rate. One so high it’ll never sell. They then quickly swap toon, jumping on Alt #2, and start posting in Trade Chat about wanting to sell <insert item name here> for less that what the one in the Auction House is currently selling for. If they sell it, they just jump back on Alt #1, and cancel the Auction, and let it cool off for a bit… then wash, rinse, repeat.
How to spot and avoid this scam.
The savvy scammers won’t make the item they’re selling linkable. Because if you have addons that keep historical scan data, this scam is pretty trivial to avoid. Just click on the linked item, and a pop up will give you enough information to make an informed decision. Without addons, unless you know the price of <insert item name here> this task becomes a little more difficult, but not impossible. Watch Trade Chat a bit, or ask questions about the price of the item in Trade Chat. A lot of times, people call out the scammer for trying to pull this scam off. Remember, Lower Than AH Doesn’t Always Mean Best Price For WoW Gear Or Items.
Why this scam won’t go away.
The World of Warcraft is constantly getting new players, so to quote <insert who you really think said this here>, “There’s a sucker born every minute” (<a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_minute” target=”_new”/>see what I mean</a>). This scam is not just pulled on new players though. Often times, it’s seasoned players who suddenly think they’ve come up with a brilliant idea to make gold in WoW. Sadly, they think this grift has never been tried before.
What to do if you see this scam.
Avoid it. Keep on doing whatever it was you were doing. Don’t add any fuel to any fires, don’t trash anybody… just move on. Blizzard’s not going to do anything about it, so don’t bother submitting a ticket for it. Unfortunately, when enough people are involved in anything, someone will try to scam someone else…
Lower Than AH Doesn’t Always Mean Best Price For WoW Gear Or Items
~Rewt
About Rewt
While I agree with what all your points, describing this practice as a scam is ridiculous.
A scam is a fraud. There is nothing deceiving about setting a high price for a demanded item that lacks supply. An item is worth as much as one is willing to pay for given they know what they are paying and what they are receiving. In this instance, they are paying and receiving exactly as described.
An example of a scam is where person A offers an item X, B offers the agreed value and accepts, but A quickly switches X to Y hoping that B would not notice and accepts. Thereby B receives Y but has been expecting to get X.
I’ll stick by calling it a scam for this reason: The uninformed buyer thinks they are getting a good deal based on misinformation falsely presented to them.
Case in point: If I see an item listed for what I feel is a high price on the AH, then I can post in trade chat that I am willing to beat the listed price on AH. No scam involved because I’m not the owner or controller of the current listed Auction.
The scam comes into play when a single person is controlling the information, and presenting it in a deceptive fashion in an attempt to sway the decision of the buyer.
Rewt recently posted..HearthCast Episode #75: How To Know When To Leave A Guild
I never new this scam existed…thanks!!!
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