Solution: don't fill buy orders, sell all of your stuff yourself.

A partial solution to the problem that doesn't affect legitimate margin trades... Just make it so that we can at least check the buyers current capability to complete the order. Even if they can drain their accounts before I get there, at least they couldnt do it while offline. A way to rate sellers&buyers like ebay would be another nice option.

This is a serious exploit

This is not a solution. Usefull comments only please

This is a serious exploit that needs to be addressed. I know you guys allow and even encourage scamming, but this is going too far. There is no way in game to check if a buyer actually has the cash to cover his buy order margins, and I see this exploited all over the place. You can't even see who the buyer is before you buy, and bank upon his reputation. Scams are one thing, but scams with no countermeasures are too much. There are plenty of expensive items that are 100% believeably priced in the hundreds of millions of isk. Scammers place a buy order for a tempting price, and then drain their accounts of money so that it can never be filled. They then sell the same item elsewhere for inflated prices still well below their buy order. There is often no way to investigate the true value of the item if there is little or no trade history, and prices naturally fluctuate for rare items. This ruins high end trade markets! I'm not going to risk an investment if there is no assurance that buy orders are valid. It's one thing that people can cancel them before I get there, but another to let them leave bogus orders up when they arent even online. When I first found out about this tactic I could not believe that it was allowed. There are enough other ways to scam people in this game. DO SOMETHING about this one.

Thank you...

This is not a solution. Usefull comments only please.

Not all solutions involve Devs coming in and changing things to fit your playstyle.

Hello good Sir/Madam,

I'm wealthy Nigerian prince who wants to buy VW Beetle from year 1967 for bazillion euros/dollars. Unfortunately my country very poor and cannot afford VW dealer. Will you kindly buy one for me from your local dealer for cheap price of one million euros/dollars. I promise to buy it from you as soon as banks open in my country. Please enclose details where payment due.

Thank you kindly.

I'd have no issues with this really.

I've always thought that buy/sell orders should be labeled or such anyway, I'd like to sell things from my corporation and have them known by name. Just let people pick anonymous or not when posting it.

Hahaha, nobody could be stupid enough to fall for that!


EDIT: Oh wait.

I shouldn't be required to divulge who I am before you buy from me. If they wanted to put in an option to allow your name to appear on the market, beside your order, that would be fine. It shouldn't be required though.

If CCP doesn't want you to do this, they should just make the order default to the next buy order and have you confirm the transaction so that you know the one you tried to sell to doesn't have the isk to cover.

Players should be able to set up margin scams. However, you should be able to protect yourself as long as you're paying attention.

Edit: I wonder if it's even possible for them to do that. Could that be problematic for the server in some way? I feel like maybe it would.

Players should be able to set up margin scams. However, you should be able to protect yourself as long as you're paying attention.

Edit: I wonder if it's even possible for them to do that. Could that be problematic for the server in some way? I feel like maybe it would.

But I digress, on the topic of the current discussion I can't really say too much, while I get the gist of the scam, it still seems like more of an exploit of game mechanics than an exploit of stupidity. Is it without a doubt always possible to recognize one of these margin scams? Or is it possible to do it completely invisibly for smaller returns?

... My solution to make it so people can see if the buy order is currently capable of being filled harms nobody but the scammers...

Those posters are more than likey the ones who implement the scams.

Seriously, those margin scams stick out like a sore thumb. If you fall for it, trading isn't what you should be doing.

You see alot of posts on this thread dogging the OP and saying leave it alone . Those posters are more than likey the ones who implement the scams. If not then why do you care if this is fixed or not? The only truely good aspect of the margin scam is the post on the forums from players who have fell for it. That would be the only reason to keep it in game but im sure we can find something else to laugh at them about instead.

Oh of course not, I understand anonymous trading is a massive part of it. I think that effectively posting under a name is a risky endeavor. If people see you flooding the market or such under a single name, it changes how they choose to purchase products.

However even in EVE where there isn't a feasible difference, you can create a proper brand identity and it could improve sales or drop them. Its a risk thing.

Its why I think it should be optional (defaulting to anonymous) where players who sell anon effectively sell through a market entity and others to sell publicly.

But I digress, on the topic of the current discussion I can't really say too much, while I get the gist of the scam, it still seems like more of an exploit of game mechanics than an exploit of stupidity. Is it without a doubt always possible to recognize one of these margin scams? Or is it possible to do it completely invisibly for smaller returns?

You know nothing about trading or manufacturing.

Well excuse me misses fancy pants. Yeah your right I dont know anything about large scalle lemming indy corps. Hows that ore buy back program working for you anyways?

You even have the option of "ignoring" people who you think are scammers and never see another contract from them. .

So there's alot of pricks that want to put in their useless $.02. Fine.

Also, if you'd notice, I said that I did not fall for this. I almost did. [/i] The real issue here is that it hurts the trading market for high end items. You can't make a living trading them. You can sell what you come by thru pve etc, but you can't play the market with them.

Please keep it civil, thank you. -ISD Dorrim Barstorlode

I usually don't agree with people trying to make Eve softer. But the margin trading scam is pretty stupid.

as your post "this can only be used for scamming and has no legit purpose" has already shown:P

I'd have no issues with this really.

I've always thought that buy/sell orders should be labeled or such anyway, I'd like to sell things from my corporation and have them known by name. Just let people pick anonymous or not when posting it.

LOL I hope you dont manufacture aswell as you read please reread my post so you dont look like a complete idiot here whoops too late. As for your corp history and how elite you are I could give a F*^$. You could be the most powerful indy corp in the game but ask me if I care dont worry I dont. I love when people try to show up other players up by going to there corp history and stating look how long I have been here I am elite so dont make fun of me on the forums LMAO. Trust me I dont give a $hit about you but atleast you made yourself look like a fool by bragging about your corp history. Im trying to think of that word that describbes a person who is full of themselves what is that please someone.........thats right pompous.

Yet another issue that would largely sort itself out if there were no alts.

Let me check my transaction logs- I'm pretty sure you sold me a boatload of ore in Tar/Tarta or Masalle for a 30% discount... in which case, thanks for the profit:D

Simple Solution:

Replace "Margin Trading" with "Layaway."

Allows buyer to purchase things without all ISK, blah blah blah. However, items purchased in this way go into reserve and cannot be pickup up by the buyer until the item has been paid in full. Items can remain in reserve for up to seven days. If not paid for in time then the item is returned to the original owner and the purchaser's ISK is refunded minus a 10% handling fee paid to the seller.

This is a serious exploit that needs to be addressed.

[...] cases where the scammer has put some effort in to really hide his tracks, in which case he has deserved any catch he pulls off.