[quote=Aribeth Fireeye] Oh well, isk lost is a lesson learned. Hopefully I can find a corp that will finance my losses.[/quote

Do you also have an amazon wishlist perchance?

You make it sound like it was a lot of money I lost, I lost chips to most people. A new BS would suffice to cover the losses.

didn't read the wall of text but margin trading is a flawed feature and needs to go.

I still don't like that mechanic. The skill is there for no reason but to scam and all margin scams are not that obvious. They can be pretty subtle and for a new player, impossible to catch. They have enough on their plate just trying to learn the basics. Expecting them to understand advanced trading is simply pushing it.

There really should be something in the tutorial about it.

Mr Epeen

Eve is harsh and not for the inattentive or stupid.

Generally I agree with the sentiment that most scams in EVE are "legitimate" and every buyer should beware. The Margin Trading scam is the only one that I feel is unbalanced far in favor of the perpetrator over the mark, and that the fault lies mostly with CCP.

First and foremost, as has been mentioned here, this scam is perpetrated in what is supposedly a broker-operated commodity marketplace. The impression is given, particularly to the new player, that the market may not offer the best "deals" but is a forum for open and transparent transactions, unlike the wild and woolier contracts or direct trades.

Building on that point, many people likely approach EVE with some working knowledge of trading on commodities/securities markets. But as just about anyone here knows at this point, there is a distinct and profound disconnect between what "Margin Trading" is in EVE versus the traditionally accepted definition of that activity in any other market. Buying on margin is a well established practice in RL markets, and at least in every trading system I've ever seen has this in common: a buy order that is filled will be completed. It will always be the buyer and not the seller that is on the hook for a margin call.

EVE, of course, works completely in reverse. When the margin is called and the buyer comes up short, the seller is left holding the bag (of unsaleable goods).

I would personally like to see "Margin Trading" in EVE aligned with what trading on margin actually is; if you overreach with a buy order and it is filled, then tough luck Charlie you now owe a pile of money to the brokerage. This however will result in negative wallet balances which everyone screams is "completely unfair."

At the very least, it would be nice that "unbacked" buy orders (those buy orders that cannot be completely filled) were highlighted in red text in the market; it would give a clear indication that something was up instead of the (relatively) invisible nature of this scam now.

CCP could destroy margin trading scams in one day with just a few lines of code... if they wanted to.

How? You know how when people get busted cheating CCP will knock their ISK account into the negative and force them to work their way back out of the hole?

Allow the same thing to happen when people don't actually have the ISK to cover a margin trade. Their ISK balance is now negative. Have fun getting out of the hole. Oh, and you biomass your toon then the bill gets passed to the next one on the account.

Problem solved. Very easy. If they wanted to.

Sad reality, though, they don't want to. Welcome to Sociopaths Online.

Generally I agree with the sentiment that most scams in EVE are "legitimate" and every buyer should beware. The Margin Trading scam is the only one that I feel is unbalanced far in favor of the perpetrator over the mark, and that the fault lies mostly with CCP.

First and foremost, as has been mentioned here, this scam is perpetrated in what is supposedly a broker-operated commodity marketplace. The impression is given, particularly to the new player, that the market may not offer the best "deals" but is a forum for open and transparent transactions, unlike the wild and woolier contracts or direct trades.

I would personally like to see "Margin Trading" in EVE aligned with what trading on margin actually is; if you overreach with a buy order and it is filled, then tough luck Charlie you now owe a pile of money to the brokerage. This however will result in negative wallet balances which everyone screams is "completely unfair."

At the very least, it would be nice that "unbacked" buy orders (those buy orders that cannot be completely filled) were highlighted in red text in the market; it would give a clear indication that something was up instead of the (relatively) invisible nature of this scam now.

It was nativity and greed. Scams are a part of the game and you need to accept that fact.

This scam and the skill should not be changed for one simple reason. You need to buy the over priced item first, before even attempting to sell it. The fact that you didn't do your home work and took the buy order as a legitimate price check, was not the fault of the skill. It was your fault.

If you want to speculate in the market, you need a certain amount of knowledge. If you go ahead and make an investment without researching for information first, then you only have yourself to blame.

TL:DR. Don't blame this skill, for your poor judgement and investments.

What makes margin trading a unique scam is that it stems not from misplaced trust in a player, as most scams do, but rather from misplaced trust in CCP. A player has no reason to suspect that the game's developers would allow invalid buy orders to be placed on the market.

Im confused. So you clicked on a buy order in the market and the person got your items but didn't have to pay you??

Not quite, he purchased an overpriced piece of tat (the scam) with the hopes of making a killing on it by selling it to a ridiculously priced buy order (the bait), the buy order failed because the character who placed it didn't have enough ISK. OP is now down some cash and up an expensive piece of tat.

what the flying christ is 'tat' ?

Black Dranzer is absolutely right. Everyone coming down on Jonathon Oday for being greedy or naive, is off base. This was NOT an instance where you'd expect to be tricked by an IN GAME MECHANIC.

Everyone getting all haughty and snickering at Jonathon Oday, is off base. He was a new player, there HAS to be a minimal safe threshold for someone that inexperienced. He was not tricked by another player, he was blindsided by CCP and the system THEY implemented.

There is no other reason for this skill to even exist in game, other than to allow people to implement this scam.

There can't be any kind of GÇ£safe thresholdGÇ¥ against offers that go away. What do you propose? That the game forces buyers to take stuff that they no longer want?

Black Dranzer is absolutely right. Everyone coming down on Jonathon Oday for being greedy or naive, is off base. This was NOT an instance where you'd expect to be tricked by an IN GAME MECHANIC.

I'm not an in game trader, when I see a buy order on the game market system that is set up by CCP, NOT a player, I trust that the system, MANAGED BY CCP, is not going to screw me over. I didn't know that you could put up a buy order in the system, MANAGED BY CCP, without enough escrow to cover it.

but the 'highlight escrow buys not covered' idea is fantastic too. Would that hurt legit margin traders?

Isn't this fixed as simply as having an indicator on the buy / sell order. One warning whether the dealer actually has at that point in time enough money to cover their end?

Then the buyer actualy has an option to say screw that and move on to a legitimate order?

Not quite, he purchased an overpriced piece of tat (the scam) with the hopes of making a killing on it by selling it to a ridiculously priced buy order (the bait), the buy order failed because the character who placed it didn't have enough ISK. OP is now down some cash and up an expensive piece of tat.