As for your post - yes this uses a poorly implemented game mechanic. Yes it's been discussed before repeatedly and I imagine CCP will "eventually" get around to addressing the problem.

IMO - treat margin trading like flying a T3 - if the order collapses due to insufficient funds, they lose a skill level and must retrain it.

Then remove that skill altogether. While I understand the concept beneath it I don't get why a broker would accept to buy something for you while you don't even have the money to pay for it.

I had though about making the rest to cover never higher then the profits that could be made from sell orders, although someone could simply put a sell order for a very high price and it would be circumvented. The alternative would be to use the sell orders average value.

EDIT: The player would get into the negatives, and the sell orders would be "Locked" from being canceled or sold for lower then the average value.

I was under the impression that with real life margin trading you actually had to cover the bill if your sales didn't end up covering your buys when it came due one way or the other. Either through sales of other stock, often at unfavorable prices, or through loss of other assets.

So far I brought up 4 ideas that would fix this topic's issue and I'm pretty sure that any of them would fix the scam part of the issue at least:

- In contracts, show the same value you get when trying to buy or sell something (Warning: This sell order is 9001% higher then the market average, are you sure you want to continue + a warning in the contract before clicking accept) + Add a way to filter orders by minimum quantity

- Show the buy orders from people who cannot afford their current margin in red. (I prefer the first one)

- Remove the Margin Trading skill

- Base the maximum margin on your wallet + sell orders value at market averages, you cannot cancel sell orders until you have cleared your negative ISK wallet and cannot lower the price under the market average. (Most complicated method, fixes everything and is more clear about the real use of margin trading)

Having a negative wallet is currently a big fat red flag imposed on a character by CCP for RMT, changing the system so that trading puts you in that situation would make that flag less meaningful.

I thought they'd kind of fixed that by improving the dialogue so that people knew to eject their contraband when collared by customs for smuggling, but TY for the info, edited my post accordingly.

Maybe instead of canceling the buy order, all market traded buy orders should be colored differently to indicate there is a risk that the order won't go through?

The problem here is that one of the party in this transaction has insufficient insight to make an informed choice about whether they want to participate in this transaction. In real life I guess the equivalent would be to be able to perform a credit check on a customer before ordering the raw materials for an expensive custom job. Sure, they would still be stuck with the materials at the end of the day but at least they had an inkling of what they were getting into.

How? By putting a large buy order close to the sell orders giving false impression the item is in demand. This is not aimed to be a scam but manipulate the perception of supply and demand for the asset. I have seen it done, believe it or not.

I don't see why my proposal to add an option to check if an order if funded or not (example 2 above) can be controversial except if you are a scammer or a price manipulator.

I think that if you fail to fufill a trade in say JITA.... the station manager might make it illegal for you to trade there anymore... or in regions.. or faction space... buy... yes... but never sell... same with contracts.

yes... and subject to immediate revocation of your Captain's Quarters and POD ejection. I'm mean what is a Station official supposed to do with tons of merchandise (trafficked or legal) that some ******* can't pay for... turn around and put it back where they got it from?!?! What about all the overtime/holiday pay the material handlers union (Local 399547459323 "Heavy Lift") has to deal with every time some capsuleer can't pay his/her bill....

Maybe a restocking fee! I know some of you are thinking they can't possibly had to get the stuff out of Capsuleer "A" Item Hangar... and have it moved 1/2 way to Capsuleer "B" hangar before the deal was canceled... but in reality... when I make a buy.. that stuff shows up in my hangar IMMEDIATELY!! so they gotz to be knowing what they be doing!! maybe they can PREDICT what is getting ordered.