Anniversary catshop scams

Deceptistar - Sanctuary · September 2009

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear wrote: »

How come nobody falls for the US 500k one though? Everytime I have seen one of those shops they have always undercut everyone else in arc by at least 20k per unit. And they usualy only have a "few", so it will make people rush so someone else does not buy them first.

The Stones one is a little more complicated, since it is playing with people's boredom and distractions while shopping for stones in Arc. I know when I am in arc, that is the time I catch up on what is going on, so I am not really paying that much attention to what is going on (except when buying things... although I mostly make my own stones), so once you have 4 stones at the right price, it is easy to lower the guard and not notice the 5th one overpriced. However, you do get a confirmation box asking if you are sure you want to buy something for X amount of coins.

If something looks too good to be true, it usualy is..... Also, personal responsibility goes a long way to protect people from less upstanding elements of society. I am sure people lock their doors when they leave the house or go to sleep at night if they live in the city, and I am sure people lock their cars as well and dont leave expensive things inside. People check their receipts to make sure they did not get overcharged when they shop, this is not that much different......

@Ily
I never tried to justify the person taking advantage, I just point out that in this case, "victim" is also to blame.
Everytime there is a post about scamming, people jump on the "poor victim" and the "you cannot blame victims", I am just pointing out that in fact, you can blame victims, and sometimes they will even end up in bigger trouble than the "criminal".
Obviously they are both guilty of different things, and the degree of how bad it is differs between them, but that does not invalidate that the victim has some blame for not paying attention, in this particular case.

You must be the kinda person that says "The cup is half empty" rather than "The cup is half full" >_>

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear · September 2009

Deceptistar - Sanctuary wrote: »

You must be the kinda person that says "The cup is half empty" rather than "The cup is half full" >_>

Either of those statements is correct, if the amount of water in the cup is at the half way mark, right?

Deceptistar - Sanctuary · September 2009

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Either of those statements is correct, if the amount of water in the cup is at the half way mark, right?

I........dont think you understand the cup is half full/empty term if your saying that

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear · September 2009

Deceptistar - Sanctuary wrote: »

I........dont think you understand the cup is half full/empty term if your saying that

I do get it, it is just that there is a third option as well. Personaly I say there is a half a cup of water, it is just a fact related to the amount of water in the glass.

Just because some people give more value to what is missing while others give more value to what they have, does not make either of them right or wrong. Than there is a third group that just states what is there, in this case a half cup of water.

From Wiki
"Is the glass half empty or half full? is a common expression, used rhetorically to indicate that a particular situation could be a cause for optimism (half full) or pessimism (half empty); or as a general litmus test to simply determine if an individual is an optimist or a pessimist. The purpose of the question is to demonstrate that the situation may be seen in different ways depending on one's point of view and that there may be opportunity in the situation as well as trouble. Traditionally there is usually only the answers "glass half full" or "glass half empty" but in an expanding group of realists there is a third answer describing the glass of water as "a half cup of water", showing neither a positive or negative connotation to the cup.

This idiom is used to explain how people perceive on events and objects. Perception is unique to every individual and is simply one's interpretation of reality."

Deceptistar - Sanctuary · September 2009

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Traditionally there is usually only the answers "glass half full" or "glass half empty" but in an expanding group of realists there is a third answer describing the glass of water as "a half cup of water", showing neither a positive or negative connotation to the cup.

This idiom is used to explain how people perceive on events and objects. Perception is unique to every individual and is simply one's interpretation of reality."

Watch in 10 years there gonna be 2-3 more options cause pple wanna be vague as possible in their choice (aka wanting both worlds)

eatwithspoons · September 2009

realists tend to be relatively pessimist

MasterLucian - Heavens Tear · September 2009

Has anybody noticed that not one GM/MOD has bothered to respond to this post? If they truly cared on the state of scammers they would start to do something. But alas, it is not so... I probably should b:shutup before I get banned/suspended... b:angry

Edit..... As I posted this Eat with Spoons chimed in... lol

eatwithspoons · September 2009

MasterLucian - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Has anybody noticed that not one GM/MOD has bothered to respond to this post? If they truly cared on the state of scammers they would start to do something. But alas, it is not so... I probably should b:shutup before I get banned/suspended... b:angry

We've commented on this subject so many times that there is nothing left to say. Use the search function to see some of our past responses, they're not going to change with time.

Deceptistar - Sanctuary · September 2009

eatwithspoons wrote: »

realists tend to be relatively pessimist

life kinda sucks b:cute

FooFooKity - Heavens Tear · September 2009

People want to get rich quick and do as little as possible to do so, people also want to save a buck when and where they can. These two situations lead people to sell low $$ items at high $$ amounts, and lead people to buy wat they think is high $$ items for low $$ amts. The solution is simple...Buyer Beware. They cant scam you out of your money if you dont let them. This being said I dont agree with the scamming that happens and think a bit of cat shop policing by both players and GM's would go a long way to solving the ever growing problem. If u see a shop scamming announce it to your guild mates and in General Chat people will take notice and not shop there.If they are in a Guild contact a ranked member of the guild usually leader or director is best and hopefully they will help them to see the error of their ways. GM's could randomly stroll thru west arch an hand out temporary acct suspensions for deliberate scamming this would deter them from doing it cause while their acct is suspended they cant and wont be making any money from their legitatmate items they have as well. Each event brings a new set of scams and scammers again Buyer Beware.

Miss_Tika - Lost City · September 2009

ilystah wrote: »

Yeah, everyone should check to avoid scam. However, blame it on the victim and suggest people to continue scamming precisely to annoy the victim like Miss_Tika really deserve a ban or an isolation.

you're an idiot

Vinat - Sanctuary · September 2009

Brael - Dreamweaver wrote: »

1/10 doing the scam? Nope, not like that on Dreamweaver. It's more like 9/10 here. It's almost to the point where it's not worth checking shops advertising best lucks.

it's at that point on sanct. since this event started, literally every single shop ive looked in that advertises bests has had normals for 4+ mil. and i seriously doubt they ever had a best luck in there to begin with.

Astelll - Heavens Tear · September 2009

ok I must know about the skirt that gives you a glowing **** (saw it in someones signature here) where do i get one!!!
b:dirty

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear · September 2009

Astelll - Heavens Tear wrote: »

ok I must know about the skirt that gives you a glowing **** (saw it in someones signature here) where do i get one!!!
b:dirty

Put 2 saphires or the pdef stones average or higher on your legwear (if you are female).... There you go, glowing ****

Saphire will give you white glowing ****, pdef will give you red glowing.

Solandri - Heavens Tear · September 2009

IceJazmin - Heavens Tear wrote: »

How come nobody falls for the US 500k one though? Everytime I have seen one of those shops they have always undercut everyone else in arc by at least 20k per unit. And they usualy only have a "few", so it will make people rush so someone else does not buy them first.

People fall for it all the time. They usually do not speak up about it because they're humiliated that they fell for it, and people here tend to blame the victim if they do speak up. All of which contrive to help the scammer to continue the scam. Police in RL have the same problem when tracking down and charging con artists.

I never tried to justify the person taking advantage, I just point out that in this case, "victim" is also to blame.
Everytime there is a post about scamming, people jump on the "poor victim" and the "you cannot blame victims", I am just pointing out that in fact, you can blame victims, and sometimes they will even end up in bigger trouble than the "criminal".
Obviously they are both guilty of different things, and the degree of how bad it is differs between them, but that does not invalidate that the victim has some blame for not paying attention, in this particular case.

Agreed. Blame falls on both parties. I think a lot of the argument over this topic is from people interpreting responses made to someone else's statements as being the entirety of the responder's position. Just because you argue that the victim bears some blame does not mean you feel the scammer is blameless. Just because I argue the victim is not totally responsible does not mean I feel the victim bears no responsibility.

Purra_Pearl - Sanctuary · September 2009

FooFooKity - Heavens Tear wrote: »

People want to get rich quick and do as little as possible to do so, people also want to save a buck when and where they can. These two situations lead people to sell low $$ items at high $$ amounts, and lead people to buy wat they think is high $$ items for low $$ amts. The solution is simple...Buyer Beware. They cant scam you out of your money if you dont let them. This being said I dont agree with the scamming that happens and think a bit of cat shop policing by both players and GM's would go a long way to solving the ever growing problem. If u see a shop scamming announce it to your guild mates and in General Chat people will take notice and not shop there.If they are in a Guild contact a ranked member of the guild usually leader or director is best and hopefully they will help them to see the error of their ways. GM's could randomly stroll thru west arch an hand out temporary acct suspensions for deliberate scamming this would deter them from doing it cause while their acct is suspended they cant and wont be making any money from their legitatmate items they have as well. Each event brings a new set of scams and scammers again Buyer Beware.

I like the idea of GMs strolling through Arch checking cat shops for scams, but we know it will never happen.

Personally, I think anyone trying to pull this sort of scam should get a one month ban. You use an event to scam people? You don't get to participate in the event. Simple as that.

Xeian - Dreamweaver · September 2009

I don't think we should be seeing "sex shop" "good shi*t" or other such things in shops either (sorry mods, this is true to the game, if you want to edit these out, then go ahead, I post as an example, nothing more)

Vidalaire - Heavens Tear · September 2009

The problem is most of the people who do this catshop scam use a shop alt that is on a completely different account than their main characters. So, it's almost impossible to shame the catshop owner. I, for one, would rather not seeing people shout on wc about every single scamming catshop in west arch since that would be worse than the Duke spam. Banning the catshop's account won't work either since they can just start a different alt account. The only thing we can do is to pay attention to what we buy. When the scam stops working, people will stop trying it.

Xeian - Dreamweaver · September 2009

yes, but things won't change as far as their names goes, and those I posted I'm sure are banable. and in those shops are over 5mil worth of stuff. it'd take a LONG time to get that back

peacefulsilence · September 2009

What I don't get is why GMs haven't been banning these people. Clearly stats in the ToS

11.(j) Engage in any actions that defraud or attempt to defraud, scam or cheat others out of any items that have been earned through authorized game play;

And they are clearly attempting whether they succeed or not. I used to play Diablo 2 and people did the same thing taking advantage of people's trust and lack of attention by swapping out an item quickly with an identical item that was worthless. Token of Luck is identical in every way to Token of Best Luck except for the word Best. In future I would suggest giving TL the same image but smaller so at a glance people can tell its not a TBL.

Vidalaire - Heavens Tear · September 2009

No, the two tokens are not identical. The Best Luck Token has two symbols on it. One above the other. The regular tokens only have one symbol. You can tell at a glance which type of token it is without mousing over it.

Purra_Pearl - Sanctuary · September 2009

Xeian - Dreamweaver wrote: »

yes, but things won't change as far as their names goes, and those I posted I'm sure are banable. and in those shops are over 5mil worth of stuff. it'd take a LONG time to get that back

Well, "sex shop" is fairly tame and imo funny. lols

But people who try to get around the game's language filters should, at least, get a warning and short temp ban. If they are caught doing it again, maybe get a longer ban.

Same as it should be in WC. Going around language filters and cursing out WC should get you a temp WC ban.

Andromaka - Heavens Tear · September 2009

It is also a color difference between the two tokens, the best luck token has same color as 3* items and the normal token has same color as 2* items ... so there r at least 2-3 things that can suggest buyers that something is wrong with that shop.
1. Much lower price then the average selling price for the real item.
2. different color for the item name
3. full different name
IMO ppl who scam should be reported and somehow banned, after the 1st 10-20 ppl banned im sure the rest will give up, also baned ppl should be shouted in Duke or GM anouncement so everyone knows it. something like "player x has been banned for scaming" but i think thats too much trouble for the GM...

Meanwhile all ppl that want to buy an event item that is subject to scam sshould really look carefully to what they buy before they confirm trade/cat sshop transaction. Same goes for stones, Ultimate subs or anything else.

STOP rushing to the cheapest shop and just press buy trying to make a huge profit... cheap doesnt mean better and if a cheap items stays on market more then 30 min that means something is wrong with it so double check!

Anniversary catshop scams

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