Interesting market manipulation transforms legitimate sales people into scammers

My corporation tries to serve our local economy in Heimatar, Metropolis and Molden Heath.
We have a bunch of products on the market all the time but we make sure to sell them for a cheap price. We don’t want people to leave for places like Jita. Our goal has been this from the beginning.
Even if we are selling a pretty rare product that is not found on the market, we don’t ramp up the price like other more profit oriented entities would do.

However, today I woke up to this:
2112

I really wondered when all that ISK showed up in our corporation wallet and we checked our orders.
clearly our agents got advised to sell the product for a fair price of ~1.1 Million ISK.

Yesterday we put 10 of them on the Rens market. 8 got sold but one got sold for this crazy price. 2 are left. So I think our data on this is correct:

im22age

We suspect our client accidentally fell for the scam somehow and ordered the highest priced product in Rens. Since our order at the time might have been the cheapest, our corporation delivered the product but still got paid this astronomical amount of ISK from the scam-deal.

Which of course makes us look really bad now in the eyes of said individual. I would like to sue the Republic’s market commission for allowing these things to happen. Anybody anytime can now claim we have scammed them, backed by public verified data, and it’s a big blow to our public image if that should happen.

On top of that, our corporation works by investing 100% of sales into new buy orders in the region so we don’t actually have said ISK to pay the individual back at the current time. We are working on a solution.

Working as intended. - CCP

Either keep the isk or return it. That will determine whether you are a scammer.

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There is no control of the buyer which order is filled (the item comes from), regardless of the price and the concrete item you pick the money always goes to the lowest price order at that time. Up to you keeping it or refunding.

Would assume most people don’t care about who is the client of a market deal anyway. I wouldn’t be too worried about your reputation. As said before the buyer has no control about the money flow.

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I tried to get this problem fixed a few months back, whereby I accidentally paid over 600M for 129 x X5 Enduring stasis webifiers: Fix market sell price mechanics
Got a CSM member attention, but this stalled as someone jumped in the conversation and sadly got him frustrated, so he gave up.

But basically you don’t pay the lowest available sell price, you pay the actual amount you punch in. So if that happens way above the market price, you’re screwed. You get a warning the first time you place an order, but not when you adjust it. So a typo can cost you your entire wallet.

So in your above example, the buyer likely was willing to pay 889,000, but added too many zeroes…

I’d say, that client was so pleased by making business with such a versed and courteous corporation, that he/she/it decided to show his/her/its appreciation and gratitude by adding a little tip on top.

You surely can feel thankful for that, it’s obviously well deserved.

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Not in this case, the buyer probably right-clicked buy the overpriced order seen in the screenshot on the bottom due to mistake or misconfigured view (wrong sorting).


It’s really sad that those scam orders are the most money I ever made… another one just bought a Salvage Drone II for 190mil… =(
I’ve lost hope in Humanity xD

Prices are dynamic relative to supply and demand, when you’re not around the next person will be there supplying the market or not and the buyer will go to a market that has what they need, forever and ever it goes.
I make tons of money off everything i supply and will continue to do so as is my preference in game, markups belong to the owner risk taker supplier, amd consumers pay as they want need depending on demands, this lesson of you selling yourself short paying yourself less to appease or please the masses has some technical terms im sure.
Pay yourself better.

And some more refunds coming in…
grafik

It’s really frustrating that you as a sales person are powerless to do something about this issue. I don’t want people set my corporation to red because they think I’m a scammer -.-’
And I don’t want those numbers messing up my books >_<

Because if I see now a giant spike in ECM Drones, I produce more of them, just to realize it all came from those scam orders and not actual legit volume.

Im pretty sure they cant see who they are buying from. At least im 80% sure on that. So if that is still true, they have no clue whether it is or isnt you or your corp.

You can clearly see who was the other party in Market transaction history tab in your ISK wallet details. But you have to care a bit to go there and look it up for yourself.

Maybe people just do not care to know?

It always sells lowest price to a buyer, up to them to pay attention to what they are buying. If it is that big a deal to you find out from order history who is responsible and kick them from your corp.

huh, always wondered why people put in ridiculous orders. Might have to try this sometime.

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