Suggestions on understanding and avoiding a potential scam?

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1

Howdy All!

I had something strange happen today and I was hoping someone could explain what happened so I know for the future.

I was looking for trades between stations and found an item in Jita that had a higher buy order in another station looking for several of that item. I bought the item in Jita and flew it to the second station hoping for a profit.

As soon as I hit sell, all the buy orders in the second station vanished and the item just went up with a sell order.

I’m assuming I fell afoul of a scam of some kind, and I’m not looking for sympathy, but I was hoping someone could tell me what happened and how to avoid it in the future!

Thanks so much!

2

Thats what is called the Margin Trade scam. THere is a skill you can train that reduces the % of isk put up for an order.

ie I put up a buy order for 10billion, it only takes 1 billion from my wallet.

I then transfer all the isk out of my wallet, so when that order tries to fill, it fails because I can no longer cover the rest of the 10billion.

People then post an item on a different market at a lower sell, so it looks like you’re going to make billions just moving something super quick!

EDIT: Also when doing this you make sure you put the buy order range to just the station, so it doesn’t instantly fill with items for sale in the same system.

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3

I fell for something similar. Someone was selling an officer mod for 200m over the highest buy order and for about the same price it had sold for in the past. There was more than just one buy order and they had been there a while.

As soon as I purchased it, the buy orders vanished. He was just trying to make it seem like it was worth more than it was with the fake demand and it worked.

4

Just think to yourself:

  1. Why would this buy order be in a major trade hub in a different station
  2. If its too good to be true, it probably is
  3. Someone was probably spamming in local how its a great deal and they wish they could afford it
5

I fell for this one about three months into the game. GF.

6

It’s popular with not so common mods. I see t mostly with officer mods.

7

Best way to avoid it is to assume that everyone is out to scam you. Dont look at things that are too good to be true.

But with your specific scam, a great indicator is looking at the number of sell and buy orders that are up.

The problem with this scam, is that it needs to be an item with a very low trade volume. Otherwise it doesnt work.

So if you see an item with only 3-4 people selling, and only 2-3 buy orders up, then its a scam.

Good luck next time!

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