Within the last 7-10 days, I’ve been scammed 2 times by sellers on the character bazaar forum. If you look up my history, I’ve bought 100s of characters (for sp farming) in the past so I am very familiar with the history of the this forum. I noticed that many other buyers are also being scammed as well. I would say scamming on this forum is at its peak right now.
Anybody knows why all the sudden there are so many scammers? Do they realize that this forum is being monitored and backed by CCP (unlike Jita 4-4)? And scamming here is against the EULA agreement and will get them ban? Or are these stolen accounts? If yes, why not just extract the pilots for injectors and avoid the hassle of having to post on the char bazaar forum? maybe they want to double dips? Any guess, anyone?
easy… the scammer posts a legit sell thread on the forum selling a legit pilot with all the legit information (and posted by the pilot being auction). people bid on it. scammer accepts an offer. the auction winner send the isk to the pilot being sold. the scammer disappears, never to be heard from again. then the buyer has to submit a support ticket to CCP then wait 1-3 weeks to get the isk back… it just pisses me off to have to go through the process of reporting and waiting to get my isk back…
yes, according to the EULA agreement, they will absolutely get banned and CCP does not tolerate scamming on the character bazaar forum at all. That’s why I said, either they don’t know it’s against the rule to scam on the char bazaar forum OR those were stolen accounts and the scammers were trying to double dip by getting isk from the auction winner PLUS extracting injectors out of the pilots…
What I don’t understand is why all the sudden we have so many scammers on the forum? Is it all due to the work of 1 - 2 scammers? Or are these legit players thinking they can get away just like scamming in Jita 4-4?
scammers are literally everywhere not just eve across many games and platforms wish we don’t have tolerate this at all. There not really any detection system to detect scammer on Character Bazaar, people in jita who’re scammer shouldn’t be allow to post on Character Bazaar from my opinion, I hope can upgrade Character Bazaar Live trade where you can transfer isk and character at the same time.
@Avanya Yes I understand, there are scammers everywhere. But what I am trying to point out here is that based on the history of this forum, the Character Bazaar forum, I’ve never seen scamming to be so common like right now. If you take a look at the sell threads from the past 1-2 months, you’ll noticed that a good number of those were scammed. I have never seen this level of scamming before on this forum…
agreed, it’s the worst I have ever seen it, and I’ve been on the bazaar for years now. Before injectors were released even, and I have never seen more than one or two in a single month before now. I got hit with 5 in the last two weeks of December, still waiting on isk back for 3 of them
@Mj11jM_Hegirin that is exactly what I’m trying to point out!!! the number of scamming going on this forum is getting crazier by the days… I wonder if this is the work of 1-2 scammers or are the Jita Noob Scammers crawling out of the wood thinking they can make some easy BIG isk by scamming on the forum… lmao
Who knows, but what I do know is I really want to see the reactions on their face when/if they get banned because of it if they are Jita Noob Scammers. And I would be curious to know exactly what it is as well. I doubt we will ever know. But I am not even seeing posts that I don’t quite think belong in these forums stay in, such as this one and the misspelled character transfer post. It just seems like open season atm in these forums and it’s scary. I double and triple check the character before sending isk and details, and then I just hope and pray that it’s not a scammer. Then it’s an absolute delight to get an email about the transfer since they are using cash instead of plex and transfer.
The only reasons I can think of is that the scammers know CCP was on holiday break and the price difference between skill extractors and large injectors is also quite high. Meaning they could make the most money now and have the most time to get away with it. But this has only been the case for the 3 weeks, if there were many scams popping up before these past 3 weeks then I have no idea…
I am also scammed i try to buy new char 28.12. and I still didnt get answer form ccp… And now i dont have isk… How many time need to CCP to answer any experiance?
Yeah, I have also been scammed. Been waiting over a week to get refunded on two characters I bought.
I have my suspicions as to the recent scamming uproar. Perhaps:
(1) Hackers are reacting to higher injector prices and liquidating their stock of hacked accounts;
(2) It is the holiday season and there is increased demand for RMT; and/or
(3) CCP has recently banned a ton of RMT bots. Until those bots get set up again, RMTers may be short on stock, forcing them to liquidate hacked accounts to keep up with the demand of RMT buyers.
The last time we saw this much scamming happening all at once was during fanfest.
I don’t get it though because CCP gets back the isk to the rightful owner. So, what I’m gathering is that the scammers sell the injectors for over what they bought the character for and they benefit with the extra isk because CCP only will take back the amount scammed and they keep the difference, which they probably already sent to another character?
Perhaps CCP needs to implement some kind of special account (like when you buy real estate) where the money goes and it is released only after the character is sent and received and both parties click an ACCEPT button or something?
I might be naive about the whole thing. I have only purchased on character ever and thankfully it went so smoothly. This was a long time ago before the injectors. Sorry you all have to go through this. It is not good for anyone wanting to honestly trade or sell a character and try something new in Eve. It needs to be fixed!
My stats for 2018: 147 character purchases, 13 were scams. (8.8%) Current streak: 9 consecutive successful character purchases since December 5. Support ticket response times ranged from 24 hours to 19 days, with an average of about 8 days.
In examining the scam instances, I also get a sense that the characters are coming from hacked accounts, or possibly inactive accounts that have been purchased on the RMT market. Most of my instances also occurred during fanfest, the holidays or right after major content updates; times when CCP’s resources are stretched. Seems to be a concerted effort by RMTers more so than random Jita 4/4 style scam attempts by players either thinking they can get away with it or simply unaware of character sale policy.
I think some sort of escrow system for character transactions would be great. Might work something like this: the buyer locks in the character name, skill point total expected, ISK and account to receive the character, and the seller locks in the character, account to transfer to, PLEX (if PLEX transfer) or cc payment. Once matched and transfer fees paid, the exchange takes place (possibly subject to a waiting period if deemed needed).
Sent isk to seller 2 days ago, he disappeared after that. Sent multiple eve mails requested for status update, no response. This is getting out of controlled… 1 out of every 3-4 transactions is a scam now.
if CCP doesn’t do something about this soon, the character bazaar forum system will break soon…too many scamming going on at the moment. I hope CCP can take real legal action lawsuit against whoever is behind all this once caught.
There is a pattern to the character scams. It is usually higher SP pilots worth 50 bill or more, the seller accepts a at or below SP extraction value bid, They may try to negotiate in game so that they can have more than one person send them ISK, there is usually a lack of information and no time put into making the post.
Red Flags:
Low buyout value
Quick sales under 30 min
Accepting the first bid that is placed
Lack of REQUIRED information ( I see allot of people buying characters that are missing required information.)
People should also try and confirm if the transfer is going to be through PLEX or CC. If they are transferring by credit card and it sounds like they are going to transfer right away and an hour or two passes you should create a ticket ASAP. By giving them multiple days it makes their job of RMTing easier and they have a much higher chance of getting away with it.
In my opinion if people start staying clear of red flags then the scammer numbers will drop. I stopped trading characters months ago because the scamming got out of control for my standards. I just recently came back to see that the market got even worse.
posted 3 hours ago and accepted the first bid under extraction price… now seller is actively trying to contact the first bidder to send him ISK ASAP. even now, the seller just replied to my post on his thread. 99% scam i believe…let’s wait and see.
I think we have a real SERIAL SCAMMER here… just 1 dude behind all this.
