Walkthroughs of some common local channel scams

Double-your-ISK :  One of the least sophisticated scams in its most basic form, this scam can be augmented to be profitable, assuming the market isn’t saturated by it.  In its simplest form:  1) Come up with a reason why you are going to double any amount of ISK anyone sends you.  2) Spam this reason with your offer to the channel.  3) Profit.  Of course, it’s rarely this simple.  You have some serious credibility issues to overcome, for one.  This is so well-known that you are bound to attract trolls, and these trolls must be countered.  This leads us to the augmentations mentioned above.  Double-your-ISK needs “proof”.  Many scammers provide this by dragging people’s names into the channel and claiming they sent money and had it doubled.  The problem with this is that you may drag someone in from the list of those in local that isn’t AFK, and calls you on your bullshit.  Counter this by dragging in people from another channel.  I like channel Russian for this.

However, even with this sort of “proof”, and the incentive it provides by hitting peoples’ greed nerve every time they think someone else might be getting paid, it’s usually not enough to make this scam profitable.  To make real ISK with Double-your-ISK, you need a partner, or more than one.  In the past I have had mixed success hiring people straight out of the local channel list in private messages.  Sometimes it works great.  Sometimes they troll you, blowing the whole scam.  Sometimes you can’t find anyone at all.  But with even just one “shill” in the crowd saying THEY got paid, your success rate will begin to climb.  No one likes to miss out on free money.  The fear that they are missing the first-ever REAL ISK doubler overcomes their common sense, and they will send their ISK.

Other things that help maximize profit:

Returning the first amount sent.  This works for low amounts sometimes as players will “test” you to make sure you are real.  However, other players will pretend to be testing you, get their ISK doubled, and move on, knowing it’s a scam.  So I only double amounts  1 mill or below.  Even if you’re being trolled, it’s only a mill.

Use plausible reasons to address those complaining about not getting their ISK doubled.  Stall them as long as possible.  Tell everyone you are swamped and are doubling the large amounts first.  Scoff at those sending small amounts, telling them you don’t have all night to do 500 doubles on 1000 ISK and to get real.  Take the offensive.  You’re giving away free money, and they are trolling, the jerks.

Bring the victim in on the scam (partly).  If you get a big hit, message the sender immediately.  Fess up that it’s a scam, and promise to REFUND (not double) his ISK if he helps you by saying it got doubled.  This often works, as they have little other hope of getting their ISK back.  Of course, they are your profit, so they don’t get paid in the end.  However, I always pay those I recruit from local once the scam is complete, as they may be able to help out in future scams, and I am usually only paying 5m or so anyway.  Well executed, Double-Your-ISK can net over 100m with less than 30 minutes of time investment.

Item Misidentification:  Selling a cheap item as an expensive one with item exchange/auction.   For example, create a sell contract for a Caldari Navy Photon Scattering Field after purchasing one for 30 mil.  Make the item exchange contract for 350 million and in the item description put “Caldari Navy Invulnerability Field x 1”.  Advertise this on local by changing the text after dropping it into the chat window to Caldari Navy Invulnerability Field.  To change the text, just back arrow into the highlighted text, then change the text as needed, backspacing over anything you need to delete.  Hit enter when it looks right.  The more efficient you can become at quickly changing the text, the less hassle this is.  There is no way to cut/paste in a modified contract.  Practice out of local.

To reduce the editing required you may find it effective to put the fraudulent contract in your bio.  Then you can simply paste in the plain text ad for the contract and inform buyers that it’s “in your bio”.   To provide a convincing reason for it being in your bio, and for you not just dragging into the channel, other completed contracts for the counterfeit item are listed above the fraudulent contract.  That way it looks like you’re listing them in your bio because you’re a trader with several for sale.

Also, you may choose to use an auction instead of an item exchange.  By specifying a cheap starting bid, and using alts/friends/corpmates as shill bidders, you can run the price up to just under your buy-out price.  Set the buy-out price to a really good price for the counterfeit item, but not so low as to be unbelievable.   But create room for the buyer to imagine a tidy profit or savings.

Buy/Sell Misidentification:  Selling at a huge profit while appearing to be buying at a huge loss.  For example, create a sell contract for 1 billion ISK for Neural Network Analyser X 50 (worth 50k each) and advertise it as a buy contract for 1 billion.    Augment this scam with a good story about why you need them quickly and can’t get it off market.  Also, using an item that you know many people would have in their hangar, but can’t be found on the current market works here.

Misquoted Price: Typically, adding zeroes to a sale price or take away zeroes from a buy price, but advertising it as being at the correct price.  This can be supported by the item description field including the price, but the effectiveness of this is debatable.  Example:  Mislabeling an item bought for 41,110,000 as selling for 31,110,000 but making the real price on the contract 311,110,000.

Misquoted Quantity: Best done with high-volume items, for example if 50,000 units of Zydrine is going for 55,000,000:    Buy it at that price, and create a sell contract for 500 million ISK.  In the item description, call it Zydrine x 500,000.  In the channel ad, call it “500,000 bulk discount 1000 ISK each”.  (Credit to IM’s contract history).  With all of those zeroes it’s easy to lose track and think you’re getting a 5m discount.

Simple Price Manipulation: Advertise a relatively cheap named or faction module for a price dramatically above its usual sale price.  For example:  Dark Blood Armor Thermic Hardener x 3 — 63M for 3 !! 21M/each!! CHEAPEST ON EvE!! (can sell separately if needed).  The scam is that these hardeners only go for about 1 million each regularly.  As in the example, this relies heavily on the scammer selling the idea that the item is worth more than what is being advertised.  This works best if there are no competing contracts/orders to compare to.  Buying the single available contract for an item at its usual low price both provides you with the item and wipes out any readily available evidence of the item’s true value.   If it is not on market, and has no competition from other contracts, an inexperienced player may simply take your word that it’s a great deal, and grab it.  Keep in mind that buying up the stock in a station, system, or region will work as well as buying the entire universal stock if the mark has their contract search filter set likewise or if your items is on market.

Another variation on this scam is the multiple item contract with a few choice goodies in it and a variety of inexpensive modules/materials filling it out for quantity.  People are lazy and may take your word that a package with an item they want anyway, and a ton of other “stuff”, is really a good deal if sold separately.  They plan on buying your contract, using the item they’re shopping for, and liquidating the rest for a tidy profit.  Of course, the profit is on the scammer’s side who has done the math and is selling the package for a substantial profit.

Trade Experiment: InfestedZombie1337 was seen in Jita running a “trade experiment” in which he would trade a stated item for one of slightly higher value.  Of course, anyone could make up a trade experiment, and pretend to be receiving items of higher and higher value until you reach a fleet issue ship…which is actually a player named regular version.  And the whole thing becomes a lead-in to a classic trade window scam with renamed ship.

Fitted Ship Missing the Ship: Create a contract selling a popular expensive T2 fitted T1 rigged ship done in a popular configuration.  Put ammo on it (used is best if they’re crystals).  Forget to include the ship.  This works because people focus on the details, counting up the price of the mods and rigs and making sure they’re all there as advertised.

The Trade Window:  The trick is, the money can be changed by the money guy at any time.  So you can safely put 300m on your side, wait for the item to be dropped by the client, and then quickly change the amount and click accept before the client clicks accept.  With luck, the timing will be right, and he will click accept a split second after you change the amount.  If your timing is off, he will click accept before you change the amount, and he will have to click accept AGAIN to finalize the deal.  Obviously, this will tip him off, and you will lose him.  Or, he will wait a few seconds and will notice the amount change, and not click accept.  However amusing this scam may be, it is very hit/miss.  It is often bragged about by scammers as “the time they scammed a scammer and got a mislabeled ship for nearly nothing”.  Amusing, but hardly profitable to snag a renamed “bait ship”, inexpensive by nature, once in a blue moon.  Add to this the fact that most players know about the problems with the trade window and therefore stay away from it.  So it’s mostly scammers trying to scam other scammers.  That being said, it is impossible for the money man in a trade window situation to get burned by someone “faster” with an item.  The mechanics do not allow for it.  For the money man to get burned, he MUST mis-click the window or screw up the adjustment of the amount before clicking accept.  However, since he is rushing, trying to get the timing right, mistakes are not entirely uncommon.  It should be noted that some players whisper about abusing the trade window in this way as being considered “borderline exploit” by CCP.  I have no confirmation either way on this issue, but I have shied away from trade window scams for this reason and the others listed above.

The other form of trade window scamming is selling a renamed ship.  For example, buying a Raven, making it active, renaming it to a CNR and attempting to sell it as such through a trade window.  Of course, the CNR is one of the most scammed ships, and the trade window version may be the most well known and overused version of selling a mislabeled CNR.

The following was recently (12/27/2011) posted to “Crime and Punishment”.  While sitting in station tonight i recieved an eve mail from some one named Tyrone Bigams regarding him wanting to sell a few shiny ships at significantly reduced cost. right from the start it was obvious something was up, but i decided to see what he was trying to pull and contacted him saying i’d buy a couple of his ships for resale purposes. he opens up trade menu and to my surprise it seamed nothing was wrong, two vexor navy issues and a dominix navy issue were put into the trade menu like he said. so i traded him the isk and hit accept. after the trade is completed i try to put them into the market and resell them only to find that the ships were simply named after their shiny counterparts and that i’d lost a sizable amount of money due to a pathetically programmed trade window. i’m wondering if this system was intentionally designed to be taken advantage of by scamming garbage or if it was just a happy accident. a trade system that allows players to rename the items whatever they like and have it be displayed that way in the trade menu is absolutely ridiculous. if an item is going to be traded it needs to display the actual name of the item in the trade menu, otherwise every single new player is going to fall for this at least once unless they’re lucky enough to be warned about the trade systems inadequacies ahead of time. so, eve eve community, i ask you this: how do you feel with such a poorly designed trade system? are you happy with it?   The lesson you should take from this message is that yes, trade window scams still work.  The method is simple.  Buy a “regular” ship.  Assemble it.  Rename it.  (Vexor named Vexor Navy Issue, for example)  Advertise it (mail as described above is common).  When you drag it into the trade window, it will have the name you changed it to instead of the name of the item.  Of course, the victim can just click on the info button for the ship and see that it’s just a Vexor.  Also, the faction icon in the corner isn’t visible on the regular ships.   But as you can see above, they often do not realize how quirky the trade window mechanics are, and take it at face value.  Profit.

ADVANCED

When most people say “advanced” scams, they mean long cons, often involving days or weeks of research, preparation, study, and execution.  However, even local contract scamming can offer opportunities for some amount of creativity.  Various scams can be combined to maximize their effectiveness.  Market conditions can offer opportunities to create an illusion of market price that can be exploited in a scam.  There may even be opportunities to “scam the scammer scammers”.  For example:

Shiny: I am explaining this scam so that you can understand a portion of the next scam.  Find a rare item and put it up for sale at an inflated price at a station a jump or two away.  Then place a buy order for a few million more at your local station.  Advertise that you need the item urgently, and cannot leave because a group of WTs has you trapped in the station.  When you see your wallet flash because the item was bought off market, cancel the buy contract.  This is dangerous, of course, because anyone with the same item can execute your buy contract without triggering your sell order.  Do not try this unless you are very certain about your item’s rarity.

Buy/Sell Misidentification with Market Manipulation:  Find an item with about 10 to 100 in stock in the system.  You must be able to afford to buy ALL of the item in the region.  For example, buy all 20 of the Domination Silver Tags from Jita 4-4 for around 1 million total.  They normally go for around 50k.  Then put 15 of them back on the market, in 3 sell orders of around 8 mill per tag.  Take one of the other 5 tags you bought and create a sell contract for it at 25 million.  Then create a tale for local.  The one I used was, “I need a Domination Silver Tag ASAP for a Fleet Firetail BP.  My market is glitched and my corp is waiting. Don’t care what the local price is, I’ll pay 25 mil. Contract in Bio.”  As you can see, the believability of this story is not very high.  My market “is glitched?”  But it still worked fine.  I am sure it can be improved upon, however.

This scam is multistage.  The first stage is when a potential client buys the 50k tag for 8m.  This is the most commonly completed part of this scam.  Often they will check local prices, buy it, and go to execute the contract in your bio and see that it is a sell contract, not a buy.  This works often because many players assume that market prices are relatively stable, and don’t bother to check price history.  They will then usually either sell the tag back to the buyers on market, or just keep the tag.  (Having a buy order here for 100k or so on the tag lets you recycle tags.)  The second stage is obviously the sell contract in your bio.  It can be misread just like an everyday buy/sell switch.  This completes at about 20% of the number of market buys.  The third stage is where things get fun.  This is when someone thinks they understand your scam, but are actually mistaking it for the “shiny” scam.  They line up the buttons for buying the item and executing your sell contract so they can press the contract button for 25m immediately following buying the item for 8m.  Of course, no matter how fast they are, they can’t beat it because they’re both sell orders.  They end up with 2 tags worth 100k and you end up with 33m.  I have witnessed clients bragging afterwards in local about how they just “scammed a scammer”.

There are two lessons here.  The first is, nearly ridiculous explanations can be given to explain away doubt if the greed of the client is sufficient to let it.  The second is that although the “usual” local scams will work, and work better with a bit of support, there is always room to discover or re-discover obscure angles on working them.  I did not expect the confusion that this scam caused with people who thought it was the “shiny” scam, nor how this would improve its success rate…but it was a nice surprise.

Margin Scamming:  The basic principle is that you put a small quantity of rare but mostly worthless items up for sale via contract for a large amount. To encourage someone to take the contract, you put up a buy order in market using the margin trading skill to reduce the amount needed for escrow on the buy order to only a fraction of the ISK needed to satisfy the buy order.  Then you drain that character of any remaining ISK, so that the margin buy order will fail if anyone tries to fill it.

The counter to this scam is to find the item in the same quantity as the minimum amount listed by the scammer in his margin buy order.  Then create a sell order for that quantity that is low enough to be covered by the amount in escrow.  At maximum margin trading skill, I believe that is 25% of the total buy amount, but look it up, don’t quote me.  Eve will immediately balance your sell order against the scammers much pricier buy order.  Because your sell order can be fulfilled by the amount in the scammer’s margin buy order, his order will be fulfilled and you will get his escrow.

I have heard that there is a counter to this in which the scammer drains the escrow from the sell order using an alt.  For example, the scammer makes the minimum amount on his margin buy order 10, but places 20 for sale.  He then puts up his own sell order for 10 at the amount he was required to put up for escrow.  Eve settles the two orders and drains the order of escrow, leaving 10 of the item for sale at a high price but with little to no escrow left in the order to be scalped by a counter-scam.  However, to be honest, I do not margin scam so this is all hypothetical/hearsay.

~ by eveprincessbride on November 21, 2011.