Sneaky Trade Scam Attempt

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LazarusQ wrote:

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diablofdb wrote:

OP it's not a scam it's called a bargain everyone does that, if you feel offended it's your own problem

If you got arrested for giving 10$ for a 15$ item and running away with it before the cashier could notice, would you plead that you were just bargaining?

How is a real world situation like that in anyway relevant to a video game?

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mark1030 wrote:

I use tab wide buyouts so I can't find items when they try to trick me about the buyout set.

This.

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RandallPOE wrote:

How is a real world situation like that in anyway relevant to a video game?

Sure, what happened was not illegal. But that's entirely besides the point. It was unquestionably dishonest. That is what I was pointing to.
Do not forget that it is people from the real world that are playing this game. The computers that stand between them are no excuse for being a dickhead.

I wouldn't call that a scam. Maybe his English was poor, or he was lazy, so he just copy and pasted the message as a template, then switched out the value.

When I was learning English, way back before the Internet as we know it, but not before text chat platforms offered by services like CompuServe (they called it CB), I had a whole list of fragments of sentences, which I then would piece together, and modify as needed, when talking to people. Like legos. It addressed the problem of not knowing how to properly say something. I added lines and phrases to my list as I encountered them, and that helped tremendously with learning English.

PoE has a lot of non-native speakers whose English is very limited. Looking at his responses, he may well have fallen into that category. To me, that seems more likely than an attempt at scamming you. In fact, if I could barely write English (people always understand more than they can actively use), and wanted to make an offer in PoE, that is exactly the method I'd use.

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Mivo wrote:

Looking at his responses, he may well have fallen into that category. To me, that seems more likely than an attempt at scamming you. In fact, if I could barely write English (people always understand more than they can actively use), and wanted to make an offer in PoE, that is exactly the method I'd use.

*Emphasis added*

I think that might be exactly why I doubt he is a non-native English speaker. Most non-native speakers write either so poorly that it is nearly impossible to understand, OR so perfectly that it appears to have been taken out of a grammar text book. And most of the native English speakers write in pseudo-language with no punctuation, poor spelling, weird numbers-in-place-of-letters and so on. I see this example a lot:

Non-English Speaker: I am awfully sorry at the terrible state of my English abilities, as for the English language is not my mother tongue. I hope you forgive me for every foolish mistake I make.

English as first language: lol it okei

I get someone trying this every single day, and as a result I have to double check my price on every single item I sell basically.


"hi I would like to buy your item listed for 2 exalts."

"its listed for 5 exalts."

"ya I know but Im offering 2 exalts"

"no you did the copy paste quick tell from xyz, and then changed the price to "listed for 2 exalts", intentionally"

"sry Im new, so 2 exalts?"

"no"



thats how it goes, virtually every day. Its not bad english or new players, its a calculated trick. I hope its working for them somewhere because when they come to me like this then the amount I am willing to discount on the item gets chopped down to about 1/4 of what Id normally discount for someone who didnt start a trade like this.

Sweet talk me sugar, flatter me and fool me and Ill give you a larger discount simply for making my day a little more friendly even if I dont buy your little plea about only having x amount of blah orb. Pretend a lowball isnt a lowball, give me some bullshit about only wanting the life and resist on this double crit + flat phys + life leech amulet and you wont be winning any friends here. Try and pull a fast one by misquoting my prices and you will make me hostile, I might still sell to you at full price, I might tell you to go fuck yourself on principal.

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GingerBeast wrote:

And most of the native English speakers write in pseudo-language with no punctuation, poor spelling, weird numbers-in-place-of-letters and so on.

I agree. "plz" is a dead give-away.

This is part of why trading is such a pain in the ass. People are just waiting to get offended at the slightest thing.

Offer a few c less than their buyout -> ignored.

Ask them to price their item because they are going to have to do it anyways -> ignored.

Offer a fair price for an item with no buyout, when they think it's worth more than it actually is -> ignored.

Maybe this guy was trying to scam you and maybe he wasn't. 1) You should have checked your shop instead of assuming the message was correct (his intention is irrelevant since you *can't* be scammed if you're paying attention), and 2) if your buyout price is firm, tell him that and there's no problem.

Just getting offended and returning perceived slight with trolling makes you part of the problem.

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GingerBeast wrote:

Non-English Speaker: I am awfully sorry at the terrible state of my English abilities, as for the English language is not my mother tongue. I hope you forgive me for every foolish mistake I make.

If your English is on a level where you copy and paste templates, and modify them, you are unlikely to be able to form coherent sentences like in your example. I've been there. :)

Also, not being a native English speaker doesn't automatically make somebody more polite. In today's world, there are only some (larger) areas where people speak very limited English, unlike twenty-five years ago when English was less accessible even in various western countries, and those tend to be places where (how do I put this ...) good manners and social aptitude are not as common as one would expect (even by the low Internet social standards).

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English as first language: lol it okei

To me, that sounds foreign, young, and "typically Internet". Could be a native speaker, too, it's not always easy to tell when so many people online use such downsized language to communicate.

But anyway, I don't know whether that guy was trying to scam the OP. I also don't know how common that is since I don't trade. But to me, it didn't really seem such a crime to copy and paste a pre-made line with just the value changed to reflect one's offer. Maybe I give him too much credit, but I felt it's a tad sad that people assume the worst without considering alternatives that aren't as damning of the community.

People are such crybabies when it comes to trading.

PoE is like a garage sale, pretend it's real life with real people and just be nice about trading even when you feel someone is trying to sneakily barter you.