Unethical Traders

This was originally a forum post by Ian.

We thankfully don't have too many outright scammers on Marapets, and those that do appear are generally quickly dealt with due to our extensive logging and Account Protection policy. We do however, have our fair share of extremely unethical traders, rip-off artists, and general lowlifes. Not a lot can be done about these unfortunately as they tend to be very careful not to cross the line into actually breaking the rules and scamming. What we can do, is to let everyone know what goes on so you don't get taken in...

This document is mostly aimed at the people who buy frequent Account Upgrades and either sell them off to generate mp or trade the items for what they need. Does that sound like you? If you're the kind of person who has a wishlist of stuff they want and trades AU items to get it without doing price checks etc then chances are you're one of the names that gets passed round via maramail and msn as an 'easy mark'.

So how does it work?

Once the trader has identified his target, step one is to befriend them. They'll never come right out and say "I've got X item, and I want such and such an amount of mp for it, wanna buy?". Rather, they'll ask how you are, have a chat, ask you if you've bought any more upgrades lately, and by the way I managed to get hold of this really rare item because I know you wanted it. They'll promise to look out for the items you want and help you, maybe give you a few inexpensive but tricky to get hold of gifts, 'do you a favour' by buying all those AU items in bulk so you don't have to go to the trouble of advertising them...

Who are these people?

We can't name names, but you can probably get an idea of who the dodgy traders are by watching the price check forum. If the person who bought a chibs potion off you for 800k yesterday is selling it for 2.5 million today then it's a pretty sure sign they were ripping you off. Especially if they then come back to you tomorrow to enquire if you have more of them to sell.
We're not talking about unknown faces either. Your average unethical trader knows exactly how to play the game to his best advantage, many of them are 'big names' on Mara that everyone knows - successful, popular, and very rich.

How do I make sure I don't fall victim to this?

The answer is actually very simple - check check check your prices!

If you don't know the price of something then DON'T take the seller/buyer's word for it. Make a topic on the price check forum and ask, and don't sell that item till you get a good idea of price from at least a few sources.
It seems to be a common worry, but NO-ONE will think you 'stupid' or 'newb-ish' for asking about prices - have a look through the forum and you'll see many experienced members doing it, including the staff.

In addition, find out what you're buying. A good example of this is the gumball machine stamp. They're apparently very rare so on the face of it you could easily believe the only way to get one is to pay millions for it... But if you ask around you could find out that they don't seem to come from anywhere - they weren't an AU or advent item, and they don't restock. A little more asking and you'll find out why - they're broken. They used to restock, but the rarity got made higher and now they're sitting in limbo waiting for Ian to add them somewhere. Chances are good that sooner or later he'll put them somewhere like in the gumball machine and they'll be comparable to the haunted house stamps that come from Elger (currently selling for 469mp in usershops).

Another point is to always check if an item is as rare as it appears to be. Some of the old retired 'useless' items with value to collectors only seem extremely hard to get as they're hard to sell so people don't bother putting them in trades etc. For example some of the retired DVDs, equilor notepad, advent items.. Ask around enough on the price check forum and you'll probably find old users who have a few stashed away in their attic that they'd sell. Just because there's only two of an item in galleries does NOT mean there are only two on the site.

And on a last note, the acid test is always a topic on the price check forum entitled "Help! is this a fair trade?!" saying "Do you think paying two chibs potions and a full underwater map set for a flaming axe is fair?" If your seller runs screaming and the whole of Marada choruses "Noooooooooooo!" then beware ;)