Trade chat is a scam?!

[Ace-Bounty-Hunter]

4 hours ago, Zexal066 said:

TLDR: Mans get mad about trade chat and starts yapping about it.

I can't remember the last time I even looked at trade chat, let alone bought or sold anything through it. Any smart player would use Warframe Market instead.

[sly_squash]

Well, let's start with the definition of scam:

"a confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, especially for making a quick profit; swindle."

 

Now let's examine a common scenario among the seedier side of trade chat

1. Pose as a legitimate buyer of mods that are actually very rare but that a newer player may come across and not realize their value (groll rivens, hammer shot, sentient surge, blaze, etc.)
2. Offer a comically low price in exchange for said goods
3. Complete transactions with lowbie uninformed players to acquire said goods.
4. Resell elsewhere for a substantial easy profit

 

If we examine this we have:

• fraudulent scheme: Posing as a player who is actually in need of said items
• quick profit:  Reselling immediately for a big gains

 

I'd say it fits the definition, but I think it really depends on whether you believe exploiting someone's lack of knowledge constitutes scamming.  I believe it does.  If I went to a used car shop with zero knowledge of cars and purchased one for $30k that fell apart on the drive home, I would feel legitimately scammed by the salesman who knew this was a lemon and I was his mark.

 

For good measure, another fun thing Warframe traders do is:

1. Watch Prime Time where they hear about a new prime/kuva-tenet variant/etc.
2. Immediately go on market to snap up all the rivens of that type while many people are still ignorant of the announcement and thus upcoming price surge
3. Resell for profit, perhaps closer to the new weapon's release.

 

One Final Note:  I think it's worth keeping this kind of predatory behavior in mind next time there's some kind of award show happening and DE wants us to vote for Warframe for Best Community...

Edited March 9 by sly_squash

[UnstarPrime]

Yeah, it's a bummer.  People love to get a good deal, and they often either forget or don't care that a real person is on the other end of that deal.  Market boards like warframe.market do a great job of making things more equitable because they make it easy to see that you're getting a bum deal; when you can see that the item you want regularly sells for 20p, you're much less likely to buy it for 100p.

Would an in-game market board be nice?  Yep!  It would increase liquidity and access to goods for the majority of players.

Do I expected DE to implement this?  Absolutely not.  Not only would it cost DE resources to engineer and maintain such a system, but the system's existence would probably have the effect of reducing platinum purchases to some extent.  Higher liquidity and greater access to markets would likely result in more competition for sellers and thus lower prices.  Lower prices means that 100 platinum can get you more value from player trades than it used to, and this has two ramifications:

• players need less platinum to get the things they want from players
• players can get an increased amount of value from players relative to the value gained if they spent that same amount of platinum on goods in the official market

While non-earnable goods in the official market like skins would likely add some stability to the value of platinum, player exchanges of platinum for goods at lower prices would likely result in a lowered frequency of players feeling like they should purchase more platinum, and that affects the game's bottom line.

To be clear, I don't want to frame this as greed: as a free-to-play game, DE needs to sell things like platinum to stay profitable and continue paying their staff and developing further content.  It's simply an unfortunate reality that the current platinum and trade systems means that increased liquidity and access to trading would have a negative effect on DE's ability to run a profitable business*.

*at least, presuming I didn't make any errors in my analysis.  If you feel like I did, please kindly let me know!

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Yes, just like real life. Research before you enter the arena and don't make impulse purchases. 

Know what makes a riven actually good (++- or +++-), realize people have multiple copies of prime frames with few exceptions for slightly rarer items (which prime resurgence made less rare) etc. 

Warframe, like many long term online games, has its own world and you need to learn about the world a bit.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

2 hours ago, Ace-Bounty-Hunter said:

I can't remember the last time I even looked at trade chat, let alone bought or sold anything through it. Any smart player would use Warframe Market instead.

I don't mind buying something quick and fast on trade chat. Sometimes people dont respond on market and thats ok. A smart person wouldn't treat a video game like the stock market.

But you're still correct for new people. But someone with excess plat isn't gonna be broken from spending 40 extra plat for the convenience of speed. 

[helioth137]

snarky but, compared to the ingame market, (100 to 400p) a lot of the prices people sell primes (50 to 300p over their value) and so on at are still cheap or equal. 

It really is hard for people who don't know about warframe.market to trade, then to find out later how much money they gave away. 

I've been saying for years now [DE] would be wise to buy the site and integrate it into their game, or do something similar anyway, but i guess they just refuse.

[trst]

Trade chat isn't a scam due to the simple fact that sellers aren't responsible for knowing what the "average" value of something is nor are they responsible for vetting the knowledge of all potential buyers.

If someone wants to try and sell something for more than the average it's not their fault if someone willing to buy for that price. Plus that's making the massive assumption that the seller is ever aware of, or cares about, what that average is and another assumption that the buyer isn't aware of it or even cares themselves.

Plus if someone actually cared then the information is very readily available to all players especially with how often WFmarket is brought up. It's also the responsibility of a buyer to know what the value of their own money is. It's no one's fault but the buyer if they make their first plat purchase and spend it all on something that they could have gotten for a fraction of that price.

[ClockworkDirge]

So far I haven‘t seen a lot of things that would be a scam, though price gouging is definitely a commonality in trade chat just like it is in every other game player market I’ve seen. 
 

The real scams are folk approaching you in Maroo’s bazar after you set up shop and rather than try to take what you’ve got posted they instead try to sell you their junk. The number of times I’ve had someone start a trade with me in the bazar acting like they want what I’ve got displayed only to try to shove their Wukong Prime onto me for plat I don’t have has been driving me batty.

[RichardKam]

13小时前 , MaxTunnerX 说:

No bro, its literally scam. You cant charge 1000x more on trade chat pretending to be a normal buyer or whisper people who have obviously made a typo. Like when I type WTS instead of WTB I get so many scammers in my whisper chat immediately, and I personally say "fck off" to each and every one of them whilst also clicking the ignore button. Thats what the friggin scammers deserve.

No bro. That's not how "scam" works.

If someone sells you a $5 watch for $100, it is unreasonably priced. If someone sell you a fake $5 watch for $100 saying it is a real stuff, it is a scam.

I can list wts warm coat 50 plat whenever I want, because I believe it is worth 50 plat. Buyers/sellers should do their homework before making any transaction.

[(PSN)GEN-Son_17]

12 hours ago, sly_squash said:

One Final Note:  I think it's worth keeping this kind of predatory behavior in mind next time there's some kind of award show happening and DE wants us to vote for Warframe for Best Community...

Then everything that involves humans can't win that award. I don't think the whole Warframe community should get punished because some humans decide to do some bad human things.

 

[sly_squash]

1 hour ago, (PSN)GEN-Son_17 said:

Then everything that involves humans can't win that award. I don't think the whole Warframe community should get punished because some humans decide to do some bad human things.

 

Nah, there are much more deserving communities.  Not only are scammers abound but so are trade request spammers that send trade requests to half a dozen people (often disrupting their missions as they leave early to address the trade) only to back out of all but the fastest response and block everyone else.  This isn't uncommon; it's like the default behavior.

Plus you have griefer duviri hosts who extract at the last second of timer to try to screw over their teammates in the host migration or intentionally break mobile defense terminals in radiation sorties.

And then you have the leechers... remember: the wukong nerf incited a whole riot from nerds because they changed his kit to be less amenable to afk... heck, I have a separate thread going right now which was intended to point out bugs in statistics reporting but where coincidentally not one but two of my teammates were clearly leeching.

I just don't buy the "a few bad apples" nonsense.  All I'm saying is it's worth keeping in mind the behaviors prevalent in this and other threads before casting your vote; just because friendly fire is off doesn't mean the community wouldn't down you at every opportunity if they could.

[johnno23]

I find it quite amusing at times that in the same window as trade tab there is a help tab. I f player did not know about warframe market they can simply use the help tab if they dont want to go to an external site.

right now for Ivara prime has a value of 55p on the market and seconds ago someone asking 130 in the trade tab. any new player can simply click the sellers name to open the tab to talk so that they do not need to hunt later. In the meantime simply click the help tab and ask if 130p is a realistic price for Ivara Prime. 

Players often forget don't realize or simply have no idea that many Warframe players are genuinely very helpful and simply asking in the help tab will almost always get you a clear answer in a few moments.

Ripping off new players on price is so easy to avoid and sadly if a player cannot take a minute to research or ask help then they are simply feeding the plat hunters.

[-ShadowRadiance-]

Trade chat? Scamming?

*surprised otter meme.jpg*

[WERElektro]

Eh. Never really bothered with Trade chat. It's messy and unorganized.

Even though I am generally selling trash rivens below "value" since I wanna get rid of them quickly in order to make space, nobody seems to take notice anyway.

And ofc I -as well - will mention .market. Because it's just so much more comfortable than Tradechat. The riven section at .market is suboptimal as well and far from perfect but it's a far better alternative to Tradechat.

BUT isn't it kinda weird that most of us will gladly ditch the ingame Buy / Sell / Trade "system" for a 3rd party website or Discord?

I have to admit that I would REALLY welcome a Trading Rework in Warframe.

[Venus-Venera]

chat is much better because you can discuss about price and even get a bonus items

[SirKnum]

I love how many people call abusing other people's ignorance a free market when the core principle of a free market is the determination of price by supply and demand. Trade chat is not a free market, it is an unregulated bazaar where most people try to fleece the tourists.

[Silligoose]

On 2024-03-09 at 2:04 PM, Zexal066 said:

As you have seen the title you can understand that this might be a difficult topic to discuss as many people trade chat every day and many use it to try and sell overpriced prime frames etc.

What really grinds my gears and got me to take the time and write in the forums for the first time is the scams that people try to pull off there. By that i mean many players try to buy mods, rivens and prime parts of mostly newbies that have no idea of the pricing that certain mods, rivens and primes.

I cannot count of the times i've seen people try and buy torid, ceramic, glaive etc. rivens at a fractions of the cost they have by saying '' wtb any of the previous mentioned rivens at 350,400,200 pl each'' or '' wtb sentient surge for 25pl, 50pl etc.'' to a new player that might have these mods or items without the knowledge of warframe market these platinum might sound to him as a great deal and that he could benefit a lot from selling it but the truth is he is getting the short end of the stick.

I can totally understand that the trade chat will never change and for people to continue to do the aforementioned they have some success getting them at these low prices this thing will never end but i want to ask why did DE never made a change to the trading ingame to make it close to the site we mostly use called warframe market so when a new players wants to buy something or sell he can go into an ingame tab and get a taste of the price range he can sell or buy his items so that he will not get scammed buy people like i mentioned above.

To conclude this rant i just wanted to express my disappointment and anger for this issue even if it goes to deaf ears i can know that i at least talked about it instead of just letting it pass like nothing happened.   

 

TLDR: Mans get mad about trade chat and starts yapping about it.

DE hasn't done much regarding improvements to the in-game trade system by introducing something like an auction house in which prices can be compared from different vendors, because they like to do as little work as possible, while also being extremely greedy. Having an auction house would invariably lead to more items being purchased at a fair market value more often, which in turn would decrease the average price for which items go, which in turn means a decrease in overall plat spending, which decreases their income. As such, they elect to do nothing and make a little more, because that has priority over the player experience.

As for new players selling items below market value: It sucks that information regarding certain item values are obfuscated, but it happens. It would be nice to live in a fair world, but we don't, so people best do a bit of research so they can get a better idea of the market value of items if they care about selling at market value.

Don't forget what you are Tenno:

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

5 hours ago, Silligoose said:

DE hasn't done much regarding improvements to the in-game trade system by introducing something like an auction house in which prices can be compared from different vendors, because they like to do as little work as possible, while also being extremely greedy. Having an auction house would invariably lead to more items being purchased at a fair market value more often, which in turn would decrease the average price for which items go, which in turn means a decrease in overall plat spending, which decreases their income. As such, they elect to do nothing and make a little more, because that has priority over the player experience.

As for new players selling items below market value: It sucks that information regarding certain item values are obfuscated, but it happens. It would be nice to live in a fair world, but we don't, so people best do a bit of research so they can get a better idea of the market value of items if they care about selling at market value.

Don't forget what you are Tenno:

Or because literally everything in the game is easy to farm, and most of the people complaining are putting in low effort, are rushing to the forums in the heat of the moment after not getting a drop etc etc. 

[RichardKam]

11小时前 , SirKnum 说:

I love how many people call abusing other people's ignorance a free market when the core principle of a free market is the determination of price by supply and demand. Trade chat is not a free market, it is an unregulated bazaar where most people try to fleece the tourists.

......and the availability of information to both parties, which you can access by using a website called "google".

It is an unregulated bazaar yes, but if you decided to make a transaction, on an item that you are not familiar with, without spending 5 seconds checking the price, you can only blame yourself for it. 

Seriously, people. It is your own platinum. It is your own item for sale. You are not obliged to trade with anyone. No one can force trade with you. Prices on warframe market is available 24/7, free open access. Do your homework.

[sly_squash]

3 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

......and the availability of information to both parties, which you can access by using a website called "google".

It is an unregulated bazaar yes, but if you decided to make a transaction, on an item that you are not familiar with, without spending 5 seconds checking the price, you can only blame yourself for it. 

Seriously, people. It is your own platinum. It is your own item for sale. You are not obliged to trade with anyone. No one can force trade with you. Prices on warframe market is available 24/7, free open access. Do your homework.

Honestly, even if I "did my homework" and googled stuff to come across the warframe.market site I wouldn't click the link because I would think it was a phishing site trying to capitalize on warframe's popularity.

It's really not until you join a clan and your clanmates insist you shop via the site that I think most people come across it.  And a lot of people don't join clans until they need the clan weapons to advance in MR.  This leaves a pretty wide MR gap of lowbies who don't know better who fall prey to scams like the one OP discusses.

[Cyrefy]

Yes

[trst]

3 minutes ago, sly_squash said:

Honestly, even if I "did my homework" and googled stuff to come across the warframe.market site I wouldn't click the link because I would think it was a phishing site trying to capitalize on warframe's popularity.

It's really not until you join a clan and your clanmates insist you shop via the site that I think most people come across it.  And a lot of people don't join clans until they need the clan weapons to advance in MR.  This leaves a pretty wide MR gap of lowbies who don't know better who fall prey to scams like the one OP discusses.

Is this just a strawman or is the most basic amount of research just something players are incapable of doing anymore?

If you're suspicious of something that comes up repeatedly (WFmarket comes up in the results of searching the price for anything) the next course of action is to look into said thing. And doing that comes up with pages upon pages of results of articles, video tutorials, and forum posts talking about the site. At which point it becomes a rather safe bet that the thing so many players and websites are using and recommending is safe to use.

[RichardKam]

2分钟前 , sly_squash 说:

Honestly, even if I "did my homework" and googled stuff to come across the warframe.market site I wouldn't click the link because I would think it was a phishing site trying to capitalize on warframe's popularity.

......and at the same time you will wholeheartedly believe the totally-not-bait WTB [Glaive Prime Set] 10P FINAL OFFER FAST NOW <emoji> <emoji> by user tutu1039458723495 in the trade chat window?

I am sure you are right. Have a good day.

[sly_squash]

2 minutes ago, RichardKam said:

......and at the same time you will wholeheartedly believe the totally-not-bait WTB [Glaive Prime Set] 10P FINAL OFFER FAST NOW <emoji> <emoji> by user tutu1039458723495 in the trade chat window?

I am sure you are right. Have a good day.

It doesn't matter whether I fall for trade chat scams or not.  People do it because it works; I'm just not the target market.

I've been scammed before though; it's bound to happen eventually when you trade in the kind of volume that I do.  And it happens even if you use the market sites.  People change the price in the copy-paste message and sometimes I don't realize it at first glance.  A new prime announcement happens on a stream I missed and I unload a riven for pennies that I didn't realize had just exploded in value overnight.

Perhaps the issue is that, because Warframe is touted as having one the best gaming communities, people don't expect the trading market to be as predatory as it is.  And that's part of why I suggest maybe we stop pretending that it's a better community than it is.

 

2 minutes ago, trst said:

Is this just a strawman or is the most basic amount of research just something players are incapable of doing anymore?

More like a logical fallacy known as a false choice.  Not a strawman, and not doing something doesn't mean it's because I'm not capable of doing it.

You know full well that .market sounds like a sketchy domain at face value; most likely it's the only .market site you use unless you also use riven.market,  You can pretend like you're intellectual who deep dives everything they google but the reality is-- like I already said-- most people aren't going to google alternatives to trade chat anyway, if they do it won't be a deep dive, and the only reason they might do it on their own is because of a nagging realizing that they've already been getting scammed using trade chat.

[Silligoose]

5 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

Or because literally everything in the game is easy to farm, and most of the people complaining are putting in low effort, are rushing to the forums in the heat of the moment after not getting a drop etc etc. 

Nah. Most players don't bother with the forums and of those who do, I rarely see someone complain because they sold something below market value in comparison to other points discussed. Though everything may be easy to farm, many things are an absolute chore to farm in order to get ppl to spend that money baby! - a staple of P2W games.

DE's tendency to do as little as possible and to put the player experience way, waaaaaaaayyyyyyy down the priority list isn't some new, secretive thing either. That's just the way it goes with these types of games.