Stroke My Wookie

Today I worked out an easy way to help loads of people from making terrible purchases on the GTN. A lot of people won't know what I'm talking about but I know more that will ;)


The trick
The trick works by taking advantage of the font used on the GTN and peoples blurry eyes. An example is live at the time of me writing this. A search on the GTN shows that Augmentation Slot Component MK-10 sorted by unit price:

6,428,57
6,428.57
6,428.57

It's probably more obvious on this web page because of the font but the trick is the 2nd comma. Means instead of buying it for 6428 credits you'd actually be paying 642 thousand! Customer services refuse to help as they say it's your fault due to not double checking it on the confirmation box. It's one of those mistakes that is easy to laugh at but it just takes one slip in concentration and you've lost tens of millions.

People take advantage of this and make a lot of credits by playing this trick across several categories on the GTN. I have fallen for this just once in 3 years of playing, it was several months ago now and the dickhead that did it had the gaul to mail me afterwards to take the piss.

The solution
Since then I decided to become the balance to their shitiness by doing acts of good on the GTN. So far that just means whenever I see somebody sell something missing a few zeros then I'll buy it and mail it back to them with a COD for the amount I paid. It doesn't happen loads but if I see one I act.

So, now for the next stage, stopping the dickheads like the one that burnt me. The solution is simply to sell an item and put a ridiculously long price on it like:

999,999,999

I'm going to pick a few of the most popular categories and spend less than 5 minutes every couple of days putting items up with stupid long prices. The idea is that most ppl will see the crazy big price straight away and realise they had the GTN sorted the wrong way. On top of that most ppl couldn't buy the thing even if they clicked on it due to how expensive it is.

Feedback? Suggestions?

p.s. I will give Wookies two warnings if I see them doing the scam on the GTN before I kick them out of the guild. Consider this the first warning >:)

I've also made a wrong purchase ones. And now i watch for it that I sort correctly.
Next to that i somethings do the same thing on GTN to let people know they are sorting badly.

By luck I never fell on this scam. But I have seen it going on more often specially on crafting materials.

I moved this thread to the Embassy and bumped it as a few people have been asking why I sell things on the GTN for 123,456,789 credits, my first post explains the madness :)

#11302210 Ula Vii wrote:

I moved this thread to the Embassy and bumped it as a few people have been asking why I sell things on the GTN for 123,456,789 credits, my first post explains the madness :)

Thats disappointing, I thought we could get a cut on your scamming system and buy pretty overpriced decos and mounts :)

Best advice - always sort for unit price twice and then go from there.

I wondered what was Cable doing and if there is some "hidden reason" normal ppl dont have clue about :)

It's a safe price that the vast majority of the server can't afford so can't accidentally buy it, also, even if they see it and go "WTF? That bastard!" it still helped them realise they had it sorted the wrong way :)

I would advice using the number 999,999,999 instead, I don't believe someone can really afford that (unlike 123456789 that some people can

ha well tbh a lot of the ppl that can afford 123 million are the ones ripping people off :p

I thought I tried the amount you suggested when I first started and it wouldn't let me place an item but I just tested it again and it did so yeah, I'll switch to 999 million instead.

This is flapping amazing.

I mean, I'm a complete nunce at math, but you'd think it's quite obvious that galactic credits don't have deciles (like pounds - pennies), so the amount of digits in a price you ever see in the game is 1to1 what you pay for.

Even so, I just logged and went to the GTN. At the top of the table for Aug Slot 10 is a Mr Anti'gtn'scam with the aforementioned 999,999,999 price per augment 10. As in: it's March 24th 2017, and this thread is from July 2015.

What I'm saying: if BW had at least comparative dedication to this game we'd be living the dream here. Innit?

I almost bought an item for 999,999,999 not long ago. 😅
Would've been curious if Ula would mail it back to me. 😁

poor souls. poor poor souls.

#13155438 Decimus wrote:

I almost bought an item for 999,999,999 not long ago. 😅
Would've been curious if Ula would mail it back to me. 😁

dont keep all your money on single toon. got only 10+m on my main to avoid these scammers.

#13155438 Decimus wrote:

I almost bought an item for 999,999,999 not long ago. 😅
Would've been curious if Ula would mail it back to me. 😁

I am not a thief. I spend a lot of time each week helping protect people, not tricking them.

The vast number of players will never have 999 million credits at one time so the chances of an accidental purchase is very low. I expect those few that do have such deep pockets to protect it as Two-fingers described.

Thankfully, over the last few years nobody has accidentally purchased one of the items. If somebody did make a mistake purchase then I may not see it until the credits are in my inventory as I usually only look at the total number of mails before I do "Get all attachments" prior to relisting everything. I do tend to rush as it's quite time consuming and I have to use multiple characters since each can only list 100 items.

If somebody did purchase an item for 999,999,999 then I'd wait a week to see if they mailed me asking for the credits back, checking the TRE & General forums and Reddit in the meantime. After that I'll take it as a donation and fill one of the pits on the guild ships command deck, then surf it Scrooge Mc'Duck style 😛

I bought an augment mk-9 at 29 million ... I'm crazy about this mistake ...