Neutral AH - They stole my lootz

I know it's a risk we take to transfer over the neutral AH's but I've been doing it for 3 months now and never once had an issue until today. Typically I only transfer at off peak hours but I needed to move some mats tonight so I figured I'd give it a try. I posted a Faces of Doom for 1 copper buyout (like all my other auctions). I had faces of doom typed in the search on my other toon, and as soon as my horde posted my alliance toon searched. The faces of doom was already bought by an <Away> level 2 orc in winterspring.

Now I know it is possible that he could've been searching for my items at the exact time that I posted, but I have a 50 ms latency and a fast computer. It was literally 1 second between the time I posted and the time it got bought out. I'm not familiar with all the add ons or bots that can pick off auctions like this. Maybe it was legit and I just learned an expensive lesson. Anyone had this happen before? Do I open a ticket or chalk this one up in the loss column?

I doubt they would do much, although you could insinuate automation. :)

They are auction bots. I follow the customer service forums and have seen some people complaining about it on there. You can call a GM and see if you can get something done. But it seems like you aren't alone and it's happening to others,

If I have to transfer stuff I always put it in for like 50g instead of 1c to be less obvious. Chances are they probably don't have 50g on their bot either. Or they have it to a set amount like value of the item vs cost like the way auctioneer works. I'm sure it's just a bot that reads auctioneer and acts accordingly.

>.< that can't have been a manual search

when i used to do this kind of transaction however, i never put the items for 1 copper, it's just too obvious.
Put it for 35s or 1g24s or whatever, it's not like the cost means anything.
Don't know if it would fool a bot though

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Originally Posted by Zub

>.< that can't have been a manual search

when i used to do this kind of transaction however, i never put the items for 1 copper, it's just too obvious.
Put it for 35s or 1g24s or whatever, it's not like the cost means anything.
Don't know if it would fool a bot though

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Fraid that wouldn't work, the way these bots work (or so the ones I have seen work) is by scanning the auction house, just like Auctioneer would and then getting a base cost of X item, it then constantly searches and searches until if find's an underpriced item.

The user will likely set a percentage rate for price, this means if X item usually costs100g, and the user has their purchase percentage at 50%, if the scan bot finds item X for 50g or less it will automatically buy.

Hope that makes sense.

In this case i'd say you got really unlucky, as far as I know, there is no way they could have pre-empted your auction, it is likely that they are searching with parameters to look for all auctions set to 1-99 copper to catch people trying to quickly move stuff :(

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Originally Posted by Hivetyrant

In this case i'd say you got really unlucky, as far as I know, there is no way they could have pre-empted your auction, it is likely that they are searching with parameters to look for all auctions set to 1-99 copper to catch people trying to quickly move stuff :(

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That's kinda what i meant :-)
to snatch his AH so quick it can't have been a AH scan, it must have been a shortlist of common "cross-faction moves pricetags", for which most people put 1c.
Use a higher pricetag and you might not end up that quick-pick shortlist, and save your goods from snatching

i mean, if i were to write a bot, i'd just AUTOMATICALLY buy EVERYTHING priced at 1c.
Just from vendoring it i'd be rich, since everything sellable ingame is at least worth 1c to vendors.

I'd personally prefer to take the neutral AH cut on my profits than to see some bot buy something out for 1 copper.

As a multiboxer, you really should have alts at all the auction houses. Scout them all before the items go up, really the only way.

Indeed.

Guildie of mine lost a wodin's necklace that got bought instantly when he posted it for 1g.

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Originally Posted by Verriit

Do I open a ticket or chalk this one up in the loss column?

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You can open a ticket, but they're pretty much gonna say "You got the price you asked for it." It's as old as the neutral AH itself. Never price anything you actually want to keep for less than vendor price. You're not saving yourself any money if you have to go out and buy it again.

not sure if this helps but i allways put up a few test itams somethink like cloth or vendor itams food/waster put them up if they get sold really fast then i know there a bot about.

rember even if all the AH are clean they could be useing the AH on the phone/armory at work. there to many things now to get u tradeing itams :(


other thing is do ( /who 1-10 winterspring ) at all zones there there a AH, a lot off bots will be low levels And if i was on a PvP server i go Kill the bots :D guards anit really going to help a level 2 :D

as a MB I send one toon to Winterspring, 1 to Gadgetstan and 2 to Booty Bay when I transfer stuff. Its not something I have done a lot but it good when you transfer something expensive just to make sure noone else is near the 5 sec between the transfer. (it was before the remote stuff)

As far as i know, they're set to buy items that are extremely cheap, like your item in this case. The easiest way to avoid it is just raising the buyout price.

I would open a GM ticket at the time it happens. You will probably not get anything for it but you never know, they might ban the person for being a BOT. They can review the logs and see if anything is going on.

Boost a level 20 on each faction to annihilate those pesky lvl 1 bots (assuming you are on PvP server).

I have done some cross faction AH transfers on the neutral AH and I post for around 5g, I have even thought about posting for higher amounts but with the 5g transactions I have gotten some weird gold from the AH, eg, posting for 5g and getting 25g back? Anyone else have this happen on the neutral AH?

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Originally Posted by crowdx

I have done some cross faction AH transfers on the neutral AH and I post for around 5g, I have even thought about posting for higher amounts but with the 5g transactions I have gotten some weird gold from the AH, eg, posting for 5g and getting 25g back? Anyone else have this happen on the neutral AH?

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That's because of the deposit fee, which you get back in full. Deposit fee is based on vendor price and auction duration. If you're listing something that vendors for a lot then the deposit will be high (especially if you do a 48h auction vs 12h auction.) The deposit fee is a lot higher for the neutral AH, so it's more noticeable than the normal AH.

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Originally Posted by Lokked

Boost a level 20 on each faction to annihilate those pesky lvl 1 bots (assuming you are on PvP server).

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And then get immediately slaughtered by the guards, while the botter just uses the spirit healer and then teleport hacks right back to the auctioneer.

The people that cheat by using bots tend to go all out if they're remotely bright.

I have heard of bots that would buyout anything listed at 1c, so people would use auctioneer to mass post single stacks of arrows at 1c each.

Sounds like the botter would have a lot of mail =)

A few points:

- i used to be fine with trading stuff over that i got sloppy at a certain point. I lost 19 majestic zircoms. Made a ticket, jackshit. Replied to the gm again that it was clearly not a player given the time (5am), me boxing / easy buy out, ... I got my 19 zircoms restored. Then i whispered the sniping toon whenever i saw him online (also figured out his mains) and offered him 200g per time i wanted to trade stuff over for him to back off. He didn't trust the deal (what is the catch?) and refrained from stealing my stuff. Cause i got him back over and over again with sniping him.

- Ever since I have 2 accounts open (just vanilla ones) on another machine that only snipe the AH. It's not considered botting the way i do it (confirmed by a gm), it just took me a while to figure out a good way (think about boxing multiple machines, where 1 click = 1 action ... i.e. you cast lava burst on your main machine, but your broadcaster sends the same key to another machine, but the 1 = scan AH there). Also there are (legal) ways to detect movement i.e. if someone is within range. Only need to start scanning / searching at that point.

Bottom line, been sniping the neutral AH for about 2 months and I have way over 100k profit.

- i still trade stuff over on a daily basis, often a few 100 stacks of saronite or cloth. And i'm no longer sloppy. 1 rogue booty bay basement, 1 rogue booty bay ramp, 1 rogue winterspring 1 rogue tanaris and i'm always safe

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Originally Posted by zenga

A few points:

- i used to be fine with trading stuff over that i got sloppy at a certain point. I lost 19 majestic zircoms. Made a ticket, jackshit. Replied to the gm again that it was clearly not a player given the time (5am), me boxing / easy buy out, ... I got my 19 zircoms restored. Then i whispered the sniping toon whenever i saw him online (also figured out his mains) and offered him 200g per time i wanted to trade stuff over for him to back off. He didn't trust the deal (what is the catch?) and refrained from stealing my stuff. Cause i got him back over and over again with sniping him.

- Ever since I have 2 accounts open (just vanilla ones) on another machine that only snipe the AH. It's not considered botting the way i do it (confirmed by a gm), it just took me a while to figure out a good way (think about boxing multiple machines, where 1 click = 1 action ... i.e. you cast lava burst on your main machine, but your broadcaster sends the same key to another machine, but the 1 = scan AH there). Also there are (legal) ways to detect movement i.e. if someone is within range. Only need to start scanning / searching at that point.

Bottom line, been sniping the neutral AH for about 2 months and I have way over 100k profit.

- i still trade stuff over on a daily basis, often a few 100 stacks of saronite or cloth. And i'm no longer sloppy. 1 rogue booty bay basement, 1 rogue booty bay ramp, 1 rogue winterspring 1 rogue tanaris and i'm always safe

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Do you have a rogue on every iphone as well ? :-D

I went into the AH building at Everlook and lo and behold, here is a lvl 2 toon hidden away in the corner of the building right behind an auctioneer. Thought about doing my plan for breaking the auctionbot's bank, but decided that it wasnt worth it.

Although, I might check out wintergrasp again and BB and Gadget and swing that plan into action...

50 white items on the AH for 50g, then put 10 on for 5g each. Set it all to a 12h auction and see what happens.

Also I might use a disposable DK just to do it.