I also watch the market to catch good deals, like so:

And after a while you get a feel for what is "normal" for the market. (BTW those are ship 4 prices).

What's being described above definitely looks like some kind of automated bot listing (we all know that kind of bots exist).

As to the quantity...I don't really know. But if I'm able to buy up that kind of amount for those coveted items, I ain't going to be undercutting people. I will sit there with my high price and sooner or later people will have to buy from me.

I can imagine people with 20 billion meseta buying out everything else and get like 80-90 of an item that is going for 10-20 million. But the undercutting just doesn't make sense. And that points to the items being obtained in a way that has negligible cost; i.e. stolen or dupped.

Of course, there's always the possibility that Elon Musk just decided to troll everyone and bought $1 million worth of AC Scratches. So only SEGA would know.

What would help towards making players feel better, is if a GM could promise that they will look into this behind the scenes to make sure all that stock came about legit, and give us a simple update such as: "We've investigated and found no wrong-doing." Or: "We've investigated and have found dishonest acts, and the perpetrator has been dealt with according to the Terms and Conditions of this game."

@kztm said in Strangeness on the Personal Shops?:

I also watch the market to catch good deals, like so:

And after a while you get a feel for what is "normal" for the market. (BTW those are ship 4 prices).

What's being described above definitely looks like some kind of automated bot listing (we all know that kind of bots exist).

As to the quantity...I don't really know. But if I'm able to buy up that kind of amount for those coveted items, I ain't going to be undercutting people. I will sit there with my high price and sooner or later people will have to buy from me.

I can imagine people with 20 billion meseta buying out everything else and get like 80-90 of an item that is going for 10-20 million. But the undercutting just doesn't make sense. And that points to the items being obtained in a way that has negligible cost; i.e. stolen or dupped.

Of course, there's always the possibility that Elon Musk just decided to troll everyone and bought $1 million worth of AC Scratches. So only SEGA would know.

What would help towards making players feel better, is if a GM could promise that they will look into this behind the scenes to make sure all that stock came about legit, and give us a simple update such as: "We've investigated and found no wrong-doing." Or: "We've investigated and have found dishonest acts, and the perpetrator has been dealt with according to the Terms and Conditions of this game."

We did submitted a report. GM did reply saying they r looking into this... However they can't share the investigation result with us anyways.

@ERICK001BC

I'm not sure I understand you.

But yes buying an item for 18 mil and selling for less only works if you buy them all and control the market. Once you have all them items, you could have spent 100mil and lost a total of 20 mil in undercut sales. But then once you hold them all you can raise price and monopoly the item.

If you're undercutting someone, how will you control the market? The other listings will still be up there selling, but you have poured your stock out at a loss?

It makes sense if you're buying the items instead of undercutting.

Undercutting to remove a competitor only works if both of you are traders. I.e., making the other party give up the market. But if you blindly undercut everybody, the average player who got undercut is just going to let the item sit there as they won't be checking the market board every minute, or even every day, and they will not be leaving that market until they sold their copy of that item.

Or they will pull the item to sell something else, and come back later to relist when they now see you have raised the prices to outrageous levels. I mean that's what I do.

@kztm For example, As a seller undercuts another seller, the prices drop for that item. When the prices drop the same seller then buys the competitors. It's a business tactic. I seen it happen 1st hand as a friend on ship 1 bought 16 joker outfits. He had 4 that he used to undercut the sales from 6 mil to 2 mil. He placed another one at 3 mil. When the average price was 2.5 mil he bought out the items as the sellers where dropping the price. I actually did the same thing with the arena camo. If everyone has it at 30 mil, and I have a decent stock, I undercut the other sellers. The price drops as the "new" value is lowered. And I use my earnings to buy out the newly dropped items and hold on to them to control the market value.

@MarshalTobias32 said in Strangeness on the Personal Shops?:

This is capitalism in a nutshell. Nothing new...

Its captalism if you buy everything and resell for a higher price. Its undercutting everyone under it...

Its happening on Ship 1 too btw: https://forum.pso2.com/topic/7752/pirate-problem-on-ship-1/21 Looks like we have a new RMT group in town...

@ERICK001BC said in Strangeness on the Personal Shops?:

@kztm For example, As a seller undercuts another seller, the prices drop for that item. When the prices drop the same seller then buys the competitors. It's a business tactic. I seen it happen 1st hand as a friend on ship 1 bought 16 joker outfits. He had 4 that he used to undercut the sales from 6 mil to 2 mil. He placed another one at 3 mil. When the average price was 2.5 mil he bought out the items as the sellers where dropping the price. I actually did the same thing with the arena camo. If everyone has it at 30 mil, and I have a decent stock, I undercut the other sellers. The price drops as the "new" value is lowered. And I use my earnings to buy out the newly dropped items and hold on to them to control the market value.

Everything is associated with a price.
He only could pull it off because Jokersuit price isn't at the bottom line. PPL willing to sell the item at an even lower price. Try do this with dance 20 and priced it at 100k. U can empty ur 100 inventory in a few mins and nobody is going to drop their price to match yours.

@ERICK001BC and now explain how somebody does that with 30 different AC scratch items - and has well above 100 of each of these items - wich is sometimes 5 times more the amount that ever got sold by players - while those who are actively being sold dont get sold i nthe first place....as he keeps undercutting the prices of those items without buying the lowered ones at all.....this is obviously a market bot cause the number of the listed items jumps up and down while none of the items that are a lil higher than his are being sold...youre not earning any meseta with this youre loosing meseta as a reseller....especially when its proven that said person didn even buy any items in the first place...he magically had 100 of each of those AC items

and even more suspicious when its about "every day items" like thights wich get replaced with other thights easily....i mean there are valuable items in each scratch like scarfs....like the blaze hands....or sorcerer circles....but somebody who has 30 different items of a scratch and dozens of each while keep undercutting others? nope thats 100% suspicious

@ERICK001BC and what if I put that for 2m? would he cut that for 1.9m? and sell at loss? Just to keep selling?

@ERICK001BC

Yeah that is when the people you're undercutting are actually lowering the prices, and you actually buy up their lower price stock. I guess a lot of people are just in a hurry to liquidize their duplicates/unwanted items so it works as well on non-traders.

Thanks for the elaboration!

Could be a bot tied to the meseta farmers, could be someone with stolen credit, could be both. In a highly unlikely event, it would be interesting if it was someone with a lot of money, tired of the inflated prices, and is intentionally trying to deflate a heavily over inflated market. Either way, this was an interesting read, and a bit of information I want to look into when I log in tomorrow, to see if it's happening on ship 3 as well.

@Ash-Lv1 said in Strangeness on the Personal Shops?:

@ERICK001BC said in Strangeness on the Personal Shops?:

No, I think you're looking too much into it. It is a way to control the market. If you buy out all the items, you now can set the price for them. Do not forget that some people also spend hundreds if not thousands on this game, and buying those up for them is easy unlike us poor players. But I have multiple times, seen items I know will grow in popularity and buy out all stock and hold on to them. Just bushiness, and that is end game to some people. I used to do it all the time in warframe. Hours reading the trading chat. Buying whatever was low and selling items when prices where highest.

Please tell me how u play the market when you selling items at a loss. (The person in the picture constantly undercutting EVERYONE.)

22mil is still likely more than they bought them when the scratch went live, when they undercut it forces other people to undercut them. They snatch up the ones selling for lower than theirs and make a profit. When the scratch shuts down they jack up the price more and keep at it.

All valid points. I am just happy Anarchy Marine also didn't @ me. lol I am not saying the possibility of it not being a bot is out of the table or the most possible answer as the money glitch very early on has ruined the game.

What I am saying is with good business practices and a large $ income, it is something that is doable. Not in this game, but in a separate game, I used to make a second income from what I sold in game and outside the game as there was no outside profit barrier. ( Example I can't put any items on ebay and meet you ingame with this game's policies.) Please note I never put any of my own money in the game.

As for PSO, Considering I just used my 1st premium pass this month and just started selling, I am trying to make meseta and will sell all these items I have in storage for cheap because I need my storage. I am not defending bots, just saying it is possible for people to do these with enough meseta.

@kztm said in Strangeness on the Personal Shops?:

I also watch the market to catch good deals, like so:

How is this demonstrating the problem of items seeing an influx after their AC scratch has ended? Those items are all from Earth Defenders, which is still active until the 15th.

The price of AC scratch items typically does decline going into their second week of availability, and yes this can appear dramatic when the first sellers are excessively ambitious about the value of their pulls and nobody bites.

The combination of sellers lowering their expectation and extra people pulling the items from the ongoing scratch to increase supply can cause what seems to be a huge decrease in price, yes, but in this instance it's a correction rather than a manipulation (legitimate or otherwise).

If an item fluctuates but is always over 10m for all of its AC scratch outing and then plummets to 5m days after its AC scratch ends due to a high supply in one shop, that would be freakish and deserve investigation.

Honestly that kind of behaviour would make me think duping rather than real-money theft and manipulation. Because why would someone who stole the money to acquire AC items sell them in a way that devalues them that heavily?

@Miraglyth said in Strangeness on the Personal Shops?:

Honestly that kind of behaviour would make me think duping rather than real-money theft and manipulation. Because why would someone who stole the money to acquire AC items sell them in a way that devalues them that heavily?

Because to liquidate the items quick before the account gets banned for theft or credit card fraud. Im more amazed that this game lets someone spend thousands of dollars at one without flagging it as suspicious or worth investigating.

@S4kuja said in Strangeness on the Personal Shops?:

Because to liquidate the items quick before the account gets banned for theft or credit card fraud.

That's a good point. Aren't some of the occurrences being described lasting for upwards of two weeks now though?