The Crystal Snowflake Scam

The most effective scams capitalize on people's greed and the desire to get something for nothing.

Someone try to scam me with the same thing too.
I was selling a req11 BDS in Kamadan and someone PM me and offered Emeral Blade(req.10) (or Edge can't remember)
He try to convice me that the item worth over 100e and he gave me a name or person willing to buy it at 110e.
So I asked him, why you don't sell the Emeral Blade to that guy and buy my BDS, you still have some ectos left that way.
He said: I'm already rich I don't want those ectos.
and that moment there was a guy shouting "WTB Emeral Blade(req.10) 180e"
I don't know the price of Emeral Blade but I saw the other seller selling req.9 for 100e so I know the guy who WTB @180e was that scammer's friend xD

QFT - this type of scam is fair play in my book. You're getting a taste of your own medicine.

He got half of Kamadan to talk about it, acknowledging its a scam. I'd consider the innocent, while not actively protected by the community, still well informed by them now.

Wrong, it is not a "scam" within any reasonable definition of the word. Cheezy definitely, not a scam because a reasonable person would not rely on spammed WTB messages as firm offers.

Intentionally misleading someone saying you're going to buy something when you're not is a scam, and it's a complete waste of time for those of us who are using the trade channel for legitimate purposes. I think Anet should get involved since scamming as far as I know is a violation of TOS.

If people stop buying in Kamadan because they can't be sure whether trading there is real or a scam, it will hurt legitimate traders, not to mention the person who was scammed.

Sure it's a scam, but it's a scam that relies on outsmarting someone trying to scam someone else.
I love it


Actually, I didn't know this was going on. But, I can think of many times I've whispered people who "WTB" something to tell them about a similar "WTS" in the Search menu!

Amen brother amen.

Spot on, couldnt have said it better myself

That's what i thought...
Why would anyone want the snowflake lols
People who have that amount of money should be ashamed

The most effective scams rely on slow swimming sperm, the language barrier, and people with too much money.



This type of scam is just the most palatable.

i honestly dont see how it is fair to ban any of these "scammers"

Its shame that people may not know prices of items and overpay but thats life.

If these people are banned then why dont we ban all the many people who powertrade. Powertrades either buy something for too cheap or sell for too much. Is this not "scamming"?


and if you have 50zkeys and you're stupid enough to fall for buying a snowflake you honestly deserve to loose your money.

Oh you bad boy
I might try it too
not really scam imo, or at least not reportable scam

So if I have, say, an alpine seed and I want to sell it for 100e and someone buys it, I scammed them? Is it really that hard to use wiki? Really? I saw the same type of scam just yesterday, probably the same 2 guys, but it was with some crystal thing from one of the dungeons. I thought o myself, "Hmm never heard of that before, I'm going to wiki it." That was my first thought, even before I saw the guy selling his for 50e. So honestly, I feel that if you're that gung-ho about making a quick buck, then you deserve it if you don't do your research first.

Reminds me of a news article I saw in the paper something like 10-15 years ago, it went something like this.

The ad was:
Solar powered clothes dryer. Brand new! You can get yours for the low low price of just $100! You heard right, $100!!

Turns out when you sent the guy your $100 he sent you your solar powered clothes dryer. It was a $2 bag of clothes pins and a 20 foot length of twine. Funniest part was, as angry as the "victims" were, there was nothing they could do about it. They were shouting "False advertising!" to the judge. Problem was he sold them exactly what he claimed in the ad. He just called it a solar powered clothes dryer instead of a clothesline.....

The person being scammed is looking to turn a profit by buying low and selling high. They have no intention of scamming, in any sense of the word, as they fully intend to buy and then complete a sale of the same item. There is only one person not playing nice in this instance, not two.

Do not ban them, there is nothing in the EULA against scamming and if they can find someone dumb enough to fall for it more power to them.

Amen to that.

Whoever fell for the "snowflake scam" or whatever... I bet these people in real life would hand their entire life savings to Nigerian princes because they got an e-mail telling them to do it.

What I do whenever I see these types of scams, is have fun with the scammers. The other day, a group of kids were trying it with an Emerald *Edge*. One would spam wts req10 emerald edge at some obscene prices while the other two spammed wtb at obscene price x3. So I always message all three of them to "alert" them to the others presence etc... Imagine my delight when I found out all three were in the same guild! How stupid can you get? Epic screenshots.

Most of the time I'm too broke to even afford the "low" sum, so this wouldn't affect me. Still tyvm for posting this I had never heard about it before O_o

Taking advantage of other people's greed + stupidity cannot be judged as scamming.