Path of Exile is a game centered around planning and precaution, trading is no different. If you’re not sure on how scams and price fixing work and you’re afraid of it happening to you. Today, for new collectors of path of exile orbs, I will tell how to prevent one of the scams: trade window scams.
This scam is very simple to avoid yet very easy to fall for. When we map and play the game we go fast. When we make small trades we often just hover our mouse cursor over the persons item whom which we are trading with very quickly and accept the trade and move on.
Most trade window scams are regarding expensive item trades where the scammer knows that people often hover the item very quickly. So to scam you, the scammer places an item that looks very much like the item you want to buy, but it’s not the same item.
Then they hope that you don’t notice and just accept the trade quickly like you would usually do. This usually happens with items that claimed to be 6 linked but they’re not. Many item arts make an item that has a 4 link and a 2 link almost look like a 6 link if you look at it quickly.
Scammers can also place the item that you actually want to buy in the window first, then they cancel the trade and claim that they missclicked or something. They then open the trade window again but this time the item is swapped to another that looks like the item you want to buy but is in fact not that item at all. This can also happen if you’re trying to buy a good rolled certain unique and the scammer swaps to the same unique with lower stats than the one you wanted.
The reason this simple scam works is because we are so used to trading fast. So to prevent it we need to slow down. When you do an expensive item trade, make it an absolute habit to triple check the item. Check it three times every single time.
If your trade is cancelled for any reason, you should be very suspicious and check the item three or more times again to make sure the stats are the same and that the links are what you want. As simple as this scam is, the solution to it is simple as well. Triple check the poe items every single trade that you feel is important.