I refuse to use RPG Traders anymore

[Goondaba]

I have bid a quite a few items and each time either

a. they sold it to someone else in game before the auction ended

b. they didn't mention a reserve price till the end of the auction and wouldn't sell it for the winning bid

c. there is no real enforcement for sellers to sell to the winning bidder

Sellers pretty much can ignore your bid no matter what. Buyers are the ones getting screwed. As such, I won't use that service anymore till there is a little more enforcement of rules and a few more protections for buyers.

[spiceses]

a. if you end up winning the auction, but seller no longer has the item..bad feedback

c. same, if you win...but are ignored, bad feedback



b. have to disagree with you on this one...reserve prices are to protect the sellers in case the bidding doesn't go as high as we want. usually sellers will accept a lower-than-reserve bid if it's decent.

[Goondaba]

Well, if the seller never tells anyone there is a reserve (and no where in the rules does it state he has to tell people there is a reserve and no where is there a way to confirm what the reserve is, he could just keep changing it to higher and higher prices after each auction) then we are caught unawares when we find out we didn't win the auction. I would like to know up front there is a reserve price, which i have no problem with, so that if I don't meet the reserve I at least knew I MIGHT not get the item.

[Freawaru]

Actually, it's right in the form when you create the auction if you want a reserve. So people who want to set a reserve price and don't are not using the system correctly. Bad feedback to those who deserve it.

Unfortunately, RPGTraders is built on the honor system, and just like anything else where you're working with the honor system some people will take that as the opportunity to wholly circumvent anything approaching decent standards. I've had some good experiences, but some very frustrating ones, both with newcomers and people who otherwise had good feedback rating.

One element I've noticed in my own experiences is that it's sometimes discouraged to give bad feedback, even if the person in question deserves it - because they will almost certainly give you bad feedback in return, which damages your reputation simply for honesty. Yes, there are admins in place to prevent this sort of nonsense, but it still happens regardless.

I think that the system at its core is solid, but there are some definite problems with it... unfortunately, though, few of them can be rectified without a complete overhaul. Still, it's preferrable to slogging through Lion's Arch trade spam.
-FR

[Dar Greymere]

If someone has an item up and wants a reserve on it then they need to put in that the item has a reserve price. Plain and simple. And, like so many others have said, leave them bad feedback if they don't honor their auction terms.

-Dar

[spiceses]

well, you can pretty much tell if there was a reserve you didn't meet, if you were the highest bidder, but didn't win the auction.

[Goondaba]

ok, i c the area where it says reserve, but, why keep everyone in the dark that there is a reserve? How do we know who has it and who doesn't BEFORE we start bidding?

[bl1nded]

try going for the reputable traders
Im using rpgtraders quite a bit and I always email the winner, I dont stick reserves to make it fair, highest bid wins and I always try to get the item to them ASAP, keeping it in my storage to make sure I dont accidentally sell it

most traders do this, only a few guys are with bad rep sell their stuff in game

[kazhad dune]

I have bid a quite a few items and each time either

a. they sold it to someone else in game before the auction ended

b. they didn't mention a reserve price till the end of the auction and wouldn't sell it for the winning bid

c. there is no real enforcement for sellers to sell to the winning bidder

Sellers pretty much can ignore your bid no matter what. Buyers are the ones getting screwed. As such, I won't use that service anymore till there is a little more enforcement of rules and a few more protections for buyers.

I understand what you mean has happened to me several times also either its been sold IG or you just dont get any answers from the seller, I think forum based bidding would be far better like the way SWG is setup.

[Hanuman Li Tosh]

well, you can pretty much tell if there was a reserve you didn't meet, if you were the highest bidder, but didn't win the auction.

like a million people play this game, it just doesent hurt them enough to leave neg feedback on one forum. it also does not help you get the item you want/need. if it happens to the same buyer often, i could see how rpg trader could quickly become 100% useless to the buyer.