Shady Dealings

In today’s article I’d like to point out a few things you should never do with your online card trading business. It seems to have become common practice these days to use the classified in many shady ways to deceive and cheat potential customers. While it might get you a few extra trades in the short run you will end up alienating the community and gain a reputation as a bad dealer.

The Human Bot

The first and most frequent thing I notice in terms of bot owners abusing the classifieds is setting up a classified message that includes the word “Human” in an attempt to deceive players who prefer to deal with other players.  When building a classified message it’s important to include certain key words that individuals search frequently so that you’ll get noticed, but lying to a potential customer and doing so blatantly is going to do a considerable amount of damage to your reputation as a dealer. Nothing sets me on fire as a buyer quite like searching for a card and seeing a score of bots who even include bot in their username advertising that they are humans buying or selling a card.

Spamming Classifieds

Another popular shady tactic that many people have turned to is polluting search classified search results with dozens of bots all buying chase rares with the same classified message. For example you search for Sphinx’s Revelation and seeing GenericBot1, GenericBot2 all the way up to GenericBot41 all with the same classified message saying they will pay a modest price. 

This clouds searches with dozens of results and make sorting through the classifieds for someone actually selling a card a difficult task to achieve. Being the most obnoxious person in the room isn't the best approach to making a sale.

Deceitful Advertisement

I’ve encountered frequently bots that advertise they are selling a card in a classified ad but do not actually have the card to sell. This can be very frustrating because it wastes their time as well as wastes valuable trade time your bot may have with someone who wants what you have instead of what you claimed to have had. On top of that your reputation can be tarnished as easily as a single bad experience and having a customer open a trade expecting to make a purchase to find out you are out of stock (or were lying entirely) will make a very sour affair.

Likewise, Advertising at a price that you aren’t selling at is a great way to turn people away from your service. On several occasions I have seen a bot advertising a sale price of 1 ticket when in reality the card when selected costs a ticket and change. It may seem like a great idea to get people in the door but $1.00 at the door can incite a lot of confusion and aggression from customers who feel cheated when it suddenly costs $1.99 at the register.

In For The Long Haul

If you are playing the short game you may scrape up a few bucks with dirty tricks and a disregard for your reputation. For those of us in it for the long haul dodgy methods of making sales can ultimately cost you more than they are worth. Weigh your decisions heavily and remember that repeat customers are the heart of your business.