Grey Market Scalping a serious problem not being addressed

[DirectorGunner]

Some of you may remember GrumpyCat?
She was a generous OB Backer with a couple Javelins and a metric ton of rare LTI ships.
She sold a lot of her buybacks here (at cost or even less) but eventually sold her whole account to someone.

Well, I stumbled across the guy who claims to have bought her whole account, for $6K... and sells the LTI ships and LTI buybacks from her account at $30 profit + pp fees per buyback on average or a lot more depending on what it is. I'm sure had enough TESTies saw her post in time, we could have gotten all her ships from her that were giftable and someone could have bought the rest so she could have broken even... instead, this guy spends big to buy these walkaway accounts and piece them out for big bucks.

Selling pledges above face value is called scalping. Specifically ticket scalping in the USA is illegal is some states, and that happened because enough people complained and lobbied to make that a law in those states. Scalping other items is not illegal because not enough people lobby/complain to make that happen.

Hardly anything is being done in our community to lobby, say anything against scalping on the greymarket.
I would like to see the scalping stop in a considerable amount.

How can that happen?

LTI on all pledges before launch, and DISABLE gifting on pledges.

I'd like to see someone like Bored or Noob do a video about it.. reinforcing the need to have LTI on everything and disabling gifting on ships.

 

[Sraika]

That really sucks about GrumpyCat. I definitely agree that scalping is getting a little out of hand, though i can understand if people want a little extra, but i've seen people selling stuff for hundreds of dollars more than the listed price, which is just crazy. Hell, if people want to spend that much extra for a specific ship, try opening a support ticket. Their support staff are surprisingly chill about that kinda thing.

However, I'm not really sure what we can do about it. I know that LTI on all ships/no gifting option would work, but CIG's just not going to do that. And i'm pretty sure Noobifier has done at least one video solely dedicated to the LTI issue, and is fairly vocal about his opinion in any case.
Now, if somebody has an idea that sounds like it at least has a chance of working, then i can get behind that. Like, do we want to try signing some sort of petition? Tbh, i don't really see that working either, but i really don't have any better ideas. Anyone got any?

 

[Wolfy]

It is a grey market for a reason. I have no issues with it, just the free market at work.

 

[StdDev]

Gifting ships is actually a good way to get a friend into SC... maybe some restrictions on what can be gifted.. ?

 

[DirectorGunner]

There's free market... then there's fucked market. IMO this is a fucked market. A market of snake oil... we're buying and selling ether to each other. These are digital ship pledges. With a rare exception of some physical pledges. And maybe an expert can weight in.. but markets that truly work, aren't truly free markets. They have circuit breakers in place and rules to them. EG Stock market.

 

[Stoutman]

A very tiny part of ship sales are through 'gray market' so I do not think it is worth worrying about. If someone wants to pay more for a ship to get it right now, then let them. CIG still got their money out of it. It's not like the ship was duped or stolen. Marking up an item to resell is a normal part of any market worldwide. I see no problem with it.

 

[maynard]

paying a premium for 'rare' virtual goods is a weird concept

I have done it

and it still feels weird

not problematic,

just weird

 

[Montoya]

reinforcing the need to have LTI on everything and disabling gifting on ships.

The LTI on everything is something I already suggested many times.

LTI all ships until the game goes into beta.

Gifting... well, this was something we as a community demanded initially. We wanted to be able to send gifts to our friends. Im not sure they will reverse that concept, it would cause an uproar the likes we which we have not seen in a very long time.

 

[Talonsbane]

How can that happen?

LTI on all pledges before launch, and DISABLE gifting on pledges.

I'd like to see someone like Bored or Noob do a video about it.. reinforcing the need to have LTI on everything and disabling gifting on ships.

With all due respect my friend @DirectorGunner , while I agree with you about the LTI aspect, I have to disagree with you on the gifting portion. I myself have purchased & gifted ships to a few close friends just to help them have a better starting point for when they start playing the game. I have also on rare occasion been blessed enough to be able to obtain items from certain wonderful TEST members at fair rates. Which wouldn't have been possible if gifting was disabled.

As for the wonderful @GrumpyCat , I've openly stated here in the TEST Forums that IF I'd had the funds, I would've purchased her account from her & then held it for her as it was at the time until she could've refunded my investment in her whenever that would've been. Sadly, my wallet's capabilities are far short of the size of my heart.

The LTI on everything is something I already suggested many times.

LTI all ships until the game goes into beta.

Gifting... well, this was something we as a community demanded initially. We wanted to be able to send gifts to our friends. Im not sure they will reverse that concept, it would cause an uproar the likes we which we have not seen in a very long time.

I enjoy gifting ships & items to others when I'm financially capable, especially where special occasions are involved.

 

[BUTUZ]

I don't see a problem with it really. You guys had enough time to buy Grumpycats account and you didn't so it ended up going to the grey market (where else was it going to go if CIG refused a refund?)

Maybe you should be asking instead, why CIG refused to refund her account thus forcing her to offload it at a loss?

I see no problem with the grey market, people buy ships, some ships go up in value or are rare, so people are happy to pay more than market value for them. That's just normal. The guy making $30 on each ship he sells deserves it as he had the balls to spend $6k on the account in the first place and he is now going to the trouble of patiently selling those ships one at a time, advertising, delivering and dealing with possible refund requesters. He aint gonna become a millionaire out of this is he?

Getting rid if the grey market/gifting is a terrible idea, as it will devalue all your ships down to $0 as they will be stuck on your account and thus become worthless as CIG won't refund them any more.

I've bought a few of my ships on grey market as I was forced to by CIG. The grey market only really exists because of CIG's stupid policy of only selling ships on concept or in Gamescon. If you could buy any ship at any time they'd sell so many more ships and I wouldn't have to go to greymarket because I want a prospector, and they won't sell me one!!

 

[Stoutman]

Yeah the gifting of items and ships is something rather unique and I like it. I have gifted well over 100 items over the years while streaming. It is fun!

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Bummer about what's happened to the rest of GrumpyCats account :(

Makes the M50 I took off her hands all the more valuable to me.

 

[Printimus]

I dont see a problem to this. People are free to make money this way if they want to. You dont have to buy the stuff they are selling. Grumpycat still sold her account regardless of the buyer.

Let me ask you this, if you bought a toy back in the 1980's and it only cost you $20. You keep it in mint condition and value goes up and here in 2018, you are looking at possibly selling this toy for $2000. Is that not scalping? Did you not intentionally raise the price of an item beyond its original MSRP?

 

[Doyzer]

As someone who has sold A LOT of items via Star Hangar. I respectfully disagree. I have sold more upgrades than LTI ships. Most people have zero patience to wait for them to be available via CIG. I probably sell 25 upgrades for every 1 LTI ship.

Finally it is illegal to scalp tickets and not illegal to resale merchandise/products/items.

 

[Ploeperpengel]

Stop gifting? No! No,no,no,no,no! I love gifts and I love VAT evasion!

 

[Thalstan]

CIG did this to themselves when they stopped the credit LTI concept purchases. They really want to stop they gray market, so they figured they could do that by going new cash only. Unfortunately, this just pushed gray market into buying up old accounts from walk away supporters. Since they need to make money for doing this, this has resulted in them selling ships for a profit.

CIG still made their slice from the original sale, but they also set the rules. That’s come back to bite them in the butt.

Honestly, if someone gives up on SC, at least they can get some of their money back this way.

 

[supitza]

If CIG were to put LTI on all ships, like the backers demanded (at least the more vocal ones), and make all the ships available to purchase at any time, there wouldn't be a need for a gray market.
But CIG is apparently still getting enough money to not be bothered by the gray market, so why would they lift a finger?

 

[Radegast74]

My opinion: there are two separate issues here:

1. Having to sell your stuff because of emergency needs, like medical bills (legit emergency and not, just because you are tired of the game or you want to upgrade your graphics cards);

2. Free market & "rules"

Re: 1, having to sell stuff to get emergency funds for medical bills is just a crappy situation, and I wish the US had a better system in place to help people with this issue, as a large number of bankruptcies are because of medical bills. This doesn't seem to happen in other countries...but then we get into politics and I'll leave it at that.

Re: 2, the "free market." CIG could make all the rules they want, and people would still figure out loopholes and ways to get around it. As our glorious leader pointed out, the current rules are in place because we asked for them. Everything I've seen in life is that, if you make rules about something, a percentage of people always try to (and usually succeed) in getting around "the rules". My opinion is that CIG should just set some base line rules (which they have) and then just let people do what they always do.

 

[DirectorGunner]

I dont see a problem to this. People are free to make money this way if they want to. You dont have to buy the stuff they are selling. Grumpycat still sold her account regardless of the buyer.

Let me ask you this, if you bought a toy back in the 1980's and it only cost you $20. You keep it in mint condition and value goes up and here in 2018, you are looking at possibly selling this toy for $2000. Is that not scalping? Did you not intentionally raise the price of an item beyond its original MSRP?

That gave me a stink face while I nodded my head in agreement, well done. Touche! Though it may be a double standard.. I don't like it. Lots of people just look at eBay and the grey market.. and take it as fact instead of realizing you could find many many pledges through ORGs, Discord, etc for at cost or smaller premiums. And I REALLY REALLY REALLY dislike how people buy at cost buybacks from ORG mates and then sell the exact same pledges 24 hours later on the grey market for profits. I don't appreciate our user base, our fellow citizens, being exploited.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

I share the frustration that when something is done to help a fellow citizen out just to put a smile on their face, but they then go sell that good will gesture for a pile of bank - you wonder why didn't I just do that and keep the dolla myself? Or why didn't I just supply that item to the end user who paid over the odds for it via the ass I gave it to at cost?

the only winner in that situation is the middle-man, you as the original owner and the eventual recipient are both being screwed over.