UO Second Age

I notice alot of people take advantage of others when buying/trading/selling houses since there is no GREAT way to do this. I've seen a number of people say they got scammed, they got PK'd, they are quitting because they got stolen from.
Personally, the last 2 days I've been looking to buy a house and have had no serious offers, just a number of people attempting to get one over on me.

Suggestion: Using the forums and a GM/Admin/moderator. Discus the terms and time of exchange and through an offical member of the staff operate a trade through them. People that don't hold their side of the bargain/abuse/attempt to scam/don't show up through this gateway can be punished, etc, etc. This way people aren't just continueously being screwed and discouraged. We work way to hard for what we have, no one should be dispicable and scam.

This is already solved.

NEA & Trammel. This is the wrong shard for you.

Read the housing Broker thread, many of those people still play.
Some people who come to mind are; Blackfoot, Telamon, Kelektra, and Grew Snow.

Also, although it's not foolproof, post in the housing forums stating you're wishing to purchase a house. While it's still possible to get scammed via the forums, most of the folks offering high-end sales here are trustworthy sorts that want to keep their ability to post.

Using brokers is good advice, too. There are quite a few respected individuals here that help to prevent scams.

Working out a deal in game is a good way to get burned. There is no safeguard against that because the GMs here DO NOT get involved in player interactions. Asking for them to moderate in game trades is a completely unrealistic wish, because they have better things to do than protect you from predators.

A little due diligence on your part will go a lot further. Honestly, though, I agree that if you're the type that thinks the server staff should solve squabbles between players-- this is not the server for you.

use a trusted broker...there is a thread with a list of trusted brokers

Being able to get scammed/screwed is part of what makes this game awesome.

Too much of a burden on volunteer staff.

NEA

Here is the thread listing known brokers: Broker List

D1tcH wrote:I notice alot of people take advantage of others when buying/trading/selling houses since there is no GREAT way to do this. I've seen a number of people say they got scammed, they got PK'd, they are quitting because they got stolen from.
Personally, the last 2 days I've been looking to buy a house and have had no serious offers, just a number of people attempting to get one over on me.

Suggestion: Using the forums and a GM/Admin/moderator. Discus the terms and time of exchange and through an offical member of the staff operate a trade through them. People that don't hold their side of the bargain/abuse/attempt to scam/don't show up through this gateway can be punished, etc, etc. This way people aren't just continueously being screwed and discouraged. We work way to hard for what we have, no one should be dispicable and scam.

You sound paranoid. At some point you are going to have to trust someone....or get a broker.

Paranoia is actually the solution. For example: How many times have you actually gotten scammed on UOSA, D1tch? I'm guessing none cause you're paranoid! If this is the case, good job. You're not the first person to feel this way and the shard as a whole has made steps to help make trading safer. We do punish people that use the forums or IRC to scam, thus deals made therein are much safer, not to mention the aforementioned trusted broker list. That being said, the trusted broker list is only a very small percentage of the players on this shard that are guaranteed NOT to scam you.

Citizen!,

Just post the details of what the trade is and to who you are trading with on the forums. Also, use a trusted broker and record a RPV of the trade just in case something goes sour. After trade is completed post details of the outcome (success/scammed) in the trade forums. If the deal went sour then upload the RPV to the trade forum along with the outcome of said trade and tell the community what happened. If you do all of that then you should be all right.

Also, citizen, many items can be traded via player vendors also. Just make sure a thief is not around and use a tracker or a GM detect hidden character (a GM detect hidden char can fail multiple times trying to reveal GM stealthers but tracking is 100% as long as place is not too crowded. Even a measely 10 tracking can track players just outside your viewable screen).

It is not a bad idea to create a dedicated merchant character for buying items off player vendors. I would say GM Item ID (or master) and GM arms Lore (or master) is a must. Mine has those 2 skills Gmed and also has GM Hiding/Stealth, some Magery, some Wrestling, some Tracking, and some Resist. The only thing you will have to worry about being scammed with using a merchant character is Runebooks (Item ID does not work on them) and faulty armor/weps that have been repaired numerous times that will say "It looks like new" yet has lower durability due to the numerous times it has been repaired.

You should also be aware of items on vendors that say "blessed" and actually are not blessed but the scammer just typed it in the item description. For housing and blessed items I would suggest using a broker and always do a durability test with a macer on grandfathered blessed items before buying them.

I hope this helps and best of luck!