Control the AH

**swollen** · 05-21-2009

Ok first off, let me say this is not necessarily a scam, however it could be construed as fiddling with the economy (doubtful) and get you a suspension. I posted it in here as it seemed the most appropriate spot for it.

Secondly, I searched for what I would call mass buying and found no other threads. If this is a repost, feel free to lynch me.

Thirdly, This DOES work, I have been doing it for a month or so, have made about 8k gold doing it (on a low pop server it may not work as well)

What You will need:

-A relatively large amount of gold to begin with (use other scams)
-24 hour internet access.
-Some form of script to send a message to trade channel once a minute or so.
-2 seperate bank toons.

The Concept:

So generally the idea of the AH with old mods like auctioneer was buy low, sell high. I'm here to tell you that this isnt the only way to make money with the AH. This is totally the opposite in fact (well to start with anyway.) This is about making very small profits a LOT of times.

The Guide:

Let me say right here and now, if you arent willing to lose half of your money up front, dont bother reading on. This will be a large investment, but when done right, it can amount in great profits.

Step 1: Pick an item that can be farmed. My personal choice is Saronite Ore. Over the next couple of weeks, buy a lot of them. You will need enough to flood the auction house for 3 or 4 days.

Step 2: Once you think you have got enough, put them all on the AH for say 10g less than the going price at the time, for the longest possible time (72 hours). For the sake of this excercise, say you bought for 30g, you will list for 20. Yes you will lose money here, dont be afraid, the point is to have enough of the item to crash the market.

Step 3: This is where you can start making money. Now you log onto bank toon two, and set up your script or bot to continuously post a macro to the trade channel along the lines of "Buying all Saronite Ore, 19g per stack, COD at will, as many as you want" and leave it going overnight.

Now here is where it gets interesting. Everyone who has spent time farming this item, will go to the AH, and QQ because the price has crashed so much. Then they see a guy buying them in mass for 1g less than AH price. Now because you have so many of the item on the AH, he has 2 choices if he wants to sell his hard farmed work. He can either undercut you, or he can just COD it to you.
Now 9 times out of 10, he will figure "By the time the AH takes its cut, I'll only end up 20 silver ahead, and I'll have to wait for a buyer too." The logical thing for him to do is to COD his items to you for 19g.

Step 4: Now, if you have got enough of the item on the AH for 3 or so days, by the time they expire or have all sold, you should have a mountain of the same item for 19g. Simply continue selling them for 20 gold, and buying them via COD for 19. the process will repeat. Once you have gotten to this stage, you will pretty much be in complete control of the economy of this item. You will be making small profits per item, but a lot of them.

Now these figures I've used are just an example. You can adjust your profit margin up, but keep in mind, the higher your profit margin, the more likely it is that people will AH their items rather than CODing them to you

An alternative is to keep the market low for enough time to accquire a lot of the items, then wait for the price to go back up a bit, and slowly (as to avoid again flooding the market) sell them off at an inflated price, but it doesnt quite give you that instant hit of cash everyday.

**Danubis077** · 05-21-2009

You'll go bankrupt on a large server pretty fast. One thing about farmers, or players who just mine for money. "THEY ARE NOT AFRAID TO UNDERCUT" they have the mindset that either way there making money because they got the ore for 0g.

Your monopoly on the Ore wont last long, you better off converting the ore to gems then d/eing for essence or dust.