Bottom Scanner at Neutral Auction House

21 Oct

Posted on 2008 under Addons & Macros, Auctioneer | 9 Comments

The Neutral Auction House is frequently used by players to move items from their toons on one faction to their toons on another. For example, a player on a Troll Mage gets a drop that he knows his Night Elf Rogue would really like. The player would park both toons by a Neutral Auction House, list the item for sale, log off the Mage, log onto the Rogue and immediately buy the item. Because the Neutral Auction House takes such a large cut, players frequently list the items at below their actual value…sometimes for just a gold or two.

If you are sitting at a Neutral Auction House with Bottom Scanner running, you will see the item as soon as it’s listed and buy it at the discount right away.

Here are some thoughts about this tactic:

1. You have to be paying attention to your toon. Any time you are online doing the same action for long periods of time, a GM might contact you to see if you respond. Cheaters that use ‘bots’ (programs that make their toon act), get caught like this and have their accounts banned. So just make sure that even though you’re watching a movie listening for BottomScanner to go ‘ding’, you keep an eye on your chat log from time to time.

2. You may want to have an alt toon do this for you, considering that you will become HATED by whomever was trying to move that item. True, they took the risk by putting it up on the Auction House so cheaply, but with some of the immature players out there, logic will not prevail. If you sniped something with your main toon, you may be subject to some griefing by the player who lost their item.

3. It’s not illegal or unethical. You’re not violating any rules of the game. True, it’s not very NICE to take advantage of someone like this, but they took the risk by putting it up on the Neutral AH.

Anyway, it’s not something I would do all the time, but if you find yourself in a situation where you can’t really play your toon but you can pay attention to it enough to listen for the ‘ding’ and avoid being suspected of botting, you could find some really good deals.

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9 Comments so far »

by Durgle, on March 11 2008 @ 9:29 am

as someone who uses the neutral ah to transfer stuff all the time, this seems like a good tip, but if people are doing this correctly, they shouldn’t have issues.

I always sell my items for 1cp so I take NO hit on swapping it back and forth.

I use 2 accounts or have a friend, and am on the phone.

I get the auction all set up to sell for 1 copper.

On the toon that will be buying, I go ahead and search for the item to make sure I won’t be accidentally buying the wrong one.

then i have the mouse over submit auction, and one over the pre filled search. Click Click Click, done. I would find it hard for anyone to have fast enough reflexes, even if they knew what i was selling to buy it in time.

Even with bottom scanner, I don’t believe it would be instant, because it’s just taking scans of the AH. I think it’s still going to take a few seconds for it to scan and post the item.

If people are smart about the transfer, there should be no danger.
by Yourmama, on March 31 2008 @ 5:43 am

Great, just encourage stealing you scumbags
by Shinzool, on May 9 2008 @ 12:57 am

It IS stealing…I’ve transferred items for 1 copper for about 2 years now, but last week somebody was using BottomScanner combined with a clickbot while they were AFK. I listed a blue shoulder piece and it was gone when I clicked the Bid button one second later on my other computer.
by Geen, on September 11 2008 @ 5:28 am

It isn’t really stealing when you pay coin for an item. That’s called commerce!
by god, on October 2 2008 @ 11:02 am

“It’s not illegal or unethical.”

not unethical?! you are deliberatly ripping of other players!! what the hell’s wrong with you?!
by Silva, on December 5 2008 @ 11:29 am

it isn’t unethical, because players take the risk if they put up the item for auvtion so cheap…
by Blightheart, on January 25 2009 @ 7:40 am

Haha. If people are stupid enough to put blue shoulders on the neutral AH for one copper, they deserve to lose the item. It’s not theft, I payed for the item. It’s stupidity on part of the “seller” to put it on for such a low price. After all, Blizzard did not intend for the neutral AH to be a way to circumvent the faction mail restriction.
by Torso, on May 27 2009 @ 3:45 pm

Unless you have two different accounts on the same server, Neutral AH transferring doesn’t work. The game will realize the alts are from the same account and you won’t be able to bid on the item.

Of course, I just get a friend to pick up what Im selling the instant I put it up for auction. I suppose having a clickbot would screw me over, but I’ve never been scammed by this.

Honestly, I don’t see this being worth it and although you aren’t breaking any rules, I wouldn’t call it unethical so much as a total douchebag move. I suggest anyone that gets scammed this way should AH as much cheap vendor junk as they can for 1c.
by Dwob, on June 26 2009 @ 3:21 am

TrollMage sells lowlevel Dagger for 100g
NERogue(or Friend) buy lowlevel Dagger for 100g
NERogue(or Friend) sells VendorTrash (meat, cloth) for 100g
TrollMage buy VendorTrash for 100g

No Bots or AH Checks would Buy your Items, cause of the HighPrice and you got your Item without any risk.