Bottom Scanner at Neutral Auction House

Posted on 2008 under Addons & Macros, Auctioneer | 18 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.

18 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.
by jonas, on October 17 2009 @ 12:03 pm

Let me catch you doing that and you will feel the wrath. Sickening how people somehow literally steal from people knowing full well that a 1 copper post is done only to transfer something. If this is how you have to make gold you pathetic f*** you are beyond scum and beyond stupid. So sad that not only you do this, you actually believe in your own tiny little mind that you are justified in doing it. That said, try it on me and watch what happens.

Please….pull this stunt on me one time. PLEASE.
by Dorlondo, on November 4 2009 @ 7:52 am

There’s one player (it seems) who does this a bit on whisperwind. I track his toons by adding them to the friends list of the toons I use to sell stuff between the Alliance and Horde. He’s grabbed a few hundred gold from me, but has luckily missed thousands more I’ve transferred. I do report his toons to GMs if they’re unresponsive. Now I tend to check the auctioneers in Gadget and Booty bay for lurking lowbies before selling anything expensive, and I do a test sell of something less desirable first to see if someone is grabbing stuff. I’ve gone as far as sending a toon down to kill the auctioneer he’s using (and he still didn’t respond, so seemed to be fully automated). Maybe that’s why he was using a new toon today to lurk. So, be warned, some people have a full set of addons to bot their neutral Ah buying toon. Sometimes i try to slow them down a bit by filling the AH with auctions for cheap arrows. It makes the scans take a little longer. What I need to do is see if I can get them to buy cheap blue arrows for a price that’s a profit for me (if they’re fully botted, I might be able to empty his gold on the bot toon).
by Joecolo, on February 15 2010 @ 10:11 am

I do this to make thousands a week. It works, I use Auctioneer and I am smart about it. No GM has ever contacted me although people have reported me many..MANY times.
You can fill the AH with arrows all you want, it does not effect me.
Bottom Scanner looks at the LAST item auctioned, does not matter that there are 400000 arrows.
The only way to get past my filters is to sell the item for a lot of gold, at least 50% of its value.
by Chamdar, on March 5 2010 @ 12:55 pm

Easiest way that I have found is to have some spare trash sitting around and put it up for 1cp. If they are using a click bot it will go fast. Try putting it up for 1gp and see if it goes, if it does, use auctioneer to post large quantities of trash for them to buy. I have done this in the past and you would be surprised how fast they stop and you can put your auctions up. If you have lost money to them in the past. Great way to get it back.
by Bob, on April 18 2010 @ 3:11 pm

I think this is a bs move. However please fill the ah with 1c vendor trash and I will buy it all and vendor it because its going to be worth more than 1c and I can then make a profit. I won’t however be screwing you guys..just a bulls**t move
by hatecrooks, on July 16 2010 @ 12:52 pm

I’ve had so much fun with you crooks. You guys are so lowdown greedy and stupid I get you all the time on my server. Got one last night. It’s a great way to have fun and what’s even more fun is standing back watching them freak out when they get back to their computer. Also, you idiots don’t realize that now we can put up multiple stacks at one time which catch you buying more than one in a second. You guys are the easy prey!!! LOL!!!! Oh and then I send Blizzard the screenshots. More fun than a run thru ICC which I can do because I know how to play my character. Sorry this is all you know how to do.
by hatecrooks, on July 16 2010 @ 1:00 pm

I got to say something to this too. “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.”

This is about the sickest logic I’ve ever seen. It’s the same as saying the robbery victim took a risk by being in the shopping center parking lot.
by Iwasrippedoff, on August 6 2010 @ 3:00 pm

I was taken by this or whatever program yesterday for an item I was transferring over. Now my alt will not have the item needed. Now that I know about this program no more transfers for me.

If it were you that this happened to would you feel it was ok then? Most likely not. Point 3 is all about justifying this. Notice the big push to not do it on your main but an alt. Hence you guys know it is screwed up to use it. Why not use it on your main so we can find out who you are and make sure you can’t run anymore raids on the server? Come on, step up and show that you are really ok using this.

What the game needs now is a way to ignore entire accounts.
by JoJo, on August 27 2010 @ 2:53 am

For those who have a problem with this method, you are idiots. Bottom Scanner is not a bot or a hack. It is part of an Add-on called auctioneer. The GM’s themselves even recommend this to players to ease the use of the auction house.

I personally see nothing wrong with the method, though I would not do it personally. The object is to make money using any method that does not violate the EULA. Reporting a player for doing this will not get your items back, and will not get that player banned. For those who are going to rant further on it, grow up.

If by random chance I go to a neutral AH and see an item post for 1 copper that I know would sell for 50g I would not think twice about snagging it.

People will spend time doing this as long as idiot players keep posting items for 1 copper on the neutral AH’s

Let your toons play the game them self, or be played by someone else’s.