Soul-Traders duped again?

[Simmias]

Various servers have them for as low as 40k, picked up another on illidan today :/

What is going on and why was the bug not fixed?

[Tekulve2012]

Currently (noon feb.24th) the cheapest Soul Trader on Illidan Horde is a 61 k buyin with no determined buyout price. The current range on Illidan Horde is 65k all the way up to 140k.

Surely you know that Illidan is about the cheapest pet buying realm out there, so low prices there is not unusual due to competition and desperate sellers (gold is always the best item to have in the game...just ask the AH gurus who make their dime flipping items). I sold an EST for 155k on a low pop server this past week.

I feel like this pet is retaining it's value relatively well. Yes ...like the Spectral tiger cub, it no longer has a 300k value (like 2 years ago) but it still draws interest and is high in demand.
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As for duping ... I understand groups are activating old accounts ..some say hackers are able to baffle Landros longshot in Booty Bay with gazillions of code combinations on a low pop realm ...another rumor suggested it's a caging trick ...who knows...it's too bad that pet values suffered after some players put out a ton of RL cash or gold to get these pets.

I am reluctant to buy a lvl 6 Spectral tiger cub or other lvl 6 tcg but any pet I have ever bought works ..and thats all we want them for ..right?

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As an aside, the jeweled panther mount was apparently duped too ... when you got your mount, text pops up saying it has X amount of uses (this was my experience from buying one in trade chat on Illidan horde) ..but in the end, it works like any other mount ..limitless and flawless usage. I was happy to get it for 30k and still love it.
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Grats on getting the EST for 40k ... you will probably never see as good a deal as that anywhere ever again

[Abyl1]

I started a toon on Illidan this past weekend because of the reports of cheaper pets. I've had to stop looking at the AH because it pains me to see these prices when I have 2K gold so far

I'll get there, a lot of farming and playing the AH and then I'll have some of these top pets!

My main toons are on Llane and I've never seen an EST on that server...

[Poofah]

There have been many waves of duping, the least subtle being the lvl 6 tiger cubs. Actually if you look on UJ for cubs, it's quite comical -- scroll to the bottom and look at the graph showing prices for all realms

https://theunderminejournal.com/battlep ... pecies=242

As you can see, there's a massive cluster of cubs being sold for exactly 60k across many servers. That's not random. I checked a handful of realms and saw multiple lvl 6s. So either that loophole hasn't been fixed, or people are still selling off cubs from the earlier waves of duping. I have also literally never seen a report here or on Bliz' forums of Bliz taking someone's cub away. The main point here is that many of these lvl 6 cubs were never removed, so the effect on supply is long-lasting.

There is no smoking gun for Soul-Traders that I'm aware of. But the decline in prices has been very similar to cubs over the course of MoP, which is very suggestive of an uncontrolled supply.

Basically, high-end pets are a terrible investment. Bliz has shown no willingness or ability to control illicit supply, which inevitably pushes prices down. There are only two things keeping prices up: 1) lack of awareness among the playerbase (ie legitimate buyers), and 2) the dupers have a cost of doing business (in terms of manhours, banned accounts, etc). Below some price, the dupers will move on to something more profitable. That Spectral Tiger Cub graph is suggestive that this price floor might be around 60k for a caged pet, but that conclusion is a bit of a stretch. If they 'improve' duping methods to reduce the risk of getting banned, or reduce the effort involved, then this price floor could easily drop further.

[Milkywind]

I was just about to post this and ask why the prices are so cheap.

In November, I was debating getting a spectral tiger cub or soul-trader cause I thought prices would rise when the newest/last TCG set runs out.

At that time, a soul-trader was still around 90-110k.

Got the spectral tiger pet instead cause it was cheaper (55k?) and it was a pet I always wanted. I guess that was the better investment cause now the soul-trader prices have just plummeted. Cheapest I've seen is 60k on illidan so far.

Dragon kite prices seem to be dropping at a steady rate too. A year ago, I would be lucky to get one for 100k on the black market AH.

[Velcroe]

Yeah I agree holding onto pets for the long term is not a good investment. The Spectral Tiger Cub thing is very peculiar this time because of that cluster of 60k pets on Undermine Journal. At this point, I pretty much won't buy a cub, dragon kite, or soul trader unless the prices is ridiculously good (40k I think qualifies).

What I find strange is that Tuskarr Kites seem to have been left alone which is weird (hopefully they stay left alone since I have two).

[Warlock]

There have been many waves of duping, the least subtle being the lvl 6 tiger cubs. Actually if you look on UJ for cubs, it's quite comical -- scroll to the bottom and look at the graph showing prices for all realms

https://theunderminejournal.com/battlep ... pecies=242

As you can see, there's a massive cluster of cubs being sold for exactly 60k across many servers. That's not random. I checked a handful of realms and saw multiple lvl 6s. So either that loophole hasn't been fixed, or people are still selling off cubs from the earlier waves of duping. I have also literally never seen a report here or on Bliz' forums of Bliz taking someone's cub away. The main point here is that many of these lvl 6 cubs were never removed, so the effect on supply is long-lasting.

There is no smoking gun for Soul-Traders that I'm aware of. But the decline in prices has been very similar to cubs over the course of MoP, which is very suggestive of an uncontrolled supply.

Basically, high-end pets are a terrible investment. Bliz has shown no willingness or ability to control illicit supply, which inevitably pushes prices down. There are only two things keeping prices up: 1) lack of awareness among the playerbase (ie legitimate buyers), and 2) the dupers have a cost of doing business (in terms of manhours, banned accounts, etc). Below some price, the dupers will move on to something more profitable. That Spectral Tiger Cub graph is suggestive that this price floor might be around 60k for a caged pet, but that conclusion is a bit of a stretch. If they 'improve' duping methods to reduce the risk of getting banned, or reduce the effort involved, then this price floor could easily drop further.

Well I guess that explains the lvl 6 Spectral Tiger Cub I bought for 60k today -_- Oh well.

[Ums]

Indeed - on Ragnaros there was a guy offering both cub and EST for 70k each - I bit on the EST and was told by him "tell your friends, I have plenty more" which is a pretty good sign of something dodgy.

[Saasan]

With some embarrassment I realize my recent Spectral Tiger Cub purchase was likely a dupe...lvl 6 for 60k. I got him off the AH, so I didn't really question it. Oh well. The damage is done and I have my adorable cub. I'll just look more closely in the future.

I'd say we should make a move to not buy duped pets, but really, if they lvl them past 6 how would we know?

[Kpb321]

Two of my servers I watch have Spectral tiger cubs listed and both do happen to be for 60k. One server is fairly high pop so it isn't a completely unexpected price, is level 25 and I've talked to the seller and he doesn't seem like your typical gold farmer/duper. May well be someone trying to flip one they know is duped tho.

The other server is low to medium pop which rarely has these types of pets and is level 6. Could easily be a dupe.

Not sure if this a new wave of dupes or someone is just starting to sell of an old stockpile. Since I still need a tiger I'm hoping to pick one up and I'm not going to go out of my way to avoid a possible dupe.

[Corah]

My main toons are on Llane and I've never seen an EST on that server...

I picked one up on Llane for 75k. It was the only one I've seen in a long time.

[Simmias]

11 soul traders from the same person proof? here it is.
http://imgur.com/uNMsDhd

You can't tell me that this isnt dodge as hell..

[Avalee]

I'd say report him. Soul Traders are still over 200 dollars so him selling it for 77k gold, it must be a duper.

[Aislinge]

There's a 60k one consistently up on Aman'thul Ally also. I was wondering about it, reluctant to drop any gold on it in case it was a dupe. Cheers!

[Poofah]

11 soul traders from the same person proof? here it is.
http://imgur.com/uNMsDhd

It's not proof. I looked into this briefly -- it's a lvl 90 seller on Stormrage(A), https://theunderminejournal.com/battlepet.php?realm=A-Stormrage&species=183 .

I'd say report him. Soul Traders are still over 200 dollars so him selling it for 77k gold, it must be a duper.

No. Soul Traders routinely sell below 77k, regardless how much IRL dollars they cost on ebay.

It's certainly possible that this seller originally bought ESTs that had been duped. But there's virtually no chance that this seller is a duper (lvl 90, 10k achieve points). They are doing absolutely nothing wrong by reselling items that they bought legitimately.

There's a 60k one consistently up on Aman'thul Ally also. I was wondering about it, reluctant to drop any gold on it in case it was a dupe. Cheers!

The only reluctance you should have is that the price will drop further, due to further duping waves. Dupes are identical in every way to 'legit' caged pets, and Bliz have shown no ability/willingness to police them. Nobody should feel bad if they think a pet they bought is a dupe, and nobody should be concerned about buying a pet from AH because it might be a dupe.

[Nikkip]

I am finding almost all pet prices are dropping. Stormrage- Tuskarr Kites are around 70k and Soul-Traders- 40-60k . most simply just won't pay that much for them anymore. I have my second legit Spectral Tiger Cub, the first cub about 4 months ago I couldn't get more then 40K for it. (I bought it off TCGLOOT) the 2nd one was bought off Ebay (card) and only spent 40.00 for it.
Nikki

[Simmias]

achievement points and lvl don't mean shit. Why on earth would you ever think that they do? rofl.

[Gulnarr]

achievement points and lvl don't mean shit. Why on earth would you ever think that they do? rofl.

Because a duper would most likely be using a throwaway account, with a level one character to sell stuff with. If the character selling them is a level 90 with a ton of achievement points, then it's probably someone's main account.

[Worgenbait]

The major dupe item right now is the jeweled panther mount, though not sure how they are duping it. I'm seeing it sell on Illidan for 22K the last few days, and considering the base ingrediants you HAVE to buy would cost 72K and that's if you farm all the rest of the stuff, you know there is some serious duping going on.

The only major pets not duped yet (cost-wise anyways) are the Tuskarr Kite and the Viscous Horror. Have to wonder just how long that is going to last as prices plummet on the pets being duped now.

[Dirkie]

I check three or four different servers regularly and I noticed today there are 21 EST for sale across those servers and ten of them are all for sale at 37K Bid and 37K Buyout! None are level six, they are all either level 1 or level 25!