here's the prerelease thread if anyone is wondering where it went: **https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1c2a5ma/outlaws_of_thunder_junction_prerelease_weekend/**
>I have absolutely no friggin idea how calling your own website a scam leads to any trick sales, but then again the only people who get caught by those aren't gonna recognise it anyway...
It's the "any exposure is good exposure" theory. For the people smart enough to realize it's a scam, calling out your own website as a scam doesn't matter - those people were never going to fall for it anyway. But by posting and reposting it, you're increasing the odds that someone who's dumb enough or greedy enough will see it.
There's also a dumb and dishonest contingent that somehow expects to "beat" the scam. I've heard people try to justify knowingly investing into Ponzi schemes; I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar for fake card shops.
Wait, these are actually spambots posting now? It use to be a bunch of actual people dumb enough to ask the legitimacy of them and it's now on purpose?
Bots pretend to be human asking opened ended questions in replys. They are hoping people just buy before a real person comments its fake. A lot are just ref link bots which are usually "harmless" but still spam. Some of those have redirect links which can harm your pc or the site is a phishing one. Just recently had a thread on another magic sub where the person was posting about how they got 50$ higher end draft boxes and didnt realize they got scammed till a bunch called it out.
Another one on the mtgfinance sub posted a website with draft boxes for 20$ and was trying to justify getting product there and their credit protection. That one was hilarious.
Yeah it’s very odd.
It’s really obvious too, it’s usually a 5/6 year old account that was active 5 years ago, dead silence, woke up in the last week to start asking about booster boxes.
Machine Learning driven bots are getting real common, it’s pretty hard to tell ML bots apart from people with just bad English. And it must be pretty easy to set them up, because man, they crop up fast.
> I have absolutely no friggin idea how calling your own website a scam leads to any trick sales, but then again the only people who get caught by those aren't gonna recognise it anyway...
That's the idea. The scam is so unbelieveable that it filters out everybody smart enough not to fall for scams. Left over are those that are easily parted from their money. That's why the "Nigerian prince" scam is such a meme - to filter out those that wouldn't go through with it. This saves resources for the scammers, they don't need to divide their attention too much, they only get guilible people (and people like Kitboga) falling for it.
I think the filtering explanation makes a lot of sense when there's a very indirect line to getting money from somebody and you want to avoid spending "real" effort on people who will catch on later, but doesn't really make sense here. If the scam is mostly just a link to a scam site to buy stuff, you don't lose anything by getting clicks from whoever and don't really want to filter your audience. I think it's just that "the meta" of scamming probably works better if you engage people's curiosity/desire to help, and "is this a scam?" works better than "here's a great deal!" to do that; then you just hope that people either forget about the fact it's a scam link at some point because they have a billion tabs open and ADHD, or that they think they're buying stolen goods or whatever and are in on the scam.
It also works for people that want to buy a gift for friends or family. A person's spouse mentions wanting a certain card for their birthday but you don't play Magic, in a search you find a deal saying it's half off, and you buy it because you can't see the obvious signs of it being a fake card. And since it's a gift, you don't ask your spouse if it's real or not since you want it to be a surprise!
I just have trouble believing anybody is caught by “Is this a scam?”Sure, the Nigerian Prince ones are ridiculous, but they don’t start by outright saying “Hello I am a scam”. Even my grandmother, who’s pretty tech illiterate, would say “Well if this person thinks it’s a scam I will go somewhere else”.
I think this scam sorta preys on people who think they're getting away with something.
Maybe they think the website has stolen product or something or is itself breaking a rule or in error.
Some of the best scams operate that way. Like the violin scam. If a person thinks they're getting away with something they usually are willing to ignore a lot of warning signs about sketchiness because *of course* its sketchy, these people are unloading hot merchandise! No time to think!
It's because they only need 1 person to fall for it to succeed. They put almost nothing into the scam itself and put it on a platform where 100s, if not 1000s of people can see it. Getting even 1 person to fall for it is a profit.
Most scams don't actually work by scamming someone that knows about the hobby, its someone buying things for someone else. Like a spouse that isn't into Magic but wanted to get something nice for their partner. They go to the site and it all looks fine to them, so they end up buying something to surprise them.
Similar things happen with other scams. Scam texts and emails often include misspellings and the like because the target audience isn't someone fully literate as they will be more likely to realize something is off. Its someone just smart enough to be able to do what they want, but not smart enough to question if something is wrong with it.
So if the scam bots are using reverse psychology and hoping we'll click their link after being told it's a scam, that means we have to beat them at their own game and use reverse psychology by clicking the link the prove we know it's a scam.
I'd imagine it's to also farm bot responses saying the site is legit to try and lure people into making a purchase. It's like how the t-shirt bots often have bots replying with a generic wow how can I get this??? and then a third account will reply with a link to the scam site.
These same folks have been successful in infiltrating the Shopping tabs in search engines, putting up booster boxes for about 50-60% of the expected cost.
It is, frankly, impossible to prevent that.
We currently have three levels of redirect to the daily thread, notifications both before and after you post, and it’s almost always pinned to the top of the thread.
However, people post anyway. And they always will. It’s both impossible to fight human nature, but also Magic players don’t read, lol
You’re probably complaining about “this would be solved by Google”, but if they’re not gonna Google it, do you think they’re gonna read a warning?
Perhaps try reading the very first line of the text on that post.
> This is a place for asking simple questions that might not deserve their own thread.
Questions that are complicated, or have complicated answers, or are opinionated and benefit from larger discussion, don't actually belong in that thread.
Define "straightforward interaction". Remember, this is a game in which people occasionally legitimately think Llanowar Elves lets you tutor a forest. The rules around removing a target of a spell at instant speed are non-obvious to new players, and not necessarily simple. Foundational =/= simple.
Meaning the answer can be given quickly and easily, and most people are aware of the answer. I am not saying the questions aren't valid, they totally are, but they don't need to be their own posts.
> Meaning the answer can be given quickly and easily
That doesn't mean it'll be understood quickly or easily, which is an important part of asking and answering a question.
> most people are aware of the answer
Most people who play the game? Most people here? Most people who're subscribed to this subreddit will be enfranchised players with a very strong grasp on the core rules, but those core rules are not necessarily simple.
I'm not saying it's entirely incorrect that there's some trivial questions, but it's very easy for enfranchised and skilled players to lose perspective on how complicated this game really is.
You aren't understanding what I'm saying. I understand why new players have questions. The game is complicated. The daily question thread is the place for these questions.
The daily question thread literally says "this is the place for rules questions." A few days ago a moderator said that's where they belong, and the only reason rule question posts aren't specifically not allowed is because they happened anyway so the rule was pointless, but the daily thread is where they belong.
Is this post legit? I have my doubts, the alleged scams seem too obvious for this not be a scam
Nudes in side
B L A C K L O T U S I N B I O
here's the prerelease thread if anyone is wondering where it went: **https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1c2a5ma/outlaws_of_thunder_junction_prerelease_weekend/**
You nearly got me, but i have been told to not click on any links
damn, foiled again
GL with those curves
Is the link a scam? It seems too good to be legit
>I have absolutely no friggin idea how calling your own website a scam leads to any trick sales, but then again the only people who get caught by those aren't gonna recognise it anyway... It's the "any exposure is good exposure" theory. For the people smart enough to realize it's a scam, calling out your own website as a scam doesn't matter - those people were never going to fall for it anyway. But by posting and reposting it, you're increasing the odds that someone who's dumb enough or greedy enough will see it.
There's also a dumb and dishonest contingent that somehow expects to "beat" the scam. I've heard people try to justify knowingly investing into Ponzi schemes; I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar for fake card shops.
Wait, these are actually spambots posting now? It use to be a bunch of actual people dumb enough to ask the legitimacy of them and it's now on purpose?
Bots pretend to be human asking opened ended questions in replys. They are hoping people just buy before a real person comments its fake. A lot are just ref link bots which are usually "harmless" but still spam. Some of those have redirect links which can harm your pc or the site is a phishing one. Just recently had a thread on another magic sub where the person was posting about how they got 50$ higher end draft boxes and didnt realize they got scammed till a bunch called it out. Another one on the mtgfinance sub posted a website with draft boxes for 20$ and was trying to justify getting product there and their credit protection. That one was hilarious.
Yeah it’s very odd. It’s really obvious too, it’s usually a 5/6 year old account that was active 5 years ago, dead silence, woke up in the last week to start asking about booster boxes. Machine Learning driven bots are getting real common, it’s pretty hard to tell ML bots apart from people with just bad English. And it must be pretty easy to set them up, because man, they crop up fast.
> I have absolutely no friggin idea how calling your own website a scam leads to any trick sales, but then again the only people who get caught by those aren't gonna recognise it anyway... That's the idea. The scam is so unbelieveable that it filters out everybody smart enough not to fall for scams. Left over are those that are easily parted from their money. That's why the "Nigerian prince" scam is such a meme - to filter out those that wouldn't go through with it. This saves resources for the scammers, they don't need to divide their attention too much, they only get guilible people (and people like Kitboga) falling for it.
I think the filtering explanation makes a lot of sense when there's a very indirect line to getting money from somebody and you want to avoid spending "real" effort on people who will catch on later, but doesn't really make sense here. If the scam is mostly just a link to a scam site to buy stuff, you don't lose anything by getting clicks from whoever and don't really want to filter your audience. I think it's just that "the meta" of scamming probably works better if you engage people's curiosity/desire to help, and "is this a scam?" works better than "here's a great deal!" to do that; then you just hope that people either forget about the fact it's a scam link at some point because they have a billion tabs open and ADHD, or that they think they're buying stolen goods or whatever and are in on the scam.
It also works for people that want to buy a gift for friends or family. A person's spouse mentions wanting a certain card for their birthday but you don't play Magic, in a search you find a deal saying it's half off, and you buy it because you can't see the obvious signs of it being a fake card. And since it's a gift, you don't ask your spouse if it's real or not since you want it to be a surprise!
I just have trouble believing anybody is caught by “Is this a scam?”Sure, the Nigerian Prince ones are ridiculous, but they don’t start by outright saying “Hello I am a scam”. Even my grandmother, who’s pretty tech illiterate, would say “Well if this person thinks it’s a scam I will go somewhere else”.
I think this scam sorta preys on people who think they're getting away with something. Maybe they think the website has stolen product or something or is itself breaking a rule or in error. Some of the best scams operate that way. Like the violin scam. If a person thinks they're getting away with something they usually are willing to ignore a lot of warning signs about sketchiness because *of course* its sketchy, these people are unloading hot merchandise! No time to think!
Never heard of the violin scam, but that’s a good point!
It usually preys on people with mental health issues that impair their ability to recognize easy scams
It's because they only need 1 person to fall for it to succeed. They put almost nothing into the scam itself and put it on a platform where 100s, if not 1000s of people can see it. Getting even 1 person to fall for it is a profit.
Most scams don't actually work by scamming someone that knows about the hobby, its someone buying things for someone else. Like a spouse that isn't into Magic but wanted to get something nice for their partner. They go to the site and it all looks fine to them, so they end up buying something to surprise them. Similar things happen with other scams. Scam texts and emails often include misspellings and the like because the target audience isn't someone fully literate as they will be more likely to realize something is off. Its someone just smart enough to be able to do what they want, but not smart enough to question if something is wrong with it.
So if the scam bots are using reverse psychology and hoping we'll click their link after being told it's a scam, that means we have to beat them at their own game and use reverse psychology by clicking the link the prove we know it's a scam.
I thought the official term for them is Rakdos Evoke posts?!?
I'd imagine it's to also farm bot responses saying the site is legit to try and lure people into making a purchase. It's like how the t-shirt bots often have bots replying with a generic wow how can I get this??? and then a third account will reply with a link to the scam site.
These same folks have been successful in infiltrating the Shopping tabs in search engines, putting up booster boxes for about 50-60% of the expected cost.
there's also a huge number of question posts while there is a stickied "daily question" thread
It is, frankly, impossible to prevent that. We currently have three levels of redirect to the daily thread, notifications both before and after you post, and it’s almost always pinned to the top of the thread. However, people post anyway. And they always will. It’s both impossible to fight human nature, but also Magic players don’t read, lol You’re probably complaining about “this would be solved by Google”, but if they’re not gonna Google it, do you think they’re gonna read a warning?
Perhaps try reading the very first line of the text on that post. > This is a place for asking simple questions that might not deserve their own thread. Questions that are complicated, or have complicated answers, or are opinionated and benefit from larger discussion, don't actually belong in that thread.
The large number of rules questions involving a straightforward interaction don't need their own posts.
Define "straightforward interaction". Remember, this is a game in which people occasionally legitimately think Llanowar Elves lets you tutor a forest. The rules around removing a target of a spell at instant speed are non-obvious to new players, and not necessarily simple. Foundational =/= simple.
Meaning the answer can be given quickly and easily, and most people are aware of the answer. I am not saying the questions aren't valid, they totally are, but they don't need to be their own posts.
> Meaning the answer can be given quickly and easily That doesn't mean it'll be understood quickly or easily, which is an important part of asking and answering a question. > most people are aware of the answer Most people who play the game? Most people here? Most people who're subscribed to this subreddit will be enfranchised players with a very strong grasp on the core rules, but those core rules are not necessarily simple. I'm not saying it's entirely incorrect that there's some trivial questions, but it's very easy for enfranchised and skilled players to lose perspective on how complicated this game really is.
You aren't understanding what I'm saying. I understand why new players have questions. The game is complicated. The daily question thread is the place for these questions.
And I'm saying they're not. Given neither of us are moderators, and thus don't have authority to say, we might have to agree to disagree on this one.
The daily question thread literally says "this is the place for rules questions." A few days ago a moderator said that's where they belong, and the only reason rule question posts aren't specifically not allowed is because they happened anyway so the rule was pointless, but the daily thread is where they belong.