I think I got an Auction House bot banned

[Sturmbringe]

There was this guy. He controlled the ore market and the herb market.

He would be online from around 10 am to 3 am. He would buy within seconds of being posted any auction that fell below a set price.

His botting software worked a bit like Auctioneer's "Snatch", only that instead of stopping after taking one snapshot of the market, his was on continuously making loops on and on and on.

In addition, his botting software could auto-buy auctions while scanning at the same time. This concept works a bit like the Track-While-Scan mode of Westinghouse's APG-66 F-16 Falcon radars for those in the know.

His software enabled him to have almost real time updates on the market while allowing him to auto-buy whatever auctions he had set it to at the same time.

I suspected him after posting a number of single auctions of different items only to have them bought by him within seconds of being posted. After this happened a few times, I checked for the name of the person who was thusly buying up my single item auctions and so came to know and track him.

After noting the same behaviour over several weeks I finally understood that he was using some kind of advanced botting AH software.

I made a ticket to Blizzard about him describing all the above. It's been over 10 days and I haven't seen him again, which may mean that he finally got perma banned for botting.

Interestingly enough, this was a guy who did supervised botting. I had whispered him a couple of times and he replied back, so he wasn't afk botting. Still Blizzard nailed him. I suspect that he had gotten previous bans for botting and this last one was a perma ban.

I guess it feels good they nailed him.

On a related issue, a very famous AH botter from my server got banned during the last ban wave which happened around 30 days ago. This bot controlled the LW market, posting hundreds of auctions per day of LW mail and leather gear. This guy was fully automated, he would log, mass cancel auctions and then mass re post them and log out. We are talking about several dozens of auctions per session. It took him about 2-3 minutes to do all that.

This LW bot logged in one day and then got immediately offline. I had him friended so that I would log whenever he logged out and undercut him. I suspect he started his botting software and then got insta banned. He probably got insta-banned once he pressed the "start" button on the bot :-). I suspect him of using something similar to a very famous botting software used for BG botting.

Unfortunately, there are several more bots, some easily found online at sites such as WoW Auction. A specific very famous AH bot on my server, had posted 318,164 auctions in the year 2013 according to WoW Auction.

This works out to 871 auctions per day.

[Deleted]

871 is nothing. Especially if he's splitting stacks of cloth or resources and the listing mechanic is now automated. Set the stack size and amount and click sell.

[Sturmbringe]

871 is nothing. Especially if he's splitting stacks of cloth or resources and the listing mechanic is now automated. Set the stack size and amount and click sell.

Common sense alone should tell you that it is extremely unlikely for a human to post 871 auctions per day, 365 days per year.

While some enjoy posting auctions of 100 e.g. netherweave cloth, they don't do it every day, 365 days per year.

[durrtygoodz]

A riveting tale, old chap!

[Ealyssa]

Common sense alone should tell you that it is extremely unlikely for a human to post 871 auctions per day, 365 days per year.

While some enjoy posting auctions of 100 e.g. netherweave cloth, they don't do it every day, 365 days per year.

You should inform yourself about AH addon. 871 isn't a lot. Once your auctioneer/TSM is set it's all posted/relisted/snatched in a few clicks. Even twitch had a few goblin streaming their business (don't know if they still do it).
If he was a serious goblin he probably just switched posting characters, has you should do to stay under competition radar.

[Deleted]

The thing is, they'll just pop up on another account and start again.

Assuming they're making crazy amounts of gold would also lead to the assumption he's probably selling gold too, either to friends, guild mates or on gold selling sites - All you'll have probably achieved is denting his profits for a little bit.
Knowing people though are now looking out for it, he may search for a new med/high pop server so he wont have the worry about people being actively watchful because of his past botting spree.

While it's all good Blizz are banning these guys now, it'll never truly be stopped unless serious work is done with the detection system to catch people fast.

[GKLeatherCraft]

You say things like " his botting software could auto-buy auctions while scanning at the same time" How could you know that to be true? Sure, you might have been one of many people who reported the same guy, But he might not have been a bot.

I hate bots, I think it's pathetic, But I think stalking someone to the extent you did, watching him, noting his behaviour, talking to him, for "several weeks" is very weird, and maybe, just maybe, you need a new hobby:P

People are always far too keen to throw around "bot" when the AH is concerned, I'm not saying it's not happening, But for instance I've been called a bot many times on my server, because some days when I've got a day free, I'll decide to make few tens of thousands of gold, so I just sit on the AH, constantly checking, buying, and listing auctions, checking for undercuts and either buying them if they are so far below, or just cancel/relist auctions, and you can do thousands of auctions much quicker than you realise if you do that.

[Archmage Alodi]

you can do all of the above with TradeSkillMaster with a good config no need to use bot

[Nivena]

This guy was fully automated, he would log, mass cancel auctions and then mass re post them and log out. We are talking about several dozens of auctions per session. It took him about 2-3 minutes to do all that.

I do this too; log in and let auctionator search which auctions have been undercut. I cancel these auctions manually since I have to leftclick the confirm button. Then I head over to mailbox, grab all my stuff and relist it. This is totally ok, right?

[Sturmbringe]

I do this too; log in and let auctionator search which auctions have been undercut. I cancel these auctions manually since I have to leftclick the confirm button. Then I head over to mailbox, grab all my stuff and relist it. This is totally ok, right?

Yes, except the whole procedure isn't taking you 180 seconds to complete, and we are not talking about several dozens of auctions.

- - - Updated - - -

You say things like " his botting software could auto-buy auctions while scanning at the same time" How could you know that to be true? Sure, you might have been one of many people who reported the same guy, But he might not have been a bot.

I hate bots, I think it's pathetic, But I think stalking someone to the extent you did, watching him, noting his behaviour, talking to him, for "several weeks" is very weird, and maybe, just maybe, you need a new hobby:P

People are always far too keen to throw around "bot" when the AH is concerned, I'm not saying it's not happening, But for instance I've been called a bot many times on my server, because some days when I've got a day free, I'll decide to make few tens of thousands of gold, so I just sit on the AH, constantly checking, buying, and listing auctions, checking for undercuts and either buying them if they are so far below, or just cancel/relist auctions, and you can do thousands of auctions much quicker than you realise if you do that.

I love getting bots banned. During Vanilla I frequented known botting spots with my Rogue and reported bots. Back then I had several bots banned. All Hunters, mind you. Vanilla bots ho.

[kenn9530]

some people solely play the game to play the AH its not hard to do several hundred posts per day and with the right addon it takes minutes to post or unlist hundereds of items.

[Greyarea]

When I was in my prime doing glyphs, enchants, gems (wrath/cata/mop gems) grafted blues from BS/LW/Tailoring, occasional good combo greens, fortune cars, transmog stuff, flipped items, random crap, cloth, food and potions/flasks I could EASILY rack up 1,000 auctions a day with cancels, reposts, undercutting etc.

Just remember you only need to repostonce if you have 12 hour auction duration and 500 items (hello gems!) to get 1,000 auctions a day. On a busy server or with a busy business, you can easily get that.

Granted for 365 days a year it's hard, however when patches hit I have been known to have over 3,000 auctions up to capitalize on the MASSIVE income of 100-250k+ profit periods (glyphmas, pvp crafted gear (not this season sadly) and other things like enchants, buckles, consumables).

I did all of this using TSM and TSM 2.0 with a fair bit of initial management of groups and operations. Now it's fire and forget and done pretty fast.

[Sturmbringe]

some people solely play the game to play the AH its not hard to do several hundred posts per day and with the right addon it takes minutes to post or unlist hundereds of items.

This thought is interesting. I 've thought about it too. It doesn't make sense.

Being online from 10 am to 3 am every day works out to 17 hours online, every day. I don't think 17 hours of undercutting and posting auctions is so much fun that one would do it every day, 7 days per week, 365 per year.

The only reasonable conclusion is that these are people, perhaps unemployed people, who make money by selling gold or who are hired by someone to make gold.

Supposing that they make 100k per week, this works out to making 400k per month, which again gives an income of 240 euro per month.

This amount of money is too low to sustain anyone in Europe, though perhaps you could scrape off a living in Sub Saharan Africa, Middle East or Pakistan with this amount of money.

In any case, it is far more plausible that these are bots and not real humans.

[purseuswow]

TSM makes everything you said very easy. I know people who have multiple accounts so they can simply sit on the 2nd account as their Auctioneer. I myself don't want to bother paying for 2 accounts but on my glyph/JC master I usually on a daily basis cancel anywhere from 50-250 auctions and repost them. And having built a brand new rig just a few months ago I can do reloads in about 5-10 seconds and usually takes about 10-15 seconds to loot 50 mail from my mailbox, so if i truly wanted to make it as quick as possible, I could do 200-300 auctions in 3 minutes.

[Illiterate]

Common sense alone should tell you that it is extremely unlikely for a human to post 871 auctions per day, 365 days per year.

While some enjoy posting auctions of 100 e.g. netherweave cloth, they don't do it every day, 365 days per year.

I post a hell of a lot more than 871 auctions a day.

[Sturmbringe]

I post a hell of a lot more than 871 auctions a day.

Really? I don't think so.

Here, prove me wrong. Post the amount of auctions your toon posts per year.

www.wowauction.org



Otherwise you can't blame us for thinking you are full of shit.

- - - Updated - - -

I'd have to go with this. Especially since I use it, as do many friends. I've been known to post just short of 2000 auctions a day, minimum. It's not hard or that time consuming really. I am, however, curious to know just how you know so much about his "software"...

Prove it bro. Talk is cheap.

[Illiterate]

Really? I don't think so.

Here, prove me wrong. Post the amount of auctions your toon posts per year.

www.wowauction.org

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/tNQpyNz.jpg[IMG]

Otherwise you can't blame us for thinking you are full of shit.

- - - Updated - - -



Prove it bro. Talk is cheap.

The only person that looks silly in this thread is you. It's an addon. You have a hell of a fantasy imagination.

[Sturmbringe]

The only person that looks silly in this thread is you. It's an addon. You have a hell of a fantasy imagination.

There is a big difference between TSM and Honorbuddy or WoW GLide. One is a legit addon, the others are bots.

[Deleted]

I'm against any kind of AH addons because they are so automatic now it doesn't even take any effort at all. After you acquire a certain amount of gold the only thing you need to do is stand in the AH with the window open and click your mouse here and there.

It's okay on servers with a huge population because the prices aren't bloating up every day and the AH guys are competing with eachother so if they want to do this all day it's fine by me. It really hurts the low pop servers though (thankfully this is getting fixed soon) but for the last 2 years our server has been dead and there were 2 guys that just held the AH hostage. Whatever you posted at a "normal" price got bought out within minutes and posted back at a ridiculous price and if you tried giving them the business with a price just a tad lowe than theirs they just left it there because they knew it's not gonna get bought out.

It all got to a point where you would spend over 5k gold just for 6 glyphs. I have a Warrior that's a tank and DPS when solo farming, Shaman that's healer and DPS and a Hunter. I went through the most basic glyphs for each specc and it would cost me well over 20k to glyph every character for their specc. I'd like to see some restrictions on all the AH adons which are borderline bots.

[kenn9530]

This thought is interesting. I 've thought about it too. It doesn't make sense.

Being online from 10 am to 3 am every day works out to 17 hours online, every day. I don't think 17 hours of undercutting and posting auctions is so much fun that one would do it every day, 7 days per week, 365 per year.

The only reasonable conclusion is that these are people, perhaps unemployed people, who make money by selling gold or who are hired by someone to make gold.

Supposing that they make 100k per week, this works out to making 400k per month, which again gives an income of 240 euro per month.

This amount of money is too low to sustain anyone in Europe, though perhaps you could scrape off a living in Sub Saharan Africa, Middle East or Pakistan with this amount of money.

In any case, it is far more plausible that these are bots and not real humans.

on the right server its not hard to make 100k gold a day, you don't have to even be playing WoW just have it open in a seperate screen and you can play any other game you want as it just takes 2 mins now and then to sort things out, people just watch films and such and just keep and eye out on the screen now and then.