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Trading bots


Gandalf The Homosexual

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Warning: English is not my native language, so expect some mistakes.

 

 

I am definitely not the first one to talk about it and i won't be the last one. I want to share my opinion about trading bots and how they influence the market. I am not against bots in general. They offer amazingly good service and reasonable prices. By offering a good service, a bot can afford selling an item for a higher price. This is what most of the bots were doing. Then, came some other bots that decided, that they need to be on top of the classified and they started lowering the prices and undercutting sellers, who were above them in the list. Is this against rules? No. Does this way of trading makes sense? Not really (at least in my opinion). why would you sell an item for a lower price if you can sell it for higher. I am talking about STN bots in particular. I have been spying on him [lenny face] and i saw that he always undercuts others by half a scrap. He has a premium account, so he should not have a problem with staying near the top of the classified. but he still lowers the price. He also has a site... make your own conclusions. It should not be hard to guess that he does this to advertise his site. by the way, on his site he does not have this "strange" prices. Even though he accepts both prices. (which he was not doing some time ago)

http://imgur.com/a/10CIT

http://imgur.com/a/rRVor

http://imgur.com/a/R30Is

http://imgur.com/a/ULpv9

 

He is not lowering prices, because he has a full stock either. By lowering the price, other bots are forced to lower a price as well, to stay competitive and so the item drops in price. almost every single item he touched, dropped in price. Competing with bots is really hard for regular traders, because they can't offer 24/7 quick response, that's why normal traders sometimes have to wait for weeks and when the week passes, guess what happens, the price drops. I have had times when i could not find my own post in on the classified in this clusterfuck of bots, even though i had the same price as they had. The other solution for regular traders is to post an item for a lower price in the first place.

 

I am not saying that i am against stn.tf site. Having a site similar to scrap.tf is good, because the market will be competitive. i just don't like they way he advertises his site. If something is not against the rules, it does not mean, that it's ok to do it. Imagine what would happen if scrap.tf started posting sell/buy orders on bp.tf. 

 

I think, we should just take all the bots, send them to 24/7 dustbowl server and force them to watch how hoovies are getting killed by random spam.

 

jokes aside, something needs to be done about it (in my opinion). If he really does this to advertise the site than let him advertise it the other way.

 

responses like "oh you are just a dick bitching, because you can't trade" or "make your own bot and shut up" are not welcomed.

 

criticism is welcomed.

 

If you managed to read all the bullshit i have written here, then thank you

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eck I don't like stn, the owner was an arse the one time I brought an issue up with him and his bots don't work often (in my experience).

 

but yeh, I think I've seen similar complaints/suggestions where people have been saying that bots shouldn't be able to spam the classifieds with listings for the same item that they have multiple of

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As a bot owner, the number of trades hasn't varied since he introduced this method, so in that sense he played himself by doing this. He literally cut his profits in 50% (less since some people still pay the full scrap instead of 1/2) thinking he could get an edge, but what he doesn't understand is only he looses because other bots are still being unaffected.

 

So yeah I concur with the above comments saying this is sad, I agree.

 

eck I don't like stn, the owner was an arse the one time I brought an issue up with him and his bots don't work often (in my experience).

 

Yup, the one time I talked to him he also was 100% rude. Thankfully I'm not the only one that has had a bad experience with that guys personality.

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eck I don't like stn, the owner was an arse the one time I brought an issue up with him and his bots don't work often (in my experience).

 

but yeh, I think I've seen similar complaints/suggestions where people have been saying that bots shouldn't be able to spam the classifieds with listings for the same item that they have multiple of

I am not complaining about bots in general. I just don't like one or two bots in particular. About the bots spamming the classified, yeah i have encountered that multiple times. Dealing with that flood is really annoying. But i have found a solution. *Grabs a gun and shoots report bullets*

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As a bot owner, the number of trades hasn't varied since he introduced this method, so in that sense he played himself by doing this. He literally cut his profits in 50% (less since some people still pay the full scrap instead of 1/2) thinking he could get an edge, but what he doesn't understand is only he looses because other bots are still being unaffected.

 

So yeah I concur with the above comments saying this is sad, I agree.

 

 

Yup, the one time I talked to him he also was 100% rude. Thankfully I'm not the only one that has had a bad experience with that guys personality.

Small profit is compensated with the large amount of trades. But the main reason why he does this is to advertise his site and that's what i am complaining about. About him being rude, well we all can get irritated sometimes. Especially when there are so many people against him. It's just a self defence 

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Small profit is compensated with the large amount of trades. But the main reason why he does this is to advertise his site and that's what i am complaining about. About him being rude, well we all can get irritated sometimes. Especially when there are so many people against him. It's just a self defence

 

Here's my two cents:

I don't think it is 'rude', not saying the owner isn't rude or isn't unprofessional, but he's just trying to get an edge, which is understandable.

As for advertising the site, there is nothing wrong with that unless the site is clearly buying for the price it was listed at.

 

As for bots 'taking over' this shouldn't really affect profit traders.

Prices haven't been going down, or at least not drastically. As long as you can quickly respond to offers or check steam within reasonable times, you can choose to undercut/match their prices, and you must include a description for trade, something like 'quick accept' or 'instant accept if I'm online'

 

As for stn, their site can have a lot of improvements, especially the unusual page.

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As for advertising the site, there is nothing wrong with that unless the site is clearly buying for the price it was listed at.

 

 

I am against these kinds of advertisements, because such behavior directly impacts the economy. 

 

As for bots 'taking over' this shouldn't really affect profit traders.

Prices haven't been going down, or at least not drastically. As long as you can quickly respond to offers or check steam within reasonable times, you can choose to undercut/match their prices, and you must include a description for trade, something like 'quick accept' or 'instant accept if I'm online'

 

What exactly do you mean by "profit traders"?

I have been watching bots and their posts for several months already and i have an example:

http://imgur.com/a/ZE6Wg

Sellers at 9 ref and above.

Buyer at 8.22

And he is still selling an item for 8.16 ref

some time will pass and there will be 3-4 other bots selling for the same price. Guess what will happen? STN bot will undercut them. 

He has no problems selling items, he has no problems with being near the top of the list, but he still undercuts everyone.

If he wants to advertise his site, there are other ways of doing it (like renting a banner or whatever it's called), without partypooping.

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STN is a big joke mate. Its the copy of scrapTF  <_<

Yeah i have seen the stn.tf and it's similar to scrap.tf in many ways, but it's not bad to have a similar site. This will make them compete with each other to deliver better services.

 

But scrap.tf is not posting his sell/buy orders on bp.tf. If you was doing it, he would pretty much rule the market.

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Well, as I am one that is using bot too, I can confirm that stn is one of biggest a**holes around. Staying competitive is almost impossible, he's always cutting in lines and once one bot drops price, other follows, prices are dropping 1-2 scraps each week for many MANY items. The only time the prices went up was because API was down and bots disappeared for like 2 days ?

 

Also to topic, here is another one from STN : http://prntscr.com/cpmxml his stock is full, but he has wrong price, also he's buying for more than selling for... nah http://prntscr.com/cpn4xd another error i guess to cut in line?  If he really don't have time for updating his BP.TF prices then he should stay away from it. And use only his own site for trading.

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The only time the prices went up was because API was down and bots disappeared for like 2 days ?

Yeah, i saw that pristine clean classified. I was amazed, how quickly i was able to sell some of the items, that usually take several days to sell

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