Many of you, I'm sure, have conducted Magic The Gathering Online trades. These trades probably included, but were not limited to, obtaining tickets, dual lands, and lap dances. Most of the trades that occur on MTGO stay on MTGO. What I mean by this is that one person gives cards/tix, and the other party receives cards/tix. The other types of trades that occur deal with third parties that accept payment (USD) through PayPal, Poker Stars, or other such agencies. This is a good way of making trades, because it allows the seller to receive a commodity that will be accepted at his nearest Burger King and lets the buyer obtain the product at a cheaper price. To give you an example, I usually buy tickets on MTGO and pay through PayPal. There are people who sell tickets from $0.94- $0.87 tickets. I try to pick them up for $.80, and end up buying around 300 tickets at once.

There are two problems with this method of “trading.” First, MTGO explicitly states that it cannot be held responsible if anything goes wrong with these types of trades. In other words, if you receive stolen cards, Wizards will not refund your payment. Secondly, you have no guarantee that after you send the seller the money, he will send you the cards/tickets. Still, these trades go on, something like playing Russian Roulette where you hope you don't have to end up biting the bullet (pun #1).

“Alex, is there anything I can do to protect myself?”

Well, of course there is…

Stop trading through third parties!

That was simple enough. See you all next week…

…

…

Okay, anyone with an IQ over 69 could have told you that. I usually have some guidelines when I am the seller and when I am the buyer. When I'm buying, I make sure to copy all of our conversations by simply copying and pasting the talk into a Word file and saving it. Furthermore, if I'm paying via PayPal, I check the seller's eBay and PayPal rating to ease my heart a little more. The higher the rating, the more trustworthy the person. When I'm the seller, I almost always demand the payment first, for two reasons. The first is that I know that I'm a trustworthy person and I will deliver the product; my word is my bond. The second reason is my desire to not get duped. If you decide to trade with someone, make sure to get all of their information including name, address, and hopefully phone number, and try to make sure it's all real. Remember, an honest man has nothing to hide.

Things get a little more complicated when you're dealing with several-hundred-dollar transactions. Going back to my example, when I buy 300 tickets at $.80 each, I end up paying $240. While the deal is nice, it is quite a bit of money to spend on Magic in one shot. If the seller won't give me the tickets upfront, I try to negotiate with him. For instance, I ask if I could send 25% of the funds first, receive 25% of the product, and repeat this 3 more times. This way, if you are dealing with a thief, you'll only lose a part of the money you would have lost, and if you aren't, you played it safe and you should reward yourself with a cookie.

I want to state this clearly: there is no 100% way you can be sure you won't get robbed, whether you're the seller or the buyer, because some people commit fraud.

There are three ways (as far as I know) you can commit fraud in this scenario. First, you can steal someone's password and trade them to someone for cards/tix/money. Second, you can crack into MTGO and just give yourself tickets and cards. Third, you can steal someone's credit card and use it to buy tickets through Wizards ($1.00 a ticket + tax), and then use those tickets to buy cards and sell the tickets and cards for cash.

In the first instance, I believe that you are protected by Wizards. In other words, if both parties stay inside MTGO trading grounds, and you receive a stolen Watery Grave for your Temple Garden, Wizards will undo the action and it'll be as if the trade never happened. In the second instance, if you can hack into MTGO and get that entire product, I think you're wasting your abilities. Try your hand with banks or something. I hope you get caught and get thrown into jail for life. Leave our community alone. Also, I'm sure it is near impossible to hack into Wizards, so you are unlikely to find yourself in case #2. Fraud number 3 is the dangerous one, and the one where I got screwed over. I will explain what happened a little bit later. I point this out because I want to Magic community to know what to watch out for.

If you find that your account has been tampered with, or something looks strange, call Wizards up immediately and let them know. If your account was broken into, I'm sure they will do everything they can to restore it. If you find that you can't log into your account, give them a call and see what the problem is. Your account may have been broken into and the password was changed, or Wizards blocked your account because of suspicious/fraudulent activity. I'm specifically not saying Adepts, because I don't believe the Adepts know much about what happens. On several occasions, I asked different Adepts what would happen in various, hypothetical situations, and none could give me straight answers. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that people volunteer to become Adepts and help with explaining the online Magic world to people, but they don't know as much as they should and don't have nearly as much power as I would like them to have. They're not officers, but more like the hallway monitor in your elementary school.

In the end, if you traded with a thief and supplied/received money through a third party and got screwed over, I'm sorry. There are people in this world who don't have morals and are grimy snakes who try to stab people in the back and play on peoples' trust. If Wizards cannot give you your product back, I apologize once again. Don't get mad at them because there is nothing that they can do. At the end of the day, Wizards is a business, no matter how much we see them as our best friend. If they constantly receive losses, they will close down. Also, they have no guarantee that you and the “thief” aren't pulling one over their eyes. If I call them up and say, “I traded with MMDesire and gave away my whole account because he said he would pay me $200 and never did” what can they do? If they give me back my product and MMDesire really did give me the $200, then they screwed over MMDesire. Furthermore, if they do give me all the cards I traded away and it turns out MMDesire is my best friend, we have successfully stolen from Wizards and in a sense, from every other Magic player. More losses for Wizards means they are more justified in raising the price of the game to make up for the losses. This in turn, hurts us. This is why they say they cannot regulate these types of trades and say they are not responsible for any mishaps that may occur. I, however, took one of the worst beats possible.

I tell this story only so people can learn from it. On the message boards, I was advertising to buy bulk tickets for $0.80 through PayPal. A person PM'ed me and said that he could do that, but said that If I buy 1000 or more, he could lower the price to $0.70 each. 1000 tickets at $.70 translates to $700. I was not willing to pay this much money, so I asked some friends if they wanted to get in on this deal. We would all pay for it, and divide the tickets amongst ourselves. He requested that I pay via Western Union, and said he would lower it to $0.60 a ticket to cover the transaction fees and the trouble I would have to go through to set up an account. After everything was set and done, the agreement was for around 1400 tickets and the total price came out to be $820 + 70 worth of fees, or $900. I received the product first, then paid him and considered myself happy that I didn't get robbed. The next day, my account had been blocked. I called up Wizards and they informed me that the tickets had been stolen via fraud method #3, and they would have to confiscate them back from me.

Before someone says, “didn't you think it was a bit fishy because…” let me defend myself. The person gave me his phone number and we talked several times over the course of 2 days working this trade out. He seemed to be a nice guy. Furthermore, he had access to many expensive cards on his account (several Pithing Needles, Fact or Fiction, Pernicious Deeds, etc). I thought to myself, “how could anyone steal so many tickets and cards and not raise any alarms?” If he had stolen several accounts via fraud method #2, clearly those victims would have called in and let Wizards know about it.

In response to the low price of $0.60 a ticket, I have this to say. When you buy 300 tickets at $0.80 each, 1000 tickets at $.70 isn't that big of a jump. Lowering it to $0.60 to cover fees sounds reasonable too. Maybe the guy was trying to sell the stuff so he could buy a car or something, I don't know.

My point here is to show you that no matter how friendly the person sounds, no matter how vast his collection is or what “amazing” deals he's making you, he could be a ruthless, rotten crook who's trying to steal from you. I would recommend never giving or receiving money through PayPal type services, because Wizards will be unable to help you. The prices may be more expensive, but think of it as insurance payments. I hope no one ever has to lose $900, or even $2, to fraud.

My case is not all lost. My credit card company is launching an investigation into this fraud case, and there's a good chance I'll get my money back. While I'm relieved to hear this, it is not a guarantee and doesn't cover all the trouble I went through. If you still decide to trade with money, watch out for people who are trying to move something quickly or are offering a ridiculously low price. A customer service employee (Eric) told me that the average price of tickets go for around $.87 (I'm not sure if this is the exact number, but I think it's in this area). When I buy at $.80, I am just asking for trouble.

I hope everyone learned something from this article. If any Wizards employees are reading this, I have some suggestions. First, Adepts should have power to see recent trade transactions of accounts and be able to tell if anything there is fishy or wrong. Second, Wizards should have a sensor if anyone buys too much product, like the person I dealt with. No one buys 1400 tickets off their website in one day. If the thief I dealt with set up several accounts at once, they should have a sensor to raise a flag if 20 people are buying $300 worth of tickets within 5 minutes of each other. They should also limit purchases to $100 a day per account. This way, if a thief steals someone's credit card, they can only steal a limited amount of funds before the credit card victim can notify the company and report the card as stolen. These are all rough ideas, and since I'm not sure how the MTGO algorithms work, I don't know if these ideas are possible to implement.

Once again, I hope you take something from this article, whether it's a way to protect yourself, a different mind frame, or just an enjoyable reading experience. With the introduction of Magic Online, people are connected to thousands of other people who have the same hobby at instant speed. Wizards tries to make it a safe and enjoyable experience for all, and succeeds beautifully most of the time. If you stay to stay inside their regulations, you diminish your problem possibilities even more. If you decide that you will still continue trading using money, please be careful with your transactions. Understand that no one has your back, and you're taking a risk every time you do. It's like having sex without protection. Sure, you're saving a few dollars, but you're taking one hell of a risk.

Leave a comment or drop a line if you have something to say.

Thanks for your time.

Alex Drakh
zkanksta@gmail.com
nyad99 on MTGO