Improving trading in PoE2

While trying to trade in Path of Exile 2, you might have encountered situations where it was not possible to get an item for a listed price.
In this guide I will outline how you should deal with each of these situations, as well as how to recognise and avoid common scams.

List of cases

Case 1

Most common case - you whisper someone, and get no reply.
Then after some time you refresh the page, still see the same item posted, with the seller online.
First, check how long ago it was posted. If its more than an hour - block the seller immediately, its a fake listing and the seller has no intention of ever selling that. Might even be a bot. If its posted recently, do a few more refreshes. Still see same item from same seller and seller is online - then block.
After doing a few rounds of that, you should start getting cleaner results with more real listings.

Limitations
This strategy only works on trades with low number of fake listings. If the number of them reaches more than several dozens - no point in blocking, as you will overfill your blocklist, and it will start overwriting itself, so you won't gain much.

Alternatives
If you determined that all the listings you see are fake and its just too many to block, try setting the minimum price above them.
You might miss some better deals that are lost among the sea of fake listings, but it beats sitting for an hour spamming trade messages with zero replies.

Case 2

You whisper someone to buy something, and they reply with a completely different, much higher price. If you say something about the price difference, you might get something like "do you really think I would sell it for *insert original price here*??"

So, the seller wants to play a game.

Try to haggle down the price. First, start with a low offer, only slightly higher than what the item was posted at. Then increase the offers, depending on what the seller replies.
If the seller accepts one of the offers, wait a few minutes.

Then post that you're sorry and already bought another item, cite a price much higher than the accepted offer, and link a much worse item from the trade site.

See what the seller replies, then block them some time after that.

Bonus points
Before sending the message that you already bought another item, first say that you can only trade after completing the map, then go and run a map. Or 5. Send the message after that.

Case 3

You whisper someone to buy something, seller does not respond, and instead just raises the price of an item on the trade site.

First check the time the offer was posted. If its less than several minutes minutes ago, there is a very high chance that the seller underpriced the item and got like a hundred messages at once.
In that case just ignore this listing.

However, if the listing existed longer, it is likely that the seller just uses random people to fish for the highest price he could sell the item for, wasting everyone's time.
In that case we can certainly help.
Message the seller again, with the new, higher price.

If the seller raises the price again - message with a new price again.

Do this until the seller accepts/invites to party.

When they do, do not accept or reply anything.

After some time, block them. Don't block right away,
or the seller might catch up to what's going on and lower the price of an item back down.
Our goal is to push it as high as possible.

Case 4

You send someone a whisper to buy an item, and they reply that they already got a higher offer,
like lets say, item cost 2 divines, and they reply that they already got an offer for 10.

You tell the seller something along the lines "Oh, I could only offer up to 9 Divines, well, good luck with your sale!"

Alternative - when they reply about getting a higher offer from another customer, wait about a minute, then say that you already got an item from another seller, cite a price that is much higher than the offer, and link a much worse item from the trade site.

Then, wait for their reply. After a few minutes, block them.

List of scams

In this game, trading is rife with scammers. They are absolutely everywhere, and the more value the items you're dealing with have, the more chances of encountering them.

Some people have reported having to deal with 4-5 scammers in a row when buying a high value unique, before they found a real seller.

Generally, all scams can be avoided by simply paying attention.
Most of the scams succeed when the player doesn't pay attention to what they are doing.
All scams rely on you hitting "Accept" without actually checking the items you get.

Buying items

When you are at the trade window:

• First check the item name. If its different from the listing on trade site, well, there you have it, that's a scam.
  
• If you're buying a corrupted item with extra socket, check the number of sockets. Scammers can put an item with identical stats, but lower socket count.
  
• Check all relevant mods, especially the most valuable ones. If anything is different from the listing on the trade site - its a scam.
  
• If you're buying unidentified items, reconsider. There were bugs in the game allowing players to see what the identified item is, so they could sell you guaranteed duds. If you still wish to buy - carefully check the item picture to identify the correct item base. Don't ask the seller which one it is, they will lie to you.

Only after verifying that everything matches you can hit Accept.

Warning
If the other party cancels the trade at any point for whatever reason, especially after you moused over their item or even clicked Accept, that's an enormous red flag.
A common scam tactic is that after this the seller comes up with some excuse about why they needed to cancel the trade, they initiate a new trade, but put a completely different item this time. They hope that you would hit Accept the 2nd time without verifying the item, since you verified it the 1st time already. And then you lose all your currency, receiving some garbage item.
Lots of people fall for this.
If at any point the trade is cancelled and then re-initiated, you must re-check and verify the item, always.

One item to always watch out for and check carefully is Morior Invictus. Possibly the most scammed item in the game. Some people reported encountering over 30 scam attempts buying this before meeting a legitimate seller.

Examples

• Lesser stats scam, item: Hand of Wisdom and Action. Scammer is trying to sell a (mostly worthless) item with worse stats than listed on the trade site.
  
• Other attributes scam, item: Morior Invictus. You want to buy the one with resistances and attributes, seller gives you one with attributes and global defences/rarity/life/mana instead.
  
• Other attributes scam, item: Morior Invictus. Same as above.
  
• Wrong unidentified item base scam. Instead of unidentified Astramentis, the buyer gives you some other 1ex unique amulet like Strugglescream.
  
• Wrong unidentified item base scam. Another Strugglescream victim who thought they were buying Astramentis.
  
• Lesser attributes scam. Item: Controlled Metamorphosis unique jewel. Not gonna lie, I could have probably fallen for this one, because I couldn't find the difference.
  And the difference is the radius - instead of Massive radius, you get the Medium one.

Selling items

• Before even doing anything, check the message you received from the buyer. If its written in all white characters, without a link to your item - its a scam. Most likely the scammer will input a much lower price in your message, hoping that you wouldn't notice it. So, compare the price in the message to the price of your item. Even if the message has a link to your item, still check its price either in the stash or on the trade site. Don't trust the message received from the buyer, as they can modify it.
  
• At the trade windows, check both the number of stacks AND the number of orbs in each stack that the buyer puts. As well as the type of orbs. Check each stack carefully.
  Common scams include - inserting a few stacks of less valuable orbs here and there, putting all stacks of the wrong orbs, inserting stacks with lower quantity than 20, putting all stacks consisting of just one orb instead of 20, inputting the first few stacks of the right orbs, and the rest of the much lesser valuable ones, typically they might put exalts/alchs instead of divines.
  
• If the buyer cancels the trade at any time, same warning as already mentioned above -
  re-check everything from scratch. Second time they might try to pull one of the above mentioned scams, hoping you won't re-check the 2nd time and just click Accept.

Examples

• Wrong currency scam. Putting alchs instead of divs.
  

[Shajirr]

Added new info to case 3, mentioning the situation described below here with an underpriced item.
Also new update didn't seem to have anything about trade, so skipping it.

[Jen]

I really hope they gonna implement trading in-game like they did with Currency exchange without alt-tabbing all the time.

[Gorgoth]

lots of times on the website it says the player is online in game. when you whisper them just right click their name and it shows they aren't even online. so your telling people to block someone because the website is a buggy mess not because they are a scammer.

[Sambol]

case 3 is normal situation when you can't immediately figure out the value of an item and blocking scam players is a waste of time, 100k players online you can't physically block all scammers.

[Esterad]

Case 3 can be a normal situation, not a scam. For example if someone is selling an item but didn't knew that item was worth so much, he will be spammed with whispers and change price to higher one, sometimes couple of times.

[Moose]

I love case 2 well done

[ItzBoshNet]

ingame auction house or SSF having multiple tabs to play kills immersion

[WackyDarky]

Заебумбовый гайд. Хотя на эти нервяки с местью мошеннику я б не стал тратить время. Они ж дураки

[rey4one6]

It's pretty simple - read read read.


Plus to be fair - I like that there are scammers in the poe2 economy. It's kinda the immersion.

[Second]

WoW style auction house..