This is an issue which has gone on for too long now (at least on the PS4 EU; can't speak for PS4 NA or Xbox or PC/Mac).

For the past countless weeks there's been a serious exploit affecting trading in the game. I know many people who have sent many tickets to Zenimax and have seen at least two other posts regarding this issue (I'll be shouting out to @Prof_Bawbag and @Anne13 and providing links to their posts at the bottom). Yet despite these report tickets, posts being made to draw attention to this issue, and now with the offenders of said exploit being called out and now having to do damage control on Facebook and even in-game, nothing has yet been done about.

So the aim of this post is not just to try and raise awareness of this issue for PS4 players, but also to inform Xbox and PC players who may or may not be affected by this and hopefully for Zenimax to wake up to this glaring issue and do something to stop it.

So without further ado, let's begin.

So many of you may or may not notice that about a day after bids close for readership kiosks (PS4 EU is Sunday, not sure about others) after you guild has one a trader, you may notice that your guild page will no longer display the kiosk you've won. This doesn't mean that you've lost the right to own the trader after you've won the bid, it means that the notifications are glitches. How do they become glitches? I'm about to tell you.

On the PS4 there's a trading alliance (which I can't name for forum guideline reasons) which has numerous big guilds under its belt (can't name the guilds for the same reason). They usually go for the major kiosks at places like Mournhold or Belkarth. In theory all of these guilds should be on a constant winning steak, however they aren't due to growing competition.

Now this is where the exploit comes into play. Because some of their guilds haven't been winning, they're resorted to "dummy guilds". These so called dummy guilds are setup by members of this alliance so that in the event that one of their main guild loses and this dummy succeeds, the dummy will then be disbanded and the kiosks will then become free so that the losing major guild can get said kiosk for "free".

For those who don't know what a "dummy guild" is, a dummy is created usually by alternate accounts associated with or directly controlled by the leadership of the offending guilds/alliance. These dummy guilds then recruit up to 50 more members (also believed to be alt accounts) so they can bid on traders. These dummies will then seek out a likely cheap kiosk target in places like Mournhold or Belkarth. They'll then be provided by funds by the offending guilds/alliance leaders so they may stand a chance of winning a kiosk. If the dummy wins the kiosk and if one of the main guilds lose their bid, the dummy will then be disbanded, leaving said kiosk free and allowing the losing guild to claim a "free trader". This alone is what's causing the trader notification glitches you may see (PS4 EU players will know what I'm on about) and I've not even gotten to the serious impacts of this exploit yet.

This ingenious yet disgusting practice is bad for many reasons.

First of all these dummy guilds promote bad trading by preventing legitimate guilds from winning traders they may have otherwise won. This practice throws away any regard for the guilds and players who are impacted, drives away real competition and allows the offending guilds/alliance to dominate the guild trading markets almost unchallenged.

Secondly, this also allows the leaders of said guilds opportunity to pocket the "fruit of their labour". Now I'm not going to say that these guilds/alliances in question do this, however this opens up a major concern which can impact the members of said offending groups without them even realising.

Because they are earning trading kiosks for "free" by using dummies for bids, the guilds who have used the dummy exploit has saved millions of gold by doing so. This leaves the owners of said guilds the opportunity to take out the gold earned from the taxes of items sold and the donations from committed (and possibly oblivious too) members and pocket it for themselves. The gold which should've gone towards the kiosk bid is now in the hands of the rogue owners without the acknowledgement of the guild's membership.

This exploit not only robs trading opportunities from legitimate guilds, but also fools hundreds of players to believe that their gold donations are going towards traders when it actually goes into the hands of the crude owners who have devised a smart, but damaging practice.

I hope this post allows PS4 players on the EU server to stand up to these rogue guilds and alliances and I hope it's also brought the attention of unknowing PS4 NA and Xbox and PC/Mac players and most importantly gives a reason for Zenimax to take actual steps to punishing players who make use of this exploit and provide a solution to prevent the practice from continuing any further.

This has gone on long enough and I hope this inspires players to speak up against this practice and to encourage unsuspecting players who are part of guilds like this to leave them and join legitimate guilds who do want to trade properly and who don't want to exploit the flaws of this system to their advantage.

Here are links to the posts I previously mention. Thanks again to @Prof_Bawbag and @Anne13 for also speaking out about this and for being the inspiration behind this post.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/328480/about-time-certain-guilds-are-dealt-with-trader-glitching#latest

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/328400/exploiting-of-the-trading-system

#MakeTamrielTradingGreatAgain