Would You Buy Something You Know is a Dupe?

With the recent release of a video showing many different methods to duping (no I will not give any clues how to find it because I do not support duping and I do not want to see anyone lose their account) and reading some responses on some boards across the net it made me wonder what is the feeling of the general community.

While you can get a basic feel on the forum posts about it those are usually not the best place to gauge the pulse of the community.  Mostly because many people on the forums put on a persona and pretend to be that person, the elitists, the trolls, etc.  It is not really a great place to get honesty, but it sure is interesting to read sometimes.  I am looking for more open and honest answers and hopefully I can get them.

So the question at hand is this, Would you buy an item that you know is duped?

Say one of the panthers are on the auction house, you know the ones that cost over 80K just in materials to make, but it is sitting there for 20K buy out, would you buy it knowing that is it probably a dupe?

Lets say you are in need of savage bloods and they are currently 400 gold each on the auction house but there is some guy spamming trade selling them in stacks of 50 at a time for 200 per, would you buy it from him and save half?

These are two difference cases, one is over the auction house, the other is done exchanging things in a trade window.  Would your answer be the same for both?

Now I will give my answer which I would buy the panther off the auction house but I would not buy the bloods from the guy in trade.  Even if I knew both items were duped.  The reasoning I would don one and not the other is rather simple, I would be looking out for number 1, which is myself of course.  I will explain.

Why would I buy a duped item when I have already stated I do not support duping in game?  The answer is simple.  I would save gold on the item I wanted and it is not my fault that blizzard does not fix these open bugs in their game. 

Some duping methods have been there for years and it is not like duping is something new, it has been going on for years and everyone know it, blizzard just does nothing (openly) about it.  So why exactly should I feel bad about buying said stuff when blizzard appears to not care either?  If they fixed the bugs that allowed people to dupe then guess what, I would not buy duped items as there would be none for sale.

But why would I buy one and not the other you might ask, and you would be right to do so.  That is because an item purchased on the auction house is clean while an item that exchanges hands is not.  With the auction house there is plausible deniability, when exchanging hands there is none.

I might "think" an item on the auction house is a dupe but that doesn't mean it is.  Don't tell me you never caught a steal off the auction house.  I can not tell you the number of BC epic gems I purchased off the AH in wrath and cataclysm that were listed for less than they vendored for.  People make mistakes, I capitalized on it by purchasing them and selling them to a vendor for profit.  I've done that with ore, herbs, gems, etc, over the course of the years.  If you list something for less than I can vendor it for, I am going to buy it and vendor it.  I have no aversion to free gold thank you very much.

But there is not just that case, there are dozens of others.  I've purchased a stack of ore for 40 gold when the guy clearly meant to list it at 40 gold per item, not per stack.  I have purchased a pair for BoE bracers (I think) in cataclysm for 2K when all others listed up there were 20K because the guy forgot a 0.

Bottom line is, people make mistakes, we all do.  So while I might "think" the panther on the auction house is a dupe maybe it is just someone that made a mistake.  This is also why blizzard routinely does not take away anything you buy on the auction house even when they go hard after the people doing the duping.  Because you can not say, for sure, that the person that bought it knew it was a dupe.  The person might just think they got a lucky deal because someone made a mistake, like I did with my bracers.

However, when you exchange something hand to hand you have to think back to that old saying, "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is."  If bloods are selling for 400 gold each and someone is willing to sell you massive amounts, insanely massive amounts, for less than half of the current fair market value, it surely sounds too good to be true right?  Well, that is because it usually is. 

Those items blizzard will take away from you.  Just the way it took away the queens garnets from people in cataclysm.  When they were selling for 5K each on the auction house and you bought a stack of 20 for 20K you should have known better.  Those are the exact words a GM told my friend that bought them and had them removed, you should have known better. He lost his gems and his gold.

When exchanging things hand to hand there is no mistake like a listing mistake in the auction house.  That means there is no plausible deniability.  You can beg and plead all you want with a GM that removes the items and does not refund the gold, but as they say, you should have known better because "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is."

So now we are seeing magic rooster eggs and spectral tigers being duped in huge quantities and their prices are plummeting, so will you be buying one of them?  Maybe picking up a tiny the hatespark or some other out of print pet that is tradable and currently being duped?

I do not support duping and no one should do it, sooner or later you will get banned and your account will be permanently disabled, as it rightfully should be because you broke the rules of the game, but I would gladly take advantage of someone else doing it, as long as I can keep # 1 protected, #1 being me of course.

So would you buy something you know is a dupe?