Your definition doesn't even pop up for me using google. The main definition of google delivers "advance payment fraud" in my language. (yes, while googling the english words "scam definition")
But even your posted definition simply doesn't fit. Is it a fraud? No. Is it a dishonest scheme? No. Is it a swindle? No.
No.
How do you know which intent the seller has/had? It could simply be someone who loves statistics and noticed that people value Vicodin as much as Xanax, if they are able to purchase it in the same bazaar. No evil intent, simply giving the market what it wants.
What about someone who hates the trivialising of the dangers of Vicodin in comparison to Xanax due to the smaller price. Making Vicodin as expensive as Xanax may be a way to discourage junkies from popping those pills without thinking twice. But he is still believing in personal responsibility, no reason not to sell prescription-less medicine. And since the cooldown for Vicodin is about half as the one for Xanax, he puts the Vicodin at the top of his market... Simply because the possible demand is way higher than of Xanax.
If you define scam as "the intent to profit from others by actively creating an environment which promotes expensive mistakes, which lead to financial gain", you'll have to prove the (malicious?) intent. Good luck with this.
Its all Hedas' fault lol... I got caught out by this in his bazaar a long time ago, laughed and told him bravo... then when all the missing xanax bug reports started, the "scam" seemed to grow.. to be fair if you don't read the forums and there are some people who Don't, then there will always be victims, but... fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!
To find out, if it is scamming, just ask yourself the question: If scamming was forbidden in this game, would it be forbidden to put you Vicodin inside your bazaar for the same prize as Xanax, at whatever location you want?
No ask yourself, did people mistakenly buy items that they thought were something they wanted and ended up being fooled into buying items at a high cost but were of low value? If they were fooled, because of design, then they were scammed.
It isn’t. Using clever comments is not the same as scamming. Your buyers bought because of your sales presentation but got what they were expecting to get. That is no scam. There is no expectation that people will be able to find playable Metallica music in the cds bought.
The question stands. If there was a zero tolerance policy towards scammers, would people who put their Vicodin for ~850k in their bazaar get banned/punished?
How close to each other would the xanax and vicodin need to be placed in a bazaar so that it wouldn't be a scam trying to sell them on the same price? Or is it completely wrong and a scamming to sell overpriced vicodin?
This is just a case of people not paying attention to what they are doing if they buy vicodin when they wanted to buy xanax...
Sure it isn't actually very nice to deliberately sell crazy overpriced vicodin but hey, we do many not so nice things to each other in Torn.
If they set it up so that it was tricking people into purchasing the wrong item then yes. They'd either have to refund the purchaser every time it happened or they would be scamming. The thing is if one is intending to buy Xanax and they buy the wrong thing because the seller made it appear they were buying Xanax, they are tricking the buyer. if they are not honorable and refunding the purchase, then they are scamming. It's not like they don't know what they are doing. if it wasn't a trick then there would not be countless reports of missing Xanax. the purchasers expected they were buying Xanax because that is the design of the scam. if they just happen to have Vicodin in their market at a high price and it is not exactly the same price as the Xanax, then no.. they just have high priced Vicodin. It's obvious when someone is attempting to trick the buyer once you know the scam. when you are unaware it is not obvious.