OMMs of 2014

There are some MM with high enough vouches that users will just go with their free service rather than paying for an OMM.

 

Would you say that the OMM rank has really lost it's purpose completely because of the other users? Or is it just perhaps declining in popularity to use a OMM?

 

The only people who need OMM's are the newbies and they don't trade big amounts so they won't use the OMM so they won't loose half of their profit in the trade

 

Anyone have any suggestions for the OMM app/system that they think would help?

 

But what's the point if approved suggestions don't (or take forever) to be approved? Let's get that fixed first lol

 

It hasn't lost it's purpose but definitely not as worth it anymore.

No not really, I think it's a good system to be honest. It's just tough to get those bigger trades. That's what I'm currently stuck at!

 

Dave is Head OMM so we don't rely on upper-admins to tweak the system.

 

It would be very hard to create more incentive to use OMM's when some (non omm) users are just as trusted. To get more trades for OMM's they would need to expand into other games (LoL) but games like LoL require a lot of time to mm trades. One thing that might be successful is possibly advertise the OMM's on sythe a greater amount to the new members of the community. Whether it be in a new PM when they join or all OMM's mming services stickied on the Middle-manning thread.

 

OMM's also add a lot more complexity to the trade. Now instead of 1 counterparty there are essentially 2. Plus, you need to pay an OMM 5-10%. The whole reason you buy off untrusted people is to save money. Now suddenly the savings are disappearing to OMM fees, might as well go trade a trusted person instead and save the time and hassle.

 

I'd agree with you there, though I think that sometimes OMMs can make things easier, instead of more complex, if one party is new to the trade, even if it is just by insuring that everything will go well.

 

I don't disagree, but this has been the case since the OMM system was created. Why do you think there have been no new OMMs added this year? Is there anything special about this year that differs from other years?

 

The thoughts on this thread are generally correct. OMMs used to make good money back in the 2009-2010ish era. Part of that success was attributed to the fact that there weren't nearly as many high level donors(over $300 was essentially unheard of) or trusted users to regulars ratio wise. These trusted users compete with what is also a larger number of OMMs and among themselves for free high value trades.

I'd highly advise against changing the process. I made it harder, yes, but I'd rather not have one official middleman scam and tarnish the reputation of the whole program, and there are enough "trusted" users through donors. We haven't had an issue in years since the regulations were tightened up. Before that, we did.

 

From what I've seen a users first OMM completed application is always denied. Then when they complete there 2nd OMM application, it seems to get more looked into, but in the end is denied yet again. Sometimes people do get OMM rank on there 2nd OMM application but rarely. Now when a user completed his 3rd OMM Application they will get rank like 95% sure. Just think of how much work must be put into all that, that just makes some users not wanna go for it.

In the long run becoming a OMM is worth it

 

Are OMM's more active in certain sections than others? I could see business being pretty dry in the RS Gold section now for OMM's, but I can still see plenty of need in the Accounts section. Is that accurate?

 

More people want account MM's, but most MM's don't handle accounts because of the hassle they bring

 

This.

When I started my MM page, 95% of the people who add me want me to MM for some sort of account trade..

The other 5% are easy trades like $ for rsgp, rsgp for cs:go, something like that... Very very rare do I see people adding me for this though.. which is strange.

 

For those of you curious as to why less OMM applications are being submitted and why it seems there is a "dry spell" for OMMs, the reason is simple.

Flashback five years ago, market giants weren't as strong/common, gold trading among non-super trusted users happened more frequently, and on top of that the RS market was much MUCH larger.

Current day - Market giants rule the GP market, and that's one of the most common markets for using a middleman, or at least it was.

The most common trades I have middlemanned or seen being middlemanned lately would be account trades of any sort in any game. RuneScape, League, ETC.

Nowadays, not everything is as simple as RSGP for PayPal. There's a massive RSPS market, cs:go market, league market, steam market, etc. Yes getting the proofs are harder, but that's also a good thing because it essentially forces a middleman who wishes to become an OMM to learn the trading styles of other markets in order to complete the proofs. You basically have to learn to MM a variety of trades, or getting your proofs will become much much harder.

Another thing that I think a lot of you are forgetting is that being an OMM isn't 100% about trust, if that was the case then why wouldn't people like Divica or MrEvilPwns just be easily granted OMM with their 1,000 vouches or $500 donor. Part of being an OMM is an underlying "guarantee" that you know what you're doing. If I look back to the first 3 months I was MMing trade to now, I've learned a hell of a lot. You learn how to navigate certain trades, you start to learn when things are sketchy, how to send a proper PM, how a user acts when they ACTUALLY want to trade vs when they want to imposter you.

There's a lot more to being an OMM than a shiny rank that displays "I went through a hard process and have good vouches"

Part of the application is a user showing that they know what they're doing. That's why I would say the application doesn't need to be changed, but I'm open to opinions about the system and additions/subtractions to the project as a whole.

 

Dave that's actually a great point + professionalism. If only there was a better way to articulate that to users or a site specific benefit like a minirank for using an OMM x number of times. Using an OMM consistently should show more credibility. Perhaps it would lead to the middleman rank being more desirable.

 

There should be a certain quantity of OMM per market for this to work best.

 

I wouldn't be opposed to the idea, I mean it would be a little difficult to keep up with but if I had the perms to do it, I would absolutely try to make a system where users who used OMMs more often were granted some type of minirank like

"Smart Trader" - Obviously this wouldn't be the minirank but something that can't be somehow twisted to abuse trust. Seems like a cool idea to me