World of Warcraft player accidentally sells extremely rare pet for 1/10th of its value: 'That's like my entire game savings over the last 17 years, gone'

World of Warcraft - Ethereal Soul-Trader

(Image credit: Blizzard)

A World of Warcraft player is feeling the pain, and considering giving up the game entirely, after accidentally selling a very rare, very expensive WoW trading card game pet for just one-tenth of its actual value.

The subject of the Reddit thread, posted by The_Tiddy_Fiend, says it all: "Sold my Ethereal Trader for 174k instead of 1.7M. That's like my entire game savings over the last 17 years, gone."

According to Tiddy, they relied on a feature in the World of Warcraft auction house that automatically sets the price of an item listed for sale to match the prices of other listings for the same item—essentially a failsafe to ensure sloppy typists don't mistakenly undercut themselves.

But in this case, instead of pegging the Ethereal Soul Trader at the 1.7 million gold price that other such pets were going for, it was posted for just 174,000 gold—and someone bought it immediately.

Blizzard news site Icy Veins says there are a few potential explanations for the mishap. It's possible Tiddy missed some lowball listings on the WoW auction house that submarined his own offering, and there's always a chance the auction house bugged out momentarily and moved the decimal a couple points in the wrong direction. It also could have been a scam: Redditor Fvzzyyy said unscrupulous players will sometimes list an item at a very low price but then quickly cancel their auction, in hopes of luring someone else to list their own similar item at the reduced price.

But that seems unlikely: Others in the thread point out that listing a valuable item that cheaply, even very briefly, risks an outcome the same as the one suffered by Tiddy_Fiend. And Tiddy insists there were no other auctions listing the Ethereal Soul Trader at lowball prices: "All were 1.7M. I'm literally saying the feature meant to prevent this didn't work and I lost all my gold as a result."

The Ethereal Soul Trader is so expensive because it's so rare. As noted by Warcraftpets.com, it was available as an "extremely rare" reward in The Hunt for Illidan, a 2008 expansion to the World of Warcraft TCG. In another post, Tiddy said their value has been pumped even further recently by influencers on YouTube, which is what prompted them to put the pet up for sale in the first place: "Demand is up and I wanted to sell it," they wrote, which seems entirely reasonable to me.

Instead, it's a massive loss, and one that has him thinking about quitting WoW entirely: "I don't grind or farm so there is no way I'm recovering that loss in the next few years."

Man, that sucks. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose the equivalent of nearly two decades' worth of in-game wealth like this—kind of like investing all your money into your house, finally paying off the mortgage, and then accidentally selling your realtor to sell it for $3,000. It brings to mind the tale of Darth Microtransaction, the Old School Runescape player whose account was hacked and stripped of items worth 4.8 billion in gold. That story had a happy ending, as Darth's items were ultimately restored by Jagex, but that seems less likely to happen in Tiddy's case: Unless he can prove that a WoW glitch caused the pricing mixup, I think the very likely outcome is a notice that "buyer beware" also applies to sellers.

For now, Tiddy_Fiend is putting his experience forth as a warning to others. "Don't be a fool like me, double or maybe triple check your auction listings," they wrote. "Whoever got my Soul Trader for 174k... I guess enjoy your easy profit, I’m definitely feeling shitty about it. Idk if I can even log in for a while, like wtf. I can post an item and it'll match the lowest priced auction, all that changes when you do a big ticket one? An incredibly expensive mistake and learning lesson I want to share so others don't lose all their gold."

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.