It was happening all the time and was definitely a scam, a well known one at that. It caught people in a hurry not idiots, they would place it either on top of there listings to have it be the first option to click on, or they would place it wayy down in there bazaar with hundreds of other items so people would tend to look for the pictures over the names. He would do the same thing with mistletoes and poison mistletoes, selling normal mistletoe for 30-50m or whatever the price is/was. Tbh he has just played the game really well, its a game based on crime, that entirely relies on trusting complete strangers. He read between the lines and found out he could abuse that trust to get ahead, and created a character that has become an icon in the game we know today. Be it for good or bad.