This is horrible!

I saw an awesome item I really wanted at Belethor's store, so I saved the game, and went to buy it.. AND IT WAS GONE!

In fact, all the items were different!

So I reloaded an older save, but the new items that he swapped over to in the new save game transferred over to the old save game!

This has happened before where I went to sell something, and after saving (or reloading, idr) he only had 1 gold, and just to test it ALL my savegames had him having only 1 gold!

I'm on the PS3 btw, please help!

Okay, now he doesn't have any stock, and neither do I when I try to sell to him!

The problem is unaffected by reloading old saves.

One time the other guy in there even yelled at me to leave like they were closed, next time I reloaded he told me I should come by the shop sometime (while I am in the shop).

*ANGRY*

I tried restarting the PS3, no change..

Did you save when you were in the store or outside? I've seen this happen myself a few times as the merchants inventory is randomized every time you enter the cell.

Every time you load in the NPC's inventories are different. I think it's because they aren't persistant and change whenever loaded. It seems odd, and I'm really not sure how the system worked... Stand there saving until he has something good again.

Okay, this doesn't happen every time, but I can use this to my advantage I suppose..

Why would u save during a transaction in the first place?

makes sense i guess. Even though there isnt an actual economy, it does LOOK like there is. I mean, you dont think you are the only one who shops here right?

You know some items are random, its not about reloading saves but more about waiting days in Skyrim, not sure which item your talking about but I know this is the case for daedra hearts, they got about a 10% chance to appear on alchemists per day.

There is definitely some kind of penalty for reloading, "Oh crap! I've just sold him my circlet of peerless alchemy by mistake, and I really want that Daedric bow of fire. I know, I'll reload from when I entered the store." Ta-da! Daedric bow is gone.

This has happened in other ways too. I bought Bound Sword and Raise Zombie from Sybille Stentor, before I went to Wolfskull Cave in The Man Who Cried Wolf. The first and second necromages I killed were carrying...Bound Sword and Raise Zombie so I reloaded from before I bought them. Then when I killed them again, neither was carrying a single book!!

So annoying. Stopped by the Mage College to grab some upper level Destruction books. Got done buying them in the courtyard when an Elder Dragon attacked. Accidentally hit some NPCs, got finishing-moved by the dragon, reloaded... and all the vendor had was the crappy low level books. Even after half a dozen more reloads.

I've gone to sell inventory and would reload after accidentally selling something, and once reloaded, the merchant all of a sudden has 0 money to buy from me when they did before.

I think by exiting the game completely, I was able to fix this, though I can't remember. It's one thing for inventory to reset after reloading (from autosave upon entering the shop), but for their money to disappear along with their inventory is 2x annoying.

what was the item?