Curse

Diablo™ · Feb 17, 2006, 05:48 AM // 05:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by My Sweet Revenga

Ouch. Are you the guy who tried to buy a ton of ectos, ended up getting mursatt tokens instead, and then formed a team to journey to get fissure only to find out at the end that you didn't have ectos but in fact you were scammed? Thought I read that somewhere.

lol, holy crap that story was so sad, i cried....

Sab · Feb 17, 2006, 05:51 AM // 05:51

There's no excuse for scamming. If you attempt a scam, and succeed, you deserve to be banned. If you attempt a scam, and fail, you still deserve to be banned.

generik · Feb 17, 2006, 05:57 AM // 05:57

Mursatt Tokens do not even look like ectos at all.

Try as I might I tweaked my monitor in a really bizarre way to see if I can possible fool myself into believing that those tokens are indeed ectos. I can't. The color and the art is totally different.

Oh yeah, of course if your argument is "No way! They are both round.. and KINDA reddish (well the tokens are purple btw)" then my counter argument is "Fool. Money. What happens in the end? Parted!"

Dawgboy · Feb 17, 2006, 06:13 AM // 06:13

Robbing a bank is probably hard work too, but it doen't mean they should get away with the money.

I know it's not the same thing, but then again neither "hard work" nor "scammer" go together. It's just some dillhole too LAZY to EARN their gold the honest way.

Owen · Feb 17, 2006, 06:17 AM // 06:17

The main thing to remember is that yes, scamming is stealing and it is possible to steal even a ficticious element like in game gold.

The act of scamming denotes a marked lack of character on the part of the scammer. This also indicates the potential for this person to carry this tendency to scam to greater lengths, an online scammer can easily become the mechanic who scams you out of $100 on labor he never did.

They say that it's a troubling sign if a child is observed 'killing' stuffed toys or harming pets, this is an indication of a greater problem, a deeper psychological problem. Scamming is also an indication of a greater problem, sometimes it stems from a person's feeling of powerless-ness in their own life and sometimes it stems from good old dishonesty. Whatever the source scamming is wrong because it harms your fellow man and no matter what your world view or religious affiliation respect for one's fellow man should be at the core of any moral life.

Chess is a test of wits with both players on an even playing field and put there with the intention of engaging in said game of wits. Scamming is not a game of wits because by it's very nature only one side initially knows the game is being played.

What's worse is that something as simple as being scammed out of gold that doesn't exist can be enough to shake a person's ability to trust his fellow man in social settings in real life. What you must ask yourself, as a scammer, is if you are ok with trading bytes of gold for a fellow human's ability to trust people. Bullying, though it seems innocent at times, has been shown to have damaging effects years after the actual events and I fear that scamming in online games amounts to nothing more than a form of bullying whose lasting effects have yet to be measured.

Sol_Vie · Feb 17, 2006, 06:24 AM // 06:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dawgboy

Robbing a bank is probably hard work too, but it doen't mean they should get away with the money.

I know it's not the same thing, but then again neither "hard work" nor "scammer" go together. It's just some dillhole too LAZY to EARN their gold the honest way.

No, in a lot of ways it is the same thing.

We don't determine the 'rightness' of an action by how hard you have to work on it, otherwise some businessmen would be the scum of the world while prostitutes and blue collar workers would be the kings and queens.

The 'rightness' or 'badness' of an action is a matter of ethical reasoning for it. Why is it bad to steal (which scamming essentially is)? That's your own to answer.

Anyway, I can't see there being much actual discussion here...

shadowfell · Feb 17, 2006, 06:31 AM // 06:31

scammers should have their accounts wiped, just so they see how it feels to start over from scratch... just in case they have forgotten.

Corwin Feist · Feb 17, 2006, 07:18 AM // 07:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadowfell

scammers should have their accounts wiped, just so they see how it feels to start over from scratch... just in case they have forgotten.

That's an excellent idea. Far better than a temporary ban.

Corwin

Griff Mon · Feb 17, 2006, 07:30 AM // 07:30

I've never been scammed-but then I usually don't buy from players (except for occasional runs) and usually go with runners that collect at some point where you can tell they are legitimate.

One time, I was up in Mineral Springs and everyone died except for me and another monk. We backed off and healed everyone but it took several minutes. And in that time a IDS that had dropped for another player had been freed up for anyone. I picked it up before I rezed the guy and he pitched a fit.

I just picked it up because it was there and some players had dropped out. He claimed I was ripping him off, etc. etc. His attitude was that I had stolen from him, but according to the rules of the game, it was free for anyone to take.

I gave it to him. Inspite of the fact that he was being a total a****le about it.

Never even got a thank you. Never saw another IDS either. But I was tempted to keep it. Part of me wish I had, but for the most part I feel pretty good about giving it back to him even though he was a total jerk about it.

Sagius Truthbarron · Feb 17, 2006, 07:51 AM // 07:51

Petty theft is all it is; I don't see it as a happy-go-lucky game of cat and mouse.

Theives are gutter trash, no matter if their true 'social class'.

Kurow · Feb 17, 2006, 07:54 AM // 07:54

Really if you look at it with any sort of sense of fairness and rationality, its just plain wrong.

Puppets · Feb 17, 2006, 08:03 AM // 08:03

With abit of forum reading, one can avoid getting scammed. Seriously I don't know why new players are getting scammed when they all need to do it just read 10 minute worth of info. Don't tell me 'omg i dont know where 2 look omg om

' Type Guildwars fansite into google, GG.

Juicey Shake · Feb 17, 2006, 08:05 AM // 08:05

Ohhhnooo, I just lost 900k selling ectooo, what will I ever doooooo?!

I wouldn't care. I could lose my hoard of supplies, ecto, thousands of gold, I wouldn't really mind. It's a game, big deal, I shouldn't have been playing so much anyhow.

If some kid wants to take that all away from me, some kid that's going to play all day and that's it, well hey, if he can manage to do so, I don't care.

Then again, I'm super alert when I trade [which is rarely] so it wouldn't happen.

had someone try to scam me once, took no screens & didn't allow the trade to go through, so I got to talking with him, he showed me some of his profit. He currently doesn't play much, but has fissure on his ranger, 1.4 million gold, and multiple sup vigors and sup absorbs still banked on his account. I think it's just sad, really.

Stranger The Ranger · Feb 17, 2006, 08:06 AM // 08:06

Scamming is for sad, lazy, mindless people who don't know there's a living person behind the character he/she scammed.

Period.

Despiar26 · Feb 17, 2006, 08:14 AM // 08:14

People that get scammed aren't stupid. The people that scam are, people like that are often the cause of somebody quitting the game...
Why don't just make your own money instead of ripping people off and hurting their feelings? It's just a game, i agree but you do invest alot of time on it.

Scammers should be banned from anything related to GuildWars, including forums and such.

Moltov joss · Feb 17, 2006, 08:21 AM // 08:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thorath Of Krosa

Hello everyone,
This is a topic that recently caught my attention and I was suprised about how much I was thinking about it. There really is alot of good points on this topic that sway my opinion upon scamming. On one hand you have to consider that the people that you are scamming have worked really hard to get whatever gold you are trying to get and deserve to hang on to it. On the other hand you have to see it from the scammers point of view, why should it be so horribal to scam its reallys just a mind game to see who can sniff out the scams the best. I agree to both of these point of views and am wondering on your take

For the record I havent scammed yet (I feel to guilty about it)

Have you ever been scammed? I am sure if you were you wouldn't be able to agree to both points. It's my opinion that people who scam are just lazy or don't have enough time to save up 1000k+ for Fow.

milan · Feb 17, 2006, 08:26 AM // 08:26

While I don't like scammers and what they do I feel that I've gotta add my opinion to this string - we all know what they say about opinions.

While there has got to be a scammer and a 'victim' the nature of guild wars means that you have to actively assist the scammer before you can be scammed. Kinda like helping the bank robber by carrying the money to his get away car.

That brings me to another point, the correlations people are making with real life thefts and punishments. Sure if someone steals from me in real life it would be dealt with in my own way rather swiftly, however if someone steals from me something that never actually belonged to me (everything belonging to Anet) I don't feel that cutting off their hand, sending to jail etc etc is a option.

I feel that scammers should be warned and punished once, maybe twice before being banned, if it can be proven that they scammed then an account wipe, but then again that could spur them on to scam more to regain their losses

Ninjutsu Honor Code · Feb 17, 2006, 08:42 AM // 08:42

Sometimes i think if Anet wouldnt have nerfed every farmspot in the world, they wouldnt force people into scamming to actually having a decent way of getting money. Yeah i tought about that a lot cause to me it seems the only way to get expensive gear is either scamming, e-bay or farming a lifetime.
I just cant be arsed to act greedy enough to do that.

JediKnight · Feb 17, 2006, 08:52 AM // 08:52

Scammers should have their characters tweaked by Anet so that everyone could see them coming.

William Stark · Feb 17, 2006, 09:12 AM // 09:12

If there is one thing I could add to the game to cut down on scammer sit would be an extra category in my friends list where I could add their names.

At the moment, the only contents of my ignore list are the various scammers I have met (usually on runs, but a few others who have been more unpleasant). I'd dearly love to have a feature that would highlight these people on screen if ever they are in the same district, just so I could warn other people when they are 'plying their wares'.

The ToA community is quite good at flagging up known scammers though- possibly because this is where you get a lot of the wealthier players, so the scammers flock in.