Curse

LicensedLuny · Jan 28, 2012, 05:12 AM // 05:12

Hiya,

PLEASE do not make the same mistake I did. Do not assume that a violation of the rule prohibiting, "defrauding others of in-game gold and items," results in loss of a GW account. It does not! There is no such disincentive against "scamming." By current GW Support standards, a player found in violation of that rule gets "a mark" against their account (they get marks for violations like swearing and leeching, too) and a temporary ban from GW. Support does not permanently ban a game account until a player racks up enough such marks. "Enough" is more than one.

I realize posting this in public may give a few unscrupulous sorts new nefarious ideas, yes. However, I suspect there may be a lot more reasonable, honest players who read the rules and hear about things like people getting perma'd for syncing in PvP and using farm bots and incorrectly assume that cases of clear, intentional, and premeditated scamming would also result in permanent GW account bans. I assumed that. I was wrong. It cost me 175e (~ 1.4 million gold) earlier this week. Please let me be the only one to learn this the hard way!

On Monday, I was scammed out of 175e by a player who claimed he was selling me a Tyrian-skin "Serpent Axe". He "proved" he was selling me the right axe by going out into Isle of the Nameless and equipping an axe with the right skin. He then traded me an axe with the right info tag for my 175e. The axe I got was the wrong skin, the Canthan-skin version. He immediately "left the game" and added me to his ignore list. There is no way to excuse what happened as an honest mistake or misunderstanding.

If you're unfamiliar with "Serpent Axes," here are some pictures I put together from screenshots I took. They show the difference of the two skins, explain their sources, and show how it is impossible to tell from the trade window which skin version one without an inscription slot has.

(In an edit on Jan. 28, 2012, 1:07PM GMT, I changed the first picture and added the third picture after learning about the different effects of dye on the icon of each skin.)

The way he was scamming actually occurred to me ahead of time as a possibility. I figured anyone clever enough to run such a scam wouldn't be foolish enough to risk losing an account with all three campaigns plus EotN and 38 points in HoM (yes, it's easy to check anyone's HoM progress!) for 175e. That's certainly not pocket change, no, but compared to the real money cost of and the time spent developing such an account, ~1.4 million in fake-money isn't nearly of equal value. I just wanted to see the axe equipped and make sure he was right about the skin version. Well, he was ready with an axe with the right skin version. And either he was willing to risk losing his account for 175e or he already knew that he wasn't risking such at all.

I took lots of screenshots and went through the arduous process of submitting a report via the support website, right after this happened on Monday, Jan. 23. Then I waited. From my alternate account's (one of several) friends list, I watched the scammer all week. I saw him logged in for several hours each day. Once he appeared in the same district of Kamadan with me, spamming to buy something.

Yesterday, Thursday, Jan. 26, I heard back from support. The GM told me, "I reviewed the game logs of this incident and confirmed a violation. The player’s account has been suspended for defrauding others of in-game gold and items." I wrote back asking if that was a permanent or temporary ban. The GM promptly got back to me explaining, "when an account is found in violation, a mark is placed on it. Each mark suspends the account for a given period of time and that period of account suspension rises with each subsequent mark against the account. Repeated violations, especially of this nature, will lead to permanent closure of the account. At this time, the block on "<IGN removed before posting>" account is temporary." The also sent me this link which is their official, public "Conduct Breaches and Outcomes" page.

So ...

I was very much mistaken. That player never risked losing his whole account when he went about the process of looking for a player to defraud of 175e.
Someone has to screw over more than one player (who is both aware of how and willing to go through the process of submitting a support ticket) before they risk losing their account.
Scamming is not the same as hacking. The account restoration (rollback) features they have now are used only in cases of hacking. If you get scammed, there will be no rollback. (I wasn't surprised at this answer at all, but I asked just to be sure.)
This particular scammer will be back in the game after his time-out. I don't know if support removed the ill-gotten 175e from his account or if it's even still there. Who knows what he did with it in the ~3 days between when I reported him and when support finished their investigation. After the reply that the ban was temporary, I did not bother to ask if he gets to keep the fake-money or not. If screwing over other players this way doesn't bother him, he actually may be turning a decent in-game profit depending on how long the temp ban lasts.
I cannot and will not post his IGN in public here. Guru is not part of ANet and they are, imo, very right to disallow public accusations which they have no way nor business verifying. If you want more details, you can send me a PM here or ask in game.

I have posted this thread on the official GW Support Forums which they deleted within hours, at least from public view asking the devs/support staff that

they make the two skins of "Serpent Axe" distinguishable in trade windows
they make it more clear to every player that there is not the disincentive of losing your game account to keep people from scamming, and
they reconsider their policy on the above and perhaps amend it to let the Support GMs perma-ban a player's account in such cases.

Given the Rules of Conduct for that forum, I am not at all sure if that thread will be allowed to stay there. If they take it down, I suppose I'll have to go posting walls of text on the talk page of Gaile's wiki page or something.

EDIT - Jan. 28, 2012 9:56AM GMT - That thread was deleted within hours of my posting it. I was asked by mod staff there to, "Please refrain from making petition threads or threads using demanding language to rally users for a cause." I replied apologizing for any interpretation that I was doing either, tried to explain that my intent was to plead, not demand, that they fix both the icons or names with a game update, reconsider their stance on such behavior warranting a temporary vs. permanent ban, and make all players aware of the policy so that no one else mistakenly assumes such a protection is in place as a disincentive against scamming. I've asked them if there is a better way to get in touch with the folks who make such decisions.

If reading this, you feel I'm "just mad because I got scammed," then please understand I actually put very low priority on the fake-money and pink goo in this game. Yeah, I'm out 175 ecto. It's not pocket change, no, but it's just fake-money. I'll get more fake-money from playing the game as I always have. What has me so upset here is a situation in the game that the unscrupulous may continue to exploit in order to defraud other players along with a policy which is, in my opinion, flawed and leaves reasonable players room to make a dangerously incorrect assumption. The reason I'm posting this here in Guru's Trader's Outpost section is to warn other players who do a lot of trading against making that dangerous assumption about the disincentive against scamming.

Cheers, Happy hunting & Please stay safe out there!
Luny

jimbo32 · Jan 28, 2012, 06:12 AM // 06:12

Jeez Luny, that really sucks. And you're right - it's crazy that a scam like this only results in a temp suspension. I already posted in your thread on the support forums, and maybe if some of the other traders here will follow suit ANet will realize that their policy is ridiculous. Unlikely, but you never know.

The fact that the dude had obviously spent some time planning his little scam beforehand should mean an auto-perm. It's not like he can claim it was an honest mistake.

Kiki Go Boom · Jan 28, 2012, 06:29 AM // 06:29

That sucks! Really sad to hear when things like this happen. I was scammed a few years ago and all anet did was give the guy a temp ban and I asked if I could get my stuff returned and they said it "wasn't possible" and they even said that they couldn't delete the item from the scammer's account.

Fully agree that things like this should result in perma bans.

LicensedLuny · Jan 28, 2012, 06:33 AM // 06:33

I'm really hoping some of the ANet powers-that-be see that and realize both a game update and an internal support policy change is in order, yeah. That's why I posted on the official Support forum there. (It seemed better than some obscure talk tab for one of Gaile's wiki pages.)

But for the time being, it is what it is. So I'm posting here hoping to avoid anyone else making, what I assume is the perfectly reasonable, assumption that such behaviors cost the scammer their game account.

I'm willing to bet real cash money that plenty of players without ethical or practical reservations about scamming in the first place are well aware of this policy. If, like me, you wouldn't bother scamming someone to begin with, what would have sent you to read that obscure "conduct breaches" page and guided you to correctly read between the lines what their policies imply???

jimbo32 · Jan 28, 2012, 08:41 AM // 08:41

Support forum thread deleted already. ANet are morons.

superraptors · Jan 28, 2012, 09:08 AM // 09:08

serpent axe scam is pretty old now, i was offered a req9 15^50 year ago for 100e, and ofc he showed me his tyrian skin when wielding, so i went with my instincts and didnt go through with it, i would never buy a serpent axe anymore, its too easy to get scammed.

you should do a screenshot of the tyrian dyed serpent axe vs canthan dyed to really distinguish the difference WHILE in trade.

if only anet was as ruthless as steam.

Swingline · Jan 28, 2012, 09:16 AM // 09:16

Shit happens. If your that upset about it then badger Anet to fix the inventory icon they share. It is their blunder after all.

It takes a pretty big reason to get perma banned by anet. Usually scamming isnt one of them unless its like what Jason did. Sadly I have known about this for a while from a scam that happened to me back in 2006

Pleikki · Jan 28, 2012, 11:44 AM // 11:44

With tyrian serpents, Theres just 1 way confirm it right everyone should remember while buying em. ive traded with em alot in past and i allways used this way, if the seller does not accept it, Its probably fake..

So! This is the way, U and the seller go outside some town, The buyer goes to die somewhere, After that, he specs the guy who sells the axe, he Drops it on the ground.. ON the Ground u can at same see Skin, Mods, and The Dye, All the things where u can know if its tyrian or canthan.. Also u can look gold value etc, as its Really really unlikely hed have same gold value same mods canthan & Tyrian serpents, which would be only way scam after this

superraptors · Jan 28, 2012, 12:14 PM // 12:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pleikki

With tyrian serpents, Theres just 1 way confirm it right everyone should remember while buying em. ive traded with em alot in past and i allways used this way, if the seller does not accept it, Its probably fake..

So! This is the way, U and the seller go outside some town, The buyer goes to die somewhere, After that, he specs the guy who sells the axe, he Drops it on the ground.. ON the Ground u can at same see Skin, Mods, and The Dye, All the things where u can know if its tyrian or canthan.. Also u can look gold value etc, as its Really really unlikely hed have same gold value same mods canthan & Tyrian serpents, which would be only way scam after this

99% safe, the 1% is if he actually does have a few canthan serps with same gold value

Bright Star Shine · Jan 28, 2012, 12:26 PM // 12:26

Doesn't the inventory icon change differently when dyed? The difference between a yellow dyed canthan and Tyrian Axe is pretty monumental. I'd say give him a yellow dye and tell him to dye the one you're buying, if it doesn't change the icon of the one in trade window, it's Canthan, if it turns green-ish, it's Tyrian.

LicensedLuny · Jan 28, 2012, 12:58 PM // 12:58

Ok, thank you guys for the sympathy. I do appreciate it. However my point here is to warn others against assuming that scammers get perma-banned. This was the first time I ever got scammed. But I've been doing "faith trades" for years thinking such violations would cost someone their account and, therefore, would be a disincentive to stop players from risking losing their account for some quick and very much ill-gotten fake-money profit. I'm talking about situations like >100k trades in all cash and two players with different schedules using a third player as a ferry to complete trades arranged via fansites like Guru. I've been both the trusted and truster in such trades numerous times. I guess I've just been lucky that I never did such a trade with a dishonorable player before, but I always assumed (and sometimes told the other player involved) that the certainty of losing one's account for good would keep everyone involved honest and playing fair. That is not the case!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coast

give me his name via pm, i'll get myself scammed a few times so he gets permad after all.

To both Coast and the folks who've PMed/whispered me similar offers, no. IMO there are much bigger problems here than this one, particular scammer. If you want to know his IGN so that you can avoid trading with him (or handle him with unusually high levels of caution at least) ok. But please don't "retaliate" against this one guy. At best, it's just a waste of your own and maybe the support staffs' time. At worst, you put yourselves in a position to get in trouble. I don't want that! I want the issues in game and incorrect, imo, policies that this particular scammer or any other scammer are using fixed by the only people who can fix them - the decision makers at ANet.

Until they're fixed, I want us all to be aware that we are not nearly so safe from scammers as we might reasonably assume if our only experience with violations is reading the EULA and hearing second-hand stories about what gets other people perma-banned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by superraptors

serpent axe scam is pretty old now, i was offered a req9 15^50 year ago for 100e, and ofc he showed me his tyrian skin when wielding, so i went with my instincts and didnt go through with it, i would never buy a serpent axe anymore, its too easy to get scammed.

you should do a screenshot of the tyrian dyed serpent axe vs canthan dyed to really distinguish the difference WHILE in trade.

if only anet was as ruthless as steam.

Thank you! I'd never had a Canthan-skin version which I kept, so I'd only ever looked at dye preview. I had noticed the Tyrian skin version's icon doesn't change color with dye, and there was no mention about the effect of dye on the wiki article at all. Thanks to your post making me try to figure out why the first dye example picture I had here in the beginning was wrong, I've made a new picture! I will go edit the wiki article after I post this and get the OP updated.

I think it still does leave a window for scammers to exploit, as the Tyrian-skin version is the one with an icon that does not change appearance when dyed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

Shit happens. If your that upset about it then badger Anet to fix the inventory icon they share. It is their blunder after all.

It takes a pretty big reason to get perma banned by anet. Usually scamming isnt one of them unless its like what Jason did. Sadly I have known about this for a while from a scam that happened to me back in 2006

I'm trying to badger them to fix it, yeah. So far, they won't let me do that on their Support forums. I will try other venues. That's not why I'm posting here on Guru, though, not at all.

Re: Pleikki and superraptors' posts about the "safe way," thanks for that! I'd thought of going out into explorable area and having them open all bags (F9) and inventory (I) and then take a screenshot to send you, so you can look for more than one Serpent Axe in their inventory. That assumes the seller knows how and is willing to upload screenshots to some third-party website ... and you're willing to trust any URL he sends you ... and you're willing to trust that he doesn't simply have fast photoshop skills. I thought about asking my scammer for that, but I figured it was being overly paranoid since who would be smart enough to come up with that scam and dumb enough to lose their whole account for 175e. I was the dumb one there, as it turned out.

Given the popularity of Cho farming, I suspect there may be a lot more Canthan-skin versions around lately. It's still probably a pretty long shot that you can find one with the exact same inherent mod and merch value to swap after Pleikki's suggested demonstration.

In the end, it still seems unnecessarily complicated and less than foolproof when ANet clearly can change the names of all existing and future copies of a certain weapon with updates - they did it before!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bright Star Shine

Doesn't the inventory icon change differently when dyed? The difference between a yellow dyed canthan and Tyrian Axe is pretty monumental. I'd say give him a yellow dye and tell him to dye the one you're buying, if it doesn't change the icon of the one in trade window, it's Canthan, if it turns green-ish, it's Tyrian.

The Canthan-skin's icon will change color with dye; the Tyrian-skin's icon will not. The Canthan version has a default color like yellow dye, so you'd have to use a different color.

I can still see how someone could run such a scam passing off a Canthan-skin Serpent Axe for a Tyrian-skin one, as the Tyrian-skin's icon is the one that does not change with dye. The game won't let you put an equipped item in the trade window. Legit or not, a seller would have to unequip an axe he was about to trade. At that point, you could ask that they dye it, yeah. Applying dye to an axe when you have it in the trade window will remove it from the trade window automatically (just like salvaging mods off will;) I just tried it with two of my accounts to be sure. So a scammer could simply say he dyed the Tyrian version he purported to be selling, not actually dye the Canthan version he was about to hand you, and you'd still be looking at the undyed inventory icon.

Both superraptors' and Swingline's mention of how this is an old scam sound like what I heard from some friends I spoke with earlier in the week when I told them what happened. The fact that this has been going on for years and I am far from the first one to get scammed buying such axes is abhorrent! The Mar. 13, 2008 game update included

Quote:

The daggers known as Dragon Scythes are now named Dragon Kamas to avoid confusion over their weapon type.
The axe known as White Scythe is now named White Reaver to avoid confusion over its weapon type.

which changed both existing and future weapons in the game. If they can push an update to rename those two weapons in order that no one mistakes an axe or a pair of daggers for an actual scythe, then they for damn sure should be able to push an update which renames existing and future "Serpent Axes" to different names based on the skin in order that players can tell the difference in the trade window.

Hearing things like, "I got scammed on one of those a few years ago," disgusts me! If it's been happening (or been attempted) for so long, then I can only assume the reason it is still so easy a loophole for scammers to exploit is that no one yet has managed to wave a red flag in view of the ANet staff who make the decisions. It's happened to me now, and I'm feeling rather obligated as a member of the GW community to see if I can find the right place to stand waving the right flag so that this gets fixed for good.

Given years of history, Guru is clearly not the right place to stand; I understand that. I'm not trying to wave the flag at the devs here. Here in this thread, I'm trying to warn the rest of you to avoid trusting that support has your back against scammers - support, most certainly, does not! I suspect the craftier scammers are well aware of this - you should be, too!

Bright Star Shine · Jan 28, 2012, 01:52 PM // 13:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by LicensedLuny

This was the first time I ever got scammed. But I've been doing "faith trades" for years thinking such violations would cost someone their account and, therefore, would be a disincentive to stop players from risking losing their account for some quick and very much ill-gotten fake-money profit. I'm talking about situations like >100k trades in all cash and two players with different schedules using a third player as a ferry to complete trades arranged via fansites like Guru. I've been both the trusted and truster in such trades numerous times. I guess I've just been lucky that I never did such a trade with a dishonorable player before, but I always assumed (and sometimes told the other player involved) that the certainty of losing one's account for good would keep everyone involved honest and playing fair. That is not the case!

I do those trades all the time as well. I even trust some people with my account info or some of my expensive stuff. The other way around, there have plenty of people that trusted me with several stacks of ecto to hold on to. It's just pixels, I'm not going to steal someone's pixels.. It's such a degrading thing to do.

I've been scammed once in the game due to my trusting nature though. I had a pair of Demon Fangs I wanted to sell (were like 50e at the time, which at that time was a decent amount of money for me, but nothing monumental. It would be the equivalent of being scammed out of 1,000-1,500e today..) and someone pulled the 'could you show it outside' thing with dropping the item, EE'ing and picking it up. I was pissed of at myself for being so stupid for a second, but didn't care enough to file a complaint. I went on with the game and didn't really care about it. I personally think that someone who goes through the trouble of scamming someone out of virtual money is quite a sad person to begin with. Same goes with hacking and stealing their money. If you need to do such things to feel good in a game, you are a shallow, spineless dick who is only degrading himself to the lowest of human society (swindling and theft), but not even in real life, but in a virtual world. I don't care for such people and I don't lie awake pondering about them. If someone hacked my account and stripped it blank, I would shrug, and make back the loss. If he deleted all my characters, I'd be pissed off though, that would mean he/she didn't only steal my pixels, he/she also destroyed thousands of hours of work I put in this game, which would be the thing that angered me.

Anyway, I ranted on longer than I wanted. I understand your frustration (justice not being served to the ones that deserve it), but I personally don't care that much about the people that do such things. Yes, getting them banned might prevent them from scamming less fortunate people (if I lost 175e, I wouldn't give a damn, but to someone else, 175e is an enormous amount of money), but I won't do the effort.

Swingline · Jan 28, 2012, 02:29 PM // 14:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bright Star Shine

I do those trades all the time as well. I even trust some people with my account info or some of my expensive stuff. The other way around, there have plenty of people that trusted me with several stacks of ecto to hold on to. It's just pixels, I'm not going to steal someone's pixels.. It's such a degrading thing to do.

Doesn't matter if its a degrading thing to do or not, people do it. I wouldn't share my account info with anyone but I know what you mean. I do title work for a friend on their account because I'm the best one in my circle of friends when it comes to getting HM shit done.

My advice to the OP is learn and let it go. They stole little dots of light on a screen, don't let them take anything more valuable from you such as the limited time you have on this earth.

salvatore888 · Jan 28, 2012, 03:49 PM // 15:49

OMG Luny!
I had the same scam like 1 year go ( lost 200e )

I even gave the guy the rarest mods to remod , a dye to instant-dye it
had him wield it , call it , drag to trade window and repeat

the guy perfect salvaged everything within seconds
just to mod the canthan one

and i can only assume he had a full inventory of dyes to redye accordingly

i tried to get him banned for weeks with screenshots etc
was frustrated by support , too

IF he was banned at that time he wouldn't have scammed another person

/ sympathize

LicensedLuny · Jan 28, 2012, 04:14 PM // 16:14

To Bright and Swingline above, I agree - one case of losing 175e to fraud is not an especially big deal, in and of itself. That is not the point. I'm posting here to warn other players of a problem I found with the system.

What I'm trying to accomplish with this thread

With the current system, it needs to be far more obvious to any player who might be involved in trading that scammers will not lose their game accounts for scamming just once. I don't know how many times they have to get caught before Support will perma-ban them, but it's dangerous to assume, as I did, that there is any true disincentive from Support for doing this once.

Even if you are very careful not to fall victim to obvious scams which can plausibly be excused for honest mistakes or misunderstandings instead of intentional fraud, and you think you've been careful and made every possible effort to check and re-check that you're trading the right thing ... if someone still manages to scam you, they're not risking more than a timeout unless they've been found guilty of such rule violations multiple times already.

Everything else about this situation is pointless to post about on a Guru thread, as near as I can tell. Yes, I am trying to do what I can to get the attention of those at ANet who can make changes to address the problems. But I think there's plenty of historical evidence to suggest that Guru posts are not the way to get that attention.

If you're reading my posts and getting the impression I am seriously pissed off here, then you're right - I am! I am seriously pissed off at this disgrace of a system ANet and we, the playerbase, have managed to build for ourselves between going way past reasonable in "benefit of the doubt" possible explanations, way past practical in what undesirable behaviors are not likely to be repeated after a little forced GW vacation, and a rather defeatist apathy and/or acceptance of such completely fluffy crap.

It is in my nature to attempt to address problems or potentials for misunderstandings when I encounter them. I was this way before GW was in development; I will be this way long after GW is over. I cannot just accept this and forget about it. Believe it or not, I envy those of you who can just let stuff like this slide and move on. Despite how much less effort such would be, despite the other ways I would more enjoy spending my "GW time," my conscience will not let me. It shames me and tells me taking such an easy-out would be morally wrong, as a member of a community. For now, I have some game time to spend on this. I cannot in good conscience just walk away until satisfied I have done everything in my power to alert the decision-makers at ANet of two problems they most certainly can fix if they choose to and warn my fellow players of the "out" one of those problems offers those people who choose to spend their game time preying on others' mistaken faith in a violation policy with some damn teeth.

JONO51 · Jan 28, 2012, 05:34 PM // 17:34

I don't see how this doesn't command a perma-ban or at least automatic suspension even if the rule is scam=mark on the account. He has intentionally exploited flaws in the in-game trade system to falsify what he is selling. The buyer isn't at fault similar to regular scams (ie misread 21g as 21 plat, frozen ecto etc). The fact that the only real "solution" to this is to go outside of the trade system is pretty shitty.

---

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

It takes a pretty big reason to get perma banned by anet. Usually scamming isnt one of them unless its like what Jason did.

out of interest, what level of scamming IS considered permaban by anet?

Coast · Jan 28, 2012, 06:34 PM // 18:34

moderating a trade so both seller and buyer get scammed (gold cape guild +400armbraces as an example)

pawning jock · Jan 28, 2012, 06:55 PM // 18:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coast

moderating a trade so both seller and buyer get scammed (gold cape guild +400armbraces as an example)

that ..

obastable · Jan 28, 2012, 07:19 PM // 19:19

So from what I can tell:

Premeditated scam for a few in game pixels = "mark"

Premeditated scam for a lot of in game pixels = perma-ban

So the problem isn't that you were the unfortunate victim of a premeditated scam, but rather that he didn't scam you for enough!

I sorta see a problem with that eh.

The fact that it was premeditated and planned is what matters. Or perhaps it's the fact that Anet allows known scammers to be repeat offenders is what matters. My trust in Anet's capabilities to manage support for a large game in a way that earns them the trust of their customers has never been very strong ... but it's even less now.

Bright Star Shine · Jan 28, 2012, 07:28 PM // 19:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coast

moderating a trade so both seller and buyer get scammed (gold cape guild +400armbraces as an example)

Lol, who did this?