Combatting Gold Spammers on the Forums

Enigma1985

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌ or @ZOS_AlanG‌ Hey can you ban this admin for encouraging them to name and shame?

I know it's to speed it up but if your breaking your own rules here wheres the line going to be drawn next time?

/facepalm

I highly suggest you read the original post again.

ZOS_AmeliaR wrote: »

Please note that our Community Code of Conduct does prohibit naming and shaming. However, in an effort to expedite the process of identifying and banning the spammers' accounts, we are making an exception for this situation. We will investigate each alleged spammer account individually to avoid false reports.

Frankly the slippery slope argument is just stupid. In fact check the topic. You'll see the same names popping up over and over again. Names in question are obviously not real players.

Granted it's not a normal thing to do it like this but it's also far from a normal situation in regards to how bad this is getting. The fact that they are now on the forums show that this is a far bigger issue than spam and bots in game.

If you've got a better idea then by all means share it. Otherwise accept the fact that ZOS has essentially been forced to go to drastic measures to attempt to get things under control.

Darlantan

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

Darlantan wrote: »

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌ Hey can you ban this admin for encouraging them to name and shame?

I know it's to speed it up but if your breaking your own rules here wheres the line going to be drawn next time?

Really????

<I removed all your extra blank lines>
Indeed. I'm all for getting rid of these gold sellers on the forums and in game, but when you start breaking rules to "make something faster" it becomes a slippery slope. I imagine this would have been just as fast to have us PM them the names instead of publicly posting them here...

We are talking about gold seller here. Do you really think a gold seller care about being shamed?

If they really cared about what we think about them, they would not be spamming us with all the crap we are getting...

Sorry but for me, i have no sympathy for gold seller ... They can rot for eternity in the deepest hole of earth with only their crap for comfort.

Oevaag_Bur

dewrewfg

As requested.

BenjaminKacher_ESO

Darlantan wrote: »

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

Darlantan wrote: »

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌ Hey can you ban this admin for encouraging them to name and shame?

I know it's to speed it up but if your breaking your own rules here wheres the line going to be drawn next time?

Really????

<I removed all your extra blank lines>
Indeed. I'm all for getting rid of these gold sellers on the forums and in game, but when you start breaking rules to "make something faster" it becomes a slippery slope. I imagine this would have been just as fast to have us PM them the names instead of publicly posting them here...

We are talking about gold seller here. Do you really think a gold seller care about being shamed?

If they really cared about what we think about them, they would not be spamming us with all the crap we are getting...

Sorry but for me, i have no sympathy for gold seller ... They can rot for eternity in the deepest hole of earth with only their crap for comfort.

I have no sympathy for gold sellers either, the problem is when it's not gold sellers but some other group they "speed up the process" for ...

breaking the rules here sets a precedent that they can be broken for convenience which I do not agree with.

The rules of the forum are set up to protect us, the customers. When they violate them in order to make their lives easier it hurts us and it hurts them.

Nebthet78

I am not getting spam messages being PM'd to me via the forum. However, I AM getting PM's sent to my In-Game mailbox from spammers sending me messages for the same thing. Can I post the names here too? I get at least one a day and they seem to send them around midnight EST.

Danpb14_ESO

fgfdgdgfr

tja4349

Sent to my personal e-mail !!!


gfbhdgsdf sent you a message

***
is the most secure place to buy Elder Scrolls Gold.
100K G = 17 USD Instant Delivery.
This company has very good reputation, selling in-game currencies since 2005.
100% Handwork Guaranteed!
7/24 Customer Service!
***

---
Follow the link below to check it out:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/messages/17014#44812

Have a great day!


Moderator Edit: Edited Links

Sakiri

PSA:

PLEASE CHECK YOUR PROFILES.

Make sure under the "Edit My Profile" pahe "allow other members to see my email" is UNCHECKED.

You dont want these toolbags to see that.

PS: it was demonxjj and zos_alang got him.

Nebthet78

I had mail from the following.. took screenshots too. They've been advertising the GOLDAH.. lol. I will add more daily as I get more mail from them.

@‌trianakwv
@junnijy

Guizan

The funny thing is that I at first didn't realise that it was private messages on the forums that this announcement was about. The French and the German texts mentions forums but not the English one.

steveb16_ESO46

Hakoke wrote: »

gfbhdgsdf thats the name of the guy who tried to sell me gold.

For crying out loud. I reported this account weeks ago. Why is it still active? What's the point of reporting these things?

Reymas

Well, silver lining, it means the gold-spammers are getting desperate.

Bhakura

This is actually quite entertaining forum thread, quick reading goes something like this:
"dsfqsdf dfqdsfdqs jhguhkk jn,ujhgfuy qsqzfdthyu ytutee qdsdqsdaa wczefsfeeeez"
Its a new language !

Enigma1985

@tja4349‌
You may want to go back and delete those links to the gold selling website. I know you're trying to help but the fact of the matter is there are people dumb enough to click on those links which can lead to an account hijacking if the site in question manages to get keyloggers installed in the background without you knowing.

In fact some other MMO companies don't play around with that stuff and will potentially take action against your account. Some will assume you're simply a gold seller trying to sneak in the link by being "helpful" when in reality your intent is just to get more people that are stupid enough to go to the website.

Do yourself a favor and edit that post.

Darlantan

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

Willow wrote: »

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

Darlantan wrote: »

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌ Hey can you ban this admin for encouraging them to name and shame?

I know it's to speed it up but if your breaking your own rules here wheres the line going to be drawn next time?

Really????

<I removed all your extra blank lines>
Indeed. I'm all for getting rid of these gold sellers on the forums and in game, but when you start breaking rules to "make something faster" it becomes a slippery slope. I imagine this would have been just as fast to have us PM them the names instead of publicly posting them here...

errr..they disabled pms?

Oo

Yeah I figured that didn't apply to Admins/Mods but I guess your right, still I don't like the idea of breaking rules for convenience.
btw... it's always a good idea to cut off all private forms of communication with the people in charge.

I do not know if they can turn off only some part off but even if they could that what do you think would have prevented the crap seller from sending that crap to the admin/mod?

If a crap seller was able to use the pms to spam us i am pretty sure they could also use it to spam the admin/mod. Do you really think that an admin/mod going trough 100's of pms to find a real one would have help any one?

Liedeke

I'm almost feeling left out, not having received such mail on this forum.

Kidding of course, those pesky in-game mails are annoying enough.

Good that some action is taken against them, I imagine it's not an easy task.
Best of luck hunting down those low-lives!

accelastarub17_ESO

"demonxzj sent you a message"

Xupacabra

I had this in my email:

"fgfdgdgfr sent you a message

[url=.................."

---
Follow the link below to check it out:.....

Have a great day!

ThFH

ghreterter

iaintoff

It's the logic of the users I fear, fearing even more the anagram that comes with it as a template of human behaviour generally.

Our gold buying friends IMO are worse than the people doing it because with out *** like them there would be hardly any bots in the industry.

BenjaminKacher_ESO

iaintoff wrote: »

It's the logic of the users I fear, fearing even more the anagram that comes with it as a template of human behaviour generally.

Our gold buying friends IMO are worse than the people doing it because with out *** like them there would be hardly any bots in the industry.

this, perma-bans for all people buying gold or riot!

Loxy37

I got one but I deleted it the other day. By accident I clicked the link and just hope I don't regret that mistake. My browser is pretty secure with multilayered security to block flash and the likes. So beware, don't click the link like I did.

KerinKor

tja4349 wrote: »

Sent to my personal e-mail !!!

/sigh

READ AND LEARN:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/747142

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/746952

EQBallzz

Here is the spammer that sent to me:

gfbhdgsdf sent you a message

Can we safely assume that Zenimax has officially lost the war with the gold spammers? They have not only failed at removing them in-game but now have lost control of their official forums. What's next? Gold spam messages on the main webpage or maybe a "State of the Gold Spam" post? This is pretty depressing.

TieFighter

GFBHDGSDF sent me gold spam

Lord_Bidr

EQBallzz wrote: »

Here is the spammer that sent to me:

gfbhdgsdf sent you a message

Can we safely assume that Zenimax has officially lost the war with the gold spammers? They have not only failed at removing them in-game but now have lost control of their official forums. What's next? Gold spam messages on the main webpage or maybe a "State of the Gold Spam" post? This is pretty depressing.

I don't know if this is your first MMO, but the fight against gold spammers and bots is a never-ending struggle. Even established MMOs have not been able to successfully remove them entirely from their games (like a disease, they always crop back up one way or another. I blame people who fund them by buying their services, but that's besides the point here).

I will admit that the problem seems a bit more rampant here than in other games, but as you can see (if you are indeed truly looking) ZOS are doing what they can, going so far as to 'roast' botters in-game and even breaking their forum TOS.

So, to answer your question, no ZOS has not lost the war (as I mentioned earlier, such a war is a constant struggle). They've not given up yet, and neither have we.

ja-elkmmorwb17_ESO

Bazzakrak wrote: »

haha, dumb brain went straight to my inbox to get the names, but that was off course closed

Well here they are @ZOS_AmeliaR‌

@gfbhdgsdf‌ and @werdsfedfwe‌ are the two I got.

If they have been banned then clearing the indicator flags of new messages (and maybe allow access to the inbox) for everyone else that they targeted could be a good thing.

Just saying.

J.

DewiMorgan

hjhgjrtyrtyrt sent you a message
site URL deleted
is the most secure place to buy Elder Scrolls Gold.
100K G = 17 USD Instant Delivery.
This company has very good reputation, selling in-game currencies since 2005.
100% Handwork Guaranteed!
7/24 Customer Service!
site URL deleted

If it were me, I'd be fixing this at the DB level: a query to list all PMs containing the above strings, and the UIDs of the senders. Then I'd check that none differed significantly, write a query that matched them all to ensure that none were PMs of people quoting them in reports, etc, then:
- move all messages, senders and their accounts to a backup table,
- delete all involved accounts from forums and game
- block all the incoming IPs to game and forums
- set posting PMs to be a privilege earned only once you'd earned certain badges for being a constructive forum member
- set all users to not show their email addresses
- disable the option to show your email address
- throttle the number of PMs any user can send per unit time
,,, and so forth.

But I think these are third party forums, rather than in-house, so it's likely that ZOS may not have this level of control over them and their DB.

EQBallzz

sc_prabhu1986rwb17_ESO wrote: »

EQBallzz wrote: »

Here is the spammer that sent to me:

gfbhdgsdf sent you a message

Can we safely assume that Zenimax has officially lost the war with the gold spammers? They have not only failed at removing them in-game but now have lost control of their official forums. What's next? Gold spam messages on the main webpage or maybe a "State of the Gold Spam" post? This is pretty depressing.

I don't know if this is your first MMO, but the fight against gold spammers and bots is a never-ending struggle. Even established MMOs have not been able to successfully remove them entirely from their games (like a disease, they always crop back up one way or another. I blame people who fund them by buying their services, but that's besides the point here).

I will admit that the problem seems a bit more rampant here than in other games, but as you can see (if you are indeed truly looking) ZOS are doing what they can, going so far as to 'roast' botters in-game and even breaking their forum TOS.

So, to answer your question, no ZOS has not lost the war (as I mentioned earlier, such a war is a constant struggle). They've not given up yet, and neither have we.

I have played every major MMO since 1999 for the most part so no this is not my first MMO. I realize there is no way to eradicate them but ZOS seems particularly unprepared for the "struggle". The fact that it's become commonplace in MMOs is precisely why they should have been better prepared for this. I don't expect no spammers but they should have had extensive tools in place to deal with them including streamlined in-game tools to right click report/ignore in a single click. I have also never seen an official forums taken over like this (not saying it hasn't happened but I don't recall). If they haven't lost they are not doing particularly well by any measure.

I blame the people who buy from them as well and I don't think that is beside the point..I think that is the point. If ZOS had publicly and vociferously stated early on that they would be monitoring the logs closely for any accounts tied to these spammers and people would be perma-banned maybe it would have scared people enough to reduce demand.

Tipsy

[Elder Scrolls Online] fgfdgdgfr sent you a message‏

got the *** after all checking my spam folder..There was no doubt that the message in inbox would be spam but yesterday I couldn't find it

also for some reason this message was moved to spam while I normally get Eso community messages in inbox