Combatting Gold Spammers on the Forums

Lalaeith

May 18th: demonuik sent you a message, adressed other names starting with 'L'
Today: fghqweefhrtj sent you a message

Rutes

bjwrthedfghdfq sent you a message

hoesmaarten

'laozhang' sent me a gold spam message (Tue, May 20, 2014 at 7:46 AM).

P.Hoffmann-C.Schlaakneb18_ESO

jkfjkereio
knightangle

mtaff072b16_ESO

knighthaha

GTech_1

I received a message through the community@elderscrollsonline.com email from a "user" named knighthaha.

I will not post the content of the mail message here, due to the clear violations of the code of conduct and terms of use. However, per your request for the name and nature of the violation, I will say that it directed me to a gold seller website named ggatm.

If you require the full content of the email message I received, please notify me and I will be happy to forward the entirety of the message.

To: @ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌ ; @ZOS_GinaBruno‌ :
Please forward a copy of this post to the appropriate parties:

The legal department of Zenimax should look into this matter.
Here are some of the things I see that are worth note:

1) The "other company", connected with the website listed above, has repeatedly violated the previously agreed upon rules of the service provided by Zenimax, as well as any and all contracts relating to receipt of said service. By doing so, the "other company" has likely created a direct increase in the operating costs of Zenimax, the service provider.

2) Zenimax has lost, or could lose, a number of paying customers due to the violations of the "other company".

3) The public reputation of the Service, and the Service Provider, Zenimax, may be irreparably damaged by the previous, current, and future actions of the "other company".

Disclaimer: The above should not be construed, in any way, as legal advice. The above is a suggestion to Zenimax to pursue qualified legal advice on the matter.

Here is some tech advice that does not require a disclaimer:
If you Ban their IP addresses at the server level, they will go away permanently, quickly, and without further legal action.

Thank you Zenimax for addressing these issues,
Greg

jchallenub17_ESO

dgfwerwerwe sent me a message. =(

Phantax

ZOS_AmeliaR wrote: »

deggar13b16_ESO wrote: »

I hope that more is going to be done about these people than just banning them as all they'll do is set up another account and do the same again!

We can assure you that we are working to solve this issue in a way that will prevent exactly that type of behavior.

So why then are threads that are obviously helping you do this being 'sunk' on the forums?

Eryndae

rtyfgbhfgh sent you a message

Not that cut and paste is such a chore, but could there be an email address to forward these to? WoW has one. : >

N_Hearthcroft

Sent May 20, 2014 at 8:43 AM - this notification was e-mailed to my personal e-mail.

sdfgdfhwqwhdfh sent you a message
*** is the most secure place to buy Elder Scrolls Gold.
Very low price
Instant Delivery.
This company has very good reputation, selling in-game currencies since 2005.
100% Handwork Guaranteed!
7/24 Customer Service!
***


Warm Regards, the ***
8:43AM

---

I noticed from their profile that they joined today, May 20, 2014 at 8:22 AM and that they were last active at 9:40 AM. And that they are banned - thank you.

Sli780Ti

fghqweefhrtj sent you a message...

GTech_1 wrote: »

To: @ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌ ; @ZOS_GinaBruno‌ :
Please forward a copy of this post to the appropriate parties:

The legal department of Zenimax should look into this matter.
Here are some of the things I see that are worth note:

1) The "other company", connected with the website listed above, has repeatedly violated the previously agreed upon rules of the service provided by Zenimax, as well as any and all contracts relating to receipt of said service. By doing so, the "other company" has likely created a direct increase in the operating costs of Zenimax, the service provider.

2) Zenimax has lost, or could lose, a number of paying customers due to the violations of the "other company".

3) The public reputation of the Service, and the Service Provider, Zenimax, may be irreparably damaged by the previous, current, and future actions of the "other company".

Disclaimer: The above should not be construed, in any way, as legal advice. The above is a suggestion to Zenimax to pursue qualified legal advice on the matter.

Here is some tech advice that does not require a disclaimer:
If you Ban their IP addresses at the server level, they will go away permanently, quickly, and without further legal action.

Thank you Zenimax for addressing these issues,
Greg

I do wonder if legal action can be made...

In game spam in the chat, yeah yeah.. you start to get use to it after playing a few mmo's, but when the spam continues when I'm not in game, not cool...

Now where's the setting to turn off all PM's...

PinkNanabear

I was asked to copy and past the message. Since this is not an option, here is a screenshot, I hope I am not violating the privacy rights but since this seems to be an exception, here it is. The name of the spammer is yultm but shows as onsetfemw

Absynthe

sdfwerwer sent you a message
*** is the most secure place to buy Elder Scrolls Gold.
Very low price
Instant Delivery.
This company has very good reputation, selling in-game currencies since 2005.
100% Handwork Guaranteed!
7/24 Customer Service!
***

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

dedewrew sent you a message
*** is the most secure place to buy Elder Scrolls Gold.
Very low price
Instant Delivery.
This company has very good reputation, selling in-game currencies since 2005.
100% Handwork Guaranteed!
7/24 Customer Service!
***

PinkNanabear

Another spam message...

GTech_1

@dianamorawskib14_ESO‌ The images are too small to read

ZOS_AlanG

Hi @dianamorawskib14_ESO‌, when reading an in-game mail, there should be an option listed at the bottom of the screen to "report player." Click this, and you'll be brought to the in-game report system, with the sender listed as the one you are reporting. This is the best way to alert us to in-game spammers - this thread is really just intended for people abusing the forum's PM system.

ZOS_AlanG

Hello everyone, we’ve brought the PM system back on-line, and taken additional precautions against PM spammers. We’re bumping this thread in case the problem returns, and there are new spammers to report.

Additionally, we have also switched off email notifications for PMs for all accounts. We hope to bring this back as an option shortly, that everyone can choose to enable.

GossiTheDog

Recipients are limited to 1 and email notification is off. Pretty smart - I doubt the spammers will bother if email notification is off as most people won't see the messages now.

GossiTheDog

@ZOS_AlanG, this hasn't been done correctly. Somebody just sent me a PM, it emailed me.

AryaWythers

This has got to be one of the biggest jokes in MMO history....did incompetent ZoS employees invite more GOLD SELLERS to target their customers in the forums? Never have I seen an MMO that lets Gold Sellers target the Forums before....Gratz not only have you ruined the PvP aspect of your game but have given the Bots and Gold Sellers so much power.

GossiTheDog

They didn't manually invite gold settings, when you sign up to the game you get an automatic email invite for the forum.

AryaWythers

Oh got it now...but still never seen so many Gold-Sellers in any other game. Just makes my a little uneasy about the security of my personal info, when I see them in the forums and blasting me with mail in-game also.

GossiTheDog

AryaWythers wrote: »

Oh got it now...but still never seen so many Gold-Sellers in any other game. Just makes my a little uneasy about the security of my personal info, when I see them in the forums and blasting me with mail in-game also.

The account system is separate the payment processor system (3rd party), which is separate to the game system (just username/password synced), which is separate to the forum system (3rd party).

I have issues with how Zenimax is handling things (newbie company, understandable) but security is not one of them. They hire some top talent in security.

ZOS_AlanG

GossiTheDog wrote: »

@ZOS_AlanG, this hasn't been done correctly. Somebody just sent me a PM, it emailed me.

We are currently investigating email notifications still coming through for PMs. If anyone else is still receiving these, please let us know in this thread.

ZOS_AlanG

The option to receive email notifications for PMs has been brought back, but it should be turned off by default for all accounts. If you wish to receive these notifications, you can re-enable them by going here and selecting “Notification Preferences” on the left menu bar.

JoeCapricorn

I didn't receive a notification through e-mail of any PM but sure enough I did get a goldseller message on May 19 from "dehjdfkds". Contents of message were exactly the same as what other users reported.

ZOS_AlanG

We have pinned a thread in this section about the new PM restrictions. We have refrained from detailing these, as we don't want spammers to know what is necessary to bypass them.

Zabus

dhfjdhfjs sent you a message

GreySix

ZOS_AlanG wrote: »

Hi @dianamorawskib14_ESO‌, when reading an in-game mail, there should be an option listed at the bottom of the screen to "report player." Click this, and you'll be brought to the in-game report system, with the sender listed as the one you are reporting. This is the best way to alert us to in-game spammers - this thread is really just intended for people abusing the forum's PM system.

I've done that with every spammer whose emailed me.

Elki_Wilderglas

I recieved gold spam from this profile
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/profile/4845296/rtyfgbhfgh

Posted my suggestion on the pinned thread