3 year old account but not allowed to gift crowns

Amottica · December 2024

Arunei wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

ZOS_Lunar wrote: »

Hello @BioBitter100 !

Eligibility is determined by an evolving list of factors including but not limited to the account being at least 180 days past its first login and previous engagement with in-game features. We have not published the full criteria list as that just gives bad actors guidelines to look like real players. You are always welcome to reply to your ticket if you have further questions.

@ZOS_Lunar
With all due respect, like I told Kevin before...this is a VERY poor reason for not telling people the requirements.

If you guys have such an extensive list of things you look for to prevent bad actors, then how will people knowing them let them get around those? These requirements CAN'T all be faked, even if some CAN. And if people need to meet ALL the requirements, then what does it matter of the ones that can be faked are? Things like needing an account to be 180 days old, things like needing to spend so much money, things like needing to interact with in-game mechanics for so many months, things like needing ESO+ active for so many months...these sorts of things CANNOT be faked.

So if you have a handful of requirements that likely don't change and can't be faked, what does it matter if people know about the ones that do and can? What good does knowing they could stage being in a guild for so many weeks (such as by using a number of alts to create a fake guild) if they'd still need to spend six months actively logging in on top of other things they'd need to spend time or money to achieve?

You guys really really really ought to be publishing a list of these requirements. Bad actors aren't going to be able to get around them all and in the meantime you STILL have these legit players, after months and months and months, who are struggling to get valid accounts set up for gifting but getting nowhere because they have no idea what requirement(s) they don't meet to know how to fix it.

It is common in the gaming industry to not tell gamers details of everything they do to prevent hacking. So, the industry considers this a very solid reason for not giving players all the information. The bad actors are good at finding a workaround, so telling them what you are doing to prevent them is helping them speed up the process of finding a new workaround. Not a very logical move.

In this case, it just affects us a little differently. However, just because someone like the OP cannot gift doesn't mean it is due to unpublished changes. We have seen people whose accounts just needed a little help so they could gift.

Except for the fact that if the requirements are REQUIRED, you can't "work around" them. How is a hacker going to make their account look like they're account has been active for 180 days AND like they've purchased so many Crowns AND like they've had Plus for so many months AND engaged in certain in-game mechanics like having completed X number of quests (let's say 100) ON TOP of other numerous things?

If someone is able to hack to that extent something tells me they might not need to know the list of requirements either way.

And we have people who have appealed their accounts being unable to gift even after struggling with CS, because no one will tell them which requirements they aren't meeting. How is anyone supposed to figure out what metric they haven't hit when they don't know what metrics exist to begin with outside of the few we do know and they've checked those particular boxes?

It just strikes me as a poor reason for not telling people what the list is, when it seems INCREDIBLY unlikely that people would be able to somehow get around every single requirement via hacking. ZOS can see on their end things like account age, purchase history, in-game history, and so on. Access to information that can't exactly be altered by someone looking to get around the requirements so they can sell illegally obtained Crowns or whatever they plan to do with an account that shouldn't actually have gifting enabled.

Edit to add it is possible that someone with a stolen credit card could make the necessary purchases to pass those requirements, but even then I don't think there's any way for someone to get around the 180+ days of activity thing. Unless the person with stolen info also has somehow managed to steal the account info of an account over that requirement. I mean I guess someone could send out phising emails to try and get login info that way, but like...idk, does ZOS expect this would happen anywhere near regularly?

Especially since I would assume they probably have some of suspicious activity alert thingy to prevent accounts that meet the 180 days requirement but maybe have been inactive after that for a long time suddenly becoming active again and dropping large amounts of cash out of nowhere, along with other things.

Idk man, I'm not above admitting I might not have considered certain factors until just now, but it still seems extremely excessive to hide a number of requirements. I mean at the very least tell an account that's never had suspicious activity before and meets like 99% of said requirements what the 1% they're missing is.

We can presume much about the hacking community and the gold sellers, but assuming they are not good at their work is a mistake. Fortunately, an error that ESO is not making a second time as the impact of the last time they underestimated the hackers was pretty significant to us.

Also, we, those of us in this thread, do not know how they do their work, so guessing about it is futile.

Desiato · December 2024

I feel ZOS wants to enable actual gifting between players who know each other, but not necessarily gold selling among legitimate players who don't know each other.

A reason is it motivates otherwise honest players to engage in activities that are against the rules and costs ZOS a lot of money in customer service costs to police.

katanagirl1 · December 2024

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I thought the restrictions were supposed to be temporary while some method was being worked out. It doesn’t seem like any progress is being made on that front.

Actually, I thought the temporary solution that they'd implemented was to shut down all Crown Store gifting, and it was a little while afterward that they implemented the current method as a permanent solution.

But I've only rarely gifted anything to other players from the Crown Store, so I'd be the first to admit that I wasn't exactly paying close attention when all of that was going on.

In any case, I don't expect to see Crown Store gifting made any "easier" as long as there are gold sellers in the game.

Maybe I misunderstood and that is the case. It would explain the silence from official sources whenever I ask about it.

katanagirl1 · December 2024

Desiato wrote: »

I feel ZOS wants to enable actual gifting between players who know each other, but not necessarily gold selling among legitimate players who don't know each other.

A reason is it motivates otherwise honest players to engage in activities that are against the rules and cost ZOS a lot of money in customer service costs to police.

I don’t know about that. It took a lot of time, I think 3 months, and some help from one of the guys here on the forums to enable crown gifting from my hubby to me. Both of our subs are even on the same credit card.

There are too many flaming hoops for players like us to be able to gift as it is right now.

Ishtarknows · December 2024

For what it's worth, my account cannot gift and I've played for 6.5 years, ESO+ for over 6 years, log in daily (apart from holidays), have 65k achievement points, in 5 guilds yada yada. I'm not good enough? That's fine, I'm not too bothered anyway

And yet... I've been reading of players being permanently banned for buying crowns with gold, from players that zos vetted with their own secret requirements and found valid enough to sell to them.

Let's just think about that for a second. That seems incredibly unfair and (just like the AI banning due to comments in private chat channels is killing chat) is discouraging people from buying crowns. There are no winners that I can see here.

SeaGtGruff · December 2024

z32 wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Sleepsin wrote: »

Ever time I play I see a gold seller spamming what they sell, including "gifting" crown items. What ever ZOS is doing, it didn't work.

They probably purchased an account that has gifting enabled. There's nothing zos can do about that except ban them as they come up.

ZOS could have created chat channel just for this so it would not bother players who are not interested. Simple as that. Or follow other MMOs and create official crown-gold exchange UI.

I'm inclined to think that an official Crown-to-gold exchange might be a bad idea.

To be clear, I like ways to earn things for free in a game, and will choose that option over spending money whenever possible.

Case in point, I never spent a single cent in TES:Legends, because I just bought the stories, puzzles, and selected card packs with in-game gold-- and I got most of that in-game gold as free daily login rewards, without even having to earn it by playing matches or completing daily activities in the game.

In the case of ESO, I buy houses with gold if that's an option, rather than buying them with Crowns. (But I do buy Crowns-only houses, although at present I do that only on the primary server that I play on.) I also buy Crown Gem items-- non-combat pets and mounts-- with Crown Gems I got for converting unwanted Crown Crate items from free Crown Crates (and, very rarely, from Crown Crates that I bought as a special bundle), as well as with Seals of Endeavor.

I think that being able to play Legends for free, and acquire most of its content for free with in-game gold that I didn't even need to earn by actively playing the game, undoubtedly hurt Bethesda and the game studio(s) who were developing Legends. Personally, I thought the card packs and other purchaseable content were priced too high, but there's a chance I might have been persuaded to spend money on them (a) if I had needed to purchase the game in order to play it, since that would have given me some incentive to spend more time trying to get the hang of it, and my difficulties with grasping many of the game's nuances are what kept me from wanting to spend much time playing it; and (b) if the purchaseable content had been priced more reasonably and could not be obtained for free. As far as (a), it's sort of a circular reasoning, but my failures to grasp the game well enough to complete most of the puzzles or daily challenges kept me from wanting to play the game much, which of course made me disinclined to spend money on its purchaseable content, but if I'd had to buy the core game up front then I'd probably have been more inclined to want to figure it out-- although, conversely, I'd also have been disinclined to ever try the game at all, since I've never spent any time or money on collectible card games and have no great interest, hence I would probably have just ignored the game entirely (as I do with similar games when I see them in the GOG, Steam, or Epic stores) rather than having given it a try. And as for (b)-- assuming I'd actually purchased the game and therefore had some incentive to invest a bit of time on learning it-- I suspect that most players are going to obtain purchaseable content for free if that's an option, unless the price is reasonably low enough and it's much quicker or more convenient to purchase any desirable content with cash rather than having to grind for some sort of in-game currency that can be used to "buy" it.

Getting back to ESO, I think there are far too many players who have far too much gold in the game for it to ever be a good idea for ZOS to let players easily buy just about anything in the Crown Store with in-game gold. If players could "buy" Crowns with in-game gold, they would never buy Crowns with actual money, which would cut into ZOS's revenue from ESO. I think it would only be a reasonable idea to implement some sort of gold-to-Crowns exchange method (a) if ESO were pulling in so much monthly revenue that the Crown Store wasn't even needed as a revenue source; (b) if gold were not so quick and easy to obtain in large amounts, such that most if not all players would never need to spend any money at all in the Crown Store; (c) if there were not gold-sellers profiting illegally by letting players purchase large amounts of gold outside of the game; or (d) if ESO were essentially in "maintenance mode" and ZOS could continue to keep it up and running without needing to spend any money on development costs for new content.

Just my 2 cents.

katanagirl1 wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I thought the restrictions were supposed to be temporary while some method was being worked out. It doesn’t seem like any progress is being made on that front.

Actually, I thought the temporary solution that they'd implemented was to shut down all Crown Store gifting, and it was a little while afterward that they implemented the current method as a permanent solution.

But I've only rarely gifted anything to other players from the Crown Store, so I'd be the first to admit that I wasn't exactly paying close attention when all of that was going on.

In any case, I don't expect to see Crown Store gifting made any "easier" as long as there are gold sellers in the game.

Maybe I misunderstood and that is the case. It would explain the silence from official sources whenever I ask about it.

Well, I don't know that you misunderstood anything; I might be the one who misunderstood it. Like I said, I don't really pay close attention to any news or developments related to gifting items from the Crown Store, since that's something I've only rarely done in the past.

Ishtarknows · December 2024

I don't think there needs to be a preset ratio for gold:crowns - each of the 6 servers has a different going rate after all, and in times where supply is outstripped by demand sellers should be able to raise prices or, if they want a fast sale, undercut the market.

But an official way to lock in your intent of "these X millions of gold are for crown gift of xyz from ABC player" with a guarantee that you'd get the gift or a refund is very much needed.

Veinblood1965 · December 2024

No different than in real life. Fraudsters and cons cause all sorts of rules and paperwork requirements and investigations along with higher costs to everything. Sucks but it's the same in this case, gold selling websites, bots and people trying to find a way to be dishonest. Costs us all, it does suck.

AzuraFan · December 2024

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

No different than in real life. Fraudsters and cons cause all sorts of rules and paperwork requirements and investigations along with higher costs to everything. Sucks but it's the same in this case, gold selling websites, bots and people trying to find a way to be dishonest. Costs us all, it does suck.

Yeah, except in real life, you know what the rules and paperwork are. You simply look up what you have to do or ask someone at the business or whatever. But to get permission to gift crowns is something like this:

You go up to the service counter. "Hi, I'd like to gift crowns."

Gatekeeper: "Sure, just fill out the right combination of forms."

You: "Okay, which forms?"

Gatekeeper points to a rack containing 300 different types of forms. "Those."

You: "But which ones?"

Gatekeeper: "Sorry, can't tell you. If I do, people could game the system."

You spend hours filling out 100 of the 300 forms and hand them in.

Gatekeeper: "Sorry, you didn't fill out the right ones. But if you call our support line, we might let you gift crowns."

You call the support line.

Support line: "Sorry, you don't qualify. You need to fill out the right combination of forms."

You: "I know that, but which ones? I already filled out 100. Can you please help me. I'm a loyal customer here. I've spent a lot of money on your game, and I'm a subscriber. Please."

Support line: "Let me just bring up your account here." A minute later. "Nope, sorry, you don't qualify."

You: "Tell me what I need to do and I'll do it."

Support line: "Sorry, can't help you." *click*

So no, it's not like in real life.

BioBitter100 · December 2024

Ishtarknows wrote: »

I don't think there needs to be a preset ratio for gold:crowns - each of the 6 servers has a different going rate after all, and in times where supply is outstripped by demand sellers should be able to raise prices or, if they want a fast sale, undercut the market.

But an official way to lock in your intent of "these X millions of gold are for crown gift of xyz from ABC player" with a guarantee that you'd get the gift or a refund is very much needed.

I totally agree that there should be a secure way to trade crowns. As far as I know it´s not in the game because of certain laws regarding regulations that would apply if they would officially integrate it but am not an expert on that^^.

Amottica · December 2024

BioBitter100 wrote: »

Ishtarknows wrote: »

I don't think there needs to be a preset ratio for gold:crowns - each of the 6 servers has a different going rate after all, and in times where supply is outstripped by demand sellers should be able to raise prices or, if they want a fast sale, undercut the market.

But an official way to lock in your intent of "these X millions of gold are for crown gift of xyz from ABC player" with a guarantee that you'd get the gift or a refund is very much needed.

I totally agree that there should be a secure way to trade crowns. As far as I know it´s not in the game because of certain laws regarding regulations that would apply if they would officially integrate it but am not an expert on that^^.

I have said this for a long time. There are good examples out there, like GW2.

BioBitter100 · December 2024

Amottica wrote: »

BioBitter100 wrote: »

Ishtarknows wrote: »

I don't think there needs to be a preset ratio for gold:crowns - each of the 6 servers has a different going rate after all, and in times where supply is outstripped by demand sellers should be able to raise prices or, if they want a fast sale, undercut the market.

But an official way to lock in your intent of "these X millions of gold are for crown gift of xyz from ABC player" with a guarantee that you'd get the gift or a refund is very much needed.

I totally agree that there should be a secure way to trade crowns. As far as I know it´s not in the game because of certain laws regarding regulations that would apply if they would officially integrate it but am not an expert on that^^.

I have said this for a long time. There are good examples out there, like GW2.

Or Warframe, also has a very nice trading system for premium currency.

z32 · December 2024

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I'm inclined to think that an official Crown-to-gold exchange might be a bad idea.

I think you misunderstood the idea: I was not talking about allowing players to buy items from crown store for gold. I was talking about having no restriction on gift to gold exchange between players and having UI to do it in a safe way. Even if you get crown item as a gift from trader for “free” gold, the trader will have to buy crowns from ESO for real money to get this gift, so ESO will have guaranteed profit. On the other hand, every such single exchange that did not happen because ESO shut down a trader means ESO is not going to get real money for this amount of crowns. On top of that, policing players to shut down trade cost ZOS real money.
Other MMOs running same “free to play” business model understand that such exchange is the main profit generator for this model. Simply put, players with money have to cover cost for players with no money and generate profit. That’s why they encourage such trade and even make it in-game feature, so most extra profit goes to the MMO, not 3rd party traders.
In case of ZOS, hunting down traders and disabling gifting for legitimate players due to mystical rules means destroying the core source of ZOS profit. Buying crowns for players other than themselves is that how players with money cover cost for players without money.
I wonder how long ZOS can keep damaging their own profit before shutting down game due to low or no profit.

Kessra · December 2024

Can't reproduce the issue here. I was perfectly fine to gift a house from my 2nd account with over 30k crowns to my main account without any issues

Ingenon · December 2024

If I were ZOS, I would want to get the cash for the crowns before I would let anyone "gift" them. Which I looked up, and it looks like in the USA, the credit card holder gets 60 days to report a fraudulent transaction. So, 61+ days after the player buys the crowns, I would allow the players to "gift" those crowns to another player, using a game provided trading feature. Because at 61+ days, the cash for selling the crowns cannot be taken back (at least in the USA). And I would not have any other requirements. But I am not ZOS, and they have different requirements.

Amottica · January 1

Ingenon wrote: »

If I were ZOS, I would want to get the cash for the crowns before I would let anyone "gift" them. Which I looked up, and it looks like in the USA, the credit card holder gets 60 days to report a fraudulent transaction. So, 61+ days after the player buys the crowns, I would allow the players to "gift" those crowns to another player, using a game provided trading feature. Because at 61+ days, the cash for selling the crowns cannot be taken back (at least in the USA). And I would not have any other requirements. But I am not ZOS, and they have different requirements.

If the player does a chargeback, their accounts get banned. Also, these actions Zenimax has been taking is about tackling bad actors: hackers and such.

Kappachi · January 1

Desiato wrote: »

I feel ZOS wants to enable actual gifting between players who know each other, but not necessarily gold selling among legitimate players who don't know each other.

A reason is it motivates otherwise honest players to engage in activities that are against the rules and costs ZOS a lot of money in customer service costs to police.

I doubt that's the case, for my verification support ticket I explicitly stated that I wanted to trade with other players in zone chat for crowns iirc. If I met the requirements playing spottily on/off since like summerset (but having acc since beta) then i'm sure it's something most people can reach by just playing normally. Maybe one of those requirements is having never had your account actioned on from a report as I have a squeaky clean record.

Amottica wrote: »

BioBitter100 wrote: »

Ishtarknows wrote: »

I don't think there needs to be a preset ratio for gold:crowns - each of the 6 servers has a different going rate after all, and in times where supply is outstripped by demand sellers should be able to raise prices or, if they want a fast sale, undercut the market.

But an official way to lock in your intent of "these X millions of gold are for crown gift of xyz from ABC player" with a guarantee that you'd get the gift or a refund is very much needed.

I totally agree that there should be a secure way to trade crowns. As far as I know it´s not in the game because of certain laws regarding regulations that would apply if they would officially integrate it but am not an expert on that^^.

I have said this for a long time. There are good examples out there, like GW2.

GW2 is a good example... But not for this game I feel. I wouldn't want a centralized crown exchange because that's part of the socialization aspect of this game and part of what keeps it feeling old school, whether it's people asking for crafts or trying to make some quick gold in zone chat from selling items/crowns. But I do believe crowns should be able to be put into trade interface to reduce scamming or maybe some kind of advanced COD system where you gift the item to the player in return for gold and there's the cod fee and what not like what we have for regular mail... Infact adding another gold sink to the game would probably be good so I'd be in favor of something like this specifically.

Dragonclaw1337 · January 1

My ESO account was created on June 11, 2014 — 2 months after the PC/NA launch, over 10 years ago — and, to this date, I still cannot gift crowns.
My most recent request was on 10/22/2024, over 2 months ago, and I still received the same auto-denial response from ESO Support. (Ticket Reference: #241022-002273.)
I created that ticket on 10/22, and their auto-denial was on 10/31, literally on Halloween; so, all of those seasonal cosmetics were missed out on. Again. (So, maybe next year! /s)
I do not know why ZOS continues to refuse to accept my money. But, I suppose they won't ever receive any due to their current suppressive business tactics and oppressive policies.
My account has always been in good standing over the years — no financial billing issues and no ingame suspensions or bans at all.
I play regularly, having claimed almost all daily login rewards almost every month. I engage in all ingame content, except for trials, since I am more of a PvP'er than PvE'er, in general.
And, over the years, I have introduced and recruited many online friends as well as a few real life friends into playing ESO — and their accounts are much newer and already have the ability to gift crowns, yet I still somehow cannot.
In fact, some of them have recently gifted me ingame goods, which is ironic, considering I brought them here in the first place.
Overall, now, I am not mad; I am just disappointed. And, well, I guess all I can do now is just laugh. And keep on waiting. Lol.

Ingenon · January 1

Amottica wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

If I were ZOS, I would want to get the cash for the crowns before I would let anyone "gift" them. Which I looked up, and it looks like in the USA, the credit card holder gets 60 days to report a fraudulent transaction. So, 61+ days after the player buys the crowns, I would allow the players to "gift" those crowns to another player, using a game provided trading feature. Because at 61+ days, the cash for selling the crowns cannot be taken back (at least in the USA). And I would not have any other requirements. But I am not ZOS, and they have different requirements.

If the player does a chargeback, their accounts get banned. Also, these actions Zenimax has been taking is about tackling bad actors: hackers and such.

If I were ZOS, I would not want bad actors using stolen credit cards to buy crowns, converting them to cash, and disappearing with that cash. And then the credit card owner reports the fraudulent purchases within 60 days, and the cash from the crown purchase gets pulled back from ZOS.

So, I am not following you when you say the account gets banned. The bad actor doesn't care, they already got their cash and disappeared.

Amottica · January 2

Ingenon wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

If I were ZOS, I would want to get the cash for the crowns before I would let anyone "gift" them. Which I looked up, and it looks like in the USA, the credit card holder gets 60 days to report a fraudulent transaction. So, 61+ days after the player buys the crowns, I would allow the players to "gift" those crowns to another player, using a game provided trading feature. Because at 61+ days, the cash for selling the crowns cannot be taken back (at least in the USA). And I would not have any other requirements. But I am not ZOS, and they have different requirements.

If the player does a chargeback, their accounts get banned. Also, these actions Zenimax has been taking is about tackling bad actors: hackers and such.

If I were ZOS, I would not want bad actors using stolen credit cards to buy crowns, converting them to cash, and disappearing with that cash. And then the credit card owner reports the fraudulent purchases within 60 days, and the cash from the crown purchase gets pulled back from ZOS.

So, I am not following you when you say the account gets banned. The bad actor doesn't care, they already got their cash and disappeared.

I fail to understand where this stolen credit card thing came from.

I will spell out what a chargeback is. A player who has been playing ESO for years using the same credit/debit card that entire time chooses to have a charge reversed, commonly called a chargeback, for a reason they think is ok (that is a different story we can hopefully avoid).

Zenimax sees this chargeback and bans the account, forcing the player to start a conversation with them or move on. When a player sees a charge related to ESO that they do not think is correct or the purchase may not have gone through, they are to open a dialogue with ESO instead of taking the hostile route of a chargeback. People like Keven often help out when they come to the forums asking for such help.

If stolen credit cards were an issue, I expect they would take action to prevent their use, but that is not what the bad actors and hackers were doing, which brought about the controls this thread is discussing.

TaSheen · January 2

Amottica wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

If I were ZOS, I would want to get the cash for the crowns before I would let anyone "gift" them. Which I looked up, and it looks like in the USA, the credit card holder gets 60 days to report a fraudulent transaction. So, 61+ days after the player buys the crowns, I would allow the players to "gift" those crowns to another player, using a game provided trading feature. Because at 61+ days, the cash for selling the crowns cannot be taken back (at least in the USA). And I would not have any other requirements. But I am not ZOS, and they have different requirements.

If the player does a chargeback, their accounts get banned. Also, these actions Zenimax has been taking is about tackling bad actors: hackers and such.

If I were ZOS, I would not want bad actors using stolen credit cards to buy crowns, converting them to cash, and disappearing with that cash. And then the credit card owner reports the fraudulent purchases within 60 days, and the cash from the crown purchase gets pulled back from ZOS.

So, I am not following you when you say the account gets banned. The bad actor doesn't care, they already got their cash and disappeared.

I fail to understand where this stolen credit card thing came from.

I will spell out what a chargeback is. A player who has been playing ESO for years using the same credit/debit card that entire time chooses to have a charge reversed, commonly called a chargeback, for a reason they think is ok (that is a different story we can hopefully avoid).

Zenimax sees this chargeback and bans the account, forcing the player to start a conversation with them or move on. When a player sees a charge related to ESO that they do not think is correct or the purchase may not have gone through, they are to open a dialogue with ESO instead of taking the hostile route of a chargeback. People like Keven often help out when they come to the forums asking for such help.

If stolen credit cards were an issue, I expect they would take action to prevent their use, but that is not what the bad actors and hackers were doing, which brought about the controls this thread is discussing.

Many chargebacks happen BECAUSE a stolen card was used, and the card issuer (bank) instructed the card holder to submit a chargeback. Then of course the accounts system (in whichever game - ESO isn't the only one which has had the problem) flags the person whose card was used by a perp in whichever country and that card holder's account gets closed with extreme prejudice.

Any of us who've played MMOs for decades know how this sort of thing works....

virtus753 · January 2

TaSheen wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

If I were ZOS, I would want to get the cash for the crowns before I would let anyone "gift" them. Which I looked up, and it looks like in the USA, the credit card holder gets 60 days to report a fraudulent transaction. So, 61+ days after the player buys the crowns, I would allow the players to "gift" those crowns to another player, using a game provided trading feature. Because at 61+ days, the cash for selling the crowns cannot be taken back (at least in the USA). And I would not have any other requirements. But I am not ZOS, and they have different requirements.

If the player does a chargeback, their accounts get banned. Also, these actions Zenimax has been taking is about tackling bad actors: hackers and such.

If I were ZOS, I would not want bad actors using stolen credit cards to buy crowns, converting them to cash, and disappearing with that cash. And then the credit card owner reports the fraudulent purchases within 60 days, and the cash from the crown purchase gets pulled back from ZOS.

So, I am not following you when you say the account gets banned. The bad actor doesn't care, they already got their cash and disappeared.

I fail to understand where this stolen credit card thing came from.

I will spell out what a chargeback is. A player who has been playing ESO for years using the same credit/debit card that entire time chooses to have a charge reversed, commonly called a chargeback, for a reason they think is ok (that is a different story we can hopefully avoid).

Zenimax sees this chargeback and bans the account, forcing the player to start a conversation with them or move on. When a player sees a charge related to ESO that they do not think is correct or the purchase may not have gone through, they are to open a dialogue with ESO instead of taking the hostile route of a chargeback. People like Keven often help out when they come to the forums asking for such help.

If stolen credit cards were an issue, I expect they would take action to prevent their use, but that is not what the bad actors and hackers were doing, which brought about the controls this thread is discussing.

Many chargebacks happen BECAUSE a stolen card was used, and the card issuer (bank) instructed the card holder to submit a chargeback. Then of course the accounts system (in whichever game - ESO isn't the only one which has had the problem) flags the person whose card was used by a perp in whichever country and that card holder's account gets closed with extreme prejudice.

Any of us who've played MMOs for decades know how this sort of thing works....

And sometimes banks or other financial institutions even initiate the chargeback without properly informing or getting consent from the cardholder. PayPal once did that "for" me.

Amottica · January 2

TaSheen wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

If I were ZOS, I would want to get the cash for the crowns before I would let anyone "gift" them. Which I looked up, and it looks like in the USA, the credit card holder gets 60 days to report a fraudulent transaction. So, 61+ days after the player buys the crowns, I would allow the players to "gift" those crowns to another player, using a game provided trading feature. Because at 61+ days, the cash for selling the crowns cannot be taken back (at least in the USA). And I would not have any other requirements. But I am not ZOS, and they have different requirements.

If the player does a chargeback, their accounts get banned. Also, these actions Zenimax has been taking is about tackling bad actors: hackers and such.

If I were ZOS, I would not want bad actors using stolen credit cards to buy crowns, converting them to cash, and disappearing with that cash. And then the credit card owner reports the fraudulent purchases within 60 days, and the cash from the crown purchase gets pulled back from ZOS.

So, I am not following you when you say the account gets banned. The bad actor doesn't care, they already got their cash and disappeared.

I fail to understand where this stolen credit card thing came from.

I will spell out what a chargeback is. A player who has been playing ESO for years using the same credit/debit card that entire time chooses to have a charge reversed, commonly called a chargeback, for a reason they think is ok (that is a different story we can hopefully avoid).

Zenimax sees this chargeback and bans the account, forcing the player to start a conversation with them or move on. When a player sees a charge related to ESO that they do not think is correct or the purchase may not have gone through, they are to open a dialogue with ESO instead of taking the hostile route of a chargeback. People like Keven often help out when they come to the forums asking for such help.

If stolen credit cards were an issue, I expect they would take action to prevent their use, but that is not what the bad actors and hackers were doing, which brought about the controls this thread is discussing.

Many chargebacks happen BECAUSE a stolen card was used, and the card issuer (bank) instructed the card holder to submit a chargeback. Then of course the accounts system (in whichever game - ESO isn't the only one which has had the problem) flags the person whose card was used by a perp in whichever country and that card holder's account gets closed with extreme prejudice.

Any of us who've played MMOs for decades know how this sort of thing works....

I think the last paragraph of my quoted comment stated that if Zenimax does see an issue with stolen cards, they would likely take action to handle that as best as they can. To clarify, I did not suggest that Zenimax never experiences a stolen credit card. I do know for a fact that they go have actual real players do chargebacks that are not related to a stolen card and can prove that.

Granted, I am not an expert on how many stolen credit cards Zenimax deals with, and I defer to anyone who knows how frequently Zenimax deals with this and if it is a significant threshold.

So please do share that information.

Amottica · January 3

Amottica wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

If I were ZOS, I would want to get the cash for the crowns before I would let anyone "gift" them. Which I looked up, and it looks like in the USA, the credit card holder gets 60 days to report a fraudulent transaction. So, 61+ days after the player buys the crowns, I would allow the players to "gift" those crowns to another player, using a game provided trading feature. Because at 61+ days, the cash for selling the crowns cannot be taken back (at least in the USA). And I would not have any other requirements. But I am not ZOS, and they have different requirements.

If the player does a chargeback, their accounts get banned. Also, these actions Zenimax has been taking is about tackling bad actors: hackers and such.

If I were ZOS, I would not want bad actors using stolen credit cards to buy crowns, converting them to cash, and disappearing with that cash. And then the credit card owner reports the fraudulent purchases within 60 days, and the cash from the crown purchase gets pulled back from ZOS.

So, I am not following you when you say the account gets banned. The bad actor doesn't care, they already got their cash and disappeared.

I fail to understand where this stolen credit card thing came from.

I will spell out what a chargeback is. A player who has been playing ESO for years using the same credit/debit card that entire time chooses to have a charge reversed, commonly called a chargeback, for a reason they think is ok (that is a different story we can hopefully avoid).

Zenimax sees this chargeback and bans the account, forcing the player to start a conversation with them or move on. When a player sees a charge related to ESO that they do not think is correct or the purchase may not have gone through, they are to open a dialogue with ESO instead of taking the hostile route of a chargeback. People like Keven often help out when they come to the forums asking for such help.

If stolen credit cards were an issue, I expect they would take action to prevent their use, but that is not what the bad actors and hackers were doing, which brought about the controls this thread is discussing.

Many chargebacks happen BECAUSE a stolen card was used, and the card issuer (bank) instructed the card holder to submit a chargeback. Then of course the accounts system (in whichever game - ESO isn't the only one which has had the problem) flags the person whose card was used by a perp in whichever country and that card holder's account gets closed with extreme prejudice.

Any of us who've played MMOs for decades know how this sort of thing works....

I think the last paragraph of my quoted comment stated that if Zenimax does see an issue with stolen cards, they would likely take action to handle that as best as they can. To clarify, I did not suggest that Zenimax never experiences a stolen credit card. I do know for a fact that they go have actual real players do chargebacks that are not related to a stolen card and can prove that.

Granted, I am not an expert on how many stolen credit cards Zenimax deals with, and I defer to anyone who knows how frequently Zenimax deals with this and if it is a significant threshold.

So please do share that information.

Additionally, the account has to be at least 180 days past it's first login and interaction with game features. That is a big step Zenimax took against many actions, including crooks opening accounts and using stolen credit cards. With that, I expect Zenimax to take other steps to prevent using stolen cards, and they will not tell everyone all they do.

In other words, they seem to have a good handle on this.