PSA: Scammers Stalking Guild Stores, I lost 400k.

Lavennin

Of course, blame the victim for being careless. That's how justice works.

Zotami

Judas Helviaryn wrote: »

This is a very old scamming technique used in many games with trade windows like ours. I'm glad you put a PSA out for this, because while a good portion of the playerbase is wary of this activity, I'm starting to realize more and more newer players are ignorant to these techniques.

That being said, I'm one of those people who will contact a guild store merchant if I have a counter offer, and I prefer to do trades in person as well, to avoid mail issues as a seller.

If someone's acting edgy, or trying to rush you, or constantly ending the trade before it finalizes, chances are good that they're trying to manipulate you.

Used as far back as D2 LoD days. They did the same thing back then.

Oldar

First of all I wanted to thank the OP for the heads up!

I am truly sorry for him, as he lost an expensive item in his good will to help the buyer not to pay extra tax. On the other hand, the extra payment is what makes the trades more safe through the Traders.

What will make this grey area go away though is another simple to implement method from the Devs:
Let's say the player A wants to sell the item and the player B wants to buy it
Step 1: Trading Window appears.
Step 2: The selling item appears in the Window without gold from the buyer.
Step 3: From now on, no matter who presses the confirm button a window appears on their both screen with a message:
Player A: "You are about to sell the @name_of_item item for X gold. Are you sure you want to continue?" Press Yes/No.
Player B: "You are about to buy the @name_of_item item for X gold. Are you sure you want to continue?" Press Yes/No.
Step 4:
- They both press Yes ==> Trade completed
- They both press No ==> Trade canceled
- One of them press No ==> Trade canceled

When a trade is canceled, they both look the previous trading window between the 2 of them.

The same thing happens when we are selling blue stolen Treasure Items to Fences. I do not see any good reason not to have it in the trades between players for a more secure way...

Fischblut

Never trust people who insist on trading in person.

If I'm not trading in guild store, I always trade in person - never used c.o.d. system. I like to see new characters, and sometimes it turns out interesting... One meeting was funny when both me and buyer happened to wear Xivkyn polymorph, serious Xivkyn trading! Other meeting was right at Craglorn guild traders hub, atmosphere was awesome from roleplaying perspective Other meeting was hilariously confusing, when both me and buyer were traveling to each other at same time and arrived to wrong wayshrine each time... Another time person bought Scarecrow mask and equipped it just after - I wanted to compliment him and say how good he looks now, but the mask is so ugly that I remained silent
I never had situation when somebody refused to meet for trading.

Sad that it happened, just wait carefully before accepting

SpearDusk

Hope these scammers get punished Tell us how it goes

AzraelKrieg

Lavennin wrote: »

Of course, blame the victim for being careless. That's how justice works.

Not really blaming the victim, more like giving advice so that it doesn't happen again. Some people do blindly click though to hurry along the process since they want to do other stuff

DRXHarbinger

Doesn't help but you should see this coming a mile off in the long run. I had some gimp try this with me. After some effort I managed to get them to front 200k for a weapon and I closed my item off and ran away with their gold. Sure taught them a lesson. They chased after me for a while I said join me in XBL chat and we'll talk about his behaviour and maybe he'll get the item back. Never accepted the invite.

Jciampi

Anything over 10k in value I only sell in guild store or over COD. I've been scammed like this once when I first got the game. Never again. Only trade in person low cost items or to guild mates

xb1LL_mr_sir_LL

ZOS encourages this behavior by not doing anything about it. how many people do you have to scam to get banned? should be 1.

CaptainBeerDude

Scamming is part of the game. It is built in to how trading works. It sucks to have it happen to you though.

I could go for some sort of hyper aggressive bounty of you are accused and found guilty though.
Give them a high bounty (1/2 mill +) and only reduce it via deaths to a player or a guard. Have them show as hostile to all players not sharing a guild or friend status. Have it drop in steps of 10-100k, given to the subduing agent. Block them from standard traders, merchants and bankers to stop them from visiting towns and apply it across their whole account.
It won't stop everyone, but at least all of the non ***** persons could take out frustration on them.

Edit:
Removed something that got by the censor...

notimetocare

LordSkyKnight wrote: »

Invincible wrote: »

It's not a scam if you hit submit

Yea it is. Stop being dense. He obtained the item through trickery, it was a scam.

Maybe pay attention, no

gelibolub

dont blame the victim here. both agreed on the item and the price. this is obviously a fraud and similars happens in real life. i am not sure if zos can investigate this if they can, they should. and punish the scammer

Cpt_Teemo

altemriel wrote: »

Alanar wrote: »

Here's a warning to the ESO community about a current in-game scam.

I was contacted on two successive days by a player who wanted to buy a high-value item (Attunable Blacksmithing Station) but wanted to trade in person to save the guild store fees. I had one on hand, so I agreed. They then grouped with me, met up, I placed the item in the trade window, they put in the gold, and then I submitted and they canceled. This repeated twice (I thought the trade system was glitching as it has in the past) and then I submitted before they put in the gold and they ran off with the item. They then immediately ignored me so I couldn't whisper them and haven't been heard from since.

I know this sort of cheating has gone on in the past, however this player showed a higher degree of sophistication than most. They specifically targeted me because I had a high-value item listed on a top guild trader (ETU on PC / NA), and they messages me on two consecutive days. If they did this once to me, I can only expect that they will continue to do this to others until their crimes catch up with them. For now, I would recommend never trading with strangers directly, and instead using guild stores for sales to avoid scams.

For ZOS, I have reported this player using the in game system, I hope you address this promptly. In either case, I'll report the results of my support experience here as well.

wait, why you submit offer until they place the gold into it too on their side?

They do offer the gold, but they play sleigh of hand game whoevers quicker to accept loses most likely.

Voxicity

lol what's so new about this 'scam'? People used to do this all the time in every MMO in the 2000's. Happened to me once because I was careless and didn't double check. Never happened to me again after that day.

It's a terrible thing to happen and I'm sorry for that but this happens all the time everywhere

Elrond87

i get some, randomly doing COD on me for a few thousand gold for like 1 soulgem or something

Molec wrote: »

Toxic community

try playing counter strike, now that is a toxic place ha

bennysbeastb16_ESO2

xb1LL_mr_sir_LL wrote: »

ZOS encourages this behavior by not doing anything about it. how many people do you have to scam to get banned? should be 1.

in due respect, the control procedures are in place to avoid mistakes, if human errors occurs (well then... hard luck), it amazes me why people are so stingy in losing a few k's to guild taxs and not getting skanked in the process.

Cpt_Teemo

Voxicity wrote: »

lol what's so new about this 'scam'? People used to do this all the time in every MMO in the 2000's. Happened to me once because I was careless and didn't double check. Never happened to me again after that day.

It's a terrible thing to happen and I'm sorry for that but this happens all the time everywhere

Gw1 is where this all started for me

Voxicity

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

Voxicity wrote: »

lol what's so new about this 'scam'? People used to do this all the time in every MMO in the 2000's. Happened to me once because I was careless and didn't double check. Never happened to me again after that day.

It's a terrible thing to happen and I'm sorry for that but this happens all the time everywhere

Gw1 is where this all started for me

Some random korean mmo called Shaiya for me. Saved up for like a year to buy a stupid little reindeer hat and got it scammed off me. Cried like a baby for days

Rowjoh

I have done some research and this is technically an online scam.

The perpetrator was using a pre-meditated strategy designed to lull victims into a false sense of security to fool them into making this specific error. The fact that there are accomplices and multiple victims and that the item wasn't returned or subsequently paid for proves this.

The thief and accomplices may already have had their accounts terminated - if this had happened in the real world then they would have committed a crime and the ESO 'Code of Conduct' references this:

1.2 The laws that apply in the offline world must be obeyed online as well. We have zero tolerance for illegal behavior on ZeniMax and its affiliates' websites, forums or game environments. We terminate use of the Service and cooperate with law enforcement on such matters.

kylewwefan

Could have COD to ensure you get the gold. Or used the guild store to support your guild......But we got a little greedy and decided to take things into our own hands and cut off all the safety measures and "middle men"

Honestly sorry it happened to you, and it does suck. I've been scammed before crafting for players. There's not much can be done really. Some lowlifes get their kicks off of scamming people as that's how they like to play.

Hard lessons learned are better learned early....not with such high ticket items.

wenchmore420b14_ESO

Yes this is scamming plain and simple and is just wrong.
I was contacted by a GM of a sister guild of ours a while back. I don't know if this is what happened with the OP, but they told me about a new "Add-On" that allows a player to instantly remove gold at the time of hitting "submit" in person to person trades.
(Perhaps @Lady_Rosabella will comment on it here?)
I never do trade this way any more. I use only guild stores or COD mail.
And, NO! A central auction house will not stop this behavior.
May the Ban Hammer find these scammers and hit them with Perma-Ban!!!
Huzzah!

MornaBaine

For people who want to trade directly rather than using a guild store there's the COD option in the mail system. If being asked for an item from a stranger, insist on using this method rather than the trading system. It really sucks that there are so many dishonest people in the world but all that you can do is safeguard yourself to the best of your ability.

Cpt_Teemo

MornaBaine wrote: »

For people who want to trade directly rather than using a guild store there's the COD option in the mail system. If being asked for an item from a stranger, insist on using this method rather than the trading system. It really sucks that there are so many dishonest people in the world but all that you can do is safeguard yourself to the best of your ability.

Even CoD is not 100% legit either, they could sit on the item for the 3 days before its mailed back, its not as bad as completely losing it but still sucks, also you lose out on the CoD fee as well if it was a high ticket item that could cost quite a bit

Desmes

I don't see it as a scam. Everything was made in law of game. You made offer, they accepted. Only problem is, you made good offer to them and bad offer for yourself. At most you can complain about how poor is Zenimax trade design. It should atleast paint something red or prompt confirm window that you are going to give away item free that has high value or if price was changed by user.

If I would get my account terminated, because someone gave me a free item....well I would do nothing, because I don't want to waste my time on something so small... but if I like had free resources, i would turn this into bile of sh#t for Zenimax, because as I see they took away something I bought and I didn't do anything that goes against game rules. If someone wants to give me free items, I have no obligations to trade it back.

reesenorman

Pay attention to what you are doing and don't let yourself get rekt. Scammers focus those who have no sense of security.

Skjoldur

Invincible wrote: »

It's not a scam if you hit submit

Since it is his intent to trick someone into it, I think it can safely be called a scam. -- When the Microsoft technician from india calls to help you with the removal of a virus on your computer... wether you let him or not, it's still a scam. ;-)

peniku8

What did we learn? Only sell stuff in guildstores :P

SquareSausage

Really sorry for you OP.

And all the victim blaming, wow. OP was blatantly tricked in a targeted scheme, doesn't matter if he/she made a mistake, there is someone/people out there deliberately, and despicably scamming unprepared people.

If that happened to myself I would have saved video clip (ps4) as proof of the scam to show to customer care (although i don't know what action would be taken).

Cpt_Teemo

As much as I would like to know scammer names and others but they do have a naming and shaming rule which I don't really get, if you do the crime you should do the time.

skywarnmc27

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

Had one of my friends/guildmates contacted by someone in game saying they wanted to buy the item they had listed in a guild store at a higher price than was listed but didn't want the 10% to go to the guild. That immediately raised a red flag. If someone offers to buy and item from you that you have listed in the store at a higher price than you listed it, either turn them down or send it to them via in-game mail with COD. Easiest way to not get scammed. They can't claim the item from the mail unless they send the gold.

10% does not even go to the guild 3.5% does if I am not mistaken. ZOS takes the rest.