Suspicious requests to join your guild... are you seeing them too?

dvonpm

Hey all. So this is new, at least to our guild. And I didn't see anything already posted, apologies if I missed it.

In the last few weeks we have been getting repeated and suspicious requests to join our trade guild mailed to the GM.

Why they are suspicious:

- The request wording is almost exactly the same each time. "Hi I would like to have invite for guild plz." Or something very similar.
- They come every few days and only to the GM
- The account name is always different despite the exact or near exact text.
- There is never any follow up or response (admittedly not tried that much)

They have not been given invites because of the spamminess, but I am wondering if others have seen this too.

They only solution I see is to send a follow up mail and if they don't respond or it is a canned response, don't invite. Or just ignore them altogether, but then you risk weeding out legit requests, especially asince the requests will become less canned spammy if they don't get invites.

Is this indeed new or has it been going on the whole time and our guild has just been lucky?

If you don't catch it and let them in your guild, how can we find them and get rid of them?

Siohwenoeht

I've had the opposite lately, random repeated guild invites but same kinda random names etc. Could be scammers or botters trying to offload product.

Ackwalan

Could be scammers looking for a guild with no guild bank rules. Every now and then, I'll see someone join for an hour or so then leave.

UrQuan

Ackwalan wrote: »

Could be scammers looking for a guild with no guild bank rules. Every now and then, I'll see someone join for an hour or so then leave.

You know, I always wondered why I sometimes see that happening... I never put 2 and 2 together to figure out that it's probably people looking for an unprotected guild bank to plunder.

Rygonix

A common mistake for rookie GM's is to have a GB where everyone can put in and take out what they wish at introductory ranks. Unless, and even if you limit it to officers there is still a chance corruption can occur. Be vigilant!

russelmmendoza

Bot farmers did their job.

Now, bot sellers do their job.

Hooray for the bots.

Drop those absurd prices down.

Long live the bots.

dvonpm

Ackwalan wrote: »

Could be scammers looking for a guild with no guild bank rules. Every now and then, I'll see someone join for an hour or so then leave.

Oh I have seen that too. I assumed they are looking for an open bank as well. Good riddance. But that is a join and leave which these things don't actually seem capable of.

It seems like they can only spam join requests.

Those 2 minute joins have never joined the guild as a result to repeated spams to the GM. This is different.

----
RE other stuff:

We don't have an open bank, and haven't for years. And we are an established guild, we've been in the same capital city spot since shortly after release. This is not a new GM, and me and the other officers have mostly been here since beta.

We've been doing this for years and this is a new thing. at least for us.

dvonpm

Siohwenoeht wrote: »

I've had the opposite lately, random repeated guild invites but same kinda random names etc. Could be scammers or botters trying to offload product.

That's what it seems like.

But it can't just be us.

And we can't have caught them all. So .... how do we root the effers out?

dvonpm

russelmmendoza wrote: »

Bot farmers did their job.

Now, bot sellers do their job.

Hooray for the bots.

Drop those absurd prices down.

Long live the bots.

Unfortunaltely, you might be right.

If we now have to deal with bot guilds and bot sellers, well. Ok.

Siohwenoeht

dvonpm wrote: »

Siohwenoeht wrote: »

I've had the opposite lately, random repeated guild invites but same kinda random names etc. Could be scammers or botters trying to offload product.

That's what it seems like.

But it can't just be us.

And we can't have caught them all. So .... how do we root the effers out?

Well if you see mountains of low level mats hitting your store at once... But seriously, that would be tough to catch. They may target established guilds like yours just on the chance your radar won't catch them. Have you had a stable roster historically, or had alot of movement lately?

dvonpm

Stable lately, actually. There is movement, there always is. But no unusual roster activity.

dvonpm

Totally normal except the spammy join requests. Which are easy to spot right now, but won't always be. They'll get better. Probably helping them get better with this thread lol.

Siohwenoeht

I think the real kicker is that some of these "bots" have actual people behind the keyboard that are working for the goldsellers etc. I always pm them when I find them and lately they stop and immediately log off. That would be a complicated script on PC and near impossible on console without a person at least watching the screens.

dvonpm

dvonpm wrote: »

Totally normal except the spammy join requests. Which are easy to spot right now, but won't always be. They'll get better. Probably helping them get better with this thread lol.

Also, if the people monitoring guild and or seller bot activity in game have zero tools, not even basic sales data, how the MFINGFINGFK are we suposed to catch it?

Are we just supposed to do more unpaid work? *throws monitor*

Just really, really tired of making spreadsheets so we can do what the game should be doing itself.

And now we have to monitor gd mfing bot sales.

*throws second monitor, which I mostly need to do spreadsheets so I can do the work ZOS won't *** do*

I'm going to go to bed now.

Good night. *crashing sounds*

Pevey

I joined both of my trade guilds eons ago by sending messages to the GMs. Good thing they didn’t think it was too suspicious. I just found guilds with traders in good locations and names that I liked, and then googled to find a name to send my request to. It is fairly common.

Yes, of course the guild bank should be under hard lockdown and pertinent information (like the weekly trader bid amount) shared with no one. But there is such a thing as being too paranoid.

And I have joined a guild only to leave pretty quickly. Sometimes I get an invite after running a dungeon with someone, and think sure, why not, but then see they have less than 100 members and don’t do much of what I’m interested based on the guild message page. No need to drag it out. For a trade guild, this could be due to seeing the minimums, etc., or it could be because of excessive messages about raffles and that sort of thing.

Danikat

Pevey wrote: »

I joined both of my trade guilds eons ago by sending messages to the GMs. Good thing they didn’t think it was too suspicious. I just found guilds with traders in good locations and names that I liked, and then googled to find a name to send my request to. It is fairly common.

Yes, of course the guild bank should be under hard lockdown and pertinent information (like the weekly trader bid amount) shared with no one. But there is such a thing as being too paranoid.

And I have joined a guild only to leave pretty quickly. Sometimes I get an invite after running a dungeon with someone, and think sure, why not, but then see they have less than 100 members and don’t do much of what I’m interested based on the guild message page. No need to drag it out. For a trade guild, this could be due to seeing the minimums, etc., or it could be because of excessive messages about raffles and that sort of thing.

I was thinking the same. If I found a guild I wanted to join I'd check whether they have a website with an application process and if not I'd find out who the leader is and send them a message asking to join. IMO the leader is the logical choice to contact in that situation because not all officers are involved in recruitment, but the leader should at least know who you need to speak to if they don't do it themselves.

But that's where the similarity between what I'd do and what the people/bots here are doing ends. I'd always put something about why I want to join the guild in the message rather than just ask for an invite, and I'd expect a message/whisper back to discuss it before getting an actual invite - for example letting me know what the rules are and asking if I'm going to follow them. (Which should avoid the issue of joining then finding out the guild isn't right for you and leaving immediately.) So the fact that there's no response when the leader replies is a concern - even if you're not expecting that it should be obvious you need to reply if you want to get in.

Maybe they're not bots. Maybe they're the same kind of people who email me at work saying "Hi, I want a job, here's my CV" with no info on which job/s they're interested in, and in spite of our website saying you must fill out the application form. Oh and I don't work in HR or do recruitment so they haven't even got the right person.

Either way I think the OP is making the right move by not inviting them.

Nestor

I think the best thing to do would be to send and email to those you think are suspicious with say 4 or 5 questions in it. Like, what kind of activities do you do, are you an RPer, do you craft, what is the flight speed of unladen swallow. Something simple. Bots won't respond intelligently, gold sellers will have answers that will be obvious.

Not saying do this for every request, just the questionable ones.

Slack

dvonpm wrote: »

Hey all....

The GM might try to add suspected Spammer to friends list, this way he can see if it is in fact always the same account, just with different name.
(not sure if it also works with ignorelist)

Grimm13

Ackwalan wrote: »

Could be scammers looking for a guild with no guild bank rules. Every now and then, I'll see someone join for an hour or so then leave.

There are other reasons for short stays, the Guild Trader is in a DLC area. I do have some people join then leave but I also see that they purchased items from our Trader. People that do not own the DLC can still access and use the Traders through a Bank Location.

But you are correct GM's need to be careful with the Guild Banks and Funds. Not all GM's grant access to guild banks, but there is no option by Rank to hide the contents. Being able to see the items causes confusion in the guilds that do not grant access. This needs to be left to Guilds to decide and not force all Guilds to be one way or another.

I do see a few people join and immediately asking when they will have open access. They leave right after the policy is explained and they realize they can not clean out the items. But this really is a small %, or they have figured out we are not an easy mark so stay away.

Again I urge the Dev's to change the view Guild Bank to be a Rank Base Option set by the GM's. Give Guilds more management in how they operate.

NoTimeToWait

Yep, I thou

Pevey wrote: »

I joined both of my trade guilds eons ago by sending messages to the GMs. Good thing they didn’t think it was too suspicious. I just found guilds with traders in good locations and names that I liked, and then googled to find a name to send my request to. It is fairly common.

Yes, of course the guild bank should be under hard lockdown and pertinent information (like the weekly trader bid amount) shared with no one. But there is such a thing as being too paranoid.

And I have joined a guild only to leave pretty quickly. Sometimes I get an invite after running a dungeon with someone, and think sure, why not, but then see they have less than 100 members and don’t do much of what I’m interested based on the guild message page. No need to drag it out. For a trade guild, this could be due to seeing the minimums, etc., or it could be because of excessive messages about raffles and that sort of thing.

True. Originally, I was looking for a trading guild via existing topics on the forum to send a letter to GM later. I think, it is quite oldschool way to go. I would probably do it this way today too, if I ever look for an RP oriented guild.

Tandor

Back in the day, guild recruitment took the form of someone being recommended personally by an established member, with the recruit then questioned by an Officer and often set a few simple quests or asked to join a group adventure such as accompanying an Officer on foot from one end of the gameworld to the other (such as Qeynos to Freeport in early EQ), all designed to find out a bit more about the recruit and his/her ability and reliability. Only when that was all completed satisfactorily was the recruit enlisted. Only on further proving themselves would new members be considered for promotion to Officer and given powers such as removal of gear and mats from the guild bank.

These days it often seems to be the case that a simply worded PM or ingame mail is all that is needed for a total stranger to be recruited and handed the keys to the guild bank. There's certainly no point in the case of ESO in seeking to establish any sense of guild loyalty because how can anyone be loyal to one guild when they already belong to four others?

Sometimes the old ways are the best !

Pevey

Those old ways are silly. I would be in zero guilds if someone tried to act like it was some special privilege to be in their club. Especially trade guilds, where the one and only requirement is and should be that a person pulls their own weight toward the trader costs.

Tandor

Pevey wrote: »

Those old ways are silly. I would be in zero guilds if someone tried to act like it was some special provilege to be in their club. Especially trade guilds, where the one and only requirement is and should be that a person pulls their own weight toward the trader costs.

Trade guilds are a different matter for sure, simply because they're not really guilds in any traditional sense. As for other guilds, of course in the old days it was indeed considered a privilege to be accepted into a highly favoured guild. I accept that time has moved on and with it people's expectations and sense of entitlement have risen enormously. However, my point is that in those days we didn't have the problems of unreliability, theft of guild assets, and suspicious applications for membership that we see regularly reported these days.

Ertosi

A few other things they might be up (usually trade-guild specific):

• Wanting to join to check your guild roster. That info can be used to send invites to each of the member's @-names. They could easily do the same by checking sales listings at the vendor, but they always seem to want to join guild before doing this.
• Wanting to join to try to "sell" crowns for gold to members. Takes advantage of guild members being trusted by each other. They try to quickly hustle as many low-ranking members as possible before leaving the guild.

I've seen both of these tactics multiple times across the guilds I'm in. Always stay vigilant and look out for your guildies.

IzzyStardust

dvonpm wrote: »

Hey all. So this is new, at least to our guild. And I didn't see anything already posted, apologies if I missed it.

In the last few weeks we have been getting repeated and suspicious requests to join our trade guild mailed to the GM.

Why they are suspicious:

- The request wording is almost exactly the same each time. "Hi I would like to have invite for guild plz." Or something very similar.
- They come every few days and only to the GM
- The account name is always different despite the exact or near exact text.
- There is never any follow up or response (admittedly not tried that much)

They have not been given invites because of the spamminess, but I am wondering if others have seen this too.

They only solution I see is to send a follow up mail and if they don't respond or it is a canned response, don't invite. Or just ignore them altogether, but then you risk weeding out legit requests, especially asince the requests will become less canned spammy if they don't get invites.

Is this indeed new or has it been going on the whole time and our guild has just been lucky?

If you don't catch it and let them in your guild, how can we find them and get rid of them?

Yes and my guild is literally a bank. So just deleted the mail. This was PC NA. No one wears the tabard as we haven’t even got one...so idk what that’s about.

IzzyStardust

Ertosi wrote: »

A few other things they might be up (usually trade-guild specific):

• Wanting to join to check your guild roster. That info can be used to send invites to each of the member's @-names. They could easily do the same by checking sales listings at the vendor, but they always seem to want to join guild before doing this.
• Wanting to join to try to "sell" crowns for gold to members. Takes advantage of guild members being trusted by each other. They try to quickly hustle as many low-ranking members as possible before leaving the guild.

I've seen both of these tactics multiple times across the guilds I'm in. Always stay vigilant and look out for your guildies.

Also selling potato or similar for 1mil gold; gold sellers do this.