ZOS! 1 billion+ GOLD LAUNDERING !! - (it was, now 1.25 billion+) please prioritize it.

Nestor

Emma_Overload wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

And, i have yet to see anything legitimate sell for more than 2 or 3 million. And those are a few certain rare items. It would not take much to stop these stupid high sales. Or ban people based on these sales until they make their case they are a legitimate player.

LOL do you hear yourself? In civilized societies, the burden of proof is on the accusers. Why should some random player have to prove their innocence? What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

This is exactly the kind of behaviour I've seen in this thread, and I'm right to condemn it. Now the mob is coming after me:

Waynerx8 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Emma_Overload wrote: »

OsManiaC wrote: »

Emma_Overload wrote: »

So what? Why are you snooping on other peoples transactions in the first place?

It would be great of all the busybodies on these forums did something useful like ban that crook in Rawlkha who keeps selling fake Spell Power Pots. Now THAT is a lynch mob I would be happy to join!

Sorry, I could not understand your post. You want us to look the other way when suspicious activities happening?

If other peoples' activities are not clearly causing a problem, then it's a good idea to mind your own business. I don't see anything in these screenshots that indicates a problem.

I then pointed out that time and energy would be better spent banning an actual SCAMMER. What's hard to understand about that?

I confess I'm rather curious as to your alternate explanation for what's going on here where what's been shown isn't indicative of a problem.

We do know from past disciplinary actions that transactions like these have been linked with gold-selling from outside sites. While it's possible that these are completely innocent sales of Surilie Grapes for nearly 10 million, that's also the sort of sale that would raise eyebrows in any trading guild I've been in on PC. (And don't even go "mind your own business" because for trading guilds on PC, checking member sales is literally part of the business for any guild with sales requirements.)

Note that ZOS does prohibit buying and selling gold in exchange for anything in the real world as against the TOS. Pointing out transactions like these are a good first step, allowing ZOS to investigate further to find out if its legit or there's something else going on.

Well said, you would have to question someone's motives for thinking this is innocent or normal practice, you would really need a Surilie Grapes fetish at those prices.

Those kinds of sales are not from "random" players. When something falls on the .0000000001% of the bell curve, in a consistent manner, for the same amount of gold in total per transaction, with stupid high prices per item, its a Duck.

Cpt_Teemo

Agreed does look like a legit gold seller

MEBengalsFan2001

idk wrote: »

No offense but Zos essentially permits such an environment to exist. They are extremely lax on botting in the game which is the foundation for gold selling. Then with the added crown trading such gold selling and buying are actually encouraged.

It is really sad but it is due to poor management of the game. Zos has examples in other games what the what the above combination will do so they have reason to think it will not happen here. If Zos wanted to get serious about the issue they would take a real and legitimate stance against bots. As is they are virtually complicit.

Of course there could be gold duping as well, but we do not know that.

Another game I played recently shut down its broker do to how bad it got for players in the game. All items were bought and than the price of said items were added back to the broker with maximum for bid and straight purchase. Players wanting to look at the auction house could not even look as all items were maxed out. It was a guild doing this that acquired the in game resources illegally do to a money glitch and these players simply used it to break the broker.

Another game something similar was going for crafted items. One player had enough in game resources to keep his higher than normal price crafted items listed and eventually it did catch up to him and over time he loss his market as more players became aware of how to use the system and over time prices dropped to something that was reasonable and eventually players of all types were starting to lose money so many stopped and only those that were able to buy or acquire mats from friends, on the cheap or by farming were able to continue crafting.

This type of thing doesn't surprise me one bit.

pelle412

Nestor wrote: »

I am still wondering why people are buying gold. After a point, there is not all that much you can do with it.

Sure there is, with gold you can buy pretty much anything. All achievements, skins, titles and advanced trial gear available.

lemonizzle

Have stolen credit cards, or any real money that is illegally obtained. Buy crowns, sell crowns for gold to players (there is high demand for sellers right now). Now you have 100 million gold, trade it around to alt accounts, then sell the gold on gold selling websites. You might break even, maybe with some net loss, but you'll have real 'clean' money in your pockets again.
There is some risk yes, but we still have hordes of bots, gold buying sites and cheating players who get away with it in a quite popular game, so this might be an option for certain people.

I might be watching too many movies.

agegarton

lemonizzle wrote: »

Have stolen credit cards, or any real money that is illegally obtained. Buy crowns, sell crowns for gold to players (there is high demand for sellers right now). Now you have 100 million gold, trade it around to alt accounts, then sell the gold on gold selling websites. You might break even, maybe with some net loss, but you'll have real 'clean' money in your pockets again.
There is some risk yes, but we still have hordes of bots, gold buying sites and cheating players who get away with it in a quite popular game, so this might be an option for certain people.

I might be watching too many movies.

Way too many movies.

This is NOT money laundering in any real sense. I have something of a specialism in AML and we can all be certain that the sums involved are not remotely interesting to organised crime. There’s also too much of a net loss. And it involves gaming.

MEBengalsFan2001

agegarton wrote: »

lemonizzle wrote: »

Have stolen credit cards, or any real money that is illegally obtained. Buy crowns, sell crowns for gold to players (there is high demand for sellers right now). Now you have 100 million gold, trade it around to alt accounts, then sell the gold on gold selling websites. You might break even, maybe with some net loss, but you'll have real 'clean' money in your pockets again.
There is some risk yes, but we still have hordes of bots, gold buying sites and cheating players who get away with it in a quite popular game, so this might be an option for certain people.

I might be watching too many movies.

Way too many movies.

This is NOT money laundering in any real sense. I have something of a specialism in AML and we can all be certain that the sums involved are not remotely interesting to organised crime. There’s also too much of a net loss. And it involves gaming.

Yes it could be if the players in question used stolen CC to get crowns, use the crowns to acquire gold, than used gold to buy up items in the market, than used what they bought and resold to set pricing of items through the traders. Now all gold they acquire can be sold for real cash and if done right they could walk away with a tidy real cash profit and it didn't cost them anything. This of course is only valid if the individual used stolen CC to acquire the crowns.

Though I'm sure compared to true real world money laundering this wouldn't even be looked by any specialist in the field.

jazsper77

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

Thank god we don't have exploiters like that on consoles.

What do you think all those bots in starter Zones on consoles are doing😭😂🤣

quadraxis666

OsManiaC wrote: »

ZOS, I'd really appreciate it if you tell us why these guys still in-game? - these are the ones get caught what about the others?

Kind thanks for the GMs. They kicked them

Guild 1 - 379m




Guild 2 - 689m





Guild 3 & Guild 4 -15m



Guild 5 - 279m






@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom


Some detailed example (file big right click and show in new tab)

lol so what are you doing with the house cut?

SammiSakura

quadraxis666 wrote: »

lol so what are you doing with the house cut?

currently the guilds in question arent doing anything with those taxes, as we are all working together, reporting etc, to get zos to fix this crap

erliesc

I do a good bit of farming/trading and selling and so forth....all legit. Legit meaning that all buys and sells are within reasonable parameters. No overprices...no underprices.

But that doesn't keep the in game undercover types from messing with you. Guess they can't deal with the real scammers...so like real world cops they just mess with anyone who stands out a bit just to feel like they are doing something. Stupid cops remain stupid cops...in game and out.

My guess is that they are messing with my game now... That or some hacker is on my case...

themaddaedra

Bots can not make hundreds of million golds out of those silly nodes. Y'all a bit overthinking about their abilities tbh they are annoying af but they no way can reach these amounts at least not in reasonable time of grinding.

My theory would be that these gold sellers are mostly crown sellers. Buying crowns from cheap regions (like Argentina) then selling those crowns for gold (price per each is stupid high on PC EU) and they are selling those golds back somehow making profit out of this process.

I have no proof of this and i can't name anyone in specific but i know people who are selling *millions* of crowns *every dam month*. Can someone tell me one single reason to do so if they are not selling those gold back? There's literally nothing you can do with billions and billions of golds in this game.

Of course i'm just speculating but this is the only explanation that makes sense to me.

SammiSakura

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno this is still happening! They keep applying to guilds, then adding a second account in, the proceeding to list and buy mundane stuff at ridiculous prices. We are kicking and blocking as fast as we can, but theyre just making new accounts. Please can something be done about this? we are keeping screenshots and logs of names as much as we can

themaddaedra

And i wouldn't like to discourage anyone but i highly doubt that you can get devs' attention here apart from them deleting inappropriate comments. Or unless you turn this thread into *OMG NEW HOUSE IN CROWN STORE I'M HYPED AS HELL* or sth. Those threads are the only thing that makes me still believe that there are zos employee who are reading the forums.

VaranisArano

SammiSakura wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom ZOS_GinaBruno this is still happening! They keep applying to guilds, then adding a second account in, the proceeding to list and buy mundane stuff at ridiculous prices. We are kicking and blocking as fast as we can, but theyre just making new accounts. Please can something be done about this? we are keeping screenshots and logs of names as much as we can

In the meantime, have you considered temporarily restricting your guild invite privileges so they cannot add the second account? That sucks for the guild members who are using it responsibly, but it might help.

OsManiaC

This is going the same as update23 fiasco...

BILLIONS of GOLD are flying away while ZOS not reacts.

@ZOS_RichLambert , why guild matters never entered your radar ever?

Fiktius

VaranisArano wrote: »

SammiSakura wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom ZOS_GinaBruno this is still happening! They keep applying to guilds, then adding a second account in, the proceeding to list and buy mundane stuff at ridiculous prices. We are kicking and blocking as fast as we can, but theyre just making new accounts. Please can something be done about this? we are keeping screenshots and logs of names as much as we can

In the meantime, have you considered temporarily restricting your guild invite privileges so they cannot add the second account? That sucks for the guild members who are using it responsibly, but it might help.

That is quite problematic now, when guild finder exists. Technically even if all trade guilds would agree and limit their recruiting even further during the time when recruiting is already slow, that would make it harder for launderers to join actual trading guild, but that won't stop them joining in random social/PvP/PvE/RP guilds, which got 50+ members and just enough people to get store open and continue internally trading.

As long as ZOS do nothing, we can't do much about the problem. These cases which were reported by GMs are only a top of iceberg and unfortunately there isn't much what guilds can do about it.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but simple line of "we are investigating the issue" would be something nice to hear from their side.

eco_TR

People are exaggerating.This is not a big issue. Why you are making so much fuss? It is not even close to cheating a trial with caltrops to get a skin and title.

Milo

Fiktius wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

SammiSakura wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom ZOS_GinaBruno this is still happening! They keep applying to guilds, then adding a second account in, the proceeding to list and buy mundane stuff at ridiculous prices. We are kicking and blocking as fast as we can, but theyre just making new accounts. Please can something be done about this? we are keeping screenshots and logs of names as much as we can

In the meantime, have you considered temporarily restricting your guild invite privileges so they cannot add the second account? That sucks for the guild members who are using it responsibly, but it might help.

That is quite problematic now, when guild finder exists. Technically even if all trade guilds would agree and limit their recruiting even further during the time when recruiting is already slow, that would make it harder for launderers to join actual trading guild, but that won't stop them joining in random social/PvP/PvE/RP guilds, which got 50+ members and just enough people to get store open and continue internally trading.

As long as ZOS do nothing, we can't do much about the problem. These cases which were reported by GMs are only a top of iceberg and unfortunately there isn't much what guilds can do about it.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but simple line of "we are investigating the issue" would be something nice to hear from their side.

The question remains, why is it the job of any Player, let alone Guildleader to try to stop these things from happening? It's already more than enough that it's coming to light because of those determined few. Why do they have to be jury, judge and executioner?

Milo

eco_TR wrote: »

People are exaggerating.This is not a big issue. Why you are making so much fuss? It is not even close to cheating a trial with caltrops to get a skin and title.

Sorry to say, but [snip]!

It doesn't matter, that some don't see it as an issue, you all seem to ignore the fact that trading is a legit way to play the game. And whether it's trading, housing, role-playing, thieving, pvp or pve, if people take it seriously (and the trading community does) ZOS has to take it seriously aswell, because in the end we are all costumers for their product and without the players this game wouldn't exist.

And maybe I'm alone here, or atleast in the minority, but in my honest opinion the Economy is one of the fundamental pillars of the game. You all don't see the bigger picture... Now "whatever, not a big deal" but if that goes on and there is suddenly more gold in the wild, the economy WILL adjust. That means you're glyphs are suddenly 10k per piece, your pots are at 3k a piece and your nirnhoned weapons for research are suddenly at 100k. (arbitrary numbers btw). Then there will be countless posts on how "I can't afford to play the game anymore" etc.

[snip]

[Edit for censor bypass and bait.]

Fiktius

Milo wrote: »

Fiktius wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

SammiSakura wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom ZOS_GinaBruno this is still happening! They keep applying to guilds, then adding a second account in, the proceeding to list and buy mundane stuff at ridiculous prices. We are kicking and blocking as fast as we can, but theyre just making new accounts. Please can something be done about this? we are keeping screenshots and logs of names as much as we can

In the meantime, have you considered temporarily restricting your guild invite privileges so they cannot add the second account? That sucks for the guild members who are using it responsibly, but it might help.

That is quite problematic now, when guild finder exists. Technically even if all trade guilds would agree and limit their recruiting even further during the time when recruiting is already slow, that would make it harder for launderers to join actual trading guild, but that won't stop them joining in random social/PvP/PvE/RP guilds, which got 50+ members and just enough people to get store open and continue internally trading.

As long as ZOS do nothing, we can't do much about the problem. These cases which were reported by GMs are only a top of iceberg and unfortunately there isn't much what guilds can do about it.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but simple line of "we are investigating the issue" would be something nice to hear from their side.

The question remains, why is it the job of any Player, let alone Guildleader to try to stop these things from happening? It's already more than enough that it's coming to light because of those determined few. Why do they have to be jury, judge and executioner?

You are right, it should be enough that players report about the case. (Done already by several players who opened ticket and reported exploiters and OP of the thread also made sure that topic is brought to daylight on public forums here and Reddit too.) We've also tagged several ZOS employees and so far we've only received radio silence about the topic.
It's sad and I also would love to see better reaction from ZOS, but meanwhile waiting, the only thing what guilds can do is keeping blacklisting when cases show up.

Oh! Gonna tag you too @ZOS_KaiSchober for the chance that you might actually read this thread on EU time.

eco_TR

Milo wrote: »

eco_TR wrote: »

People are exaggerating.This is not a big issue. Why you are making so much fuss? It is not even close to cheating a trial with caltrops to get a skin and title.

Sorry to say, but [snip]!

It doesn't matter, that some don't see it as an issue, you all seem to ignore the fact that trading is a legit way to play the game. And whether it's trading, housing, role-playing, thieving, pvp or pve, if people take it seriously (and the trading community does) ZOS has to take it seriously aswell, because in the end we are all costumers for their product and without the players this game wouldn't exist.

And maybe I'm alone here, or atleast in the minority, but in my honest opinion the Economy is one of the fundamental pillars of the game. You all don't see the bigger picture... Now "whatever, not a big deal" but if that goes on and there is suddenly more gold in the wild, the economy WILL adjust. That means you're glyphs are suddenly 10k per piece, your pots are at 3k a piece and your nirnhoned weapons for research are suddenly at 100k. (arbitrary numbers btw). Then there will be countless posts on how "I can't afford to play the game anymore" etc.

[snip]

[Edit for censor bypass and bait.]

Sheldon, is that you?

I am afraid, you might not understand this one as well. Regardless, I m giving a shot

jazsper77

themaddaedra wrote: »

Bots can not make hundreds of million golds out of those silly nodes. Y'all a bit overthinking about their abilities tbh they are annoying af but they no way can reach these amounts at least not in reasonable time of grinding.

My theory would be that these gold sellers are mostly crown sellers. Buying crowns from cheap regions (like Argentina) then selling those crowns for gold (price per each is stupid high on PC EU) and they are selling those golds back somehow making profit out of this process.

I have no proof of this and i can't name anyone in specific but i know people who are selling *millions* of crowns *every dam month*. Can someone tell me one single reason to do so if they are not selling those gold back? There's literally nothing you can do with billions and billions of golds in this game.

Of course i'm just speculating but this is the only explanation that makes sense to me.

You would be wrong.
1 bot route in Bal Foyan is 9 nodes every 30 seconds. 18 nodes a minute x 60 minutes x 24 hrs
Top of my head is 25k ish

That is one bot and Bal Foyan usually has a 7 bot train. 7x 25k

So yes botters make billions easy

dem0n1k

jazsper77 wrote: »

1 bot route in Bal Foyan is 9 nodes every 30 seconds. 18 nodes a minute x 60 minutes x 24 hrs
Top of my head is 25k ish

That is one bot and Bal Foyan usually has a 7 bot train. 7x 25k

So yes botters make billions easy

If one bot = 25k per day & a 7 bot train makes 7x25k=175k per day... then to make one billion gold would take approximately 15 years. 1,000,000,000 / 175,000 = 5714 days = 15.6 years.

JN_Slevin

jazsper77 wrote: »

themaddaedra wrote: »

Bots can not make hundreds of million golds out of those silly nodes. Y'all a bit overthinking about their abilities tbh they are annoying af but they no way can reach these amounts at least not in reasonable time of grinding.

My theory would be that these gold sellers are mostly crown sellers. Buying crowns from cheap regions (like Argentina) then selling those crowns for gold (price per each is stupid high on PC EU) and they are selling those golds back somehow making profit out of this process.

I have no proof of this and i can't name anyone in specific but i know people who are selling *millions* of crowns *every dam month*. Can someone tell me one single reason to do so if they are not selling those gold back? There's literally nothing you can do with billions and billions of golds in this game.

Of course i'm just speculating but this is the only explanation that makes sense to me.

You would be wrong.
1 bot route in Bal Foyan is 9 nodes every 30 seconds. 18 nodes a minute x 60 minutes x 24 hrs
Top of my head is 25k ish

That is one bot and Bal Foyan usually has a 7 bot train. 7x 25k

So yes botters make billions easy

Oh great! Some maths. Alright lets do this.

Lest take your numbers as an example, shall we?

You have given 7x 25k in 24 hours, since there are 7 bots, right?

Thats 175k, correct?

So 175kx7 to see the weekly numbers seven bots can pull. (1.225.000gold)

That means it would be roughly 5 Million in a Month, if my calculations are correct.

So you would need 10 Months to get 50 Million. 100 Months to get 500 Million.

Lets refresh, 100 Months are around 8 Years.

Yeah, seems doable. Not a problem.

Lets double the amount of bots that run around there. That means 4 years (if they dont take away each others nodes)

So now we have 14 bots running around in Bal Foyen. You would see them EVERY second of EVERY day for FOUR years, to get HALF of the amount discussed in that post.....

You all are underestimating the number one Billion..

One million seconds are 12 days.

One billion seconds are 31 Years

JN_Slevin

dem0n1k wrote: »

jazsper77 wrote: »

1 bot route in Bal Foyan is 9 nodes every 30 seconds. 18 nodes a minute x 60 minutes x 24 hrs
Top of my head is 25k ish

That is one bot and Bal Foyan usually has a 7 bot train. 7x 25k

So yes botters make billions easy

If one bot = 25k per day & a 7 bot train makes 7x25k=175k per day... then to make one billion gold would take approximately 15 years. 1,000,000,000 / 175,000 = 5714 days = 15.6 years.

Well, i think we got over the point even though we did the math diffently

Thrasher91604

Thanks for the analysis. Those conspiracy theorists claiming farming bots are responsible for this gold are clearing blowing smoke up people's hootchies.

They are probably the criminals doing the deed. Projection is the method of the criminal mind.

JN_Slevin

Thrasher91604 wrote: »

Thanks for the analysis. Those conspiracy theorists claiming farming bots are responsible for this gold are clearing blowing smoke up people's hootchies.

They are probably the criminals doing the deed. Projection is the method of the criminal mind.

Well, you do realize that it doesn't even begin to solve the issue.

I'd rather have it to be bots.

Because if it isn't bots, that means the gold does come from somewhere else.

And that is truly concerning. Because those numbers, aren't just flying around. Its not like there are 50 people on every server that got to a billion gold with a bit of flipping.

This is completley nuts.

IF this money is not coming from bots, that most likely means that gold was created somewhere else.

And the diffrence of created Gold and gold through transaction, is for the overall economy HUGE.

Because if this was created. That means we have ONE BILLION Gold, too much in the economy.

This is horrifying.

Waffennacht

I see no evidence of ToS being broken with what I see.

I see things that would imply that the ToS may have been broken in the past; aka circumstancal evidence.

So unless you have evidence of the act in which the ToS being broken with; I do not see how ZoS could take action

karthrag_inak

be prepared for prices to skyrocket if this kind of stuff continues.