Buying gold from third-party websites doesn’t get you banned?

Primidone

I personally know 6 ppl who have been continuously purchasing gold from these websites, which seems incredibly unfair for crown sellers. The gold sellers use bot to get the gold so they can sell it at a much lower price than purchasing crowns directly from ZOS. Last time I checked 1,000,000 gold only cost you $5 on the third-party website (PCNA). And the ppl I know said they have never had any issue with the ban hammer. Why aren’t the buyers getting banned?

The_Old_Goat

Apparently nobody has reported them. If it really bothers you enough to make a forum post, reporting them should be your next step.

Primidone

The_Old_Goat wrote: »

Apparently nobody has reported them. If it really bothers you enough to make a forum post, reporting them should be your next step.

I did but nothing happened. They’re still active and keep boasting about buying gold at a much lower price.

RedMuse

Primidone wrote: »

The_Old_Goat wrote: »

Apparently nobody has reported them. If it really bothers you enough to make a forum post, reporting them should be your next step.

I did but nothing happened. They’re still active and keep boasting about buying gold at a much lower price.

Two questions.

1) When did you report them?

2) Did you offer assisting proof, such as screenshots of conversations? Or did you just tell support that you'd heard these people talk about buying gold?

Elsonso

The wheels at ZOS/Bethesda turn slowly.

I find it helps if you imagine that the "ToS Team" is a single, part-time, employee that no one has seen or heard from since the pandemic started. This person deals with two or three cases each day they work. The "team" inbox probably has 20 or 30 thousand unread emails, which grows by a few dozen every day.

They will eventually get to this person you reported and, if there is cause, ban them and any account that they forward the gold onto. It will just take time.

redlink1979

The_Old_Goat wrote: »

Apparently nobody has reported them. (...)

I reported this in Oct 2019, even sent a PM to @ZOS_GinaBruno, with a list of 11 websites where you could purchase in-game gold or accounts for real money.
If ZOS legal team took any kind of actions or not, I don't know.

Elsonso

redlink1979 wrote: »

The_Old_Goat wrote: »

Apparently nobody has reported them. (...)

I reported this in Oct 2019, even sent a PM to @ZOS_GinaBruno, with a list of 11 websites where you could purchase in-game gold or accounts for real money.
If ZOS legal team took any kind of actions or not, I don't know.

If those sites are still selling ESO gold, then probably not.

PigofSteel

This will get closed.

XvarleyX

redlink1979 wrote: »

The_Old_Goat wrote: »

Apparently nobody has reported them. (...)

I reported this in Oct 2019, even sent a PM to @ZOS_GinaBruno, with a list of 11 websites where you could purchase in-game gold or accounts for real money.
If ZOS legal team took any kind of actions or not, I don't know.

I don't think it's illegal, only against TOS.

SeaGtGruff

XvarleyX wrote: »

redlink1979 wrote: »

The_Old_Goat wrote: »

Apparently nobody has reported them. (...)

I reported this in Oct 2019, even sent a PM to @ZOS_GinaBruno, with a list of 11 websites where you could purchase in-game gold or accounts for real money.
If ZOS legal team took any kind of actions or not, I don't know.

I don't think it's illegal, only against TOS.

I don't know. There was a big bust overseas just recently where a number of individuals were charged with running a cheating ring. That isn't the same as selling in-game gold for real-life money, but my point is that the authorities may seem to be doing nothing when they're actually working quietly to build their case before the jaws of justice close on the guilty.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-video-cheating-ring-hackers-arrested/

Anyway, ZOS would not tell you what actions they took, or even whether they did take action. And they might not be in much of a position to do anything themselves after passing along any information to the proper authorities, other than ban people, which could alert the perpetrators that their activities were known about, which could interfere with any investigations.

As far as whether it's legal or illegal to sell in-game gold for real-life money, I don't know. But if it is, and if ZOS seemingly has not taken action, that doesn't necessarily mean that nothing is being done. But selling in-game gold for real-life money seems a bit (or a lot?) like selling crowns for gold-- which is apparently legal-- except in reverse. And some online games do sell their in-game currencies for real-life money.

Sometimes it's not about whether a specific activity is illegal, but about who's doing it. For instance, a music company can sell music, but if I were to sell that same music then I'd be breaking the law as it isn't mine to sell and I'm not licensed to sell it.

spartaxoxo

I just saw someone complaining they are totally innocent and got a gold ban on discord. Not saying the person isn't telling the truth, I know nothing about the person so can't speak to that. Just stating because it shows that action is taken against people who zos thinks bought it.

Riptide

Elsonso wrote: »

I find it helps if you imagine that the "ToS Team" is a single, part-time, employee that no one has seen or heard from since the pandemic started.

Hah, I’ve come to grok that this is more than one team. And I mean no hate, it just is what it is

Elsonso

Riptide wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I find it helps if you imagine that the "ToS Team" is a single, part-time, employee that no one has seen or heard from since the pandemic started.

Hah, I’ve come to grok that this is more than one team. And I mean no hate, it just is what it is

No, it isn't just one person. I am being silly. I have no idea how big the team is, or who they are, but I am sure that the size of the game has them very very busy. Stuff like RMT is probably well outside of what they do, which is limited to in-game bans and other punishments. If any legal action was warranted, that would be handled elsewhere.

Riptide

Of course, I am too. Just saying, I’ve reported botters countless times and they stick around ad naseum, it ain’t overstaffed

Amottica

Pretty much any game will ban those that get caught but I doubt they actively seek gold sellers and buyers to ban them.

The reason game developers would not actively seek these violators out is gold selling fuels trading cash shop items. Hence it turns into revenue.

Why do you think we can trade cash shop items?

Arahallris

Primidone wrote: »

Last time I checked 1,000,000 gold only cost you $5?

By Kagrenac's Hammer, what savings!

Artorias24

Why even care? How does it impact you in your gameplay if someone buys a few millions of gold for real money?

Either they buy crown store items with it throught gifting and ZOS makes some money out of it even cause someone has to charge the crowns or they spend it to buy *** tons of stuff from the guild traders making other ppl rich and they can simply enjoy the game without needing to grind for gold.

I actually see nothing negative about it.

MJallday

Nice that you sent the community manager a PM. But you may as well have sent it to the pope. It’s not GBs job

Try reporting things via the proper channels

rpa

Other than being potential avenue for money laundering it's a problem of game publisher, that is Bethesda under Microsoft. Report it and let them take any action or lack of they see appropriate and you have done your part.

Snowstrider

In my opinion sellers should be banned and not buyers

FriedEggSandwich

Artorias24 wrote: »

Why even care? How does it impact you in your gameplay if someone buys a few millions of gold for real money?

Either they buy crown store items with it throught gifting and ZOS makes some money out of it even cause someone has to charge the crowns or they spend it to buy *** tons of stuff from the guild traders making other ppl rich and they can simply enjoy the game without needing to grind for gold.

I actually see nothing negative about it.

The negative atm is that it's against the TOS. I'm sure many people would love to pay $5 for 1mil but don't through fear of getting banned or just respect for the rules. So they're missing out to the people willing to take the risk, which is unfair. If zos are prepared to let people sell crowns for gold then they should either make buying gold from 3rd parties within the TOS, or just sell gold themselves. But if everybody bought gold it would probs drive inflation, and it might be already. $5 for 1mil sounds pretty affordable, and guild store prices have been going up.

Darkstorne

I have to wonder if it's becoming more common too, because inflation is definitely happening in game on the EU servers at least.

I play on and off since beta, work a lot irl, so am very happy to spend a lot of money on crowns during a sale and sell them in game to make gold easily the legal way. But I used to sell them at 150G/crown, and I swear every 3 months or so the average price jumps another 50G. I've been selling at 500G/crown lately which just seems absurd.

Gold selling sites are a problem because of this impact on inflation. It means players who just want to make their gold through playing the game suddenly find it's impossible to save up anywhere near enough to buy gear through guild traders, because prices assume people are buying their gold from bots. Lineage 2 was my first MMO and it was absolutely ruined by gold sellers for this exact reason. Everyone claimed they hated "ebayers" (people who buy gold for real money) yet we all had gear that was impossible to earn through legit means due to inflation.

If ZOS doesn't clamp down hard on bots and gold farming, ESO will keep heading that same direction.

Runefang

Snowstrider wrote: »

In my opinion sellers should be banned and not buyers

Most of these are “professionals” (I.e. it’s their job). They’ll have countless accounts already. Banning sellers is hard, generally it only works if you can prevent them from accumulating the coin to begin with.

remosito

Darkstorne wrote: »

I have to wonder if it's becoming more common too, because inflation is definitely happening in game on the EU servers at least.

I play on and off since beta, work a lot irl, so am very happy to spend a lot of money on crowns during a sale and sell them in game to make gold easily the legal way. But I used to sell them at 150G/crown, and I swear every 3 months or so the average price jumps another 50G. I've been selling at 500G/crown lately which just seems absurd.

Gold selling sites are a problem because of this impact on inflation. It means players who just want to make their gold through playing the game suddenly find it's impossible to save up anywhere near enough to buy gear through guild traders, because prices assume people are buying their gold from bots. Lineage 2 was my first MMO and it was absolutely ruined by gold sellers for this exact reason. Everyone claimed they hated "ebayers" (people who buy gold for real money) yet we all had gear that was impossible to earn through legit means due to inflation.

If ZOS doesn't clamp down hard on bots and gold farming, ESO will keep heading that same direction.

why is it inflation? and not simply supply and demand?

houses are giftable since a few updates back. that has increased demand for crowns.

Brrrofski

£5 for 1mil.

Link me, seems like a really cheap way to buy crowns!

100g for 1 crown on xbox eu. So I can get 10,000 crowns for £5???

Sounds like a bargain to me!

AyaDark

Do not forget:

In some country game cost is 5$

In some country crowns are cheaper.

In some country - people get a lot less money on jobs - so they can more easy farm in game gold to buy crowns.

It is not some thing unexpected.

600+ gold per 1 crown ?

I predict it 2 years ago - when they set regional cost for the base game of 5$ to RU region as example.

Some people here get 150$ per month of work on job.

They will not buy crowns per $ - they will farm gold and sell it for crowns, to buy DLC and etc.

If a lot of such people - crown cost will go UP.

Base cost is 5$, but membership is 3 - 4 times more in cost !

It is very expected - people buy the base game and than farm gold to exhange on crowns.

Avoranti

Artorias24 wrote: »

Why even care? How does it impact you in your gameplay if someone buys a few millions of gold for real money?

Either they buy crown store items with it throught gifting and ZOS makes some money out of it even cause someone has to charge the crowns or they spend it to buy *** tons of stuff from the guild traders making other ppl rich and they can simply enjoy the game without needing to grind for gold.

I actually see nothing negative about it.

It impacts the bids on guild traders. It impacts the crown store. It gives an unfair advantage to players who are doing this. It’s against the TOS. Defending this kind of action only leaves me to one conclusion. I’ll leave it at that.

rpa wrote: »

Other than being potential avenue for money laundering it's a problem of game publisher, that is Bethesda under Microsoft. Report it and let them take any action or lack of they see appropriate and you have done your part.

Resource botting in game, something that plagues PS4 NA is also an avenue for gold laundering. I don’t know what actions ZoS takes against these exploiters, if any. But these kind of players use the guild traders to launder their gold gains. This is how a couple traders keep their locations. They are easy to spot. Just look for a player avatar with a bunch of random letters and numbers in their name running node to node usually in starter zones. Then look in traders for things like a single potato for 1m gold.

Sounds silly but I wish zos had someone in game ghosted out just going around removing these bots. They could even take action against players who abuse the chat filter using sexist, racist and overall inappropriate language. They could go as far as doing an IP ban or even better, a mac ID ban.

Elsonso

Artorias24 wrote: »

Why even care? How does it impact you in your gameplay if someone buys a few millions of gold for real money?

It causes inflation if that gold is used to buy guild traders or stuff at guild traders. A large source of cash prompts an increased demand which is countered by higher prices. The people who do not buy from the gold websites are stuck shelling out more gold, unless they also buy from the website. Eventually, this evens out, but the only people who really benefit in this deal are the people running the website.

Darkstorne

remosito wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

I have to wonder if it's becoming more common too, because inflation is definitely happening in game on the EU servers at least.

I play on and off since beta, work a lot irl, so am very happy to spend a lot of money on crowns during a sale and sell them in game to make gold easily the legal way. But I used to sell them at 150G/crown, and I swear every 3 months or so the average price jumps another 50G. I've been selling at 500G/crown lately which just seems absurd.

Gold selling sites are a problem because of this impact on inflation. It means players who just want to make their gold through playing the game suddenly find it's impossible to save up anywhere near enough to buy gear through guild traders, because prices assume people are buying their gold from bots. Lineage 2 was my first MMO and it was absolutely ruined by gold sellers for this exact reason. Everyone claimed they hated "ebayers" (people who buy gold for real money) yet we all had gear that was impossible to earn through legit means due to inflation.

If ZOS doesn't clamp down hard on bots and gold farming, ESO will keep heading that same direction.

why is it inflation? and not simply supply and demand?

houses are giftable since a few updates back. that has increased demand for crowns.

It's both, where guild trader items are concerned at least. They aren't mutually exclusive market effects.

But generally the more gold there is floating around in the market, the more sellers are able to charge for rarer items. That creates a loop of driving more people to online gold sellers to buy the more expensive items, which means even more gold in the market, which leads to even higher prices, and so on.

The end result being bot farmers getting rich, and legit players who want to buy from guild traders with gold earned in-game being priced out of the market. Note this also affects guilds as a whole too, since guild trader locations are bid on for gold. I wouldn't be surprised to hear guild leaders frequent these gold selling sites to secure top trading locations for their guilds, which would mean if your guild isn't doing the same they might not be able to compete.

jssriot

Don't believe everything you hear, as the NPC in Elden Root says.

If anyone is bragging about buying gold from a 3rd party website, your first reaction should be "This person is trying to scam people." As in, they are hoping to get a whisper or PM asking for a link, so they can get people to visit some very suspect site.

Unfortunately as long as they aren't openly offering to sell gold for IRL currency in-game ZOS really cannot do a lot about that. You just need to avoid such people and tell other players to do so too.

When I started playing, in late 2015/early 2016, I would do searches for info on various ESO items and sometimes in my search results I'd get links to websites that were selling literally everything for IRL currency--mats, trophies, gear, etc. I haven't seen those in years, probably because if they are listing actually in-game items by their in-game names and such for sale, they are in violation of ZOS' IP rights and ZOS can easily get such sites taken down. But gold is another matter.

But if there are actual players just getting gold for IRL currency, then such transactions are mostly happening outside the game and ZOS can't do a lot about that. They can't prove you paid someone X amount of IRL money outside of the game for that gold they PM'd you in-game.

BUT if you are openly encouraging others in-game to do something in a way ZOS can clearly say you are trying to make IRL money off of their game, then they can say you're in violation of the TOS and ban you. I literally know players who had this happen, and ZOS will not hesitate if you clearly do this.

As I said, just saying "i bought 1 mil gold for $5" isn't openly encouraging other players to do anything. It is sketchy as eff, and I wouldn't trust that player at all, but ZOS can't act on that. If you by chance know the website that is advertising such transactions, you can report that and I suspect ZOS would look into it because they take their IP very seriously. But beyond IP, ZOS really can't police what player do outside of the game. If you want to give a suspect website/person money online and risk them getting access to god knows what info about you, that's on you. But I would encourage you not to.

Elsonso

jssriot wrote: »

But if there are actual players just getting gold for IRL currency, then such transactions are mostly happening outside the game and ZOS can't do a lot about that. They can't prove you paid someone X amount of IRL money outside of the game for that gold they PM'd you in-game.

ZOS can, however, place a player suspected of distributing RMT gold under a "Social Ban" until the player opens a support ticket and begs for it to be removed.