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

redspecter23

Report the player to ZOS with any proof you have. Also consider reporting them to any guild leaders you share a guild with. As a guild master, if I received a legitimate report of a gold buyer in my guild, I would remove them, blacklist them and forward the proof on to ZOS to also take a look at.

Primidone

jssriot wrote: »

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.

They are boasting about this on a guild discord channel, and said that ppl in this guild should know this method bc it’s dumb to buy crowns with real money when you can get a million gold with $5-$15. I won’t name the guild, but it’s a large trading guild on PCNA.

Nyladreas

People here drooling and melting over illegal 1mil for 5 bucks meanwhile I'm able to get 2mil + for 5 bucks legally. 😂😂😂😂😂

Primidone

Primidone wrote: »

jssriot wrote: »

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.

They are boasting about this on a guild discord channel, and said that ppl in this guild should know this method bc it’s dumb to buy crowns with real money when you can get a million gold with $5-$15. I won’t name the guild, but it’s a large trading guild on PCNA.

Oh and there’s the drama of someone finding out a guy was selling him gold for $15 per million while he could get it at $5. That’s where the $15 came from.

CSose

Primidone wrote: »

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 thing is though, the $5 is real money. It can be used outside of the game for real things. In game gold is imaginary, and not worth .05 cents technically.

BenevolentBowd

In past, I've seen a few ESO Gold Website ads appear in the list provided by my ad provider. I periodically filter the ad list with words like gold, eso, etc.. Overall, I've seen a decrease in the number of ads found but that may because I block the advertiser accounts when I find them.

On a related note, is paying for carry services against the TOS? I've seen a few ads for websites offering services for WoW, Destiny, and occasionally LoL. None for ESO so far.

tmbrinks

BenevolentBowd wrote: »

In past, I've seen a few ESO Gold Website ads appear in the list provided by my ad provider. I periodically filter the ad list with words like gold, eso, etc.. Overall, I've seen a decrease in the number of ads found but that may because I block the advertiser accounts when I find them.

On a related note, is paying for carry services against the TOS? I've seen a few ads for websites offering services for WoW, Destiny, and occasionally LoL. None for ESO so far.

Real-life money... yes, violates ToS.

For in-game gold. No, does not violate ToS.

JavaRen

Trading in game items for in game items is completely legit. So gold for carry is allowed. On PCNA I see plenty of adverts in zone chat. If you mean RL money for carries, that would be against ToS.

M_Volsung

Why pay real money for something you can get by the bucket-full in game for free?

Goregrinder

M_Volsung wrote: »

Why pay real money for something you can get by the bucket-full in game for free?

For some it is a question of which is more valuable: spending 2 hours of their time farming something, or spending 15 minutes of their time earning RL$$ to purchase the same item. The main consideration is whether or not something takes more or less time to farm something in game than it does to earn the money in RL required to buy it out right. For some people, it would take them far longer to earn enough RL money than to farm the item in game. For some, it takes more time to farm it in game than to earn the money required to purchase it.