Crown Crate Gifting Temporary Solution Process

Vulkunne

So if we accept gold or other in-game items for these Crowns our request is not legitimate. Interesting. But services that people have done in game and other things are just fine?

It seems like a line has been crossed here. I just think if I choose to send someone Crowns as a gift and they want to give me something in return that's not really an exchange. More like a tip maybe. I dunno I never sold Crowns for cash or had anything to do with the bad things that had happened but I feel like I'm being blamed for something. Something like that. Oh well. Just won't buy Crowns anymore or just the absolute minimum. I love being blamed first for the form not being processed correctly and then secondly for doing something that really isn't anyone else's business and as we've been told previously doesn't violate TOS.

All this means is everyone who fills out the form will now know what not to say (because of the error, not because of me) but those of us who did say, providing more information and being honest, trying to work with support are being more or less 'singled out and punished' but others being dishonest will get their forms approved. Doesn't seem right and this system seems kind of corrupt. Why have the rule to start with? This stinks of personal bias. Its like you talk about the law, my reasons for my beliefs or whatever are only fathomable by me. There is no mind reading or making assumptions especially with no evidence whatsoever to backup a conclusion.

I'm sorry but none of this makes any sense. Many will not be giving away Crowns just for the sake of it surely. Welp, think I'll go have a couple cold ones and sit in awe for awhile. Its good to spend so much money, then get accused of something I didn't do and then held back for being honest and trying to explain the situation with Support and still being denied.

Friend or tickets get a pass, Orc tickets get denied. What a wonderful system.

CMz

Quick clarification on my prior comment on gift request being reviewed and approved. I said legitimate gifting as it refereed to my particular case where i was making an actual gift. However, i did not say that any reciprocal gift giving or other forms of exchange were not legitimate - that is not for players to say as we do not make the rules governing services provided . So i would not say that is a given - in fact - the form i filled out did not ask about any reciprocity or exchanges of any kind - it just asked from what account, how many and to which account - that is it. If players are not using the form as instructed and filling out some other support request & providing more information than required just know that it may send the request sideways - that is outside what is being offered us as a solution. Just follow the steps exactly as outlined, appeal any bot generated rejection and get your gifts done (it appears).

Vulkunne

CMz wrote: »

Quick clarification on my prior comment on gift request being reviewed and approved. I said legitimate gifting as it refereed to my particular case where i was making an actual gift. However, i did not say that any reciprocal gift giving or other forms of exchange were not legitimate - that is not for players to say as we do not make the rules governing services provided . So i would not say that is a given - in fact - the form i filled out did not ask about any reciprocity or exchanges of any kind - it just asked from what account, how many and to which account - that is it. If players are not using the form as instructed and filling out some other support request & providing more information than required just know that it may send the request sideways - that is outside what is being offered us as a solution. Just follow the steps exactly as outlined, appeal any bot generated rejection and get your gifts done (it appears).

That wasn't aimed at you per say, ZOS agreed with you... that your request was legit vs others that were not. And that's where I'm coming from, not digging at anyone. But secondly, yeah no means no baby, fine. And those of us, (I think I can say us at this point) did fill out the form per instruction (before they changed the fine print). So no one mis-used the form. Additional information was freely provided. I must be missing something here.

You also say its outside of what is being offered as a solution? How. Its the same result and no one has to tell them anything... Except those of us being honest who are now being accused of being 'non-compliant' right? You gifting someone Crates and then them giving you a tip does not have to be in scope to complete this process Yes its not what they want but I'm just saying.

Also, we followed the steps exactly as outlined and then were denied on an assumption and then the requirements changed. This is what I mean, stuff like this is turning ordinary players into villains when this rule is pointless on the grounds that it cannot reasonably be enforced. I might also argue the act of making unfair and baseless assumptions and turning legit players into 'villains' is also not healthy for the game and might reflect on ZOS general attitude towards us. I've spent alot time and money on this game to be basically blamed and ignored. Customer Service is sorely lacking in eso. Like major bad.

And like alot of things in life if something doesn't produce results its probably not worth having anyways. Also, yeah its ZOS game, let them make whatever rules they want but they also sent me a message about the law. This so far seems to me like a lawless system that was not properly planned for. As someone under the law, someone who knows the law, I can tell you that you cannot have it both ways. So I've said enough, if anyone else cares about this then speak your peace but I'm just doen with it and tired of waiting and waiting for a reply and then walking face first into this. Def won't be opening a ticket with Support anymore.

But remember now, today they're doing this right? What will they do next, how will the law/rules/policies be interpreted tomorrow? I suspect some of you out there had better wake up. Eyes to see let them see, Ears to hear let them hear.

Cheers

spartan62893_ESO

So I just received this as response to my questioning the previous denial for gifting crowns

Greetings,

Thank you for your appeal. Your request to gift crown crates is denied. Our records clearly indicate that you’re attempting to misuse this system to facilitate a crown for gold trade. This is a violation of the Terms of Service. ZeniMax prohibits and does not recognize any purported, transfers, sales, gifts, or trades of Virtual Currency. This applies to Crowns for Gold trades. This applies to Crowns for Gold trades.

Thank you for your understanding.
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

Edit 1: I was under the impression that gifting crates or other crown store items, not crowns, for gold was allowed

Edit 2: I neglected to notice the "This program is not to be used for "gold for Crowns" nor "Crowns for gold. As of right now, it is strictly to facilitate a player using crowns to gift crown crates to another player." that was added to the instruction post, which this definitely would fall under.

Arunei

spartan62893_ESO wrote: »

So I just received this as response to my questioning the previous denial for gifting crowns

Greetings,

Thank you for your appeal. Your request to gift crown crates is denied. Our records clearly indicate that you’re attempting to misuse this system to facilitate a crown for gold trade. This is a violation of the Terms of Service. ZeniMax prohibits and does not recognize any purported, transfers, sales, gifts, or trades of Virtual Currency. This applies to Crowns for Gold trades. This applies to Crowns for Gold trades.

Thank you for your understanding.
The Elder Scrolls Online Team

I was under the impression that gifting crates or other crown store items, not crowns, for gold was allowed

So...here's the question; is this from the auto reply bot, or from a person?

Because if this is from CS, this has well crossed into the line of unacceptable. Are you telling me that not only somehow was CS never informed of this system being implemented, but they ALSO haven't been told yet after all this time? In what world is it possible that CS is unawares for THIS long of a system we were told to use? Or is it a matter of specific CS agent deciding they don't feel like doing their jobs, or picking and choosing what they deal with, or...? Like what's going on here?

And if it's a bot reply, then how has an appeal been sent to a bot? How has this matter not gotten bumped to a CS agent?

And no, as was linked on the previous page, it's LONG since been allowed for people to exchange in-game items, and that Crates and in-game currency BOTH count as in-game items. So that part about ZOS prohibiting trading items for virtual currency, which includes Crates for gold and vice versa, is 100% wrong.

@ZOS_Kevin
Sorry for the repeated pings, I know you're probably being run ragged and given the run around about what you can say, but again: Are people actually not allowed to be given or give Gold for Crates sent with this system? Does that addition to the OP actually restrict people from giving or being given Gold in exchange for Crates? How and why should that matter, if that's the case? It just doesn't make sense to me that it should matter whether someone is gifting Crates 'for free' or if they'll be getting Gold for them. It's already silly to me that this system can only be used for friends and guildmates, why SO many restrictions?

And if that reply above WAS sent from a person then something needs to be done. There's absolutely no reason someone should be accused of trying to exploit the system when they might not even have any idea such an arbitrary rule exists in the first place, especially given how it's been beat into our heads over the years to ignore the reply we get from the bot and respond to the ticket again to have our matter escalated to a CS agent.

And does this mean that if a person whose account is flagged as trying to abuse the system, ANY time they try to send Crates to someone in the future, they're just going to keep getting told that the records indicate said claimed abuse? How does an appeal even count as an attempt at abuse? That doesn't really make much sense to me either. That whole reply to the appeal just rubs me the wrong way.

EDIT: I don't think the bit in the OP about "this isn't meant for facilitating Crates for gold/gold for Crates" is supposed to mean that giving or being given gold for Crates is against the ToS, but rather that CS can't and thus won't take gold from one person and give it to the other. But I could be wrong; after all this time of being able to sell Crates for gold and it being allowed as told to us by Gina, is it suddenly NOT allowed any longer? Without any actual announcement of the fact? I guess we won't know for certain until we get a response from Kevin or one of the others.

irswat

was just informed by customer service that buying crowns for gold is a terms of service violation.

irswat

have literally been refunded gold by zos customer service in the past when scammed by "crown sellers" and was told it was a buyer beware market.

reazea

irswat wrote: »

was just informed by customer service that buying crowns for gold is a terms of service violation.

But is exchanging crown crates for gold a TOS violation, that is the question. Someone is still buying the crowns with real money and ZOS is getting paid that real money when someone buys the crowns.

Is the plan to eliminate gifting of all crown store items now? What's the difference between gifting crown crates and gifting anything else in the crown store?

This is all so confusing.

valenwood_vegan

If what's allowed under the terms of service is being changed, we need to be informed in a clear, official way that's visible to all players (not just the few following this topic on the forums).

If no changes are being made in this regard, then customer service needs to be educated to provide proper responses to prevent confusion, such as "the temporary crate gifting program does not allow crown for gold exchanges". Accusing people of attempting to violate the ToS is a big deal.

Honestly though, I think it might be better to scrap the whole temporary thing until a real solution can be found. Or at least suspend the program until everyone at ZoS can actually get on the same page. It seems to be leading to more frustration for all parties involved.

mariliaribas

This is especially weird because gold for crowns is one of the main reasons most people even buy crowns. Banning crowns for gold exchange not only wouldn't increase sales for them, it would actually decrease them by a lot. I would much rather they just made the thing official in-game and implemented some kind of in-game official crowns for gold exchange between players in the form of a token or similar. So far players were acting under the impression that crowns for gold was a legitimate exchange and that, as long as it didn't involve real money transactions, it was allowed. We even have several reports of Customer service intervening in cases of transactions gone wrong or similar. If this is not the case anymore this need to be informed in a clear, open way in the official site, because at least for me, this information impacts on the decision of continuing to buy ESO+ or not.

DragonRacer

This is now starting to spread among the ESO player groups on Facebook, by the way, which means the wildfire is REALLY going to start up. Everyone posting the customer service emails that have them thinking gifting Crown CRATES in exchange for in-game gold is a violation of TOS.

If something has suddenly changed and that is truly the case now, that needs to be definitively stated, @ZOS_Kevin

The_one_i_seek

@ZOS_GinaBruno hello, can you clarify please, trading crowns for gold now became a violation, after all this years? Asking you, because your posts we all bookmarked and using as proofs that its not a violation

Supreme_Atromancer

Yeah, see? Its not clear to people at all lol. It feels like everyone has their own interpretation of what's meant. And I mean I felt like there was enough ambiguity in the edit that I linked that its just propagating confusion. I think the responses validate that reading lol.

I also note that the opportunity to respond to my confusion was just dropped off lol, and I'm not one to push or keep tagging folks so I'd rather just let it be!

I think there's merit in how people are interpreting it: its just that I can see a situation where I go to buy crates with gold like I always have and then getting banned lol. My "interpretation" would have absolutely no currency then lol.

I think maybe they don't want to explicitly support it right now because it makes more work, but they also don't want to aggressively hunt down people who are doing it. But if I'm wrong, I have no recourse, (and potentially no account!) so I'm just gonna wait it out. Good luck to you all, hope it all works out.

Zalathorm

My friend got yet another response from support. Instead of approving the ticket like others have gotten, they sent this..

Arunei

Zalathorm wrote: »

My friend got yet another response from support. Instead of approving the ticket like others have gotten, they sent this..

By the logic in this response, we can't even just give people gold as a gift. Hell, one could even say it reads like we're not allowed to buy stuff from other players.

It's awfully strange we've gotten no further updates in several days and now this is happening. I'm not going to state the thoughts I have on why this is, to avoid any conspiracy accusations, but it's not good. I will say, though, that it's starting to look like the people who were claiming ZOS wanted to nix Crate gifting for gold might have actually been right, and it's looking like it's even bigger than that and Crown items in general can't be given for gold now either. I really really hope this phrasing is just really bad wording, though, and that it's only gold for Crates and vice versa that is against the ToS and ONLY for this system. Which is to say, hopefully once they fix whatever the problem is, we can go back to buying and selling things from the CS for gold, including Crates.

Zalathorm

I feel like what ZOS means to say is

"We aren't going to use customer support tickets to process the massive amounts of crates for gold exchanges that we would receive. We know there is a large demand for this and we are working on a long term fix. Instead, this process is only for gifting at this time."


Instead, zos says

"You are attempting to exchange crowns for gold. This is a Terms of Service Violation. Request denied."

Confusing the hell out of everyone and contradicting years of precedent.

Twig_Garlicshine

Some official clarification is needed.

Does this apply only to Crates due to the Crate trading fraud/scam?
Is it only during this temporary phase until a permanent fix is created?
Does it apply to all gifting of other Crown store items?

Necrotech_Master

reazea wrote: »

irswat wrote: »

was just informed by customer service that buying crowns for gold is a terms of service violation.

But is exchanging crown crates for gold a TOS violation, that is the question. Someone is still buying the crowns with real money and ZOS is getting paid that real money when someone buys the crowns.

Is the plan to eliminate gifting of all crown store items now? What's the difference between gifting crown crates and gifting anything else in the crown store?

This is all so confusing.

this odd convoluted gifting process only is for the crown crates, everything else can be gifted normally in game without going through support

the only theory that most have guessed at is that this is related to the crown crates and RL anti-gamble laws affecting things like crown crates (zos only tells us it was for fraudulent activities, but if that were really the case it would have blocked ALL gifting not just crown crates)

GooGa592

Zalathorm wrote: »

My friend got yet another response from support. Instead of approving the ticket like others have gotten, they sent this..

So why is there the ability to gift anything from the crown store? Aren't most "gifts" done in exchange for in game gold? The statement from ZOS you've posted makes it clear that any gift in exchange for gold is a violation of the TOS. This seems to be a new policy from ZOS that needs to be clarified, and the ability to gift anything from the crown store should be removed if this statement is in fact the new policy.

Twig_Garlicshine

Fkey wrote: »

No, it's the fact that the temporary solution is not meant to facilitate gold for crown/crown for gold transactions.




It's not a TOS violation nor is it "illegal" or whatever word people want to put on it. They're only going to allow crown crate gifting if there's no expectation of receiving compensation under this temporary solution.

Thank you for posting this.
Cleared up something very misleading.

Crates versus other items during a temporary fix.
People are stating misleading things.

mariliaribas

This is starting to look more and more like a case of "company thinks it's loosing money because of X - company bans X to make people buy it directly from them - company starts to loose money since X was a big reason for their sales". If you suddenly ban crowns for gold exchange, it won't make people that bought crowns using gold suddenly start to spend real money in it, but it will make people that bought crowns with real money to make gold in-game to stop buying it. And if that's the case, I think we will only see some resolution on this a few months from now when they start to feel the loss is crown sales.
Again, if gold for crowns exchange suddenly became a TOS violation - and I say suddenly because in the past, customer service would openly support it and even act as intermediate sometimes -, we need to be told this in a clear, open, direct manner, preferably in the main site. As paying customers we deserve to know exactly what we are paying for.

The_one_i_seek

mariliaribas wrote: »

This is starting to look more and more like a case of "company thinks it's loosing money because of X - company bans X to make people buy it directly from them - company starts to loose money since X was a big reason for their sales". If you suddenly ban crowns for gold exchange, it won't make people that bought crowns using gold suddenly start to spend real money in it, but it will make people that bought crowns with real money to make gold in-game to stop buying it. And if that's the case, I think we will only see some resolution on this a few months from now when they start to feel the loss is crown sales.
Again, if gold for crowns exchange suddenly became a TOS violation - and I say suddenly because in the past, customer service would openly support it and even act as intermediate sometimes -, we need to be told this in a clear, open, direct manner, preferably in the main site. As paying customers we deserve to know exactly what we are paying for.

EXACTLY THAT
i posted in this topic same theory but with proofs from someone who was a contractor worker for Bethesda

my post about it magically dissapeared

Vulkunne

mariliaribas wrote: »

This is starting to look more and more like a case of "company thinks it's loosing money because of X - company bans X to make people buy it directly from them - company starts to loose money since X was a big reason for their sales". If you suddenly ban crowns for gold exchange, it won't make people that bought crowns using gold suddenly start to spend real money in it, but it will make people that bought crowns with real money to make gold in-game to stop buying it. And if that's the case, I think we will only see some resolution on this a few months from now when they start to feel the loss is crown sales.
Again, if gold for crowns exchange suddenly became a TOS violation - and I say suddenly because in the past, customer service would openly support it and even act as intermediate sometimes -, we need to be told this in a clear, open, direct manner, preferably in the main site. As paying customers we deserve to know exactly what we are paying for.

They 'probably' (I don't speak for them so of course I don't know for certain) want everyone buying direct. No middleman uh nothing but directly from them. So we need to def respect their wishes but unfort what's more than likely going to happen... is sales are going to plummet. Because the people that cannot afford Crowns but like to spend a ton of time with the game, can no longer get this incentive to offer in-game gold for something they cannot afford. Thus their time is kind of wasted and kind of also being penalized in a way.

And if something goes wrong, now no one can goto Support because if someone doesn't deliver the Crowns or Gold, that would be an exchange, which apparently is now/becoming/or later on will be a complete violation of TOS. So Support can technically penalize both accounts for participating in an exchange. So anyone who does get scammed, will now probably have to sit in silence because ZOS can only penalize them, not help them. And now the scammers win because ZOS won't recognize this or that. Again I have not heard anything, not with ZOS, just thinking ahead here to protect myself if nothing else.

This whole thing is like a Hurricane in a bottle and alot of damage is probably going to get done. Going to be an ugly surprise for some folks.

Necrotech_Master

Vulkunne wrote: »

mariliaribas wrote: »

This is starting to look more and more like a case of "company thinks it's loosing money because of X - company bans X to make people buy it directly from them - company starts to loose money since X was a big reason for their sales". If you suddenly ban crowns for gold exchange, it won't make people that bought crowns using gold suddenly start to spend real money in it, but it will make people that bought crowns with real money to make gold in-game to stop buying it. And if that's the case, I think we will only see some resolution on this a few months from now when they start to feel the loss is crown sales.
Again, if gold for crowns exchange suddenly became a TOS violation - and I say suddenly because in the past, customer service would openly support it and even act as intermediate sometimes -, we need to be told this in a clear, open, direct manner, preferably in the main site. As paying customers we deserve to know exactly what we are paying for.

They 'probably' (I don't speak for them so of course I don't know for certain) want everyone buying direct. No middleman uh nothing but directly from them. So we need to def respect their wishes but unfort what's more than likely going to happen... is sales are going to plummet. Because the people that cannot afford Crowns but like to spend a ton of time with the game, can no longer get this incentive to offer in-game gold for something they cannot afford. Thus their time is kind of wasted and kind of also being penalized in a way.

And if something goes wrong, now no one can goto Support because if someone doesn't deliver the Crowns or Gold, that would be an exchange, which apparently is now/becoming/or later on will be a complete violation of TOS. So Support can technically penalize both accounts for participating in an exchange. So anyone who does get scammed, will now probably have to sit in silence because ZOS can only penalize them, not help them. And now the scammers win because ZOS won't recognize this or that. Again I have not heard anything, not with ZOS just thinking ahead here.

This whole thing is like a Hurricane in a bottle and alot of damage is probably going to get done. This is not the way, indeed the way things currently are is better by leaps and bounds.

im pretty sure the bot responses are just incorrectly flagging things

not to mention that this whole insane process is only being done for crown crates, not anything else in the entire crown store (even the original posts 4 months ago were about disabling gifting only with crates)

personally i would rather them have some kind of legitimate way to do the crown/gold trade like most other games have some kind of similar option, or you know, just get rid of the crown crates entirely lol

Vulkunne

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

mariliaribas wrote: »

This is starting to look more and more like a case of "company thinks it's loosing money because of X - company bans X to make people buy it directly from them - company starts to loose money since X was a big reason for their sales". If you suddenly ban crowns for gold exchange, it won't make people that bought crowns using gold suddenly start to spend real money in it, but it will make people that bought crowns with real money to make gold in-game to stop buying it. And if that's the case, I think we will only see some resolution on this a few months from now when they start to feel the loss is crown sales.
Again, if gold for crowns exchange suddenly became a TOS violation - and I say suddenly because in the past, customer service would openly support it and even act as intermediate sometimes -, we need to be told this in a clear, open, direct manner, preferably in the main site. As paying customers we deserve to know exactly what we are paying for.

They 'probably' (I don't speak for them so of course I don't know for certain) want everyone buying direct. No middleman uh nothing but directly from them. So we need to def respect their wishes but unfort what's more than likely going to happen... is sales are going to plummet. Because the people that cannot afford Crowns but like to spend a ton of time with the game, can no longer get this incentive to offer in-game gold for something they cannot afford. Thus their time is kind of wasted and kind of also being penalized in a way.

And if something goes wrong, now no one can goto Support because if someone doesn't deliver the Crowns or Gold, that would be an exchange, which apparently is now/becoming/or later on will be a complete violation of TOS. So Support can technically penalize both accounts for participating in an exchange. So anyone who does get scammed, will now probably have to sit in silence because ZOS can only penalize them, not help them. And now the scammers win because ZOS won't recognize this or that. Again I have not heard anything, not with ZOS just thinking ahead here.

This whole thing is like a Hurricane in a bottle and alot of damage is probably going to get done. This is not the way, indeed the way things currently are is better by leaps and bounds.

im pretty sure the bot responses are just incorrectly flagging things

not to mention that this whole insane process is only being done for crown crates, not anything else in the entire crown store (even the original posts 4 months ago were about disabling gifting only with crates)

personally i would rather them have some kind of legitimate way to do the crown/gold trade like most other games have some kind of similar option, or you know, just get rid of the crown crates entirely lol

Well they could. Alot of things they could do and I sincerely hope something good comes from this. My only remaining thoughts on this matter is I know things change from time to time. However meaningful change takes time and is a plant of slow growth. Sometimes its easier to just take your time and do a job right than explain why you didn't.

Zalathorm

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

im pretty sure the bot responses are just incorrectly flagging things

not to mention that this whole insane process is only being done for crown crates, not anything else in the entire crown store (even the original posts 4 months ago were about disabling gifting only with crates)

personally i would rather them have some kind of legitimate way to do the crown/gold trade like most other games have some kind of similar option, or you know, just get rid of the crown crates entirely lol

My friend has gone back and forth with ZOS customer support like 3 times and they are still saying the same thing. It's definitely not just bot responses.

Necrotech_Master

Zalathorm wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

im pretty sure the bot responses are just incorrectly flagging things

not to mention that this whole insane process is only being done for crown crates, not anything else in the entire crown store (even the original posts 4 months ago were about disabling gifting only with crates)

personally i would rather them have some kind of legitimate way to do the crown/gold trade like most other games have some kind of similar option, or you know, just get rid of the crown crates entirely lol

My friend has gone back and forth with ZOS customer support like 3 times and they are still saying the same thing. It's definitely not just bot responses.

probably copy/paste responses then

this whole process seems like it was instituted at the last minute

RINEgameYouTube

Elrender

@ZOS_Kevin we need your clarification please

RedrunnerFred

Tried this process twice with two of my friends over the past week. One didn't go through because when he returned from a 4 year hiatus he didn't meet the 90 day active requirement. The second one said something about how redeemed content is not downloadable, exchangeable or refundable and then it was rejected. He didn't even redeem the crates, though he had crowns for it. This is confusing to me because I thought the whole point of the process was that gifting crown crates to friends is possible. Not sure if customer support is getting the memo with these responses or if this is just an automated response.