Do you think my account demonstrates minimal gaming?

code65536 · June 27

In hindsight, someone who had been playing for less than a year being this interested in crown gifting should itself have been a red flag for people on the forum. "I want to buy cash shop items for other people" seems to be a strange priority for someone this new to the game.

baratron · June 27

I did wonder how it was possible for a player to achieve as much in ESO as they'd claimed to have done, within the timeframe they'd given. Thank you for letting us know the outcome of your investigation.

Barto92 · June 27

code65536 wrote: »

In hindsight, someone who had been playing for less than a year being this interested in crown gifting should itself have been a red flag for people on the forum. "I want to buy cash shop items for other people" seems to be a strange priority for someone this new to the game.

Someone might just as well be playing together with a friend or their partner and want to give them a gift. After all, a year of playing any game is quite a lot of time.

thejadefalcon · June 27

code65536 wrote: »

"I want to buy cash shop items for other people" seems to be a strange priority for someone this new to the game.

I've wanted to buy stuff for my friends in many games in much shorter periods of time. If there's an in-game trading system for real world money to in-game currency via the story (which ESO does have in a roundabout way, so long as you take the appropriate measures), I'd be happy to do that as well even with strangers if I can get a good price and I'm looking for something particularly expensive (I enjoy housing in ESO, which demolishes my gold).

This is absolutely only a suspicious trait if you view social interaction as inherently suspicious.

sarahthes · June 27

baratron wrote: »

I did wonder how it was possible for a player to achieve as much in ESO as they'd claimed to have done, within the timeframe they'd given. Thank you for letting us know the outcome of your investigation.

It is possible, if you're kind of focusing on specific things and make your way into communities to achieve them.

That said, it's a good thing there's additional markers we don't know about.

UrQuan · June 27

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Upon reevaluation of the account, we could tell the user was an active ESO player, but still had concerning markers on their account. We weighed the pros and cons of those risks and ultimately granted access to gifting. Unfortunately, within 24 hours, we were able to confirm new fraudulent behavior made by the user. They have now been permanently banned in-game and from the forum.

Thanks for sharing this Kevin, this is why I'm always skeptical when people come to the forums complaining about a decision ZOS made about their account and protesting that the decision is unfair because they're as pure as the driven snow. I don't automatically disbelieve people, because mistakes happen, but I sure don't automatically believe them either.

valenwood_vegan · June 27

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We highlight this because a common tactic bad actors use is the power of public forums here and elsewhere: taking advantage of the everyday player’s goodwill to garner public support to be let back in. Based on this situation, future threads like this will be based only on the follow-up investigation and closed once the investigation is complete.

Hey Kevin, thank you for sharing this. I hope people on the forums see this - all too often, folks on here are willing to instantly believe, and side with, any user who posts a sob story about how they got wrongfully banned or aren't allowed to gift, or what have you.

I think this is a perfect example of how strangers on an internet forum can say anything, and sound very believable and relatable to us as users who may have had similar frustrating support experiences, but it should be taken with a grain of salt in the absence of verifiable facts.

Maitsukas · June 27

Sometimes I wonder how important the gifting system is for those players.

Radiate77 · June 27

If @ZOS started outing everyone they found guilty of fraud or harassment, with receipts, I would imagine there would be a lot less bad actors.

BahometZ · June 27

Welp, I guess that is that.

kevkj · June 27

Jlopguk wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Jlopguk wrote: »

...they still refuse to give gifts to those who play regularly...

They may not consider taking multiple breaks without playing at all to be regular and consistent gameplay.

it feels like they're looking at 1) achievements 2) the number of messages in the group and guild 3) the activity of all characters 4) the activity on the forum 5) how much real money was spent on purchasing boxes 6) whether a subscription was purchased 7) whether there are any violations 8) whether you have criticized their company or not .
there may be a number of other factors. and their program shows all of this. Because they responded to me with Kevin, "You don't even have the minimum requirements."
That is, it's not a human looks and analyzes. It's a curve program that looks at the fulfillment of requirements.

And as we know, they introduced this feature to remove scammers. And I agree that it was necessary. However, ordinary players are suffering

I can tell you at least 4) is not required, I know many with the ability to gift and no forum account. 5) also seems unlikely, have a friend who can gift who has never purchased crates (or crowns outside of eso+) 8) also most definitely not true, because i can gift.

SerafinaWaterstar · June 27

Wow. That was unexpected!

Will try again on my alt account - the main reason I want to gift is that its my trading account but has ESO+ so has crowns but would rather get stuff for my main account with those crowns! Nothing sinister! Just crowns going to waste!

CoolBlast3 · June 27

Classic gamer moment. Thanks for showing the receipts ZOS

Dagoth_Rac · June 27

Barto92 wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

In hindsight, someone who had been playing for less than a year being this interested in crown gifting should itself have been a red flag for people on the forum. "I want to buy cash shop items for other people" seems to be a strange priority for someone this new to the game.

Someone might just as well be playing together with a friend or their partner and want to give them a gift. After all, a year of playing any game is quite a lot of time.

They started six months ago, had taken extended breaks and only had steady play in March and April. And they somehow had like every hard mode veteran Trial achievement in the game. That does not happen organically. You don't just stumble out of the starter island and into an Immortal Redeemer group. OP was almost certainly paying for carries. Or a ringer account getting paid to carry others.

Paying in-game gold for assistance with difficult content is not against TOS. But when your only in-game activity seems to be rapidly accumulating high difficulty achievements that are typically way over the head of a new player, that is like a rapid fire ballista that shoots red flags.

sarahthes · June 27

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Barto92 wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

In hindsight, someone who had been playing for less than a year being this interested in crown gifting should itself have been a red flag for people on the forum. "I want to buy cash shop items for other people" seems to be a strange priority for someone this new to the game.

Someone might just as well be playing together with a friend or their partner and want to give them a gift. After all, a year of playing any game is quite a lot of time.

They started six months ago, had taken extended breaks and only had steady play in March and April. And they somehow had like every hard mode veteran Trial achievement in the game. That does not happen organically. You don't just stumble out of the starter island and into an Immortal Redeemer group. OP was almost certainly paying for carries. Or a ringer account getting paid to carry others.

Paying in-game gold for assistance with difficult content is not against TOS. But when your only in-game activity seems to be rapidly accumulating high difficulty achievements that are typically way over the head of a new player, that is like a rapid fire ballista that shoots red flags.

A decent proportion of carries involve RMT in some way even if most of the people involved don't realize it.

Clear sold for cash, gold bought with cash. It's frequently one or the other (or both).

Malyore · June 28

Wait what even is a bad actor? Is it like a scammer? I don't understand how people buying cosmetic gifts for others is a harmful thing, nor why bad actors would be eager to get gifting permission in the first place.

Pevey · June 28

Malyore wrote: »

Wait what even is a bad actor? Is it like a scammer? I don't understand how people buying cosmetic gifts for others is a harmful thing, nor why bad actors would be eager to get gifting permission in the first place.

Money laundering. They buy crowns using credit cards from purchased lists or opened using identity theft and then sell those crowns on shady sites for real money. Or, they sell the crowns to gullible players willing to believe those below-market-rate crowns they saw advertised in zone chat were totally legit. Like, totally. And then they sell the resulting gold for real money. End result is cash that can be hard to trace to the stolen cards. If you buy crowns for gold, only buy from people you trust.

code65536 · June 28

Malyore wrote: »

Wait what even is a bad actor? Is it like a scammer? I don't understand how people buying cosmetic gifts for others is a harmful thing, nor why bad actors would be eager to get gifting permission in the first place.

What Pevey said: money laundering. Let's say a criminal steals a credit card. How are they going to use it without being caught or leaving a trace back to them? If they try to use it at a physical store, there will be witnesses, security camera footage, etc. If they buy some physical thing online, they'll need to ship it somewhere.

So digital goods are attractive because the criminal can remain anonymous. I'm sure you've seen the spam ads in zone chat about buying gold from some website. That's the other end of this criminal scheme. Use dirty money from stolen cards to buy crowns. Trade crowns for gold. Sell gold on website for clean money. This isn't a thing that only affects ESO; I've heard stories about this sort of thing in other games as well.

BegoMblu · June 28

hooligan

redlink1979 · June 28

katanagirl1 · June 28

Wow, that didn’t take long.

I was surprised to hear that they allowed this player to do gifting, the short time frame for the account and sporadic activity was a red flag for me. I still think there should be a two tier system for gifting. There are many players who just want to gift to family members, and that could be limited to one other player and would be much less risk than someone who just wants to gift to anyone.

SilverBride · June 28

I think it was eye opening to see how "genuine" someone can post while all the time they had bad intentions.

Finedaible · June 28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHrZRJR4igQ

Malyore · June 28

Pevey wrote: »

Malyore wrote: »

Wait what even is a bad actor? Is it like a scammer? I don't understand how people buying cosmetic gifts for others is a harmful thing, nor why bad actors would be eager to get gifting permission in the first place.

Money laundering. They buy crowns using credit cards from purchased lists or opened using identity theft and then sell those crowns on shady sites for real money. Or, they sell the crowns to gullible players willing to believe those below-market-rate crowns they saw advertised in zone chat were totally legit. Like, totally. And then they sell the resulting gold for real money. End result is cash that can be hard to trace to the stolen cards. If you buy crowns for gold, only buy from people you trust.

Oh wow, good to know. I wasn't considering they would be using stolen money (job market must be rough, sheesh). It's good to see ZOS doesn't take advantage of that. Bad actor is such a strange name for them though. I'd call them criminals and then get their personal info reported to authorities.

I appreciate Kevin explaining what happened and leaving the thread open for people to witness and discuss it. Very educational.

SilverBride · June 28

I was wondering myself if their real life info is then given over to the authorities, but they may not be able to tell us that.

Dragonclaw1337 · June 28

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi everyone. Our Anti-Fraud team made up of Devs, Customer Service, and Community team members wanted to follow up here after monitoring this thread and engaging with the original poster of the thread. We believe it’s important to go over this case, because it’s a good example of a bad actor and the tactics they use to circumvent safety processes to do harm.

First, we want to acknowledge that while the gifting process can be frustrating, it is designed to keep both you, the player, and us safe from bad actors.

When the user originally placed their ticket in for gifting access, we denied their request due to account markers that showed future signs of potential fraudulent behavior. However, the user then opened this thread noting their playtime and claim to eligibility. In addition to their claims, we heard from many of you. We understand the frustration with the process and empathize with it. Many of you know that we often go through threads like this and try to assist where we can with the support of our customer service team.

Upon reevaluation of the account, we could tell the user was an active ESO player, but still had concerning markers on their account. We weighed the pros and cons of those risks and ultimately granted access to gifting. Unfortunately, within 24 hours, we were able to confirm new fraudulent behavior made by the user. They have now been permanently banned in-game and from the forum.

We highlight this because a common tactic bad actors use is the power of public forums here and elsewhere: taking advantage of the everyday player’s goodwill to garner public support to be let back in. Based on this situation, future threads like this will be based only on the follow-up investigation and closed once the investigation is complete.

To close out this post, we are still working to get as many people in as possible to the gifting program. We relaxed rules for gifting earlier this year and will continue to monitor these rules. Our goal is to stop bad actors, while keeping everyone else safe. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to read this follow up.

Wow! What a wild turn of events that was! (And, coincidentally, very interesting timing due to my own case.)
My account's ability to perform gifting was FINALLY enabled yesterday on June 27th, after an appeal.

I was initially upset that I was denied, since I created my account on June 11th, 2014, well over a decade ago.
Although I made my ESO account back in June 2014; I joined the ESO forums much later, back in January 2020.

I find player behaviour fascinating. I know I am an odd one and likely outlier.
I think I only paid for ESO+ once, when it was discounted, a few weeks ago.
I deliberately don't pay for ESO+ so that I only get the base-game dungeons.
(I don't like most of the DLC dungeons due to how long they take to complete.)
As for the crafting bag benefit, I give all of my materials to my friends instead.
5/8 of my characters' mounts are at 60/60/60 on speed, inventory, & stamina.
(180 days each and each upgraded at different time-intervals over many years.)

Some of my current currency/stats:
2,550 Crowns.
789 Crown Gems.
13,275 Seals of Endeavor.
2.9 mil Alliance Points.
494 Crown Experience Scrolls.
980 Crown Fortifying Meals.
609 Crown Refreshing Drinks.
23,700 Crown Lethal Poisons.
15,146 Crown Tri-Resto Potions.
512 Crown Repair Kits.
117 Instant-Research Scrolls.
(And 50-60 of each of the craft-specific scrolls.)

I've been in the same 5 guilds for several years, but I primarily communicate via Discord servers, not ingame.
I've only bought crowns a few times, many years apart.
Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood, way back in 2016.
Reaper's Harvest (Halloween) Crown Crates in 2017 or 2018. (Released once per year, so I don't remember.)
(Swarm of Crows, Crow's Calling, & Murderous Strike mementos —way before Endeavours became a thing.)
And, most recently, I bought the Housing Starter Pack, a few months ago; which came with 800 crowns, too.
My only Chapters are Summerset & Blackwood. (Both gifted to me from participating in Aliyavana's ESO Gift Exchange during the New Year / New Life event, this year and/or last year.)

I've claimed a major amount of daily login rewards over the years. (See my EXP scrolls & potions above.)
I've also participated in many of the limited-time community events for free houses, like Golden Pursuits.

My post is not a rant and I am simply just sharing a little bit about me and my ESO's account history & data, because, honestly, I have never stopped to evaluate all of that information myself; until now, after reading OP's own history (or what they claimed to have completed, anyways), whether that was the actual account owner or a hijacked account. That is a sad situation.
But, I am very glad ESO's Support Team finally granted my account access for the ability to gift crowns, if I ever choose to do so.

Sometimes I just have periods of ingame maintenance-mode where I only login to claim dailies, and then logout.
Event-fatigue is a large factor. It is difficult to keep up with daily login rewards for multiple games at the same time, as well as all of the limited-time events, especially when they often overlap (such as on major holidays).
I am a longtime reader of the dev-tracker and a longtime lurker of the ESO forums, even though I don't post much on the forums.
Anyways, I promise that I am not a bot! (Nor a hijacked account.) I am just a weird player with very odd player-behaviour.

@ZOS_Kevin , please give Trevor, from ESO's Support Team, my sincere thanks!

Potrimpo · June 29

Wow guy. You write much.

Have had no problems in the past.

DeadlySerious · June 29

CoolBlast3 wrote: »

Classic gamer moment. Thanks for showing the receipts ZOS

What receipts?

Kevin posted a statement, but there are no receipts or proof. Just Kevins statement which says essentially the same thing the automated denials say but more eloquently, that's all.

I know of far too many unearned and undeserved bans to have any faith in ZOS' AI assisted automated banning systems. The company making PR statements supporting those systems does nothing to improve the accuracy of those systems.

sarahthes · June 30

DeadlySerious wrote: »

CoolBlast3 wrote: »

Classic gamer moment. Thanks for showing the receipts ZOS

What receipts?

Kevin posted a statement, but there are no receipts or proof. Just Kevins statement which says essentially the same thing the automated denials say but more eloquently, that's all.

I know of far too many unearned and undeserved bans to have any faith in ZOS' AI assisted automated banning systems. The company making PR statements supporting those systems does nothing to improve the accuracy of those systems.

It sounds like this was not an automated ban, but rather a deliberate one based on someone doing something they weren't supposed to. Most likely using a vpn to purchase cheap crowns, then selling them for gold, and then selling the gold for more than they paid for the crowns.

spartaxoxo · June 30

I had a bad feeling about this particular request because I thought having so many hard modes brand new was a major red flag. I got further bad vibes when they posted ZOS making a one time exception for them based off their seeming sincerity. I'm glad ZOS has dealt with this person who took advantage of public goodwill and staff kindness. I'm sorry to see future threads get restricted because of one bad actor when there have been so many legitimate people who were able to get help here.