I generally have zone chat turned off but need it on for PvP. I forget to turn it back off when I go back to PvE zones and instantly get bombarded with dodgy English telling me they will sell me gold cheaper than the other dodgy English advertisements.
They are still in Zone-Chat...got one this morning and turned chat off at once.
Sadly..the bots and gold sellers will continue until all those who buy gold migrate to other games.
You see...the f2p crowd do not mind paying for what they want. They do not know any different.
However..if the game does not go f2p these players will move on and so will the gold-sellers.
All they have to do is send a GM to the starter zones and instantly ban every Spammer they see in chat, I bet they would get dozens gone in a few hours, then the spammers wont be botting for more gold and it solves 2 problems.