Can you get banned for cheating people in-game?

Biscuit_290 · December 2021

If I somehow (legit means only though) get expensive items off some unwary person who is unfamiliar with trading for barely any gold and resell it for the market price, will I get banned? Even though I am not doing anything against the rules? Also, what about crown trade scams?

Mushroomancer · December 2021

Crown trade scams should get you banned, not sure about the "sharking" scenario though. I guess if the newbie feels wronged and they report it, you could be banned. The thing is, however, if the other player accepts that low price, I don't know if they can really argue that they were scammed, as unfair as the trade is, they still willingly accepted that price.
It really comes down to personal ethics, although, I would consider good practice asking for advice on unsure trades, so just not doing that is kinda inviting a scam.

Biscuit_290 · December 2021

So it's uncertain huh...I was looking for a new way to make gold. Shucks. Not worth risking my account.

Meiox · December 2021

What about "don't do anything you don't want someone to do to you" ;-)

Mushroomancer · December 2021

To be honest, and this might sound offensive, if you think the best way to make gold is sharking newbies, I think you're looking at it the wrong way.
I get that the other "traditional" ways of making money are maybe a bit tedious, but if you have even just a decent PvE guild, just do trials, or dungeon HMs, you should be gathering a bunch of motifs pretty quickly.
Or if you don't want to engage with that content, you can sell stuff that is PvP only, or even just do trading through guilds.

Biscuit_290 · December 2021

I know. Just thought it might be fun to explore new avenues, even though it's not exactly good practice.

Tra_Lalan · December 2021

Seen people selling things that are easy to get for 20k gold, and they asked something like 1kk in game gold value for it.

So I dont think the shark scenario can get you banned.

hafgood · December 2021

Buying things from guild traders and flipping them fine.

Deliberately targeting new players and telling them stuff is worth less than it is in order to them sell at market value, not fine.

In fact its a good way to put people off playing the game as they will eventually feel cheated.

And it will get you a bad reputation and onto ignore lists so it's not going to benefit you in the way you think it is.

Play the game, there are loads of sources of gold amd it's amazing how quickly it adds up, and how much stuff you end up having to sell.

I've 15 guild traders to keep stocked (across 4 accounts) and have no trouble doing so, in fact my guild bank rarely falls below 400 items (many of which are stacks of items) of stock. I make hundreds of thousands a week and am by no means earning as much as I could be

zaria · December 2021

Tra_Lalan wrote: »

Seen people selling things that are easy to get for 20k gold, and they asked something like 1kk in game gold value for it.

So I dont think the shark scenario can get you banned.

More an problem in that new players rarely have much gold.
Two ways to get serious money, first is to farm for new popular items, it can be anything from PvP sets to furniture plans.
This sell very well as many players are very rich and has no issue dropping an million or more new stuff.
Back not long after the stickerbook dropped I wanted to try out deadly strike, prices was however trough the roof.
Well I went to Bruma. spent one million AP got my items and sold the rest for an million gold

The people who predicted the price jump earned much more.

Second is doing crafting writs on multiple alts at max crafting level, this give gold, gold tempers and crafting writs who can be sold. This is more of an long time strategy

markulrich1966 · December 2021

I have bought extremely underpriced items maybe 12 times within 3 years in guildstores.

Sent a compensation to the sellers 4 times, telling them the real value.
Got an answer only once, and it was like "no prob, I just wanted to make space in my inventory".

Since then I no longer care about it, just buy (except I know the seller as a guildmate, so can assume that he has set this price by accident, this happened once and he fixed it).

VaranisArano · December 2021

If you want to do this - do it in bulk. Be one of those bulk buyers who goes around the zone chats offering to buy cornflower and other Alchemy reagents for 50-60% of the Guild trader price.

You'll get some deals from people who don't know any better. You'll get some deals from people who do know better but who don't want the hassle of listing it themselves, so they sell it cheap.

Be prepared for a certain amount of pushback. People with TTC and Master Merchant will probably link their prices so that at least newbies aren't ignorant of the value of their items. (I'll be one of those people.) You'll probably still get some people who go for it.

The key is that you want the players to not feel scammed. As in, they had your prices upfront and decided that was a good deal or at least, that some gold now was better than more gold after bothering with a trading guild.

Crown trade scams and scams where you don't give the correct item are absolutely against the rules. I'm not certain you'll get banned, but I don't think you want that sort of disciplinary attention from ZOS.

JJOtterBear · December 2021

"is it wrong to do something bad to people that benefits myself?"

Generally the answer to this question is yes. Except for sociopaths, they don't give a *** about about anyone else and it doesn't bother them.

spartaxoxo · December 2021

Yes, but flipping item is legal.

So you cannot just lie to someone and then sell for a higher price. But you can offer to buy stuff for lowball prices, and if you didn't misrepresent the value of the item and just made them an offer that they accepted, this would likely not result in a ban.

The line between normal flipping and buying low is whether you used any tricks or lies to make them think the value of the item is lower than it is in order to trick them into parting with it.

But if enough people report you for it, you could get in trouble. So it's better to just do that sort of thing by looking at guild traders or keeping an eye for deals.

Bobby_V_Rockit · December 2021

Probably not, but you’ll always know that once upon a time, you a were a ***…

Biscuit_290 · December 2021

alright, I get the picture

ZOS_Lunar · December 2021

Greetings!

Scamming is a violation of the Terms of Service, and we treat any reports of scamming very seriously. If you feel you've been a victim of an in-game scam, please follow the steps here.

As such, we have gone ahead and closed this thread. Thank you for your understanding, and please keep the Community Rules in mind when posting on the forums.