Sending Gold for Crowns is now a ToS Violation (According to customer support)

Zalathorm · July 2023

I'm posting this here because many players may not be aware of what is going on in the new gifting crown crate system.

However, this is bigger than the gifting of crates because ZOS customer support is actually making a much larger statement about gold for crown exchanges.

For years, ZOS has stated that sending a player gold in exchange for their crown store gift is allowed. Customer support has even gone as far as reimbursing people who have been scammed in the past.

Gold for a gifted crown store item is one of the biggest markets in the game and I would imagine, a large source of revenue for ZOS from the people who buy the crowns with USD.

Fast forward to the new system of gifting crates. Players have been going through the official process to gift crates by opening customer support tickets as described here. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/638375/crown-crate-gifting-temporary-solution-process/p1

Players are receiving some form of response like the following...

Players are in no way asking ZOS to be the handler of the gold part of an exchange. Some players have not mentioned gold at all, even in game DMs. Other players have agreed to send gold after crates arrive via in game DMs.

Regardless, ZOS customer support is specifically saying that gold for crown exchanges are ToS violations after years of saying it isn't

jaws343 · July 2023

I mean, terms of service change. And is this really shocking that they aren't wanting to facilitate this while they are also dealing with an apparent fraud situation from the previous implementation?

ssewallb14_ESO · July 2023

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin Clarify please.

Dr_Con · July 2023

I guess we should find players who no longer play the game but are still subscribed (this should be easy for console players especially), remind them to unsubscribe, and have them gift the crown crates to us out of gratitude.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe · July 2023

What?? Can someone at Zos confirm this? @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin

Snamyap · July 2023

I'm guessing customer support was getting a bit swamped with scamming reports.

Twig_Garlicshine · July 2023

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?

Dr_Con · July 2023

Snamyap wrote: »

I'm guessing customer support was getting a bit swamped with scamming reports.

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.

Lumenn · July 2023

Oooh this could get juicier than some other threads... @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno could one of you weigh in on this? Possible mistake or will gold for crowns no longer be allowed?

Edit: posted same time I asked.

Dr_Con wrote: »

Snamyap wrote: »

I'm guessing customer support was getting a bit swamped with scamming reports.

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.

Twig_Garlicshine · July 2023

Dr_Con wrote: »

Snamyap wrote: »

I'm guessing customer support was getting a bit swamped with scamming reports.

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.

Thretion · July 2023

How to finally wean people from playing your game ...And I'm not only not angry, not even surprised. These people have long shown their complete lack of understanding of how their own product works.

valenwood_vegan · July 2023

Given the responses that customer service has been sending to people attempting to use the crate gifting program, ZoS absolutely needs to clarify whether what's more generally allowed under the ToS is changing; if it is not, then they need to have customer service send proper responses such as "Crown for gold trading is not allowed under the temporary crate gifting program", rather than accusing people of attempting to violate the ToS.

Grizzbeorn · July 2023

Thretion wrote: »

How to finally wean people from playing your game ...And I'm not only not angry, not even surprised. These people have long shown their complete lack of understanding of how their own product works.

Except in this case, it's players who are not understanding the system.

The "Temporary Solution" for gifting crates is only for gifting crates; a one-way transaction.
It is not a means to facilitate "Crown items for gold," which is why those requests are being denied, as a misuse of CS.

DragonRacer · July 2023

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

Thretion wrote: »

How to finally wean people from playing your game ...And I'm not only not angry, not even surprised. These people have long shown their complete lack of understanding of how their own product works.

Except in this case, it's players who are not understanding the system.

The "Temporary Solution" for gifting crates is only for gifting crates; a one-way transaction.
It is not a means to facilitate "Crown items for gold," which is why those requests are being denied, as a misuse of CS.

But there have been people posting in the sticky thread saying no mention of exchanging gold in their requests. They merely requested to gift crates and they’re still getting TOS violation responses like that.

This entire thing is, quite frankly, a mess and I say that as someone not affected by it currently.

Dr_Con · July 2023

DragonRacer wrote: »

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

Thretion wrote: »

How to finally wean people from playing your game ...And I'm not only not angry, not even surprised. These people have long shown their complete lack of understanding of how their own product works.

Except in this case, it's players who are not understanding the system.

The "Temporary Solution" for gifting crates is only for gifting crates; a one-way transaction.
It is not a means to facilitate "Crown items for gold," which is why those requests are being denied, as a misuse of CS.

But there have been people posting in the sticky thread saying no mention of exchanging gold in their requests. They merely requested to gift crates and they’re still getting TOS violation responses like that.

This entire thing is, quite frankly, a mess and I say that as someone not affected by it currently.

I don't disagree that they're probably falsely flagging certain players. I know there's people I've received things from in the past who I've given gold to despite them not wanting anything in return, if they were to attempt to gift crates ZOS might flag it as a gold-for-crown purchase and deny it. They can't possibly know the social relationships between players like this.

While it's easy to criticize them for this (I wouldn't exactly call it low hanging fruit, though) I would also hate to be the CSRep who did a manual transaction of crown crates to someone's account only to learn that gold was involved and one person got scammed so all my work had to be undone under other policies...

What I think they're trying to prevent is people going to other servers to scam crown crates, only to come back to their main server to use the crown gems. It's a brilliant scam if you think about it, ZOS may have a harder time justifying a ban on that account or rolling back the items if they already redeemed the crown crates for gems, then redeemed the gems for some other unlock. There's also plausible deniability from the offender that the people sending the crowns were gonna "gift" it. It's really to be expected that this would happen eventually due to the extravagant crown gem prices and limited availability of certain items.

Previously I assumed there was some glitch that enabled players to redeem more crown crates than they had crowns to purchase with the server swapping. The theory that scammers are more active scamming on servers they don't play on is more likely, especially considering the guidelines they've outlined.

Lady_Galadhiel · July 2023

Well no wonder they sell much less crates nowadays.

jaws343 · July 2023

DragonRacer wrote: »

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

Thretion wrote: »

How to finally wean people from playing your game ...And I'm not only not angry, not even surprised. These people have long shown their complete lack of understanding of how their own product works.

Except in this case, it's players who are not understanding the system.

The "Temporary Solution" for gifting crates is only for gifting crates; a one-way transaction.
It is not a means to facilitate "Crown items for gold," which is why those requests are being denied, as a misuse of CS.

But there have been people posting in the sticky thread saying no mention of exchanging gold in their requests. They merely requested to gift crates and they’re still getting TOS violation responses like that.

This entire thing is, quite frankly, a mess and I say that as someone not affected by it currently.

What they are probably doing is looking back on the history of that player and their "gifting" of items. And anything deemed excessive, or likely falling into the sales territory, is being denied.

Casul · July 2023

Maybe it’s time to let players trade crowns and gold in a window system similar to item trading. You know so there can actually be a perfectly safe way to make the exchange and then the receiving player can buy whatever they want with the crowns.

Dr_Con · July 2023

Casul wrote: »

Maybe it’s time to let players trade crowns and gold in a window system similar to item trading. You know so there can actually be a perfectly safe way to make the exchange and then the receiving player can buy whatever they want with the crowns.

Allowing crowns to be traded would solve the issue immediately and dry up the crown seller market and unburden customer support.

festegios · July 2023

Tbh, it’s sounds like a using stolen credit cards to sell crowns for gold then selling the gold situation that they are trying to avoid when you look at the restrictions in place for who can do what.

irswat · July 2023

Customer service specifically said trading crowns for gold is against tos. The picture of the email is up there.

Sarannah · July 2023

This has always been against the ToS, as selling in-game items for reallife money is prohibited and has always been prohibited. This has always been in the ToS. It is just that ZOS never actually enforced it due to both in-game parties agreeing on the deal, but my guess is due to the recent crown crate 'fraudulent activity' (check sticky thread in general discussion) they may have changed their minds on this.

Or maybe something else made them change their minds, and causes them to now enforce this rule more strictly. (Keep in mind, this could have something to do with some countries banning loot boxes, or with restrictions/sanctions versus certain countries. And ZOS not wanting to get in legal trouble for allowing people to bend around those rules.)

Zalathorm · July 2023

Dr_Con wrote: »

Snamyap wrote: »

I'm guessing customer support was getting a bit swamped with scamming reports.

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.

Then why are they specifically saying gold for crowns is a ToS violation instead of saying "We suspect you will receive gold for this crate request and are not processing these requests at this time."

Sarannah wrote: »

This has always been against the ToS, as selling in-game items for reallife money is prohibited and has always been prohibited. This has always been in the ToS. It is just that ZOS never actually enforced it due to both in-game parties agreeing on the deal, but my guess is due to the recent crown crate 'fraudulent activity' (check sticky thread in general discussion) they may have changed their minds on this.

Or maybe something else made them change their minds, and causes them to now enforce this rule more strictly. (Keep in mind, this could have something to do with some countries banning loot boxes, or with restrictions/sanctions versus certain countries. And ZOS not wanting to get in legal trouble for allowing people to bend around those rules.)

Is gold real life money? Are crown store items real life money?

Gina has said crown store items are "in game items" and the exchange of gold for crowns is allowed.

Dr_Con · July 2023

Zalathorm wrote: »

Dr_Con wrote: »

Snamyap wrote: »

I'm guessing customer support was getting a bit swamped with scamming reports.

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.

Then why are they specifically saying gold for crowns is a ToS violation instead of saying "We suspect you will receive gold for this crate request and are not processing these requests at this time."

Sarannah wrote: »

This has always been against the ToS, as selling in-game items for reallife money is prohibited and has always been prohibited. This has always been in the ToS. It is just that ZOS never actually enforced it due to both in-game parties agreeing on the deal, but my guess is due to the recent crown crate 'fraudulent activity' (check sticky thread in general discussion) they may have changed their minds on this.

Or maybe something else made them change their minds, and causes them to now enforce this rule more strictly. (Keep in mind, this could have something to do with some countries banning loot boxes, or with restrictions/sanctions versus certain countries. And ZOS not wanting to get in legal trouble for allowing people to bend around those rules.)

Is gold real life money? Are crown store items real life money?

Gina has said crown store items are "in game items" and the exchange of gold for crowns is allowed.

I agree that they need to clarify on these things themselves. I don't know why they say certain things are treated like ingame items when they can't be traded.

Necrotech_Master · July 2023

i still think the funniest part of this whole thing is that this massive convoluted process to gift crates is ONLY for crown crates, other items can still be normally gifted in game without any hassle lol

i think i mentioned in the other thread as soon as i saw the steps you had to go through that this kind of thing was going to happen

minimum expected turnaround time was 48 hours
going through customer service is pretty much never fun, no matter what it the problem is

DragonRacer · July 2023

Zalathorm wrote: »

Dr_Con wrote: »

Snamyap wrote: »

I'm guessing customer support was getting a bit swamped with scamming reports.

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.

Then why are they specifically saying gold for crowns is a ToS violation instead of saying "We suspect you will receive gold for this crate request and are not processing these requests at this time."

Sarannah wrote: »

This has always been against the ToS, as selling in-game items for reallife money is prohibited and has always been prohibited. This has always been in the ToS. It is just that ZOS never actually enforced it due to both in-game parties agreeing on the deal, but my guess is due to the recent crown crate 'fraudulent activity' (check sticky thread in general discussion) they may have changed their minds on this.

Or maybe something else made them change their minds, and causes them to now enforce this rule more strictly. (Keep in mind, this could have something to do with some countries banning loot boxes, or with restrictions/sanctions versus certain countries. And ZOS not wanting to get in legal trouble for allowing people to bend around those rules.)

Is gold real life money? Are crown store items real life money?

Gina has said crown store items are "in game items" and the exchange of gold for crowns is allowed.

THIS ^^^ is the crux of the problem and confusion. ZOS literally stated in the above screenshots that players were okay to exchange in-game gold for an in-game Crown Store item. It is NOT a TOS violation for someone to exchange gold for a mount to be gifted to them, for example.

Heck, ZOS customer support has even HELPED people in the past who have been ripped off by Crown scammers, refunding gold to the scammed party with a warning they'd only do that once as it is a "buyer beware" market.

Please explain why such an incident would occur if exchanging in-game gold for in-game Crown Store items was a direct TOS violation?

Because it isn't. As the ToS is currently written and Gina stated.

Now, the question becomes are they considering the Crown CRATES something entirely different? Are they changing the ToS and we simply haven't gotten a new one to read/sign yet? In the past, I seem to recall any changes - particularly major, as this would be - made to the ToS resulted in your next login having the new rules pop up and you have to sign them to get into the game. I haven't seen one of those in years, so clearly if something has now changed since Gina's posts, we have not been properly informed of it.

I understand they had to turn off Crown CRATE gifting because of some sort of fraud happening and I am sure they don't want their CS agents bombarded with Crown sellers' massive crate sales. That this current "temporary measure" is to accommodate actual friends and guildmates actually gifting crates to each other. But if that's the case, why are people being told they are VIOLATING THE TOS?

That's a big, big difference from "sorry, but this current temporary program is not intended for Crown crate sales".

Zalathorm · July 2023

jaws343 wrote: »

DragonRacer wrote: »

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

Thretion wrote: »

How to finally wean people from playing your game ...And I'm not only not angry, not even surprised. These people have long shown their complete lack of understanding of how their own product works.

Except in this case, it's players who are not understanding the system.

The "Temporary Solution" for gifting crates is only for gifting crates; a one-way transaction.
It is not a means to facilitate "Crown items for gold," which is why those requests are being denied, as a misuse of CS.

But there have been people posting in the sticky thread saying no mention of exchanging gold in their requests. They merely requested to gift crates and they’re still getting TOS violation responses like that.

This entire thing is, quite frankly, a mess and I say that as someone not affected by it currently.

What they are probably doing is looking back on the history of that player and their "gifting" of items. And anything deemed excessive, or likely falling into the sales territory, is being denied.

So if we learn that
1. This was just terrible communication from customer support, who basically said the wrong thing
2. Gold for crowns is not in fact a violation of ToS
3. The CS ticket system will not be used to process any crate gifting when the expectation of gold is involved

Then how do they determine who is worthy to receive a gift? Is it:
1. Immediate chat history involving gold exchange
2. Past history of receiving gifted crowns and mailing large sums of gold with the seller?
3. Some other pattern?

How many human resource hours are they putting into "vetting" these crate gifting requests? How many other customer support issues are being overwhelmed by their attempt to not let players send gold in return?

What if I had intended on sending gold, but now want to just receive gifted crowns without gold. Am I ineligible because I was following the rules in the past? How long am I ineligible for?

Or, maybe they mean what they say and this is another step toward a new normal

Lady_Galadhiel · July 2023

Honestly, this temporary ''fix'' is just messed up. Not only CS has much more work to handle,possibly leaving behind other important questions or requests they get, but also they don't seem properly informed.

If it is such a hassle for ZOS to check and prevent crates from being sold in countries with laws against gambling, they should just bite the bullet and sell every item from the crates individually in the crown store.

Lumenn · July 2023

Lady_Galadhiel wrote: »

Honestly, this temporary ''fix'' is just messed up. Not only CS has much more work to handle,possibly leaving behind other important questions or requests they get, but also they don't seem properly informed.

If it is such a hassle for ZOS to check and prevent crates from being sold in countries with laws against gambling, they should just bite the bullet and sell every item from the crates individually in the crown store.

I know I personally would spend a LOT more buying what I want then on a potion box that MIGHT have a random goody 👍

Ragnarok0130 · July 2023

Sarannah wrote: »

This has always been against the ToS, as selling in-game items for reallife money is prohibited and has always been prohibited. This has always been in the ToS. It is just that ZOS never actually enforced it due to both in-game parties agreeing on the deal, but my guess is due to the recent crown crate 'fraudulent activity' (check sticky thread in general discussion) they may have changed their minds on this.

Nobody is talking about selling crowns for real gold or real money, they are talking about trading crowns for in game gold which ZoS has explicitly supported to the point of even refunding gold to players who submit a ticket for being scammed. Zalathorm's post with the screenshots support this.

zaria · July 2023

Dr_Con wrote: »

Snamyap wrote: »

I'm guessing customer support was getting a bit swamped with scamming reports.

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.

Or in real world language, if you get scammed don't complain to us.
It does not affect trading inside friendly guilds or the organized discord groups.

Again an 1000 crown coffer who could be bought in the crown store and can be gifted, sold in guild stores or in zone chat would solve this, on use it would add 1000 crowns to your account.