Gold/Crown Sellers (real money): is it worth reporting?

Kappachi · April 3

it's worth reporting because every time I've done it i've gotten a message back they were dealt with without fail, often within the same hour.

Elvenheart · April 3

DeadlySerious wrote: »

AvalonRanger wrote: »

Just ignore= no problem.

Yep. Just ignore them. Any interaction with them could result in action taken against yourself. It's not likely, but best to just avoid them all together.

I would say that it’s best to report them, but definitely do not interact with them.

DreamyLu · April 4

They're still here today. We just had an advertising in zone chat. What I noticed is that the text always start with the same [Kuta] and the same that follows as usual, but in the end, they put a combo of letters/digits that changes at each new entry. This last one for example was ending with jH8H. I wonder what for it is.

SeaGtGruff · April 4

DreamyLu wrote: »

They're still here today. We just had an advertising in zone chat. What I noticed is that the text always start with the same [Kuta] and the same that follows as usual, but in the end, they put a combo of letters/digits that changes at each new entry. This last one for example was ending with jH8H. I wonder what for it is.

I think those are supposed to be "discount codes" or something. One was spamming Greenshade zone chat tonight on PCNA and giving different codes each time, like a different code every 15-to-30 seconds or something like that.

katanagirl1 · April 4

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

DreamyLu wrote: »

They're still here today. We just had an advertising in zone chat. What I noticed is that the text always start with the same [Kuta] and the same that follows as usual, but in the end, they put a combo of letters/digits that changes at each new entry. This last one for example was ending with jH8H. I wonder what for it is.

I think those are supposed to be "discount codes" or something. One was spamming Greenshade zone chat tonight on PCNA and giving different codes each time, like a different code every 15-to-30 seconds or something like that.

There are tons of these on PS and they do give a code, but it is for selling gold and xp.

SilverBride · April 4

I entered Rawl'kha and immediately saw this. Can anything be done about this?

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno

[EDIT to remove screenshot.]

ZOS_Kevin · April 4

SilverBride wrote: »

I entered Rawl'kha and immediately saw this. Can anything be done about this?

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno

Please report the accounts in-game when you see them. It gives us the most information when trying to removed bots and gold seller spam like this.

SilverBride · April 4

Thank you.

oldbobdude · April 4

I reported a gold seller on EU a couple weeks ago. Got an email from ZOS confirming TOS violation.

DreamyLu · May 31

To follow up on the issue: They're still active every day with the exact same chat message as always (only the code at the end of the sentence is changing). It's going on and one since so long by now... They seem to feel safe and if they keep it going, it means they earn sufficiently out of it. It seems to be impossible to stop them.

I must admit that sadly, since last week, I have given up and stopped reporting.

Desiato · May 31

Just because the problem can only be mitigated doesn't mean that reporting is pointless. Yes, they'll be back, but the more work it takes them the better.

Reporting takes like 10 seconds.

@ZOS_Kevin The screenshot in this thread is kind of advertising for them.

Necrotech_Master · May 31

the general problem is its too easy for the sellers to make new accounts

they already have tons of money from selling, they just make another burner email and then buy another cheap basic account and continue spamming (or even have dozens of burner accounts on the ready for when it gets banned)

reporting still helps as it kills one of their accounts, but its hard to make it feel effective to report when they could have a hundred burner accounts

SilverBride · May 31

Desiato wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin @SilverBride The screenshot in this thread is kind of advertising for them.

That never occurred to me. Thank you for pointing that out. I removed it from my post.

MickeyBN · May 31

Just out of curiosity, is gold selling considered the same as buying gold for Crows and vise versa? I see people from time to time selling Crowns at a 1:1 price, is this also frowned upon?

joergino · May 31

MickeyBN wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, is gold selling considered the same as buying gold for Crows and vise versa? I see people from time to time selling Crowns at a 1:1 price, is this also frowned upon?

No, it isn't. This is about selling gold for real life currency. Most likely that gold is generated by botting.

Renato90085 · May 31

MickeyBN wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, is gold selling considered the same as buying gold for Crows and vise versa? I see people from time to time selling Crowns at a 1:1 price, is this also frowned upon?

wait 1:1???

Desiato · May 31

MickeyBN wrote: »

Just out of curiosity, is gold selling considered the same as buying gold for Crows and vise versa? I see people from time to time selling Crowns at a 1:1 price, is this also frowned upon?

My understanding is that one should have a reason to trust the player they're trading with to avoid making a deal with someone engaged in fraud -- which I've read could potentially impact the player buying Crowns.

Dock01 · May 31

i never knew you can use gold to buy crowns though it sounds good , i think its uhhh hmm idk from what i read , people has been doing this for decades so i guess its the norm ?? hard to decide whether or not its allowed, and to be honest.. in my gaming history i never touch anything that isn't officially from the games store, so this is scary and im glad i never interact with any backdoor seller, i saw someone on the forum getting banned for buying a DLC or crowns with gold , and it was because the account he interacted with was an known scammer, and he got caught up with it.

SilverBride · May 31

Dock01 wrote: »

i never knew you can use gold to buy crowns...

It's called that but we can't actually buy crowns for gold. When a player wants a specific crown store item they ask to buy the amount of crowns that the item costs. A crown seller will then buy the item with their crowns and gift it to the player who pays them with gold.

HumbleThaumaturge · May 31

I used to report gold sellers immediately. But the posts in Zone chat by gold sellers continue, all day, every day, so I stopped reporting. I'll start again.

I do have three recommendations:
-- Add "Gold Selling" as one of the reasons for reporting a player. As of now, I report under "Bad Actions"/"Scamming." Would be better I think to have a specific "Category" for "Gold Selling."
-- Restore the option to add a screenshot to Report Player form. It used to be an option but got deleted at some point. I quote the entire post to Zone chat in my Reports, but it might be better to have a screenshot.
-- There might be less gold selling if there were less gold laundering. It is rather easy to spot gold laundering. I've reported gold laundering in the past, but actions were never taken against the gold launderers. Taking actions against both players and guilds for gold laundering might reduce gold selling. Might not. Don't know.

Desiato · May 31

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

-- Restore the option to add a screenshot to Report Player form. It used to be an option but got deleted at some point. I quote the entire post to Zone chat in my Reports, but it might be better to have a screenshot.

All you have to do is type "gold seller".

Iselin · May 31

I still report them routinely when I see in chat and always get an email later that day or the next thanking me and saying action has been taken.

The report also auto-mutes them from my chat feed.

JeroenB · June 1

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

[...]
-- Restore the option to add a screenshot to Report Player form. It used to be an option but got deleted at some point. I quote the entire post to Zone chat in my Reports, but it might be better to have a screenshot.[...]

Thanks for your dedication, but I'll second Desiato's response -- you really don't need to go to all that effort to copy the post, which ZOS would still need to verify themselves anyway. ZOS has complete logs of anything any account types into chat, so with the account name and the timestamp of your report they can immediately pull up whatever that account communicated in the five minutes before your report. I wouldn't be surprised if their software tooling automatically displays a log of recent chat communication that reporter and reportee were involved in when a staff member opens any report.

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

[...]
-- Add "Gold Selling" as one of the reasons for reporting a player. As of now, I report under "Bad Actions"/"Scamming." Would be better I think to have a specific "Category" for "Gold Selling."[...]

I agree this could be a bit clearer. It probably doesn't matter whether we pick "Scamming" or one of the other ones under "Bad Actions", but the lower the mental barrier is for people to report them, the better. They could just rename the category "Scamming/gold selling".

Elsonso · June 1

Well, I reported one yesterday that was announcing their wares in zone chat. ZOS replied back about 10 hours later letting me know that they agreed with me and had taken "appropriate action". Surprised that they actually came back and let me know what the general outcome was, but it was appreciated. I suppose that if it was any other outcome, I would not have heard back?

theskymoves · June 1

I report gold sellers whenever I see them in zone chat (which means frequently). Reported another one today at 10:45 AM, got the 'thank you, reviewed the report, determined there was a violation, taken appropriate action' email at 12:45 PM (just 2 hours later).

So yep, it is worth reporting.

SilverBride · June 1

Is it necessary to provide a screenshot? I always do then attach it to the email with my reply. But if it's not necessary I'll save myself the trouble.

JavaRen · June 1

Elsonso wrote: »

Well, I reported one yesterday that was announcing their wares in zone chat. ZOS replied back about 10 hours later letting me know that they agreed with me and had taken "appropriate action". Surprised that they actually came back and let me know what the general outcome was, but it was appreciated. I suppose that if it was any other outcome, I would not have heard back?

I did receive a response to a report once that said they found no wrongdoing and took no action. This was for something other than the RMT website ads being discussed here.

Necrotech_Master · June 1

Iselin wrote: »

I still report them routinely when I see in chat and always get an email later that day or the next thanking me and saying action has been taken.

The report also auto-mutes them from my chat feed.

the problem with the auto ignore is that they will just show up again with another account because the one that got ignored is banned, so it doesnt really help lol

i usually end up actually just deleting it from my ignore because of that fact as its taking up a valuable ignore slot

freespirit · June 1

SilverBride wrote: »

Is it necessary to provide a screenshot? I always do then attach it to the email with my reply. But if it's not necessary I'll save myself the trouble.

I never provide screenshots and nearly always get an "action was taken" email....... probably always but three accounts, three different email accounts that I don't always check that often!! 🙂

SilverBride · June 1

freespirit wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Is it necessary to provide a screenshot? I always do then attach it to the email with my reply. But if it's not necessary I'll save myself the trouble.

I never provide screenshots and nearly always get an "action was taken" email....... probably always but three accounts, three different email accounts that I don't always check that often!! 🙂

Thanks!

And do we need to reply to the email we get right after we report them, or can I skip that step too? I'm more likely to keep reporting if I don't have to do all that other stuff too!