If you didn't notice the example was in a trade above maxmeso. If it was a regular trade it would be 2-way trade it would still turn into the scammers favour. Either by taking 2147m first then the rest for the cape or vice versa. The scammer then has the opportunity to run away after recieveing one part of the trade. I just didnt bother listing more examples, the point was that aslong as you record with both parts confirming the trade it would be enough evidence incase one decides to scam.
I'm honestly really confused about why scamming isn't taken seriously. Every other server does, there's a reason for that. Scamming is honestly one of the worst things you can do on this game. In real life, there are an enormous amount of crimes which occur due to the victim being careless. That doesn't take away from the fact that the criminal still committed the crime.
Again, scamming is something we can and do ban for but save for a handful of cases, there has not been enough proof to prove scamming had occurred. It's simply a case of one word against the other and that's what all of the staff keeps saying.
Can't you check logs? There are shop logs and chat logs which could pretty much prove that someone was scammed. To me it just seems like the staff doesn't care about scammers, and I know a lot of people share this opinion.
What would be really good, if such a thing were possible, would be an NPC that can be used as a "middle man" for certain transactions - in particular, leech. Let's name the participants in this transaction: Buyer X - currently level 70, wishes to be leeched to level 75 and is prepared to pay xxx,xxx,xxx Mesos. He wishes to be leeched within 48 hours. Seller X - the Bishop offering to leech Buyer X to level 75 for xxx,xxx,xxx Mesos within 48 hours. The NPC. For the transaction, there would be 4 or 5 input fields/drop down boxes where the buyer can select an option: 1) Type of transaction (only needed if the NPC will allow different transaction types) - in this case, select "Leech" 2) The Seller's IGN 3) Amount of Mesos 4) Level the buyer wishes to be leeched to 5) Number of hours before the agreement expires. Buyer X puts Seller X's character name, an agreed amount of mesos, the level he wishes to be leeched to and the number of hours before the agreement expires into the NPC and Seller X gets a confirmation dialogue box pop up saying that Buyer X has deposited xxx, xxx,xxx Mesos, is currently level 70 and wishes to be leeched to level 75 within the next 48 hours. Seller X then has to confirm that he agrees to this, by hitting the "confirm" button. If he doesn't agree to it, he hits the cancel button, and Buyer X gets his money back. If he hits confirm, he has 48 hours in which to leech Buyer X to level 75. If Buyer X has input Seller X's character name incorrectly, he can, of course, cancel the agreement and try again. The NPC will not release the money to the Seller X until Buyer X has reached level 75. If, after 48 hours, Buyer X is still level 70, he can reclaim his Mesos in full. (Unsure if it would be a good idea or not to allow the seller to get a percentage of the agreed amount and the buyer to be refunded a certain percentage if the buyer only reachers level 73, for example) Obviously, the NPC would take a cut in taxes, which would be a little higher than the "arrows tax rate" - hey, you don't expect him to offer you added security for free, do you?!? ^_~
@Katsuruka thats a really wonderful idea, however most people buy leech based on an hourly rate, thus creating the problem "what if the leech seller didn't leech for that full hour". If you could suggest a way for that scenario to be solved, that would be lovely I'd like to share with you some threads I found, in which you didn't dish out a ban that was deserved. a) http://royals.ms/forum/threads/mrvector-scamming.18830/ (minor offence thread. Scamming took place, although this can be overlooked since it wasn't an actual report) b) http://royals.ms/forum/threads/reporting-dazh-zhelm-buyer-scammer.18653/ (this report has proof that a scam took place, even a confirmation from the other party members) c) http://royals.ms/forum/threads/viada-is-leech-scammer.26022/ (Kat even confirmed this scam took place, VLada didn't step up to defend themselves) d) http://royals.ms/forum/threads/repo...ng-across-the-map-after-zak-dies.29877/page-2 (there are multiple people here confirming this person is a scammer. This one should have been a bannable offense)
I'm just going to say what has been said before about logs. It takes forever to check logs, especially if we'd have to check logs to investigate scamming. If I'd have to guess based on my own experience; retrieving the logs, checking the logs, connecting all the dots, doublechecking if everything matches the story would take over 3 hours per scam report. There are days out there where over 6 players get scammed, investigating all 6 scam reports would take over a day.. It would mean we'd literally need a team dedicated to just investigating that alone, and nothing else. That is not something we can realistically do, only idealistically. As much as we care about the players and feel bad for their losses; there's little we can do unless the evidence covers everything that happened, as well as us (staff) being able to confirm that it happened.
@ReconKatana - unfortunately, I don't think there is a feasible way of working hourly rate into it. I was already aware of the way most people buy/sell leech, but realised when I wrote it that people would have to buy/sell leech as suggested above for this to be even remotely feasible as a script. @Dimitri - hence my suggestion for creating an NPC to do the work for at least one type of scammable transaction - more security for the buyer and seller, and once the NPC is up and running, relatively little work for the staff.
I always wonder why people never record when they are doing such big deals. Sure if it's a mil or two a SS is enough but if your doing such big deals, not only is there a bigger chance you will get scammed but also you have a lot more to lose. The victim is also partially guilty for this because he could have prevent the scammer from getting away with it if he/she would have taken more precautions. It could save GMs hours of work to do and also potentially save your money.
We are not as you are suggesting, blaming the victim here (which I agree is an absolutely awful thing to do). You have to remember that we, as the staff are not an entirely separate entity, but are part of the community that we work in. I show the same compassion that most of you do for those who are scammed. It is just not realistic in a server like this, to fully investigate reports of scamming. We, as other members of staff have reiterated, do take action in cases where there is clear undeniable evidence that wrong doing has occurred. This type of report is alas unfortunately rare, and almost impossible for particular scams such as leeching due to the nature of the activity producing far too many gaping caverns of information. In a idealistic server, all scammers would be punished for their crimes (of utter douchbagery), but that would be entirely unrealistic. P.S. I wrote this in a lecture and my lecturer is staring at me so if anything I said doesn't make sense sorry!
I even made a sentence to the point with above mesos and in this way the scammer atleast needs to gibe away 2147mil to scam someone. Its your own decision risking more mesos to trick the taxes.
May I offer a suggestion then? Since scamming is really easy to do and anybody can be held guilty for this. I suggest that a ban take precedent and a rule about scamming be added to the ToC about this. Ban rules as followed Leech scam: If the person who scams leech does not show up to leech the "victim" after he is paid (and proof is shown) and it was intentional, a ban is deserved. Ban length is up to GM's. People can identify an intentional scam from an accidental one. There have been a few cases where the leecher has gone on to the forums to report that they've disconnected or lost Internet, only to have refunded the leech or carry out the transaction as usual. Trust scams: Dealing with Max meso or more transactions, if the scammer agreed upon purchasing an item, set up shop with arrows, received the meso and doesn't give the item he/she is selling to the buyer, this warrants a refund and a ban. Again, these are only valid WITH proof, as with any other report cases. Bans haven't been given out to scammers due to it "not being in the ToC" yet people are scamming left and right, but the GM's won't do a thing. Show proof of transaction, and the scamming that occurred and a ban should take precedent. Edit: if you're buying leech/items from someone who isn't well known in the community, I suggest you SS in case they are a scammer.
For leech I don't see an alternative to paying the seller first, but for trading items over max mesos there are alternatives to buying arrows from someone's shop, which can easily prevent scamming. The reason you guys are getting scammed is because you're trying to avoid paying higher taxes.
Not sure if this has been mentioned (forgive me coz I'm too lazy to find if it has) but can't you introduce an item like Maple Leaf equivalent of 950m that can be exchanged?
Purposely quoting this because this in particular raises a difficult question. Okay, so someone is scammed out of 3 bil of pure mesos. And according to your proposal we refund them. What do we do with the 3bil the scammer got? You may say, simple, just take it away from him. But what if they took that 3bil and traded it to someone else or used it to buy something? Do you understand what I'm trying to say and how quickly this could become VERY complicated and end up taking mesos and items away from other people? And if we don't take the items/mesos away from other players, now we're throwing billions of non-existent mesos into the economy, which would not be a good thing either.
Okay so save refunds, you can still ban the scammer and prevent future "VERY complicated" situations. Instead letting them run rampant scamming anywhere up to 9b isn't considered "VERY complicated" ? Sounds pretty black and white to me. It seems that you're clumping many scams together as too difficult to investigate when it doesn't seem that difficult to check if Haul still had the 10 att cape after receiving bils upon bils of free mesos which didn't seem to be a problem when checking arrow buying habits for people paying real life money for mesos. I didn't see a report abuse on all of those people who got banned for suspicious activity. That seems like a hell of a lot of work to do banning people on "suspicion"
Maybe there could be something that gives a notification to the confirmed scammer that they have to pay back those mesos to the person being scammed? Like maybe a NPC that can take care of that and send x mesos back to the person who was scammed? Kinda like Duey. I don't know how hard that would be to program but just a thought. EDIT: cleared up grammar
To add to @Nicko 's thing, if a player has valid proof that a scam took place, with proper screenshots and things, why is it so hard to just give them a 3 day time out? GM's apparently check up on people dropping apples 1 by 1, do all this crazy investigation for which many meso are being thrown into the market, yet when they're faced with a scammer who HAS BEEN CONFIRMED by community members WITH screenshots, "oh sorry, we can't do anything, next time be more careful". You don't need to refund any mesos/items, I retract that statement. Scammers are just as bad as meso buyers, and should be dealt with accordingly. Again, if someone has valid proof that an INTENTIONAL scam took place, a ban should be dished out. I can go on your server right now, scam about 5 or 6 people with my Bishop by "selling" leech. Nothing will happen to me. Will my reputation be ruined amongst my peers? Yes. Would I gain anything? Yes as well. Will I be punished for what I did? No. We can take a look at another thread, the Murker and Fion thread, which was about scamming an SCG. The scammer HIMSELF even admitted to scamming, didn't give the glove back, and got away with it. That's just really unfair.
