Potential T&C Scamming Drafts and Ideas

Oh gosh, I remember my old runescape days when I used to farm big bones every single day after I came back from school. Sold them for 300g's each time I got a full inventory of them, only to be scammed the 70k I painstakingly earned due to someone fast trading (putting in 100k and taking out 90k, making it seem like 100k when it was actually 10k). I think I cried for 7 days, and had to resort to a gamecube game "paper mario" for about a month, before I slowly but surely moved away from that game.

I also recall getting scammed by a real life friend. I'd like logg off, and I'd always remember him asking for my username and password, but I was young back then, (like 12 years old) and had no idea what his true intentions were. After I had logged out to do my homework, I logged back into the back swamp of lumbridge (Lumby, as it was called back then), stripped completely naked. This happened on several occasions. Man..., Jason, if you're still out there somewhere I hope you're still doing okay in real life.

 

I share your pain brother, I was first scammed in Maplestory through the exact same "Gotta be faster & accept" scam, I lost my set of ilbis to that, the ilbis I worked so hard to get.

But from then on, I knew how that scam worked. And I practiced putting a random etc item into the trade and hitting accept on the first part of the scam, making easy amounts of money, and scamming the scammers. I then evolved to deceiving people by selling invisible chairs (There was a glitch to make you sit on air) & made millions off of it. Good times

 

Trimming armor for free

 

yeah, got scammed that way too, by someone named tacobell387 or something lolol. Lost my mithril set that way. Sheesh

 

I was perm muted way back because I said "trimming armor" in one text D: I was just joking, runescape was savage back then on scamming.

I got the mute eventually appealed after a year or so

 

ill give my 2 cents, although i is VERY late


as some said in this thread, a ban isnt worth anything, as usually by the time the ban will hit the item/money will already be on a different account, or spent. so unless you ban his IP/mac a ban isnt meaningful.

similar to money/items - how do you deal with it? do you empty his account? all of the accounts? put him in a negative balance on the char he scammed from?

sadly, trades are based on trust at some point, and enforcing the trade/return of the items will be a pain in the GM's butts.

leech scams, similarly, are probably harder to find and prove than people think. so unless he literally gave you 0 exp, or something that is undeniably a scam (lets say that a normal petri leech is 30m exp/h, and you got from him 5m exp, and have all the proof needed) - then maybe the other guy should get a ban (well, definitely should but semantics), but returning the money is too much work for the staff.

i think at least as far as im concerned, the blacklist is doing its work well. only thing i would make a different is making sure it is maintained (im relatively new to the forums so not sure how often it is updated) but having a GM whose job is to manage the front page with all the IGNs of the scammers/hackers and the thread itself. and by that i mean to lock it in a way - delete discussions on it, just keep the offences once made sure they are offenses. an alternative is to make another thread, in which a GM will post a list of every offender and link to the post describing his offense.

THEN comes the final part of my idea - just advertise the front page of the blacklist or the new thread i described. advertise it wherever - in game (like the yellow text on top, have it show every now and then so that players will be aware that it exists). once players are aware of it, avoiding scams will be (mostly) the buyer's responsobility.

it would be more like the scenario of : the news are repeatedly telling us to check one (single) website for a list of thieves. the list is a list of every thief in the world, possibly organized alphabetically, with a link to the trial case of each one, so when you buy something from someone you don't know, you have the option to see if he is an offender. then, if one gets scammed (especially by repeated offenders) it's on him. for example aulz is making a big bank these days through scamming (and once someone PM'd me that he said that my char was his wizard and i almost caught up to flame trying to say im not his char but whatever) which could be prevented if the community thread was more known.

i know it's not a perfect solution, but i think that one is minimal work on the side of the GM's, if any. just improve the commnity blacklist (or make a proper list instead of a thread, that only the GM or someone assigned by him will be able to edit, like the first page of the blacklist but that's the entire thread) and advertise the hell out of it. like make it give as a tip every 10 minutes to check the blacklist (with a link, or a tinyurl for it), so everyone knows of it.

i don't think even the more lenient players against punishing scammers will object it, as it puts most of the responsobility on the buyer - but gives them the tools needed to learn on the scammers

 

I'm unsure of how feasible it is, but personally I wouldn't ever ban an account. Instead I would add it to a blacklist along with the IP and or MAC address and block those. Whenever the account logs on from a new MAC address using a VM or a new IP using a VPN then add those to the block list. However, make it so that only the combination of IP/MAC address and account are blocked so that if another account is accessed from either then they can also be added to the blacklist against those addresses. In doing this it would ideally make it so that not only can the account never be accessed again, but any of their alt. accounts are also stripped of access.

In addition to this, for certain crimes where there is evidence beyond a doubt that it was perpetrated with intent then I would instantly apply the above. I've never really understood the whole 3d/14d/perma-ban system. Three strikes and you're out is how you treat children to teach them the consequences of their actions, not full-grown adults who know full well what they're doing.

Usually my opinion on scamming is that it's the fault of the person being scammed. However, that's because being scammed IRL is usually a matter of one person outwitting another for some form of gain. In those instances complaining that you've been scammed is like complaining that they bested you intellectually (not something I'd personally shout from the rooftops). In the context of MapleRoyals though the "scams" are all pretty well-defined instances that are more a breach of trust or etiquette than any sort of contrivance. For example, when paying for leech it is the accepted practice that you pay before the leech is provided. If this was not a well-established way of doing things and each transaction was handled individually then either party could argue whether payment should be before or after the leech is provided due to shared risk. That the advantage is gained not through some clever machination, but merely a purposeful breach of etiquette in a close-knit community it should be dealt with harshly.

 

More than a year and a half since this thread's inception. Is T&C gonna be updated to include scamming or not?

 

Tim already announced (on the forum and via in-game blue text msg) that scamming falls under objectionable behavior. What are you guys exactly asking for? Scamming is already bannable as of now if one takes precaution and submits enough evidence to prove the ill intention. I don't understand what extra can be added to the T&C to change anything.

 

Then what's the point of this thread? If it falls under objectional behaviour, just include it in the T&C.

Objectionable Behavior (Disruption) - The act of engaging in any sort of action that is deemed to be excessively disruptive to the individuals around you, including spamming, scamming or flooding chat or skills. Punishment: First offense - 3 day ban, Second offense, 7 day ban, Third offense - Permanent ban.

Most players wouldn't even know how to report scamming because they don't know what to use as a ruler.

 

Part of the problem is its a tad bit harder to prove than someone being a little shit in chat. If that makes sense. It would be very easy to just put it in then a bunch of people would get upset if they miss the mark with the report and nothing happens.

The point of this thread is to just discuss it and maybe someone with a bit more legalese can draft up ways of putting stuff into the TnC that make sense. Perhaps just a whole section explaining what is and isnt acamming and how much evidence is needed. I dont know though. Thats why this is here!

Edit: also the forum likes to stop notifying when posts are made in followed threads after a while. I dont mean to leave these to the way side for so long

 

Why only faake bidding, how about fake c/oing just look how the community working here. People gathering up and buying items of friends how do we even know thatctrades even take place?
Like noobs inexperienced player already getting losing every single trade due asymmetrical information with forum references
Is it merching or scamming u tell me plz

 

And while we are at it only seem like like tier noob players committing crime such as bundling scams the profit is merely a 10m for each stack.
What this discussion is not to improve the the community in the long run, this is how to make a better place for current lazy people who really gets offended by making mistaken trades. Anything and instead of crying of the 9m loss sitting on fm buying cs/ws, item high volume, fast liquidity item 100m under current price, looking for trades of only noobs because they know they dont owl, they know that the people selling not knowing that a smega +50m more will end up selling it faster than i get banned again any time of the day.
Look im not fucking harry potter i do not talk to snake okay? If any premuted player in this forum has already mentioned what im discussing then just delted what im tryin to say okay

 

Insteaad of cry over bundle scam, if u player think its offensive then take the bullet for the community by buying ONE tooth out of the 200 stack will prevent any other player from getting this shit which u think is problem.
Its really thanks to u guys we have laws like fucking konsumentköplagen its benefit for lazy people causing me to fucking buy the item more expensively because forced law increasing underlying pricibg with guarntees i dont want involved
And while at it why cant we just maake standardised buy/sell threads formatting or just premade foeum made selling forum thread for each item in the game. Then no need for thread bump either
If u seriously pro more inclusive to new players must do something about this.
I just entered wand business, mainly driven by wand pricing and scrolls used. We have efficient scroll and base wand market prices, not scrolled ones. Every noob player falls of forum mispricing when cake event wand scroll 100% dropped almost 50% being main part of cost in creating middle tiered ele wands not higher tiers.
Noob player buys forum reference made in january this year when price of wand 100% 300m+.
Same goes for chairs too

 

Okay sure but please, please keep be nore inclusive in this community with your subjetively ways of issuing bans and warning points. Just look in my feedback thread people politely in a way telling me they think im retarded because i think differently tgmhan them. Please make this better place, not make it a place for established long run members to claim map ownership of forum, the server already dying

 

Deleted off topic posts, please keep any further replies on the subject or find/create an appropriate feedback thread for comments that are not relevant.

For what it's worth we do try to take action when scamming is reported with evidence but many times it is hard.
Typically scamming victimizes naive players and they are not informed of what should be recorded. They're the easiest targets.
In a perfect world there would be a system in place to ensure the buyer and seller are getting what they want from the deal but this is a decades old game and with it there will be loopholes for conniving individuals to get around.
The blacklist is always a good source of information to make a judgement as well.