About Platinum, Trading, and Scammers

[(XBOX)NuclearSquiddy]

Just now, NeoBahamut19 said:

Very true, the only time I ever see DE interacting with the community or addressing "issues" is when it comes to anything preventing players from spending Plat or when it comes to providing more goods to sell to players. They'll gladly leave bugs in the game for years and years as long as it doesn't hit their bottom line.

Whatever makes them money/stops them from losing money

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

17 minutes ago, NeoBahamut19 said:

This isn't about changing the mechanics of trading any more than not punishing players who are victims of scammers using fraudulently bought Platinum. Digital Extremes has ignored this topic for long enough and needs to address it.

I feel like the only way they'd ever care, is if a high profile youtube video or major gaming website with really good production values was made addressing the topic of Ethics and Premium Currencies in games, and they got brought up as an example.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

19 minutes ago, NeoBahamut19 said:

 

Found the drone. There's threads everywhere, it's commonly known that this is an issue in the community. It's talked about in chat regularly (was just talked about in Council chat the other night). There's threads complaining about it on these forums, on Reddit, on Steam, everywhere. I'm not going to spend my afternoon looking up threads and independently verifying with them their personal information.

You did a wall of text to say "yeah, without sources, you must be lying". You're absolutely blind in your love of DE and dedication to protecting them.

Also, I'm not going to link the threads here as it's likely that it may flag a post as possible spam.

 

Valve doesn't ban people if they unknowingly trade with scammers using illegal funds, they reverse the transactions and issue apologies and sometimes take it on the chin, as it was THEIR market that THEY failed to properly oversee and it was their customers who ultimately got scammed. DE is insistent upon not just punishing the scammer, but the victim.

 

I mean, if it makes you feel better by accusing me of being a drone, then sure. You are also the person that made a claim about police not being able to get away with shady stuff (paraphrasing, I can't find your exact quote, and you have edited a lot of your older comments), so I guess people being killed by police, and then corruption being covered up doesn't really bother you, but random anonymous people online making claims about DE does... but I am the drone right? 

See, I can make accusations too, but I would rather not, since, I sincerely admire and appreciate your passion for the idea here, wanting to ensure scammed people aren't punished, is honourable. Did you not get that from my response? Ethically, I agree with you, BUT... the evidence or examples need to be compelling. You go from saying that there are threads everywhere, to saying that you are not going to spend your afternoon verifying personal information. 

Is this a serious issue that really concerns you genuinely? Or are you just looking for something to feel outraged over? 

You shouldn't try to tell someone what their message was, especially if you misunderstand/misinterpret it. Its not that without sources, "you must be lying". I don't think you are lying, but without sources or some sort of evidence, how can we, or anyone ascertain legitimacy or credibility? Are you saying that anyone can accuse anyone of everything and we should just believe them? Obviously not, or at least I hope not. 

Its not related to scamming, but we often get people who make threads that they got "unfairly" chat banned or banned by DE and they want to know when they will be unbanned and why they got banned in the first place. Sometimes they give a little bit of info, like... yeah they may have used a banned word, or told someone to kill themselves... but they started it! Or some other excuse. The more open and honest a person is, the more they can be helped. If people can't effectively communicate well, with transparency, whether intentionally or unintentionally then whether they realise it or not, they are hindering themselves. Its not the only issue, because in power imbalances, those with power can use means to suppress, silence, censor voices, but this only makes transparency and legitimacy even more important, because if you have too many people making false claims and accusations, it just muddies the situation for those with sincere troubles and issues.

You get me? 

I don't love businesses, and I straight up said, DE would lose me as a customer if I saw legit evidence of them punishing an innocent player for being scammed. You must not have read my post, and I get it, it was a long post, but I was going into the nuance of the subject. Are you some sort of concern troll? A concern troll is someone who takes on the advocacy of a group, in this case it would be those who are scammed, but they hold no actual real interest or concern for others, and just use it to platform for whatever reason. Thats how parts of your responses come off to me, either that or anyone who doesn't obliviously agree with you is against you, which isn't accurate to think. 

You can just PM me any situation or case, if you don't want to link it here. Thing is, I need to communicate with the person. I work in mental health, so in the past I have had to advocate for individuals, who have had trouble communicating and negotiating with authorities, people in power. I am very aware of issues that can occur in cases of individual vs business, corporation, authority, but we also need to be able to distinguish situations where someone was scammed and punished/treated unethically to engaging in shady activity and calling foul/ Also since I am here, there is also an issue of people acting unideal or shady, but still being unpunished unfairly, it... gets complicated. 

Personally I see as many examples of people asking why their plat is missing and then randoms telling them to message DE and provide screenshots and evidence backing their claims and then situation being resolved. Also if you are really sincere about wanting to help such people, you are going to want to have a mindset where you help those legitimately scammed versus those that may not have right? How are you going to tell the difference? 

Your Valve example doesn't work for me, until you can give me examples of DE punishing people who were legitimately scammed. I don't think its impossible, I am curious in the topic, but I have seen people, who claim DE doesn't, wit their specific policies. You just need to contact them and go through the proper channels. 

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Also to clarify, I did find your example about police and stolen goods, and investigations, and how it "doesn't fly in the real world" so you didn't edit it, but I don't know man, I think thats kind of a naive take to have, whilst also trying to accuse others of being for DE and anti-consumer. 

Since I left a wall of text in my other replies, I'll be blunt with this one. To generalise, a lot of people hate DE, a lot of people love DE, a lot of people are apathetic/inbetween. How can we distinguish your thread as being a sincere concern for scammed players being punished, versus a person who hates/is frustrated being a Concern Troll, making an anti DE thread claiming they are hostile to fans, with their polices which punish players who were scammed, and they kill puppies too!! 

Now I think you are being sincere, but like dude, talking about this in the abstract has minimal value. Without an actual example, of a player who was scammed, and then punished, and there is clear cut evidence, of their innocence, they can provide screenshots, they are transparent, they don't leave out important details etc we are just talking about the abstract, and ego. Lack of evidence doesn't mean lying, we just need evidence to actually see what transpired and use as a landmark. 

There are a lot of campaigns to release specific "innocent" people from prisons, because something doesn't add up, but its not for all blanket individuals. We need ways to distinguish. Also not all people who are innocent in prisons, have adequate data to support their innocence either, which sucks, which is why transparency is important, and ideally people get better access to better advocates. Do you also value transparency, because at the moment, it seems like you are more interested in fighting people who don't outright agree with you or accusing people of blindly loving DE if they don't. Again, I empathise, because the idea of people scammed being further punished, is maddening, dude, I've been in situations where people nice people with mental health issues were almost killed by police, I get it, but whats your actual end goal here? To rabble rouse against DE, or actually see how their policies work in practice to ensure those scammed are actually treated to provide better consumer care?

[Gepsal]

On 2021-06-23 at 7:07 PM, NeoBahamut19 said:

Recently I had around 70 platinum, used 35 for Forma, and came back a few hours to only 1 on my account... This caused me to go on a search to see what may have happened.

To my horror, I have found thread after thread (across here, Reddit, Steam, and other places) stating that if a scammer trades Platinum, the victim who is COMPLETELY UNAWARE the Platinum they got was not legit can not only LOSE that Platinum, but can also be banned if they accrue a negative balance and then is ENCOURAGED to spend cash to make up the difference to essentially buy themselves out of their ban. Some of these bans have been for balances into the negative thousands due to large trades for expensive items such as Riven Mods.

A couple notes here: Trading is not only allowed in-game by Digital Extremes, but is highly pushed by them as a HUGE aspect of their live market. Digital Extremes should be held wholly accountable, not legitimate consumers, for any fraudulent activity that happens in their storefronts (the trading posts they provide people in Dojos). You are required already to be MR2 & have 2FA enabled in order to trade.

Given this, why is it acceptable to ban someone, Digital Extremes, for using a system YOU implemented and YOU watch over when YOU fail to stop someone in time? Isn't it on YOUR (Digital Extreme's) head for not verifying someone is purchasing Platinum legitimately?

What gives YOU (Digital Extremes) the right to punish a customer in YOUR store that YOU set up because of YOUR failings at verifying sales properly?

How am I or any other player to be able to trust Digital Extremes won't abuse us, ban our accounts with hundreds to thousands of hours, all because of one trade with someone who may have been using stolen information to purchase Platinum. It's not on US (the players) to verify the purchases that other players make. Are you expecting me to ask every vendor for their number, identification information, and all other information to verify WHO they are in order to protect myself on YOUR store?

Let's be real here, I keep calling Trading Posts YOUR (Digital Extremes) store because YOU (Digital Extremes) are the ones who not only implemented it but also allow the trading of Platinum, acknowledge the scamming issues that happen, and have put in some measly 2FA/MR2 requirements for trading. Here's the problem with those two methods:

2FA: It's called a burner phone, anyone can get one.

MR2: You can literally buy this with illegally obtained plat by getting a Mirage and a bunch of weapons and hitting up SO as fast as possible, if you even need to get that far to hit MR2.

 

You, Digital Extremes, designed this system that allows for US (the players) to be scammed. YOU, Digital Extremes, should be the one to pay the price for US getting scammed, NOT us.

 

The solutions are as follows:

Digital Extremes takes it on the chin when they fail to do their job verifying a purchase to be legitimate by NOT punishing the player through removal of Platinum/items.

OR

Remove the ability to trade Platinum. (We all know what their stance will be with that.)

 

I shouldn't feel like I'm putting my account into jeopardy just to trade some stuff for the currency I spend cash on in a system provided by you, the developer, in your game.

 

Imagine the following scanario: You go to a bar, someone from another table you don't know buys you a drink on their tab, they then do a dine n' dash. They also happened to do this to 2 or 3 other people as well who all took it as a gift from a random stranger. The server comes over to you and expects you to pay for the drink that they bought you. When you say "I'm not paying for it, I didn't ask for it, it's not on me", that server gets the bouncer to kick you out of the bar and ban you from coming back. Who is in the wrong here?

Answer: The scammer and the business.

 

/rant

They deducted 20pl the other day, I made a post talking about it, some agreed, others did not; but at the end of the day, innocent players keep paying because someone decided to use a stolen credit card. Beautiful.

[Dunkelheit]

Am 24.6.2021 um 01:59 schrieb NeoBahamut19:

 

One of the problems is far too many people in their community have been cultured to follow them and not question their decisions, treating DE as if they're holy figures that are not wrong and that if a player is wronged, it's on the player.

It's the most toxic thing about this game.

Hmm... have you ever though about their perspective? Do they maybe have a reason other than alienating their playerbase on purpose?

Btw, 8 years of Warframe, never had a problem.

[Althaline]

You've got to understand that no matter what system they employ, if it allows exceptions there will be scammers taking advantage of those exceptions. The current system prevents people from just generating plat using two accounts, but that means innocent players can be caught off-guard by the harsh penalties. Tell me, what system would you utilise in order to avoid punishing players like you without allowing thievery from your own coffers?

[Krankbert]

vor 1 Minute schrieb Iamabearlulz:

You've got to understand that no matter what system they employ, if it allows exceptions there will be scammers taking advantage of those exceptions. The current system prevents people from just generating plat using two accounts, but that means innocent players can be caught off-guard by the harsh penalties. Tell me, what system would you utilise in order to avoid punishing players like you without allowing thievery from your own coffers?

My platinum balance is beyond the point where it's going to happen, but if it had ever gone negative, then that day would have been the last day I played. What other system would I utilise? Is this a joke? They're currently asking players to reimburse them for someone else's scam. It's ludicrous. If someone else makes a chargeback or uses a stolen credit card, then why the hell is that supposed to be my problem?

[Althaline]

3 minutes ago, Krankbert said:

My platinum balance is beyond the point where it's going to happen, but if it had ever gone negative, then that day would have been the last day I played. What other system would I utilise? Is this a joke? They're currently asking players to reimburse them for someone else's scam. It's ludicrous. If someone else makes a chargeback or uses a stolen credit card, then why the hell is that supposed to be my problem?

So then, what system would you utilise in order to both prevent theft and protect legitimate players?

[Krankbert]

vor 5 Minuten schrieb Iamabearlulz:

So then, what system would you utilise in order to both prevent theft and protect legitimate players?

I don't have to provide a cure for cancer to know that drinking cow urine isn't a good one. Do I get to share in the profits DE makes? No, I don't, so why should I share in their business risks like chargebacks or credit card fraud.

[(XBOX)AMONGTHEWEAK]

Other than that just maintaining a good positive plat balance to offset your potential negatives is really the only solution atm. 

This will always be an issue as long as there are exploits with credit card charge backs/refunds. 

Unless they added a certification process to any bought plat via plat packs or PA, where it has to undergo a process before its allowed to be traded with other players. But that would involve too much time and effort to be cost effective enough for DE.

[Reitrix]

On 2021-06-24 at 10:09 AM, Tesseract7777 said:

I think this is the best solution.

I got the impression somewhere they are afraid to try this, because they think it might slow down people's enthusiasm to trade, knowing that they platinum wouldn't be available right away, or something to that effect. 

The bigger issue is simply that even if they made plat go into an untradeable pool until the transaction was fully cleared, it doesn't stop a bad actor from filing a chargeback.

Nor does it solve plat bought with stolen cards.

In both scenarios, even when the plat looks as legit as it can possibly be, DE would  still need to remove plat that was purchased fraudulently. 

There really is no perfect solution to the problem.

If DE just "took it on the chin", the plat economy would tank because malicious groups would be able to manipulate the amount of plat in circulation effortlessly.

In a world someone can set up a burner account, make a huge fraudulent purchase and then disseminate that bad plat to their legit accounts with no repercussions whatsoever, almost anyone would be able to essentially infinitely generate plat at DE's cost.

That plat has to be removed from wherever it ends up, not just for DEs wallet, but for the sake of what little economy we have in game. Sometimes it'll catch out an innocent. But DE has no way of knowing if you truly are innocent.

[trst]

Something that needs to be kept in mind is that every time a card company goes through the chargeback process the merchant (DE) is charged a fine by said company. So whenever someone files a chargeback not only is the profit from the transaction lost but DE lost money in the process due to fees.

Making the system lenient enough to protect innocent users also opens the possibility for fraudsters to get away with generating illegal plat for free and to keep it. Which would encourage more players to attempt this. And every one of those transactions would be a financial loss for DE on top of excess plat entering the economy.

And unless players would be fine with plat being untradable for months (to account for chargeback windows) there is no easy solution for the problem. It's a decision between an occasional innocent player losing plat/account access or DE facing regular losses due to people trying to commit fraud.

[Gepsal]

19 hours ago, Krankbert said:

I don't have to provide a cure for cancer to know that drinking cow urine isn't a good one. Do I get to share in the profits DE makes? No, I don't, so why should I share in their business risks like chargebacks or credit card fraud.

My man spitting out facts like it's Christmas, oh ... and the other people saying the same thing over and over again ...

[Gepsal]

12 hours ago, trst said:

Something that needs to be kept in mind is that every time a card company goes through the chargeback process the merchant (DE) is charged a fine by said company. So whenever someone files a chargeback not only is the profit from the transaction lost but DE lost money in the process due to fees.

Tell me which part of this situation is my problem (I wanted to use the word "damn" in front of "problem", but you know, they could ban me for that).

C:

[stormy505]

On 2021-06-23 at 5:06 PM, Berzerkules said:

DE could also make the plat untradeable until it clears. It would suck for the seller but would stop any bans for going into the red.

That's not good for sales, imagine buying something and then being told you have to wait 2 weeks before you can use it. Straight up will murder any future sales from that person.

 

[trst]

2 hours ago, Gepsal said:

Tell me which part of this situation is my problem (I wanted to use the word "damn" in front of "problem", but you know, they could ban me for that).

C:

Didn't say it's the players problem. It's just the reason they can't make it lenient enough to protect innocent users as that just makes the underlying issue far worse. And making the system protect innocent users is what people have been asking for here.

It's DE's problem and again their solution is either to occasionally impact an innocent user to face regular financial losses while the game's economy suffers. Or implement some other system that would also negatively impact all/most users like a several month plat hold.

[atteSmythe]

22 hours ago, Iamabearlulz said:

You've got to understand that no matter what system they employ, if it allows exceptions there will be scammers taking advantage of those exceptions. The current system prevents people from just generating plat using two accounts, but that means innocent players can be caught off-guard by the harsh penalties. Tell me, what system would you utilise in order to avoid punishing players like you without allowing thievery from your own coffers?

Ban the bad actor. Reverse all transactions by the bad actor from the point of the rules violation onward. Deduct the plat from the recipient's account, restore the traded items to the player's inventory, and allow accounts to have negative platinum w/o banning them. This bans the bad actor and removes the platinum from the system. Any innocent third party keeps the benefit of that nulled platinum (items purchased, trades made since) as compensation for having to re-sell the items to re-earn the lost platinum before they're able to spend plat again.