Why is it like this?

[ExaltedSin]

So I started playing Warframe last month, with awe-struck eyes and fell in love.  I have already invested over 250 hours and 400 dollars into the game for "Fashion Frame" and got my standings up pretty high for the open world factions, maxed out my syndicate standing, and was having a blast grinding with my new clan.  I decided to try my hand at selling rivens, even allowing people to "set their price" as I am new to the game and the idea of rivens just seems overly complex to me at this point, and I made a decent amount of platinum, so I bought some skins and color palettes to celebrate.  There is so much content in the game from weapons, to frames, to mods, to even my adorable new Panzer Vulpa.  However later that night, as I was leveling weapons in the Sanctuary Onslaught, I received a message that I was being forcefully logged out due to "Negative Platinum".  What?  How can this be?  I still had platinum before I went into my mission?  A glitch maybe?  So I tried to relog in... same response.  I reported it through the Submit a Request function and was informed that one of the people I traded rivens with was "a known black marketeer that has been banned"  ok, that's bad, but why is that hurting me?  Apparently they removed the platinum they saw as "illegal" from my account which resulted in me being negative, which also means I cannot login til I use REAL world money to pay off the platinum I earned from a "bad person" in a seemingly legit trade.  I have sent them my records and everything to prove I even spent real cash, through steam into warframe, the SAME day of my trades, and the response is just, "We give you the opportunity to play again if you purchase platinum"  I have already invested WELL beyond my budget and now I have to pay MORE just to be able to play?  Why is it like this?  In the entirerity of my account I have sold Prime Warframes and a few unveiled weapon rivens.  Are we meant to wait days before utilizing the platinum from trades in case someone is "illegal"?  Is there some process I don't know about to vet the people ingame?  I am currently awaiting my exams for my career and was using the grind and joy of the game to counterbalance my studies and anxiety, but now its a big debacle, where I already overspent on a game, but they want more from me if I want to play,  Why is it like this?

[TARINunit9]

DE tracks each and every piece of platinum separately. If someone buys 75 platinum ($5 US), trade those 75 to three different people in 25 platinum chunks, then does a credit card chargeback, DE can see who was given those 75 platinum specifically and will delete 25 from each of those three players

Unfortunately chargeback scams are simply too common, DE can't stop them to my knowledge. This has unfortunately created an environment of "buyer beware" where you should never accept more platinum than you already have. It SUCKS, but it's the sad reality

[trst]

Because chargebacks are a very serious problem for companies (they lose the transaction, get fined, and can be blacklisted by card companies). And allowing any leeway in the system for bad actors to get away with "stealing" platinum results in even more attempting to do so. Thus the only real option for DE is to treat all instances of bad plat the same.

Should you go ahead and buy back your account the best ways to avoid these bad actors is to not trade with very low MR accounts, never accept plat in a deal that seems "too good", and if you want to be extra safe never spend more plat than what you traded for.