Support Info: External PED Purchases

[Traf Rellik]

Yes, trimmers, that's sort of the point I'm making... Policy is strict, enforcement cannot possibly be that strict. The policy gives no leeway (because it can't, really), but enforcement is all about external events.

If either party goes to the police for example, the policy comes into play to protect MA.

If NEITHER party goes to police, but one of them establishes a pattern from repeated support cases, MA steps in and uses their judgement to determine if something is fishy or not.

That's why I linked this with another recent issue, too. MA is slow to react for a reason. A "knee-jerk" reaction is bad and causes a lot of stress on people (witch-hunts, cry-baby support requests, etc.). However, once a pattern of behavior is established, judgement allows them to be pretty confident that an "adjustment" is needed. At this point, policy becomes the instrument that ALLOWS them to hand out justice without it becoming an official investigation and bringing outside efforts in. I really don't see why people have a hard time understanding it, but many do -- usually the people that think policy isn't good unless it's black and white, or that people should be allowed to defend themselves against it. It's really simple, by the time the policy is enforced, it's no longer about whether any specific violation occurred or not.

If this were *your* business, you'd want to have that "tool" available even if you never intended to use it. Because eventually, somebody will pretty much force you to (ahem, rhyms with chuckles and their mob trains ). You won't accuse them of anything they can outright deny or argue about, you'll just clamp down on them for being stupid and ruining the game for others -- because the policy allows you to.

In other words, Policy is strict, but enforcement is reserved only for the most severe cases because YOU aren't a dick. Take that policy away though, and the person that IS a dick will be out there saying "I didn't do anything wrong!" and you can't point to anything concrete as a response.

Last thought: this is not very different from all those restaurants with signs saying "management reserves the right to refuse..." -- it's what allows them to keep the riff-raff out without being too specific about why.

[Xandra]

Hi,

Think I should clarify my position. Some have understood me, some seem to miss my point:

This is an RCE. It's about real money, and even if I'm a very "little participant" compared to many of you, my "investment" makes nice sum. A sum that at least would allow for a nice holiday in the sun, a better one that I'm usually able to afford.

So I'm giving my money to MA, and they promise I'd be able to withdraw what I achieve with it. Checking their quarterly reports I don't see any "contingent reserves" or "withdrawal reserves" or whatever the proper term may be, though, my English skill isn't good enough here ...

Now we have some statements from them:

1. See first post, a warning not to buy PED from anyone but MA. No general sanctioning mentioned, just a warning it might come from CC fraud and might "in which case" bring you into trouble.
2. A very clear statement in my support case: "our common policy is to block the involved Entropia accounts". OK, my case is rather uncommon, but in EU it wouldn't be anything more then ava A giving ava B maybe 250 PED, without receiving proper countervalue. An action that is absolutely common, even more if you include transactions of items with a TT worth. Nearly all of us are doing such things on a regular basis, but now MA reserves the right "to block the involved Entropia accounts", in a support message.
3. The EULA, as usual, is very unclear about this.

This creates a situation where nobody is safe anymore. We all could have our accounts getting blocked at any time, at will of MA. Right, they reserve the right to do anyway somewhere in EULA, but this adds another layer.

We might think "They wouldn't ban me, I have done nothing wrong!", and we might be OK with this. But do we know? We don't have any security at all for our deposited money, besides nebulous promises about "initial deposit", and even for this MA's report doesn't show any "reserve" nor costs for kind of insurance.

Many things could happen:

• Marco's Ferrari might break! Or he might be plundered of his titanium coated wheel caps =8@
• Jan might reach midlife crisis and his doc might prescribe a Caribbean villa & a bunch of "nice ladies" ...
• More seriously now: MA might decide it's time to spent at least a little part of the loot pool to small to middle players, causing Ubers to riot more then the RX units can handle, and withdrawing in masses - kind of a bank disaster. MA wouldn't be able to pay out all, because of lack of liquidity, and would need to take measures to avoid bankruptcy.
• And finally, they go for IPO. More then many examples where hedge fonds have reached sufficient voting rights to enforce special dividends, putting the victim into urgent need to acquire more credit, and, since banks are not exactly this much happy to give credit to a company infested by vampires, causing major financial problems.

So we can assume it's not too ill-founded to fear the possibility of another financial shortage at MA. A situation where their judgment about above mentioned transactions might change very fast - pressing need might lead to a decision that "not-so-profitable" participants could be "sacrified", or, maybe, even that "getting rid" of the too-eco Ubers would help?

The current situation in rules would allow all of it. We give our money to MA in hope that we'd get it back one day, and we hope that we might get back some profit, maybe. But we don't have any right to enforce it - MA always can draw back to it's defenses using "not to support money transactions that do not involve any direct participation in the Entropia Universe".

You gave your Soc mate a low value H400 for birthday, your FAPper 100 PED decay costs, the nice guy that helped you killing the [big mob] you HoFfed on 500 PED in oils? You have been blocked because this is not distinguishable from buying external PED. And you have no chance to apply. Bye, my friend, and, plz, understand: MA needs your money urgently to keep on with the most secure virtual platform!

In my humble opinion MA should address this problem as fast as possible. I know I'd "deposit" ways more would it really be a deposit, secured by a waterproof contract clearly stating the do's and don't do's, and secured by a sufficient reserve at MA, or at least a sufficient secondary insurance.

At the moment I can only pray that I'd get my money back once - it is at full will of MA, making my deposit nothing other then giving money to a stranger, hoping he will be honest. To enable real "deposits" they'd need to add a lot of clear rules, and a layer of reserve. IMHO.

Guess soon in future other company's will exercise how this could been done, doing an RCE without making the participants complete rightless morons. Guess it will be hard times for EU then, 'cause only some hard cores will stay.

I don't want this, 'cause I love this no-game. And I love my friends here. So I hope they'll finally adapt, preventing getting bombed back into oblivion by the next more intelligent competitor. And therefor I wrote this post.

Have fun!

[timmmers]

Originally Posted by Xandra

Hi,

This creates a situation where nobody is safe anymore. We all could have our accounts getting blocked at any time, at will of MA. Right, they reserve the right to do anyway somewhere in EULA, but this adds another layer.

That's about right, no-one feels safe, even doing everyday activities or a kindness could result in trouble or at least some worries now.
I say ban MA for spoiling my enjoyment of the game..that's also in the EULA isn't it?

t

[Tseng]

Originally Posted by timmmers

I'm a little puzzled how they would police this?

Ava 1 gives Ava2 500 ped...what else would MA know about that transaction?
Was it a gift, a bet, an event, what exactly was the money for? It could have been payment for some external transfer done out of game...but it's far from obvious from just the transaction is it?

At first, this isn't important, because buying PEDs from a 3rd party isn't forbidden (reread first post :P), it's just discouraged invovled with certain risks.

You won't automaticly get banned, if you give (or recive something) without a counter value/for free. But if the guy you bought the PED from (in other words: he gave your PEDs without counter value) was involved in a fraud, then you risk a bank too.

This of course also includes cases where you haven't bought PEDs but just received items/PEDs from a person who was invovled in creditcard fault, like this guy. According to his statements, he accepted free items from a guy (a stranger, he never seen or known before) some free high level items. This other guys account was compromised (or involved in a fraud). So from MA point of view, it looks like this guy (named Death in the forums) that he was involved into with this compromised account (i.e. a helper of the person who hacked the other) and was banned for this.

People who commit credit card fraud, usually trying to take out their money fast, before their account gets banned. Since the ingame withdrawns are so slow that it takes weeks and months, they can't use this system to withdrawn and selling peds outside of the ingame mechanics seems to be the way.

An example: Person A uses a stolen credit card to buy 50.000 PED. Now he knows, that he can't do anything with this money, because he will get banned pretty soon (within a fewdays/weeks). If he transfer it to his main avatar, both will get banned. So he finds Person B he could sell his money outside. They pay him via bank transfer or PayPal/<any other payment method> and he gives him the PEDs ingame. Now Person A has money and couldn't care less if his account was banned, since he has "clean" money now (basicly he laundering the money through Person B) and could reinvest this money on his main account (or by himself a new PC/car etc.).

In other words: Buying PEDs has a very high risk that the seller is invovled into fraud. But as seen in the thread above, you also can risks your account banned, if you accept gifts from strangers or people you don't trust


Back to the original statement

Originally Posted by Bertha Bot

Support Info: External PED Purchases
22 Mar 2008

The Support Dept. do not recommend purchasing PED from any source outside of the official deposit options available from MindArk i.e. the Entropia website or the InWorld Transaction Center.

You have to read the bold parts carefully. It doesn't say, buying PEDs is not allowed and will get you banned, it just say that it's not recommended/discouraged.

The reason why it's discouraged/not allowed, is posted in the second paragraph:

Originally Posted by Bertha Bot

PEDs purchased by any other means may be the result of credit card fraud or hacked accounts, in which case the purchaser of the PED will also be subject to account termination.

Again, the bold parts are (supprisingly for MindArk statements lol) pretty clear: PEDs purchased may be a result of credit card fraud or hacked account and only in this case the purchaser AND the sellers account will be banned

In other words, it's just a warning not to buy PEDs from other people, because they may be criminals. If you buy PEDs from someone who hasn't hacked an account or used a stolen credit card, nothing will happen.

[Cloud]

These are just Clauses to give MA room to move if they need to under relevant circumstances.

DONT FRET

If you do nothing wrong they arent going to jump on you, they want us all to play the game for as long as possible.

Seems to be some hysteria here by someone

Just relax and dont rip anyone off and i am sure MA will be happy with you

Cloud

[domchristopher]

[quote=Xandra;1273937]
So I'm giving my money to MA, and they promise I'd be able to withdraw what I achieve with it....[quote]

Where did you get that idea? I was under the impression that MA said everything in-game belonged to them and that they were NOT responsible for any losses....

[MistyDawn]

Originally Posted by domchristopher

Where did you get that idea? I was under the impression that MA said everything in-game belonged to them and that they were NOT responsible for any losses....

He got that from here:

Originally Posted by EULA

12. Accounts and Funds Transfers
The Participant may deposit funds and may withdraw funds from his or her PED Card......blah blah blah....

Basically your PEDs are belong to you, your items are licenced to you, it means you don't own any rights to the code basically....

The part you are thinking about is worded like that so you can't modify items (if it was yours you could), you can't access their code, you can't blah, blah, blah...

Also, and this is the big one... items like a Mod FAP at 2ped tt value is worth, ummm, 2ped to MA in their financial accounts and not half an irl house....... no item is worth more than its tt value to MA, everything is tt +0

[timmmers]

Originally Posted by Tseng

At first, this isn't important, because buying PEDs from a 3rd party isn't forbidden (reread first post :P), it's just discouraged invovled with certain risks.

You won't automaticly get banned, if you give (or recive something) without a counter value/for free. But if the guy you bought the PED from (in other words: he gave your PEDs without counter value) was involved in a fraud, then you risk a bank too.

This of course also includes cases where you haven't bought PEDs but just received items/PEDs from a person who was invovled in creditcard fault, like this guy. According to his statements, he accepted free items from a guy (a stranger, he never seen or known before) some free high level items. This other guys account was compromised (or involved in a fraud). So from MA point of view, it looks like this guy (named Death in the forums) that he was involved into with this compromised account (i.e. a helper of the person who hacked the other) and was banned for this.

People who commit credit card fraud, usually trying to take out their money fast, before their account gets banned. Since the ingame withdrawns are so slow that it takes weeks and months, they can't use this system to withdrawn and selling peds outside of the ingame mechanics seems to be the way.

An example: Person A uses a stolen credit card to buy 50.000 PED. Now he knows, that he can't do anything with this money, because he will get banned pretty soon (within a fewdays/weeks). If he transfer it to his main avatar, both will get banned. So he finds Person B he could sell his money outside. They pay him via bank transfer or PayPal/<any other payment method> and he gives him the PEDs ingame. Now Person A has money and couldn't care less if his account was banned, since he has "clean" money now (basicly he laundering the money through Person B) and could reinvest this money on his main account (or by himself a new PC/car etc.).

In other words: Buying PEDs has a very high risk that the seller is invovled into fraud. But as seen in the thread above, you also can risks your account banned, if you accept gifts from strangers or people you don't trust


Back to the original statement

You have to read the bold parts carefully. It doesn't say, buying PEDs is not allowed and will get you banned, it just say that it's not recommended/discouraged.

The reason why it's discouraged/not allowed, is posted in the second paragraph:

Again, the bold parts are (supprisingly for MindArk statements lol) pretty clear: PEDs purchased may be a result of credit card fraud or hacked account and only in this case the purchaser AND the sellers account will be banned

In other words, it's just a warning not to buy PEDs from other people, because they may be criminals. If you buy PEDs from someone who hasn't hacked an account or used a stolen credit card, nothing will happen.

Damn, that's a really bad story. Looks like two bad stories considering there's a victim somewhere I haven't got to yet.

t

[Traf Rellik]

I don't think the OP gets it.

Several of us have said essentially the same thing: it's POLICY, nothing more. It gives them latitude and jurisdiction control, nothing more.

If you freak out any time you see somebody "reserve a right" for this or that, you probably haven't spent much time reading small print or public notices in the places you visit.

What's more, a good number of those policies are not legally binding, and CAN be challenged. I'm not saying MA's EULA can be challenged on any given point, but the point is that it's just a policy and not a legally binding contract (until it actually *IS* challenged in court, nobody can be certain of how it would play out).

The EULA, in other words, is a list of agreements in conceptual form. It's not broken, and doesn't need to be fixed. MA does NOT need to "address this" as the OP stated more recently. If you are not comfortable with the idea of them holding your money for a while, then don't play EU. Don't rent a car, either, for that matter, or stay at a hotel, or do anything else that has similar clauses where you give them control of your money in exchange for a service. Each of those has a "decay" of money you placed under their control, with the idea of getting a good part of it back after the service period ends. What's more, most of those DO have a real contract, and the wording on THOSE contracts are more severe than EU's EULA.

Stop shouting that the sky is falling, it's not even cracked.

[Tussi]

Originally Posted by Traf Rellik

The EULA, in other words, is a list of agreements in conceptual form. It's not broken, and doesn't need to be fixed.

I object.
The moment i (or some other participant) suffer from bug (which are plenty in existance, as we hopefully all can agree on) and MA hides behind EULA ('we can't compensate') and they don't fix the bug instantly then there is definitively something wrong.

No matter how big the monetary impact on the customer.

Tussi