Armour Scam

[aia]

Originally Posted by gen

Fortunately for me I have made some really good friends but also not being EU savvy was also scammed on the way... the hardest way possible since I'd just bought my first Full Set of Viking Etc...

Problem isn't us who either learned it the hard way, or read about it on the forum or digged through MA website. One of my socmate got scammed and didn't even know he was scammed... he said "I gave her my armor and 2 neoforce mindforce implants, and told me she would return tomorrow with the armor, and she asked me not to tell anyone else".

The fact that MA warn about scammers has little importance, becuase *usually* that information is digged deep into the support pages, where an eager beginner probably won't look *until* the problem has happened.

I fouind the scammer, she was hanging around Port Atlantis, with non newbie clothes, however "she" was

Originally Posted by gen

A community such as EU generally has a good atmosphere but it's these low life's which drives Newbies away.

Problem isn't when newbies get scammed out of a few bottles of sweat, but when scammers trick slighly more experienced players (those who know armor and weapon stuff, but never cared about the risk of scamming).

Originally Posted by gen

I think the thing is to pro-actively inform new comers about Scams so perhaps when people first login to EU there is a message informing them of how to protect themselves from Scams and certainly informing them about any Armour or Upgrade scams since these seem to be the most popular among the thieves out there.

A key information line such as, "Be careful with who you trust. If you for any reason hand over any of your items to another avatar the other avatar will be the rightful owner of the item, regardless the circumstances. MindArk will never return them to you, even if the other avatar promised to return it and keep it as theirs, or if they persuaded you to hand over the avatar by a lie".

Originally Posted by gen

Of course we can't tell whether MA actually does anything to offenders who are repeatedly reported which is why I mentioned the Avatar's name in question so anyone else who is scammed reports the same Avatar and hopefully takes some screenies to send along to MA and that Avatar is suspended.

If you wanted to make a living as a scammer, you would have a "normal" avatar, who never directly was involved in scamming, and "goalkeeper" avatars who did the actual scamming. What MA can to is to slow down the process, by making it harder to register those "goalkeepers". However, people that in one way or the other, for instance region, matches the pattern of a scammer, and gets it tougher to register their avatar then start to scream "racists!" at MA. Of course, this calling can be for two reasons, either it's a legitimate player, or it's a scammer who get angry that MA tries to stop them. The same thing probably applies, when an avatar is shared between users, one of the platers that logs on as this avatar makes a living as a scammer, maybe using this avatar to pick up an item dropped by a goalkeeper, move it to point B, where it's picked up by the main scammer avatar. Then, some third player logs on using this avatar that's "floating around", and hence might be "tainted". (From MAs point of vew, it might look as another "goalkeper" calls for this "transpoter guy").
[/quote]

Originally Posted by gen

Furthermore the application process to EU (I would have thought) there would be some sort of process in place which checks names against addresses in order to prevent repeating offenders from signing up new characters. Of course if someone uses a fake address the Avatar may still be created then I beggar to ask the question, what's the point of asking people to submit an application request if nothing is checked and all accounts are created anyway...

Well, people use proxies to register an avatar to bypass the checks done... and when MA catches an eye on this avatar (registered in one part of the world and used in another part of the world) he's mad that he's right- or wrongfully accused of being a potential scammer.

[angela1982]

Thanx for ur posting Gen. Actually read this a few days ago, but I've been approached by an avatar ingame today, JONATHAN THE BARON DENPSEY from the Society The Drow asking me if I would like to upgrade my part Vigi part Bear to a full Bear armour for +80 Peds. He went to the Armour contruction machine and asked me to take my armour off and give iit to him for the upgrade and even tried to add me as a friend. Well, I didnt go along with him, but thats another scammer avatar. I'd be embarassed to have him in my Soc tho.

[Dutchie]

MA is definitely able to track the steering avatar. The scamming avatar needs to get rid of the stuff. MA can track the trades. So if the scamming avatar gives the stuff to another avatar without any or with only low compensation and this happens regularly it is pretty clear who is pulling the strings.

(and I think dropping on the floor and picking up could also be detected by MA, passing stuff by dropping is pretty rare).

[gen]

Originally Posted by angela1982

Thanx for ur posting Gen. Actually read this a few days ago, but I've been approached by an avatar ingame today, JONATHAN THE BARON DENPSEY from the Society The Drow asking me if I would like to upgrade my part Vigi part Bear to a full Bear armour for +80 Peds. He went to the Armour contruction machine and asked me to take my armour off and give iit to him for the upgrade and even tried to add me as a friend. Well, I didnt go along with him, but thats another scammer avatar. I'd be embarassed to have him in my Soc tho.

No problem. I think if we just make everyone aware of the Avatars in question at least it can at prevent some people from getting scammed. Whether people choose to believe it or not is another matter. If MA choose not to help people who have reported scams then at least as a Community we can make others who are new or even experienced wary of certain Avatars.

And, hopefully MA will read about these posts and investigate and hopefully even return some items to the unlucky people like me!

[Masani Catalana]

Hey thanks for this! I had exactly the same thing happen to me this morning, at Atlas Haven...different avatar.
Johnathan The Baron Denpsey

will add pic when I figure out how...