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BUYER BEWARE

Posted
Last Updated On
ByNewsby

BIG BOSS Wyrom reminds us all that there are scammers out there trying to get your cash. Don’t deal with people in silvers or in cash if you can’t see a clear history of who they were before the current month. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is neither good nor true before it’s done with you.

http://bit.ly/2m03p4A

Category: Help for Players
Topic: Policy Discussions

Date: 02/27/2017 01:22 PM CST
From: SIMU-WYROM
Subj: Buyer Beware
We understand that buying and selling is an important aspect in GemStone IV, but Elanthia is a buyer beware world. What this means is, if someone sells you something that wasn’t theirs to sell or the item properties aren’t what they were advertised, this is on you, the buyer to do the research involved to do business with this person. Many of you do this with larger purchases already by establishing a middleman.

This isn’t to punish any of our players, but going forward, if you end up getting involved with someone selling stolen inventory, those items will get confiscated with no sort of reimbursement. Permanent lockouts may be placed on your account depending on your involvement. We understand there is no way to determine whether or not something is stolen ahead of time, but if it’s a character you’ve never seen before, use caution. If they deal with known thieves or practice shady behaviors, don’t do business with them. If someone is selling SimuCoin items at a virtual loss from the get go, consider it too good to be true and don’t bother dealing with that person.

Wyrom, PM

Date: 02/27/2017 01:45 PM CST
From: DRUMPEL
Subj: Re: Buyer Beware
Thanks for the reminder.

I’ve been at the poor lil’ol sellers end before…back when anti-thief tools (poison tipped slivers) came out (I think on the Dhu Gillywack or sometime around then). I stock piled a bunch and set up some of my characters with them. They worked great – every now and then you’d see someone prick them self and run off looking for help to remove the high poison damage they were taking.

I had a good 4 or 5 dozen left in a locker or on a mule character and someone was asking on the amunet for folks selling them. I figured I had a few extra ones on my main character and I could just dump the remainder since I didn’t need that many. I made a sale with the buyer and went on my way….I don’t think it was too long afterwards (a few days maybe) that I got snatched up to a private room with a GM and asked a bunch of questions.

The GM told me that the buyer had found a way to duplicate silver and made a ton of it, then they went on a buying spree. I was out the silver and the items I had sold. At least I wasn’t in any other trouble. The GMs were following the silver trail and eventually caught up with the person in question, though I’m not sure what happened with the guy.

So yes, please have a bit of skepticism if a deal sounds too good to be true.

-Drumpel

Date: 02/27/2017 02:13 PM CST
From: KRAKII
Subj: Re: Buyer Beware
Wyrom, would it be possible to do a “provenance” verb, that displays the date & character name of the last (picking a number here, like “3 to 6”) instances that an item was ‘register’ed?
Specifically, to show it to another character?

So, “provenance vaalorn sword to krakii” shows me,
Ardwen, 2012-May-15 15:27:48
Madmountain, 2008-Aug-12 18:19:34
Celtar, 2000-Dec-25 12:34:56

(Big fan of time units all going the same direction, so year to month to day to hour to minute to second. None of this American crap, with month DOWN to day UP to year DOWN to hour…)

And I can in good faith decide to fork over my three hundred million silvers, or whatever the asking price is for Sorrow. (Hell, it’s probably money that Ardwen gave me, previously, so no harm/no foul.)

.

Anything where all (3-6) slots show comparatively close date/times is pretty clearly someone just trying to fill all the slots, which raises a red flag to the buyer.

Date: 02/27/2017 02:34 PM CST
From: OM1E5GA
Subj: Re: Buyer Beware
….um…

It doesn’t look like you’re referring to the STEAL verb. It’s also been in POLICY for as long as I can recall that any item that is accidentally or purposefully placed on the ground or in a container and lost for whatever reason it’s ultimately on the person that lost the item (thought attempts MIGHT be made to recover it in certain circumstances). Given that GS is a niche game that takes a fair amount of experience with to figure out how to get any kind of cash worth talking about from item or silver sales and their are far easier ways to get far more money hacking or fishing other venues… it’s prolly a fair bet that it’s not that.

I’m going to assume that this was most likely a case of someone abusing a bug. So, it feels pretty unfair that someone buying or selling something in good faith gets punished. Squash the bug and ban the abuser, but spreading the pain around is seriously bad customer service.

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

Date: 02/27/2017 02:39 PM CST
From: SHEN1
Subj: Re: Buyer Beware

Looks like the swear updates came just in time.

Aurach

Date: 02/27/2017 02:44 PM CST
From: VANKRASN39
Subj: Re: Buyer Beware

>I’m going to assume that this was most likely a case of someone abusing a bug. So, it feels pretty unfair that someone buying or selling something in good faith gets punished. Squash the bug and ban the abuser, but spreading the pain around is seriously bad customer service.

http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?107221-WTB-Silver-for-GoA&p=1923600#post1923600
http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?107575-Academy-Cube-Finds&p=1923609#post1923609

Date: 02/27/2017 03:09 PM CST
From: SIMU-WYROM
Subj: Re: Buyer Beware
As Allereli pointed out from PC threads, this has nothing to do with bug abuse or the STEAL command. This has to do with theft and buying from unknown or new people for things that seem too good to be true. In most cases, I do put a lot of energy to make it right to our existing customers who are a victim. As many people can likely attest to last Summit Academy run when this happened. I was able to recover 373413986 silver this time around and 111890499 silver from last time. But I know if this crops up again, I won’t be as lucky, and global recovery and possible “time warps” might be required. Sadly, recovery of virtual currency doesn’t help the actual monetary damage done.

Wyrom, PM

Date: 02/27/2017 03:45 PM CST
From: SIMU-WYROM
Subj: Re: Buyer Beware
Before things get into too much speculation and assumptions. The situation is pretty rare when it comes to the issue of theft. This person used Simutronics to launder money from stolen credit cards and attempted to change over silvers to cash. He was stopped both times, but we’re talking amounts that could result in grand larceny. I was able to stop him both times, but a lot of damage was done. Not only to Simutronics, but to the in-game economy. He also undercut every other seller to move items faster, taking away even more from all of you. All of the items you all purchased from him now exist in game. Recovering the silver doesn’t really add up to much in terms of the monetary damage. It just shows how widespread it got. There are over 22,500 log entries to sift through from yesterday alone.

We don’t cater to thieves and will sever our business relationships with them if necessary.

The buyer beware warning is something that has been in place for over a decade in our NEWS items (since 2003).

>>When making a purchase from another player, there are several ways everyone can protect themselves from getting scammed, such as asking to see the note or contents of a container before buying, getting a bard to LORESING, having a warrior ASSESS, casting Elemental Detection, and using one of the magic crystals (such as the one in the Abandoned Inn). In order to avoid someone running off with your money before handing over an item, use the EXCHANGE verb. All buyers are responsible for protecting themselves from dishonest dealers, so it is a good idea to check into the reputation of a seller when making a large investment of silvers. Remember, if something seems too good to be true, it most likely is!

It’s probably a good idea for us to push it out again, as it’s likely expired for most of you.

Wyrom, PM

Date: 02/28/2017 06:37 PM CST
From: OM1E5GA
Subj: Re: Buyer Beware
<The buyer beware warning is something that has been in place for over a decade in our NEWS items (since 2003).>

The quoted text is out of context, though. There’s a big difference between someone running off with your silver and without giving you the item and a GM showing up hours, days, or longer after a sale and confiscating the item you bought because someone else did something wrong that you had no clue about. 2 mil for those tokens looks perfectly reasonable for someone that doesn’t follow the market for such things but has seen the spell prep books from EG going for around 1 mil.

Confiscation of items/silver will have a bigger long term impact on the IG economy then whatever scam this person was running when no one wants to buy or sell to anyone for fear they’ll get a visit from a GM.

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

Date: 02/28/2017 08:01 PM CST
From: SIMU-WYROM
Subj: Re: Buyer Beware
>>Confiscation of items/silver will have a bigger long term impact on the IG economy then whatever scam this person was running when no one wants to buy or sell to anyone for fear they’ll get a visit from a GM.

The only fear you may have will come if you knowingly help someone scam or buy into something knowing someone is up to something. Speaking up to express a concern or play devil’s advocate can be helpful, but if you’re not really getting involved in big sales, there isn’t much to worry about here.

Since connecting the dots might not be obvious for everyone. My disclaimer is for cash sales. We cannot help you when you buy in with cash sales. But we can’t exactly let you keep stolen items. If you buy with silvers, you will see a recovery.

Wyrom, PM

 

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