Balistyc Farshot wrote:Gyn Wallace wrote:... Alternative proposals?
Lets put together some rules to help out players who aren't aware of how this works out.
1. Don't send someone you don't trust isk for an item you haven't seen. If you do that then let me tell you about some Saudi Gold I can get for $100 you just need to mail to a PO Box. I would recommend half up front and half upon receipt.
2. Get some of the isk first! This is the first rule of the oldest profession.
3. If you get ripped off, post it on the forums and be aware some people will be making alts to rip people off. We should start a page of known offenders.
4. GYN sounds like a salesman. We should establish that well known Corps backing a player proposing a sale should be a must. That way the bigger corps can boot the players who are alts and stealing. Like requiring a license to sell stock.
5 Don't cry wolf on someone for their reputation unless you know for a fact you got ripped off.
6. CCP - You need to be ready to ban some accounts if people ripping off other people gets out of hand. Or just take their isk and distribute it.
7. CCP - We also need to be able to see all the alts of any one PSN account. Why not make a page like the corp tracking page to give us that information. I may be ignorant to this already existing.
Please add as needed.
I wouldn't be willing to operate that way.
With respect to # 1 and 2, people selling me gear have to send the gear to me before I pay them. People buying gear from me have to pay me first. Full payment, not half before/half after delivery.
The reason is simple. If I'm going to stay in business, I can't run around scamming people. If I use any other procedure, some portion of my customers will almost certainly rip me off, which is a cost I'm not willing to bear.
With respect to #3, tracking known scammers doesn't work. As soon as their notoriety becomes an impediment, they create a new scamming account. Just play Eve Online in a major trade hub, and see how long it takes you to learn to ignore the scammers in local chat, instead of making any active effort to counter them, like blocking them or posting their identities somewhere. The other side of that coin is much easier to manage: develop people with good reputations and track records for honoring their financial obligations. Make sure the people who are reputable escrows or trade partners are well known. Its a lot easier than trying to make scammers well known.
With respect to #4, I actually cringed when I read that. I am not a salesman. I'm pretty much the opposite of a salesman.
With respect to #5, 6, and 7, I don't believe CCP is going to lift a finger to stop players from ripping off other players with respect to entirely-in-game items or currency. That's a part of CCP's thing: attracting every budding psychopath out to ruin someone else's day in a game. I'd only expect CCP to enforce a transaction if it could undermine their real world profits, i.e. people trying to scam things that sell for real money outside the game, like game codes. Character sales and exchanges also involve real world money and income for CCP, so they'll enforce/punish in relation to those.