Any thoughts on this?

When nightfall was first released many items where being sold for price's that where un-usual. We all know and understand this. This was seen with items during the release of factions as well and mostly every one was prepared for this. Upon the release of nightfall a fellow GW player of mine speadily played through the game and chose to sell the end game scythe "The Hand of The Forgotten" Seeing how much of a profit was to be made he bought and sold these scythes (Buying end game books etc etc) and then sold them. A few days after the release of NF these scythes where being sold for upwards of 200K and people where in fact buying. My fellow players was reported for scamming by a guild that will remain unanimous. The supposed scamm was that he sold them over priced scythe's and his NF account was BANNED. Obviously the scythe's have since then dropped in price dramitically. I have difficulty understand how any one other then an E-bayer can have such little understanding of GW economy to believe that he was in some way scammed. Obviously they understood what they where buying and they knew the amount of money they where spending so in essence it was not possible for them to be scammed. Ignorance of the balance of the economy should be be blamed on Merchant players. Any thoughts?

I think it's really silly to rush through the game and get a green item at the end for free, then turn around and sell it to somebody for 100k or more. They themselves could accomplish that, and not be at a loss money wise.

I don't think you have been told the whole story. Anet wouldn't ban someone for making a profit on a few green items.

A few minute details here and there to protect the identity of the players but the fact was that he sold it to one guy, That one guy got 2 of his own guildmates to buy it off my friend and then 2 weeks later when price's dropped claimed he scammed them then had their entire guild report him. Anet is in fact still investigating or so they claim but in the mean time his account has been banned. I think its digusting.

He wasn't in the wrong in any way, any item can be sold for any prices as long as the buyer and seller agree to that price.

"An item is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it."

In this case the item was worth 200k because that was the agreed price.

Sounds like sour grapes on the part of the buyer and his guildies. I agree with the above post, "An item is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it." ^

Reminds me of the guy that's always at the Bazaar trying to buy trade contracts for 250G because many players don't know what they're for. I don't condone his actions or self righteous reasoning, but it is still the other person's responsibility to know what he (or she) is getting themself into.

Its kind of silly that Anet bans accounts based on the number of complaints, then investigates DURING a 72 hour banned period to find out the truth of the situation. The player in question payed $49.95 (or thereabouts) for this game, and to be banned because of the hateful "word" of another player and his guildies before any investigation is not a good way to go. Conceivably, anyone who has a problem with another player could just complain and get enough friends to do the same to the point where simple arguments could turn into temporary banning. There should be some sort of admins in-game, or a group that deal with complaints exclusively and speedily, rather than a delayed bureaucratic system that punishes players, many of whom, like the player in question, are good and honest players.

And to the buyer and his cronies . . . the market is always fluctuating, be prepared to deal with it. This is especially true at the beginning of a new expansion. Remember right after NF came out and white dye was 60k at traders, and ppl were paying outrageous amounts for them? Is every player who bought white dye from another player entitled to complain and get the seller banned, simply because now white dye is 7k? This is a scam? No, its simply how the game works.

Well said handsome stranger^

The guild will remain unanimous? Hmmmm, seems to me the lack of a name would imply they be anonymous instead. Ah well.

Hey Tauren, Yeah I know that persone, I'm in the same guild has him and Tauren, and when I found out, I just tough, what the heck? Those player that complained against my guildie either have no idea's how the economy works in guildwars or were there simply to get some one in trouble.
I have no doubt that he his going to get his acount back but thats still no excuse for those other player.

-_- thats stuipd. about a month ago i was selling 10% fiery flame spitters for 20k each, and they cost a whopping 5 scorched lodestones. guess Anet should ban me?
....if they are willing to pay for it, then thats what its worth.

Buyer and seller beware...

I cannot believe anyone has been banned by just trading an item for an agreed upon price, this would be one heck of a mistake on A-net's part.

Are you sure he wasn't banned for conversations related to the aforementioned trade?

While I don't condone extreme examples of buying low selling high, it would be a grave day indeed in GW for that to be the only reason for a banning.

No, he was banned for "unethical trade practices" and went on DnD to avoid the buyer's harassment, so as far as I know he did not really even talk to them.

Publilius Syrus ftw. Basically the only thing you need to know about the economy.

huh? lmao, gold advertising eh?

Man, those people need a lesson in economics..
Demand: the amount of a product that people are willing and able to purchase at every possible price.

I am the person whom was banned for selling end-game scythes.

The whole story is quite simple. The day after Nightfall was released I stood around in Abbadons Gate and spammed "WTB - BOOK OF SECRETS". People were very willing to sell for 50-75k because they wanted to get thier endgame armors as fast as possible. I knew the demand for perfect Paragon and Dervish weapons would be tremendous, and I recognized a good oppurtunity to make some fast, decent cash.

I was there and available and paying cash, and I was able to buy books as fast as was necessary to my plan.

I would buy 4 or 5 books of secrets, then go and sell the Scythes and Spears for around 150k apiece. Others were spamming them at 100k +20-30 ectos, which helped my business tremendously. I found that i was selling the endgame items so fast that it was prudent to spend all my profits on books as to save time needing to kill Abbadon with henchies everytime I needed to restock spears and scythes.

I sold more than 40 endgame items at a profit of 75 to 100k each over the first weekend, and then decided to close up shop, as slower players were starting to finish the game and the value of both the books and items were certain to drop soon.

Over the course of that weekend I had encountered someone who begged me to sell him one of the scythes for 127k (I assume it was all he had.) I didn't really want to sell at that price, because it was not difficult to sell them at 150k, but he promised me he would get another guildie to buy one when he came on, and I am really not a greedy guy, so I went ahead and gave him a discount. Later that evening his guildmate DID contact me about buying a hand Of The Forgotten Scythe, he was offering 135k (again I assume all he had). The weekend trade was waning and my tolerance of jealous people who need to harass high-end sellers in the all chat channel for selling thier wares at a fair price was growing thin, so i let him have one for what he was offering. Later that evening a second guildmate of his contacted me wanting a scythe and willing to pay the 150k i was asking. I happily sold him one.

3 days later the harassment started. The 3 guildmates started driving me nuts in whispers, calling me every name in the book, accusing me of being a scammer, etc etc.

I tried to rationally explain to them that the price of something is relative. the actual value of an item is determined by how much the buyer desires it, and how impatient/vcagey/sly the seller is. They got those items very close to the release of the game, while most people were still looking for Iboga poop and Drake Flesh. there were PLENTY of people willing to buy them at the price i had set and they had agreed on the price , purchased ectos from me in order to facilitate trade, and then traded the 100k +the ectos I had sold them for the Scythes. There is no kind of scamming there.

They insisted that none of that mattered. They insisted that because now, 2 weeks later the prices had dropped to 35-40k that that was all they were worth and that selling them for 150k 2 weeks ago was a scam. they started with all the noobie talk, GURU SAYS IT IS WORTH THIS, EVERYONE IS SELLING FOR 5k AND 2 ORANGE DYES NOW. Blah blah blah....

I got sick of trying to reason with them, and I told them to go to hell and to stop bothering me.

Less than 10 minutes later I was inundated with PM's from them and thier guildies. Telling me i had better give them thier money back or they would continue to harass me forever and that they would report me and get my account banned. Tho I hate to give in to such terrorism, I was done with trade and playing the game again; and since I mostly only associate with guildmates in the guild channel, it was not a hardship to simply go on DnD or offline.

It started to become a hardship after 2 days though. Still i simply ignored them. I really didn;t think much of the threat to report me. I know the GW developers don't really care much about individual fortunes and such, but I had faith in them to see this incident for what it was: Some people who bought stuff when the demand was high and paid a premium. there is no kind of scam here. I just ignored them and got my other characters thru the game.

This morning, while taking my last character, a Ritualist thru to endgame i was disconnected with an error i had never seen before, saying that my account was banned for Unnacceptable behavior. later the message changed and was a little more descriptive and included the amount of time I was going to be banned (blocked as they put it) 68 hours. (I assume it was a 72 hour ban to begin with)

I don't need to tell you how i feel about GW and the developers "war on the rich" attitude, or the way I feel about being banned for completely ethical trade practices.

I only posted this so the facts would be clear.

Warcraft is sure sounding better and better.............

If indeed the facts are truth then I hope the ones that harassed you get a lengthy temp ban themselves. You shouldn't be penalized for the idiotic decisions and behavior of others.

Keep in mind that what happened and what was reported may be wildly different. So don't be too harsh towards Anet's response.

wow.... this is just.... bringing me to near tears... I could have swore this game was rated "T" for teen not "I" for idiots who screw upandbuy something early and then get someone BANNED... sickening, and I can't believe Anet would ban someone because some NOOB EBAYERS complained.. this really tests my faith in the goodness of people and Anet.

I think we can all agree that there was no illegal activity according to the version veteran player is presenting. While Anet has made some controversial decisions before, they'd be opening up a whole new can of worms by banning people for good business sense. I'd like to think they have more foresight than that.

Either the story recounted here is missing some details, or the guild in question accused him of something he didn't do and somehow resulted in him getting a ban without close inspection.

I certainly hope it's the former. I'd hate to think that all it takes to get someone banned is some creative storytelling by a group of friends.

If the whole truth has been put forward- Attention Gaile/Anet! - the persons involved in the complaing(whining) should be banned from GW for a period of.......how about forever. And Anet should revisit their paractice of banning an account based on such a one sided argument. The ability for players to "trade" in this game is a reality - price to be determined by the buyer and seller, so what's the problem.
If I happen to get a perfect "whatever" drop and demand is high and sell for x amount instead of keeping that is my business. If that is unacceptable to Anet then a whole lot of accounts are up for a ban.

So, I can gripe about the price I agreed upon for a Zodiac bow - after the demand and price dropped , that is ridiculous.

This sort of thing annoys and I put that on Anet as well as those involved. Whats next - NPC lawyers in major towns.

ign - Huntress Velasca

Indeed.

I hope we hear something official about this matter. If veteran is telling the truth, the entire guild should be banned.

At least it was a temporary ban. This is rather insane though. People on Guild Wars are so quick to report someone on here like people here in the US are with lawsuits. We'll sue you for everything under the sun these days....*Hides in the corner*

there is a couple problems here... Yes the market controls the prices god help us.. but that's not the problem for Anet. Its the Price cap. there is a reason the trade window caps a 100k as does the personal inventory cap. Cause they do NOT want things selling for Over that cap, because such activity is often indicative of gold reseller activity. If he did this several times on supposed sales of end game items... and ended up accumulating much more then anyone should be able too in a normal gaming transaction, it could have thrown one flag right there. then having an entire guild reporting them would throw another flag. That's 2 flags right there. and that is enough for them to look into account activity.

Since all they see in the data base is 1 item at Base sold for X amt of gold; or in his case several 0 items for Max amt of gold. This prob made them think he was a gold reseller. as this is a common practice they use in an attempt to avoid deletion. They give someone some item and then have them sell it back for some ungodly amount of gold. Then state it was a legitimate transaction, when in all reality it was a typical item of mediocre value and they were selling massive amounts of gold for REAL out of game cash.

In any case, I'm not accusing or anything, just giving a scenario for the Investigation. Its not unusual to temp ban a account while under investigation for them to discover whom complains and track the email and ip accounts asking questions. If it matches the Registration record on file for that key profile, its a lot easier to get a temp ban lifted. If it does not. well... there is some reason it is not matching... and 90% of the time its because of some violation of the EULA or RoC.

Hello Concerned Gamer,


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For those wanting to side with Anet ... please get a clue Anet bans in error all the time. I have been banned 3 times (please don't ask over what ... since they never answer that) and it was finally resolved with the "oops our bad" emails from Anet.

To the OP just keep emailing their tech support to get beyond the autoreply BS. In this case the squeaky wheel really does EVENTUALLY get noticed.

at the end of the day if he wasnt so greedy he wouldnt of been banned.

and since only his story is here i'll take it with a pinch of salt as i very much doubt his sales pitch was 'selling green weapon that anyone can get at the end of the game'

i have no sympathy for greedy people who take advantage of players with less knowledge

So smart people must be banned from their understanding about GW?

Kudos to your genious plan.

It's not taking advantage of players with less knowledge. Any player with half a braincell and the hundred+k to actually spend (AKA NOT a newbie) will KNOW that end-game greens will be expensive to begin with, and gradually decrease in price a la Factions. And yet in this and every other game I know of, there are people impatient enough to want new items NOW without having gotten there themselves, and if they want that privilege then they should be prepared to pay the additional cash for them.

The guy who was banned did nothing wrong. I know of dozens and dozens of players who made profit by selling end-game greens at high prices - will Anet ban everyone who did it? There'll be a long list, considering how many people were through the game once or twice in the first weekend.

Anet keep nerfing farming and now they're banning users for playing the market legitimately to make gold? Give us some other ways of earning gold then, plzkthx.

Eh, the way I see it, if the guy got to the endgame that fast, and got the green that early on, he deserved that reward. It's not my cup of tea to speed through, but hey, to each their own.

200k could very easily be how much that item was worth at the time. I see no problems here. Hell, I sold the Icebreaker the day it came out for 75k. The person who bought it new exactly what they were buying. I even told them exactly where I found it (since it wasn't common knowledge at the time) before the transaction. Being the first on your block to get something is a treat in itself, and generally costs a pretty penny, too.

I don't understand why someone who can afford these end-game greens, would believe lies in first place? Unless he has eBay gold. Lying is not a reason for ban. It is unfriendly but not bad enough.

There is nothing wrong. Player is selling game items which have lots of buyers. If the seller gains good profits, well that is normal. No one would do these for free anyway. Breaking own game experience by rushing is a high price to pay. Well, at least it would be for me.

While it is rough if you are innocent of the charges brought against you, a temporary ban is ANet's normal policy while investigating scamming charges and other game rules violations. This prevents the accused from continuing his scam while they pull the chat logs and determine if a scam actually occured. ANet will not discuss the progress of the investigation with either party. This method is like being suspended from your job while your employer investigates an accusation.

I don't feel that overpaying for an item is a scam. The buyer has the choice to not purchase the item. I wanted an earth or water staff for Zhed last night. A player PM'd me that he had a green earth staff (non NF) for 10k. Because I never had an ele char, I had no idea if the price was normal or not. But the staff was perfect for what I needed so I bought it. It was worth the price because I got what I wanted, when I wanted it, without spending my time running around three chapters looking for a bargain. My gaming time also has value.

chances are you only paid 6k too much. The time you saved can be used on one farming run. It all evens out

I think that buying a Book of Secrets cheap and selling the sought-after green items is perfectly legitimate (and smart) and they wouldn't ban you for doing so unless you deliberately decieved someone (such as weapon swapping with an inferior item).

What stuck me was:

Personally that is euphemistic of what I'd say to them but since ArenaNet and NCSoft are based in America that sort of thing is sensitive and probably bannable alone.

Once a legitimate transaction is complete it is done and dusted and nothing to do with you anymore so the other party's protests were null as far as I'm aware. As far as I'm concerned, they weren't happy, scrutinized your text and sent away something that they pretended to be offended about to seek revenge because people are that spiteful. Had I reported everything that breached the EULA that I saw anywhere in Guild Wars there would only be half of the people there today.

So lets get this straight, all because a bunch of babies repeatedly spammed support with reports of a "supposed scam" anet decided that rather than investigate, they would ban first and ask questions later?
So basically if I get a bunch of guildies together we could get anyone we want banned, weather they are guilty or not?

What happened to being innocent before proven guilty? Great Ethics Anet!

I bet Anet wont show up in this thread. There are too many issues about dye and minipets to sort out first.

Well if they ban the account it stops any tampering.. deleting of characters.. ect. It's very easy to delete things from ones account.

maybe the person who banned responded to them in a way which anet views as offensive. he/she may have swore of them after large amounts of rude wispers.

if this is not the case i am disgusted at what anet has done.

I dont get into trading much at all, but I DO know that when almost ANYTHING(RL included) fist comes out, its going to be expensive. I dont know ho many remember this, but when walkmans first came out, they were well over $100 US, and only had FF/Rewind, Stop, and Play, and no radio. Years ago, I started seeing better ones in a dollar store! Its very simple. When somethings new, and people want it, theyll pay a higher price than when its more common. So the simple fact is, this is just "standard operating procedure" for ANYONE whos looking to sell "high-demand" items. I predict his account will be reinstated soon.
PS - Screenshot trades! Show item(s)/money traded, as well as acceptance of other party/yourself, and make sure chat window isnt being blocked.