RMT (spread the word)

Read this today on Gaile's wiki discussion page:

So if you want to make a nice action, increase your karma, or make the GW community safer, spread the word around you. Individually it's ridiculous to spend your time helping newbies or naive people (kids generally are). But collectively it can make a huge difference, and if you carefully think about it, it'll benefit you indirectly (less RMT, less bot, less scam, less complaints).

RMT is a parasite of MMOs and people get into the trap, the way people grab the spam stick. And it seems it's happening quite a lot in GW, with 1000 account closure a week (the "GW is dying" sentence people like to say takes a new meaning here). Help people realise they are cons, spread the word about RMT and scammers.

Oh and apparently /report is not as useful as a ticket!

thanks for the info. its too bad that all players cant just read and follow the log-in screen notes and not get their account stolen. hard password and common sense has worked for me so far.

holy crap 1000 accounts a week?!?!! i didnt know that many people played still to maintain such high numbers. well i guess by the time guild wars is sucked dry they can always move on to the next generation of games

The scammers are getting more sophisticated and, lately, are posting only a single message in district chat before moving on. Thus, an attempt to /report [name] results in the message about the player needing to be in the same district as yourself.

At that point most people shrug and move on. The screenshot-based report is time consuming and most players won't bother or, as I did, run into problems filling out the Support form (which in my case, refused to recognize my verified email address).

If ArenaNet wants more help from the legitimate player base, they need to create a different ingame report system for this type of scammer, that does not require being in the same district.

Thanks for the info. 1k accounts a week..thats insane, seriously o.o I'd never think it would be *that* much. Oh well...if I see some these guys around I'll be sure to report. Alothough I've been safe lately..yay common sense?

Have known this for some time. This kind of thing just goes along with the "don't get too greedy" theme that I've been reminded of many times.

what exactly RMT stands for?

Realworld Money Traders

what is the point of the whole same dist and/or has to be logged on thing? it makes reporting people impossible unless they are actually stupid enough to stay in one district. many scammers already know their gonna scam so they are ready with log out before they do theses kinda things. i agree with darcy if you want more people reporting theses scammers you might wanna improve your reporting functions better.

I use to send support tickets with screenshots of the account sellers since it is next to impossible to /report them since they switch districts a seconds after spamming their messages. After a couple of tickets they told me to not use this and use report. I responded that /reporting someone who is using bots to switch districts quickly is impossible. They responded with a repeat of their message to use /report and closed the ticket.
If the RMT companies are stealing accounts from gold buyers, I couldn't care less. They will just kill their own customer base, and run off the idiots who pay money for something that gives them no advantage over free items.

I have lost all faith in humanity, yet 1K accounts a week stolen in this method seems far too high. Especially when guild wars populations counts are estimated in the 300,000's at peak. Double especially when two seconds in google gives me a site where one email = one trial key.

I am really sick of Anet's attitude towards the playerbase on RMT, where they exaggerate what is happening, talk down to us with lies, and expect us to believe it. Sorry Gaile, but most RMT's make their money by repeat customers. Most scammers are individuals trying to get something for nothing. If it was as you say, then by the projected time of GW2 all of us will have had our accounts stolen. Scammers and RMT are bad for their own reasons, please don't talk down to us and tell us they are one and the same.

Thanks for the heads up

tl dr;
people are stupid

Wow! Thanks for the info!

I have always had the common sense to never tell someone my password... I don't understand why people still think they can give their User/Pass out and not get hit with consequences. I don't feel bad for the people who take the bait, I really don't i know it sounds a bit mean but i don't. Its been posted on the login screen over the 4 years the game has been online. Something in any way/shape/form saying don't tell ANYONE user/pass or beware of 3rd party programs/scam-sites etc etc.

Other then that I hope this info may protect newer players, who aren't quite as knowledgeable of the game yet.

Dang good info, man 1000 accounts a week, that's pretty up their. Maybe that's why the games dieing?

I would like the reporting system to be a little easier in this regard as well. If I have the time, I do report them via NCsoft, but it is a lot more time consuming to do it that way.

fusa getting the ticket closed because someone in Anet didn't want to deal with it that way when /report doesn't work effectively tells me someone didn't feel like doing their job that day, to be honest.

Never underestimate the stupidity of people. The gold sellers and scammers know this unfortunately.

I know of about 10 people in my alliance that have had their accounts wiped by "hackers". It's always the same story. The "hacker" befriended their victims. The victim usually meets this really nice guy while pugging and the nice guy is really great. He's helping out with some difficult missions and teaching the victim some decent skillbars and even giving him some free weapons. It's no problem, the nice guy is an old pro at this game and like many of us he doesn't need these weapons so his new "buddy" might as well have them.

This goes on for a week or a month until one day the nice guy asks for a favor. The stories are different. Sometimes he wants to trade a really nice expensive weapon to his buddy, but well his account is glitched again and the trade window won't work. Maybe he just wants to log into his buddy's account to check on a screenshot. Maybe he is offering to help with a difficult quest, but he just doesn't have any characters there yet and "Hey I got an idea! I'll just log into your account and do the quest for you."

One way or another he gets his buddy's password and a day or 2 later the account has been "hacked" and wiped clean.

So far no one in my alliance has lost their accounts, but they have lost all their gold and items. We constantly warn about this scheme but still people don't listen. A lot of times it's young kids that are the victims, but several adults as well.

Each time we ask them, "Didn't you read all the warnings???? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING????", and the answer is always the same, "yeah yeah I know. I was stupid, but he was just really nice and he was my pal. He wasn't a scammer. He wasn't like that." Well he wasn't until he got your password.

I always report spammers in WoW because it's as easy as right-clicking their name in chat and clicking "report spam".

If anet wanted their system to be effective, they would've made it easy for players to help them. Taking a screenshot, logging out of the game, remembering my password for the playNC account, and submitting that screenshot after filling out a long form is NOT fast or easy. Maybe that's why I never bothered to report anything other than leeching in AB.

Like, I'm all for banning scammers, but if I'm on GW, I'm playing the game, not hunting scammers, and if reporting them interrupts me playing the game... /shrug.

if Customer support were to do something about Sync i'll send them all my screenshots of people selling RMT :P~

that was a Joke.

anyway, I make it a habit to take screenshots whenever I see players spamming info to go to www.[insertsitehere].com for gold or anything suspicious, also players who wants to buy accounts. But, opening a ticket for that means I have to be sending in ticket everyday, Ms Gaile, which I don't see myself doing ... I think it would be easier if there's some kind of system where no tickets are needed, somewhere to uploaded screenshot with the violators name in the chat box. you can see who spam them and go investigate yourself, what say you?

I also suppose that all my screenshot would bee outdated, since i don't remember when i took them.

People are greedy in the end, so whenever you wave couple hundred ectos in front of them, the first and (probably) the only thing they will think is "Holy Crap! how can I get these ectos for free? Can I get them for free? Lucky me!!". They need to know that in the end, everything is pixels, when GW2 comes out and GW dies off......all these ectos/plat/whatever you had in GW is gonna affect you little if you decide to carry onto GW2. These ectos/plat/whatever is gonna affect you even less if you decide to quit. (Imagine going to your boss and say "Boss....I'm sorry for my bad performance, can I make it up/get a raise for XXX amount of ectos?" ......I will just leave it here)

1000 accounts a week...sure. I don't even blame Gaile. She is still the best

Gaile: Hey, could I have some input on the RMT bans to tell the community?
Dev: Uhm yeah, tell them we ban a lot.
Gaile: How much is a lot?
Dev: Like..uhm...thousands?
Gaile: Thousands?
Dev: Tell them 1000...we ban 1000...a week. Bob? Any idea?
Bob: Don't care...eating pizza.

And yes, this must be the very first time Gaile gets some false info from the devs and support.

Considering the ultra-highspeed the support works with I'd be surprised if it were 50 accounts per week. (10 per day...they don't seem to work on saturday and sunday).

Ty for your post TheRaven, it was spot on. Bad things happen, trust gets broken by malicious people, kids play online naively, yet they're told by older kids or even grown ups "learn the Internet". It's a shame, but we're bringing this onto ourselves. When I see an RMTer in an outpost, I mention in public chat that they're part of the scammers. I also mention it in AC. Educating people is a cornerstone of real security, where instead of solving people's problems you teach them how to solve them by themselves.

I hope people will understand the notion of "social security", when one own's little contribution becomes huge by aggregation of thousands of people doing the same. There are indirect benefits to that, where a happier community generates happier experience for everyone and Anet/NCsoft (support is dealt with by NCsoft, not Anet IIRC) spends less time/money on these matters, thus doing more for the rest of the game/support. I can understand the blaséd view on relaxed Customer Support, but given we pay no sustained fee for that, it could be much, much worse.

Oh and stop calling people stupid or ignorant, not everyone is tech-savvy or even aware of these things (i.e. kids). Pointing fingers is easy, taking the hand of someone to guide her/him is harder. But guess where the reward is?

Think about it, spread the word, tell your stories.

I always do a /report whenever I see a "WTB GW Accounts 750K Prophesies, 800K Factions, 900K NightFall", but I only catch about 1 in 20. I'm pretty fast with the cut and paste, but most scammers are faster.

Anet seriously needs to add a little code to allow you to report current district players and those that have left in the last 20 seconds (I could work with 5 seconds). It's frustrating that you'd only be getting banned an already-stolen account, but that would at least slow things down.

I find 1000 per week very easy to believe. There is a lot of turnover in Guild Wars. Many of us stick around, but a whole lot of people get the game, play for a few weeks or months and then move on. All of those players coming and going make constantly fresh targets for the scammers. Those who are victims are not likely to come back, and they won't exactly be telling their real life friends to give GW a try.

How old is that info? How accurate is it? Gaile still works for Anet, but which department now?

I'm certainly not saying this is a problem, but I see several things wrong with the "1000's banned a week" statement. First, Anet is probably excited that they are banning that many, and want to continue doing so. Whether it is the RMT people or the ones they are scamming, it means more copies of the game being sold and thus more money in Anets pocket. Second, they offer very little reason for people to spend the time to report people doing this. In game they gave us /report, but when people switch districts as soon as they post their note, they can't be reported that way. Screenshots and the support website take time that many won't spend on something. Worse, even those who do take the time to use a ticket never get info on what they accomplished. I understand not telling everything, but a note to the people who took time to report an RMT could be made to let them know the situation was resolved, even if not how.

Anet has done plenty to insure safety of their customers, it is up to us customers to protect ourselves. The log-in notes alone should be enough, but people who WANT to use RMTs deserve to have their accounts stolen and to buy a new one. If someone is stupid enough to try and use an RMT, they will be stupid enough to lose their account, and I could care less.

I honestly do not know how someone can be stupid enough to get their account stolen from RMT. Isn't RMT payinig money for gold? How does that lead to getting your account stolen? If someone is dumb enough to give their account info to an ANONYMOUS site, that is their fault.

04:09, 5 January 2009. Follow the link I've put in the OP for that precise intent.

As accurate as can be, given she's the person to reveal this kind of info (she started to do it here on Guru). She's ArenaNet Support Liaison, which she defines on her wiki page as:

This is a position that ArenaNet created in April of 2008. Essentially, I serve as player ombudsman (advocate) and as a "bridge" between the development team and our support teams in North America, Europe, and Asia. ArenaNet has always wanted to help players in the best way possible, and I try to make a contribution towards reaching that goal on a daily basis. Issues start with support of course. But if our Support Team is unable to resolve the issue, they'll bump it up to me, and I'll see if I can resolve it, or route the issue to the appropriate person at the studio for a resolution. Some examples would be a reported exploit, a new technical or account issue that might need a special resolution, or a review of policies for a potential update. Now remember: I won't be a final Court of Appeal, so I don't have a supply of "Get Out of Jail Free" cards.

Utter non-sense: they want the existing players to still play, and to spend less time on this part of support. People who got scammed by RMT will very likely not return to GW, as someone said here. It's sad that GW players can't realise this, there could have been some fun players in the middle of those, but we'll never know.

I'm not going to defend them here, because I agree that they should simplify reporting and invest the resources to kill the RMT parasites. BUT, if you were here 2 years ago, you'd remember how it was without /report, with the tons of bots (but not that many scams). They did something, give them credit, even if we have to give constructive criticism.

Let's not forget that no one wins this argument except RMTers, and they're not on our side.

Agree, even an automated response would be doable, but NCsoft support has to manage many games with various requirements, no idea how difficult this would be to implement on a live system.

If I were to use the same kind of logic as you, I'd say that you are the stupid person. BUT I won't (that would defeat the purpose of this thread), as I'll explain my point this way: people make mistakes, sometimes you're in the rush and forget to do checks, or as TheRaven explained scammers build trust with you and then break it (it happens so often online that people forget about it and rely on insurance to save them), or one of the thousands of possible explanations for someone who's nothing like "stupid". I've been working in security and the thing I realised very quickly is that people use this excuse too quickly, blaming the user for issues that are wider than they can understand.

As you said, we have to make sure the community improves, because in the end, we can't just wait for the accounts from all people you call "stupid" to be stolen to be permabanned. RMTers and scammers are very, very smart people (Rule #1203 of the Security Handbook: never, ever underestimate your enemy) and one day they'll make you look "stupid". Until the day when we collectively learn to protect ourselves, instead of individually protecting our little selves, which I hope this thread is contributing to.

EDIT: RMTer designates the guy in charge of RMT, not people buying gold. These guys are scammers and will do anything to get GW accounts. The discussion here is about people getting scammed, not those buying gold.