the dorian gray effect

i was considering a better way to punish scammers or general in-game pests than a simple short term ban. i was thinking that some kind of visible affect for any character on the account per offense would be cool. either a decay on the appearance of the character or an alpha-numeric thing beside the name of any character on the account, an 'a' for one incident, 'b' for the second and so on...
that way people would be able to identify the ones who take advantage of others in trading, joining groups, pvp areas. have it permanent. after enough offenses those individuals would simply be unable to interact anymore.
if they chose to set up a new account, they would have to behave in order to keep that account clean.

Pretty much a ban.

Generally speaking, if you get scammed you usually deserve it.

Be awake while you're doing trades and check shit over.

/signed

i kinda like the idea of the scarlet letter approach. would make members pariahs, keep them out of our teams and guilds.

I like the idea, but I have to agree with Zahr Dalsk, just pay ATTENTION when you trade and you'll be fine.

~TheLyfe21.

:sigh:

If we actually had a system to be able to trade we'd have a lot less to worry from scammers.

Sort of like a PvE dishonorable? Only instead it's effects would limit trading and party joining? Is that what you're suggesting?

it wouldnt limit anything except people would know what they are getting into with these individuals. they would still be able to play but it would be difficult to join groups or trade. the focus seems to be on trade scammers but i've experienced more frustration with leechers or people not paying for a run i've already paid for, that sort of thing.

Trade scamming isn't that big of a deal so long as the majority of players aren't stupid enough to take the trade. Even if there's that, Anet would rather laugh at the GW community than respond to it. Although the majority of trade scams involve quest items being used as the fake items, so the solution would be to make those items unable to be traded. This will affect common and legit quest item for gold trading like for the attribute quest from factions, but if that's the case I have no doubt Anet wouldn't hesitate to do it so it would make ppl do more work for their game.

As for the benefits of this idea go, it generally depends on how it will be treated. It will be great to let players be aware if that account was recently penalized for the offenses by warping the textural image of all characters in that account. Let's keep in mind however of how the majority of players treat abnormal shapes to their characters.

For instance, the disease aura effect that you get from a quest in factions. The effects from it on your character is bad being that it's degen, but despite this there are ppl who like having the aura on them to take it with them in outposts. This results in ppl purposely getting that disease hex just because they can have that aura on them in outposts.

What makes us think this idea won't have the same effect? Even if the character is horribly disfigured that would still appeal most players just because it changes the characters look. For that reason, I don't think it will do any good than how things are. It might cause ppl to PURPOSELY commit the offense so they can acquire the disfigured look, thereby turning this penalty into a reward instead, and ultimately fail.

some people would surely look to gain the most grotesque effect, but would you group or trade with them?

Respectfully responding to your post, I sure hope not, but the latter of what you said isn't the problem. It's the former. Which in this case is the possibility of the op's idea to cause more ppl to commit offense for the sake of getting the grotesque effect. Those ppl with said intention would not have the penalty avatar yet until they make an offense that would incur the penalty avatar. After that, I don't think they will care with not being able to go into PvP arenas, or not being able to trade so long as they have their penalty avatar and would do the same offense again once it wears off.

How about just having their name turn to red lettering for a week? That way people would have more of an alert to whether or not these people like to scam.

Not needed. Just perma ban them and that's it.

What about a red warning in the trade window (like the one you get when so. changes the window) if you trade so. who has been reported for trade scamming?