• You've discovered RedGuides 📕 an EverQuest multi-boxing community 🛡️🧙🗡️. We want you to play several EQ characters at once, come join us and say hello! 👋
  • IS THIS SITE UGLY? Change the look. To dismiss this notice, click the X --->

Discussion - Thoughts on being Scammed (1 Viewer)

Jathor9000

New member
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
RedCents
50¢
I saw a post on someone claiming to being screwed on a sale, so I wanted to share my thoughts on how we (sellers & buyers) can protect ourselves. Every seller wants to use PayPal's "Friends & Family" for payment which provides them full protection while offering none to the buyer.

This is why we shouldn't use PayPal's "Friends & Family" but instead choose the other one "Pay for Goods & Services" so that it offers security to both buyer and seller. Let me explain, there is a trust issue with using PayPal's "Friends & Family" because you can't get reimbursed using this process, so if a seller screws you on a sale your SOL, however, if you use PayPal's "Pay for Goods & Services" option and use your credit card instead of your bank account for payment you now have options to get reimbursed. For instance, if a seller tries to screw you on a sale but you paid using "Pay for Goods & Services" option you can & most times get refunded by PayPal and they will pursue getting their money back from the seller, if PayPal determines it shouldn't refund you the good news is you still have another option (this is why you use a credit card for payment) you dispute the payment with your credit card company and they will refund you your money and pursue it with PayPal and the seller. Yes, there is a slight fee using "Pay for Goods & Services" I always just add a little extra to cover the fee for the seller.

Now, the complaints I hear from sellers are "Yeah, buts what's to stop a buyer from ripping me off with the above tactic, if I sell him something Krono, Character..Etc.. And then he requests a refund from PayPal or his Credit Card Company. He gets his money back and I'm out money and the items I sold" Well, I say you can screw him back informing Daybreak that your account was stolen and if you can verify it was yours you can get it back. A more drastic option is to admit that item/character was part of a RMT and you got screwed, yes this is drastic as it may get you banned as well but at least the buyer gets banned as well and he loses the stuff he bought. The tricky part is trying to figure out how to protect yourself from getting banned while getting your stuff back (Devils in the details).

This provides an equal level of accountability by both parties and provides better protection for both Buyer & Seller depending on how you view the risks of online virtual sales.

Just my 2cents

Jathor9000
 
Last edited:
IMO most people have more than 1 account and tattling to DBG get you all your accounts banned sine you were involved with RMT. I dont think G&S will find its place in the RMT world.
 
Yeah, I can see your view and like I mentioned "Devils in the Details" with all the bright people on this board we should have some more refined ideas how to protect all of us. I have used G&S before with purchases on other sites and though it's a tough sell for the sellers it ultimately comes down to how honest they are as a seller. I feel if they are on the up & up G&S isn't an issue for all involved.

I guess the process is determining how to sell goods without leaving a trail as to who you are when in game so that Daybreak can't match-up your IP to sales thus protecting you from Ban's, yes there are ways such as VPN"s and such but the internal process needs work such as when your character you are using to transfer goods to another person should/could be an account that was only used through VPN so that all of your other accounts are protected or any account that is being leveled strictly for sales should also be through a VPN. I was hoping to spearhead some discussions on this.
 
Yeah, I can see your view and like I mentioned "Devils in the Details" with all the bright people on this board we should have some more refined ideas how to protect all of us. I have used G&S before with purchases on other sites and though it's a tough sell for the sellers it ultimately comes down to how honest they are as a seller. I feel if they are on the up & up G&S isn't an issue for all involved.

I guess the process is determining how to sell goods without leaving a trail as to who you are when in game so that Daybreak can't match-up your IP to sales thus protecting you from Ban's, yes there are ways such as VPN"s and such but the internal process needs work such as when your character you are using to transfer goods to another person should/could be an account that was only used through VPN so that all of your other accounts are protected or any account that is being leveled strictly for sales should also be through a VPN. I was hoping to spearhead some discussions on this.

There is a discussion in our mod forums being had about this over the last couple months, no eta on release of new baz rules just yet tho. But fear not, it is coming, all the input from people like you who want to better the community helps, keep it coming!

Side note: Being Verified helps a lot!
 
I saw a post on someone claiming to being screwed on a sale, so I wanted to share my thoughts on how we (sellers & buyers) can protect ourselves. Every seller wants to use PayPal's "Friends & Family" for payment which provides them full protection while offering none to the buyer.

This is why we shouldn't use PayPal's "Friends & Family" but instead choose the other one "Pay for Goods & Services" so that it offers security to both buyer and seller. Let me explain, there is a trust issue with using PayPal's "Friends & Family" because you can?t get reimbursed using this process, so if a seller screws you on a sale your SOL, however, if you use PayPal's "Pay for Goods & Services" option and use your credit card instead of your bank account for payment you now have options to get reimbursed. For instance, if a seller tries to screw you on a sale but you paid using "Pay for Goods & Services" option you can & most times get refunded by PayPal and they will pursue getting their money back from the seller, if PayPal determines it shouldn't refund you the good news is you still have another option (this is why you use a credit card for payment) you dispute the payment with your credit card company and they will refund you your money and pursue it with PayPal and the seller. Yes, there is a slight fee using "Pay for Goods & Services" I always just add a little extra to cover the fee for the seller.

Now, the complaints I hear from sellers are "Yeah, buts what's to stop a buyer from ripping me off with the above tactic, if I sell him something Krono, Character..Etc.. And then he requests a refund from PayPal or his Credit Card Company. He gets his money back and I'm out money and the items I sold" Well, I say you can screw him back informing Daybreak that your account was stolen and if you can verify it was yours you can get it back. A more drastic option is to admit that item/character was part of a RMT and you got screwed, yes this is drastic as it may get you banned as well but at least the buyer gets banned as well and he loses the stuff he bought. The tricky part is trying to figure out how to protect yourself from getting banned while getting your stuff back (Devils in the details).

This provides an equal level of accountability by both parties and provides better protection for both Buyer & Seller depending on how you view the risks of online virtual sales.

Just my 2cents

Jathor9000

Being a seller I've learned that there are FAR more buyer scammers than seller scammers, I've been scammed a few times and if I didn't learn from them I'm pretty sure I would have been scammed A lot more.

Good luck getting DGB to do anything to recover accounts, Sellers use krono to keep info off account, with no info on a account Dgb wont do anything to assist you.
 
Typically, a seller has a feedback reputation, even if they are not officially verified. As a buyer, someone has the option to buy or not, based on the sellers feedback or verification. It is possible for a seller to jump off a cliff and rip off a couple people before getting axed, but we generally don't see this. More often, a mass seller gets targeted by DBGs and this cascades to several of their previous sales.

When I initially started selling a few things here, I had no feedback. I took regular PP payments and if the buyer had a reputation or verification, I provided the information first. After I developed a reputation, I would require payment first from anyone if little or no feedback.

I am strongly against sellers being held responsible for everything that can go wrong. You are entering into a risk transaction on both sides. However, because of the verification and feedback system, it is the seller that is more at risk, as buyers have the option to only buy from established sellers. Sellers, especially those moving krono or pp, often sell to buyers with little or no feedback.

Scamming can take many forms. A buyer could buy a raid geared account . . . transfer it to FV and offload all the raid gear, then do a charge back. Buyers could transfer the character to a new account on it's own IP then join general on a level one and start spilling racist comments until the account was banned. Someone could buy an account then use the account (not associated with any of their own accounts) for moving krono and pp, or possibly other high risk actions like active hacking.

If you expect to change the burden of responsibility 100% into the hands of the seller and then expect them to provide 100% $ protection for the life of the account, it's not going to happen. If a mass seller gets targeted and many of their accounts banned, it becomes obvious here on RG fairly quickly. The ironic thing is that it was probably the actions of one of the buyers that got the attention on the seller to begin with.

The only sound advice I can offer is to suggest buyers ask what precautions sellers take to protect account association. I do not believe changing IPs (VPN) is enough.
 
As someone who sells Kronos sporadically, the PayPal F&F gift method is used to avoid fees; That's the main reason I require it, and it keeps prices lower overall. You are correct though, if you order from a dishonest seller, you're screwed. I recommend only purchasing in small quantities no matter how much you trust the seller. I always sell 5 Kronos a a time as it makes it worth my time to do so but is small enough that it doesn't scare people away. That being said, I do need to get Red verified - fees again though! :-)
 
I believe one issue with the goods/services issue though is that Paypal still gives more default protection to the 'buyer' in these cases.

Also, they don't charge fees on top of the 'friends and family' options.
 
Can't always trust this. I was recently surprised by someone with 40 positive sales that scammed me.

As I said, "It is possible for a seller to jump off a cliff and rip off a couple people before getting axed, but we generally don't see this." For every feedbacked seller that does this, how many zero feedback scams do we see?

Unless you start doing what PA does, there are always going to be risks involved. And even with PA there are scams, but they generally tend to be buyer scams.
 
There is a discussion in our mod forums being had about this over the last couple months, no eta on release of new baz rules just yet tho. But fear not, it is coming, all the input from people like you who want to better the community helps, keep it coming!

Side note: Being Verified helps a lot!

Does that mod forum discuss the picture I sent to redbot/razkle and the lack of replies from the mods since? I showed them the picture of remdag specifically saying to someone they had their account accessed by an account seller at redguides but the mods have failed to reply to my questions regarding such. For the safety and I'm sure the joy of most here, I've stopped selling here due to them tracking clearly my username. I want to help more with what I've learned since but it seems the mods just want the situation to go away. Please just ban this forum account I see no reason to continue trying to contact the mods, it's been a month or so of ignoring.

As for scammers, I honestly never had anyone try to scam me, although it seems I dealt with some that scammed after buying from me.
Redbot Razkle
 
Jathor9000 's idea could work. We actually ban more seller-scammers here than buyer-scammers, the ratio is about 5:1.

With G&S I think there's a way we could guarantee the transaction to a certain amount.

I don't know if that would be interesting for most sellers though, as they'd have to take a cut from paypal.
 
being both a buyer and a seller I don't care if as a community we use F&F or G&S as long as we keep growing and weeding out the bad seeds! Both methods have good points. I also agree the seller scammers are way more common but those are mostly the too good to be true ones or the ones with little or no feedback or no verification - Buy smart, people! Most of the sellers prey on your greed or inpatients to get the newest whatever or cheapest Krono. I cannot count how many 3 or less feedback scammers we have seen! Not that high rep is a guarantee but scammers don't stay on a board for YEARS to scam you! They make an account, scam and leave..... We need a guide to spot a scam or at least a guide to make people more careful of who to buy or sell to and from.
 
for me its simple if you're new to this site the only way I accept large payments is Western Union. I would question anyone who wasn't willing to use WU given my rep on this site.
 
I'm no where near as respected as William12, I've never been scammed here and while my feedback score doesn't reflect it, I've sold upwards of 40+ accounts here.

I'm always weary when it comes to payment. Chargeback(s) suck. I've lost over $900.00 before due to them because it was virtual currency to PayPal. (granted, this was back in 2012, I'm not sure of their rules now)
 
@Jathor9000 's idea could work. We actually ban more seller-scammers here than buyer-scammers, the ratio is about 5:1.

With G&S I think there's a way we could guarantee the transaction to a certain amount.

I don't know if that would be interesting for most sellers though, as they'd have to take a cut from paypal.

I think as a Buyer we would cover that cost for the seller though; in past purchases I often would pay the fee for the seller by including the additional 2.9% fee such as on a purchase of $300 the fee is slightly over $8 per purchase. To me this is insurance and a necessary tax so the seller doesn't have to lose anything on the sale and it gives the buyers insurance (so-to-speak)...
 
Scammer for a Chase loot

I arranged to buy a chase loot from him. Paid using paypal and he promised he will parcel once he's off work but never heard back from him. My mistake to trust and I mistakenly thought he was a reputable seller. Got confused with another seller and using tapatalk didn't help.

To admins: Can I get his IP address? So that I can file for FBI internet fraud? Who knows even if he's oversea, something like Nigeria raid could happen.
 
Re: Scammer for a Chase loot

I posted the below in another thread ( https://www.redguides.com/forums/threads/54359-Thoughts-on-being-Scammed ) and your example is why I feel we need options when trading thats a win-win for everyone involved. The way sales are handled now with sellers demanding the use of FNF needs to change. I know the dev's have posted on the thread below discussing future ideas, but the community here needs to be active in finding a solution as well.


I saw a post on someone claiming to being screwed on a sale, so I wanted to share my thoughts on how we (sellers & buyers) can protect ourselves. Every seller wants to use PayPal's "Friends & Family" for payment which provides them full protection while offering none to the buyer.

This is why we shouldn't use PayPal's "Friends & Family" but instead choose the other one "Pay for Goods & Services" so that it offers security to both buyer and seller. Let me explain, there is a trust issue with using PayPal's "Friends & Family" because you can't get reimbursed using this process, so if a seller screws you on a sale your SOL, however, if you use PayPal's "Pay for Goods & Services" option and use your credit card instead of your bank account for payment you now have options to get reimbursed. For instance, if a seller tries to screw you on a sale but you paid using "Pay for Goods & Services" option you can & most times get refunded by PayPal and they will pursue getting their money back from the seller, if PayPal determines it shouldn't refund you the good news is you still have another option (this is why you use a credit card for payment) you dispute the payment with your credit card company and they will refund you your money and pursue it with PayPal and the seller. Yes, there is a slight fee using "Pay for Goods & Services" I always just add a little extra to cover the fee for the seller.

Now, the complaints I hear from sellers are "Yeah, buts what's to stop a buyer from ripping me off with the above tactic, if I sell him something Krono, Character..Etc.. And then he requests a refund from PayPal or his Credit Card Company. He gets his money back and I'm out money and the items I sold" Well, I say you can screw him back informing Daybreak that your account was stolen and if you can verify it was yours you can get it back. A more drastic option is to admit that item/character was part of a RMT and you got screwed, yes this is drastic as it may get you banned as well but at least the buyer gets banned as well and he loses the stuff he bought. The tricky part is trying to figure out how to protect yourself from getting banned while getting your stuff back (Devils in the details).

This provides an equal level of accountability by both parties and provides better protection for both Buyer & Seller depending on how you view the risks of online virtual sales.

Just my 2cents

Jathor9000
 
Re: Scammer for a Chase loot

I posted the below in another thread ( https://www.redguides.com/forums/threads/54359-Thoughts-on-being-Scammed ) and your example is why I feel we need options when trading thats a win-win for everyone involved. The way sales are handled now with sellers demanding the use of FNF needs to change. I know the dev's have posted on the thread below discussing future ideas, but the community here needs to be active in finding a solution as well.


I saw a post on someone claiming to being screwed on a sale, so I wanted to share my thoughts on how we (sellers & buyers) can protect ourselves. Every seller wants to use PayPal's "Friends & Family" for payment which provides them full protection while offering none to the buyer.

This is why we shouldn't use PayPal's "Friends & Family" but instead choose the other one "Pay for Goods & Services" so that it offers security to both buyer and seller. Let me explain, there is a trust issue with using PayPal's "Friends & Family" because you can't get reimbursed using this process, so if a seller screws you on a sale your SOL, however, if you use PayPal's "Pay for Goods & Services" option and use your credit card instead of your bank account for payment you now have options to get reimbursed. For instance, if a seller tries to screw you on a sale but you paid using "Pay for Goods & Services" option you can & most times get refunded by PayPal and they will pursue getting their money back from the seller, if PayPal determines it shouldn't refund you the good news is you still have another option (this is why you use a credit card for payment) you dispute the payment with your credit card company and they will refund you your money and pursue it with PayPal and the seller. Yes, there is a slight fee using "Pay for Goods & Services" I always just add a little extra to cover the fee for the seller.

Now, the complaints I hear from sellers are "Yeah, buts what's to stop a buyer from ripping me off with the above tactic, if I sell him something Krono, Character..Etc.. And then he requests a refund from PayPal or his Credit Card Company. He gets his money back and I'm out money and the items I sold" Well, I say you can screw him back informing Daybreak that your account was stolen and if you can verify it was yours you can get it back. A more drastic option is to admit that item/character was part of a RMT and you got screwed, yes this is drastic as it may get you banned as well but at least the buyer gets banned as well and he loses the stuff he bought. The tricky part is trying to figure out how to protect yourself from getting banned while getting your stuff back (Devils in the details).

This provides an equal level of accountability by both parties and provides better protection for both Buyer & Seller depending on how you view the risks of online virtual sales.

Just my 2cents

Jathor9000

As a seller here I want to have as little interaction with Daybreak as possible. I don't like your idea of 'just report them to daybreak if they scam you.' I think the best way to avoid getting scammed is to use common sense, and to deal with people who are I.D. verified, or have extensive feedback history, or both. Obviously this isn't fool proof, but friends/family has worked fine for me and I've not been scammed.
 
Re: Scammer for a Chase loot

I got scammed by someone, luckily I only sent 10 dollars but PayPal basically told me to ask them for a refund or kick rocks because I sent it to a friend or family member. Pretty fucked up I think
 
Re: Scammer for a Chase loot

Personally I wouldn't ever sell not using paypal F&F because the potential to get abused by buyers is so much greater than as a seller. E-goods have no tracking numbers, nothing physical to back up the transaction. Buyers can claim fraud and get a refund instantly no questions asked, and it used to happen to sellers using paypal all the time back in the day. The F&F is a great improvement, even if it's not perfect.
 
Re: Scammer for a Chase loot

The potential for abuse is obviously a heated argument with both sides (Buyers & Sellers) claiming the other side can be more abusive. What I'm proposing is a way to provide some form of insurance (so-to-speak) my initial proposal for using G&S over FNF basically provides a type of "mutually assured destruction" for both parties if one screws the other; I provided an example in my previous post but I'm sure others could build upon it. I however have given this more thought and think there may be some common ground that could be enforced (some-what) by the RedGuides Admins in the form of establishing firm selling & Buying Rules.

This is just an example but it's something to start with:


  • In order to do any Buying or Selling everyone needs s to be "Verified" No Exceptions!! If someone gets caught selling or buying from an "Unverified" individual they should both be suspended for a bit, and habitual abusers get banned.
  • If you have less than 15 feedbacks Selling and Buying (15 of each and it must all be positives) you are required to use G&S.
  • If you have more than 15 feedbacks Selling and Buying (15 or more and it must all be positives) you are free to use either G&S or FNF.
  • If you have a combination of the two such as 22 Selling Feedbacks you can use either G&S or FNF, but if you have 13 Buying Feedbacks then you are still required to use G&S.
  • If you are over 15 feedbacks and are making a large purchase or sale such as an account for say $300 - $500 then its agreed to pay half through S&G and the other half through FNF...

This is just a start and something to build off of so we can find ways to strengthen the trust amongst buyers and sellers. This is by no means foolproof but its better than what is used today.

Thoughts?

Jathor9000
 
Re: Scammer for a Chase loot

Bad people will always find a way to be bad. No system is perfect. We try to week out the douchebags as they pop up. Greed is a powerful motivator.

All that being said, we ARE working on some new guidelines for the bazaar. But in the end it is up to parties on both sides to be cautious and aware that there are bad people and they are there to prey on you!

I personally only do FnF but my reputation allows me that pleasure. I have seen it all, unverified paypal, echecks, chargebacks and a few more creative tries. Non of them have worked against me except the chargeback which is the nuclear option to both parties. Do Due Diligence, ask questions, if it feels too good to be true, it is! and if you are not 100$ comfortable then end the transaction before monies/gear/service takes place!

I have done a lot of deals and I can tell you 1 in 10 I have ended before they began on the grounds of me not feeling it was legit. PASSING on a deal is sometimes the right call!

Raz
 
I wish there was a better system for sales feedback. I've always bought from people who already had plenty of feedback, so sadly they don't care about leaving feedback for other people. I'll admit I'm bad about leaving feedback for them too... but once you already have +20 it doesn't really matter as much as it does for people with none or very little. I've even gone so far as to leave a subtle nudge saying "Thanks again, leaving some feedback hope you do the same" and nothing happens.

/rantoff
 
Please just ban this forum account I see no reason to continue trying to contact the mods, it's been a month or so of ignoring.

Complaining about mods ignoring you is curious as you ignored my messages...

nyghteyes said:
There is a discussion in our mod forums being had about this over the last couple months, no eta on release of new baz rules just yet tho. But fear not, it is coming, all the input from people like you who want to better the community helps, keep it coming!

looking forward to what you all come up with!
 
Discussion - Thoughts on being Scammed

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top