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Start Punishing Scammers


Rigamorty

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The fact that "scamming" has remained allowed for so long in this game is astounding. It's such a detrimental thing for MMOs. There's no good reason for it to not be against the rules and it should most certainly be punishable with bans and even better the return of stolen goods.

Now when I say scam I don't mean like "this guy gave me a bad offer and I accepted it now I'm full of regret" I mean things like "hey man can I borrow/hold that" then never returning it, or "we'll trade I'll give you these 5 first and then the other 5 after" and running off after the first half.

Excuses we've seen before are "well we can't moderate every trade" but that's bullshit. Trades already are moderated, I've seen enough Real World Trading bans to know that. And even sillier shit like account sharing is moderated.

We've also got the "but there's so many things put in place to help people not get scammed" yeah, great, that means less things to fall through the cracks that actually need punishment making it even easier to moderate. Just because scamming is mostly avoidable doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And people who do manage to still trick people shouldn't be protected the way they are, they should be punished.

If a report is made by a player with enough evidence to show a blatant scam, something should be done about it.

Edited by Rigamorty
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In the end, the real reason that scamming is allowed is that staff don't want to put in time into investigations. Surely, all trades must be logged, and screenshots can easily prove a majority of the scams. But the workload on moderating every little scam in this game (including newbies stealing gravelers from one another), would probably be an immense workload to deal with.

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In the end, the real reason that scamming is allowed is that staff don't want to put in time into investigations. Surely, all trades must be logged, and screenshots can easily prove a majority of the scams. But the workload on moderating every little scam in this game (including newbies stealing gravelers from one another), would probably be an immense workload to deal with.

yeah, that probably being the reason doesn't make it a good reason. some newbie getting his graveller stolen and nothing happening about it is going to leave him with a bad taste in his mouth about this game forever. It's terribly detrimental for the community in that regard. There's already plenty of mods and given the need I'm sure there could be many more. And if it's for the sake of something like this, there's no reason not to up the amount of staff, it's not like lower staff are paid or get any sort of abusable power.
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I am not sure if this is something I have ever said before but I dont mind repeating myself. The most common scam that players fall victim to is the trade evolution scam. For me, speaking independently of staff, I do wish that there was an NPC in existence to help players evolve their Pokemon. I've always envisioned a helpful character in every Pokemon centre that if you talk to with a trade evo Pokemon in your party it will give you the option to evolve it. 

 

I think that if we had something like this, incidences of scams would drop immensely. I do understand that this is an MMO and things like trade evolutions encourage communication with fellow players but it is never a nice experience to be a new player and have this happen to you.

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I am not sure if this is something I have ever said before but I dont mind repeating myself. The most common scam that players fall victim to is the trade evolution scam. For me, speaking independently of staff, I do wish that there was an NPC in existence to help players evolve their Pokemon. I've always envisioned a helpful character in every Pokemon centre that if you talk to with a trade evo Pokemon in your party it will give you the option to evolve it.

I think that if we had something like this, incidences of scams would drop immensely. I do understand that this is an MMO and things like trade evolutions encourage communication with fellow players but it is never a nice experience to be a new player and have this happen to you.

if scamming was a bannable offense that kind of thing wouldn't be needed though. I'm not saying it would no longer happen because some people are stupid, but if it were well known that stealing someone's kadabra could get you banned, the scam would not be worth the risk, highly cutting down how often it happened. You'd get to leave in the player to player interaction and make it a safer thing.
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I think that if we had something like this, incidences of scams would drop immensely.

 

Basically this.

 

I'm no wizard but I could almost guarantee the number of scams would cut down by a huge number just for stating it's illegal and that the staff can look into it if they want. Who knows, maybe the reported incidents would drop by a big number and the time you had to explain to people why scamming isn't illegal you could use the time to actually look into the cases where someone was scammed. I don't know, just speculation. Either way, not having scamming even against the rules doesn't make any sense. Not every wrongdoer faces punishments in real life but the fact something is illegal and that they may suffer consequences for it does limit people from doing bad stuff.

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Staff do not get involved with trading or "Scamming".If you got scammed the first time you would likely not allow such a thing to happen again and be more careful to whom you borrow your stuff.If your gullible enough to borrow a poke or an item to a player you have only known for a week or 2 it is your own responsibility to deal with that situation!

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Now when I say scam I don't mean like "this guy gave me a bad offer and I accepted it now I'm full of regret" I mean things like "hey man can I borrow/hold that" then never returning it, or "we'll trade I'll give you these 5 first and then the other 5 after" and running off after the first half.

If you are not aware of the risks that come with lending pokemons of value, or trading large amounts of Pokemon with no staff assistance, a bad outcome is your problem, It shouldn't be a staff member problem to help you when your friend doesn't return your lent Pokemon. You know the risk. If it's a problem for you (or any other player), then you shouldn't be lending your pixels and they should be sending shoving them in their PC. Even if your friends are so close and would never be seen as scammers to you, is it really necessary to have hem hold your shiny for a week while your away studying or on vacation? Throw it in your damn PC.
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As much as this sounds really good, and even I would probably need to use it the most(lol), it probably just can't happen. I feel like they need to do a lot of investigations just to find real evidence of a scam and the scammer would most likely trade the shiny to another account and change their IP if they were smart, which would then get even more confusing since that could just be an innocent player who bought the shiny from the scammer.

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As much as this sounds really good, and even I would probably need to use it the most(lol), it probably just can't happen. I feel like they need to do a lot of investigations just to find real evidence of a scam and the scammer would most likely trade the shiny to another account and change their IP if they were smart, which would then get even more confusing since that could just be an innocent player who bought the shiny from the scammer.

the same could go for real money trading though. Buy something with a fake IP, send it over to another ip, same situation as with a scam. But that doesn't stop them from making it bannable and doing so when they actually can prove it enough.
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If you are not aware of the risks that come with lending pokemons of value, or trading large amounts of Pokemon with no staff assistance, a bad outcome is your problem, It shouldn't be a staff member problem to help you when your friend doesn't return your lent Pokemon. You know the risk. If it's a problem for you (or any other player), then you shouldn't be lending your pixels and they should be sending shoving them in their PC. Even if your friends are so close and would never be seen as scammers to you, is it really necessary to have hem hold your shiny for a week while your away studying or on vacation? Throw it in your damn PC.

 

Tbh this doesn't have to apply to shinies only. A lot of people lend their comps to their teammates for battling etc. and eventually get scammed. Even though the loss is much lesser compared to shinies, doesn't make the act any less bad. 

 

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I personally don't like how the staff somewhat turn a blind eye to this. There's only initiatives taken by staff to prevent people from getting scammed, but nothing done to prevent people from trying to scam others. No one is asking you to MODERATE every single trade that happens, but if you can look into a few cases and give out appropriate punishment, it would make people think twice before scamming. 

Edited by NikhilR
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the same could go for real money trading though. Buy something with a fake IP, send it over to another ip, same situation as with a scam. But that doesn't stop them from making it bannable and doing so when they actually can prove it enough.

I don't think it is the same.

 

My reasoning is, they are probably obligated to do something about RMT for legal reasons, don't quote me on that because I'm not 100% sure. Not only that, but as silly as it sounds, if RMT was not punished who would buy RP and sell it which would lower their income, I know it's lame to think that they're only thinking about themselves but they do have expenses they need to pay.

 

With RMT there is real money involved which should have higher priority and maybe they don't have the resources to do both at once.

 

Either way, I know what you mean, and maybe if they had the technology to ban scammers efficiently it would be a good addition, but until then, it's probably just too much work.

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Tbh this doesn't have to apply to shinies only. A lot of people lend their comps to their teammates for battling etc. and eventually get scammed. Even though the loss is much lesser compared to shinies, doesn't make the act any less bad.

That was an example and I referred to the potentially scammed Pokemons as those of "value" in my first sentence. Since these Pokemon are of value to the owner they should be handled responsibly. If you cannot handle your Pokemon being scammed by a fake friend then you shouldn't be lending them out.
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That was an example and I referred to the potentially scammed Pokemons as those of "value" in my first sentence. Since these Pokemon are of value to the owner they should be handled responsibly. If you cannot handle your Pokemon being scammed by a fake friend then you shouldn't be lending them out.

the whole "don't lend if you don't want things stolen" mentality is the exact problem. That isn't the way you should need to think in this type of game. I should be able to feel safe when trading or lending since they're both such integral parts of the game. But the way things are now it's like getting in and all buddy buddy with people then stealing their shit is a legitimate get rich quick scheme that shouldn't be allowed.
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This is the way Runescape handles scamming (LF daftkitteh)

"Players can be reported for attempting or successful scamming. However, victims of scamming will under no circumstances have their items returned to them, even if jagex punishes the scammer."

 

I don't see what's wrong with something like this. If it can't be done because of maybe some mechanical reason/limited staffing, I understand. But if it's just because you don't think scamming is punishable simply because you have the checks in place, you're mistaken imo.

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This is the way Runescape handles scamming (LF daftkitteh)

"Players can be reported for attempting or successful scamming. However, victims of scamming will under no circumstances have their items returned to them, even if jagex punishes the scammer."

 

I don't see what's wrong with something like this. If it can't be done because of maybe some mechanical reason/limited staffing, I understand. But if it's just because you don't think scamming is punishable simply because you have the checks in place, you're mistaken imo.

This is a good idea imo.

 

 

Also can we get a shout out to the staff at Blizzard support, because they're awesome and give all your stuff back.

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Staff do not get involved with trading or "Scamming".If you got scammed the first time you would likely not allow such a thing to happen again and be more careful to whom you borrow your stuff.If your gullible enough to borrow a poke or an item to a player you have only known for a week or 2 it is your own responsibility to deal with that situation!

 

 

If you are not aware of the risks that come with lending pokemons of value, or trading large amounts of Pokemon with no staff assistance, a bad outcome is your problem, It shouldn't be a staff member problem to help you when your friend doesn't return your lent Pokemon. You know the risk. If it's a problem for you (or any other player), then you shouldn't be lending your pixels and they should be sending shoving them in their PC. Even if your friends are so close and would never be seen as scammers to you, is it really necessary to have hem hold your shiny for a week while your away studying or on vacation? Throw it in your damn PC.

 

Take a real life crime like stealing stuff from your house.

Is it stupid to let people into your house that you barely know? Yes.

Is it hard to prove that someone took something from your house after he left? Yes.

Is it impossible for the police to investigate every case of this even with little to no evidence? Yes.

Should it therefore be legal to take stuff from peoples houses? No.

 

Making it legal to just take stuff from peoples houses would discurage everyone to even let the closest friends into their house because they might take the Laptop and the TV one day.

 

And in Pokemmo it even goes one step further. You're not allowed to call out whoever scammed you.

 

A real impact I see is for example in shared ev training in a team. Every time I go ev training I ask my team and friends if they have pokemon that need the same ev to save them time. Since there is no rule against scamming I could just take their comps and run with them and they couldn't even say I did.

 

EDIT: I like the runescape way of handling this.

Edited by Bobgod
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This has been suggested many times before. The problem is that trade disputes are a he/she said situation in which neither player will give the full story. We would be completely unable to fairly dole out punishment for these cases and if it was simply to punish based on the word of one user that could lead to players with an axe to grind against someone else filing bogus reports to get someone unfairly banned.

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This has been suggested many times before. The problem is that trade disputes are a he/she said situation in which neither player will give the full story. We would be completely unable to fairly dole out punishment for these cases and if it was simply to punish based on the word of one user that could lead to players with an axe to grind against someone else filing bogus reports to get someone unfairly banned.

 

You don't need to hear the stories of anyone, no one should get punished based on a story someone told but to be punished on the evidence you have from logs. All it really takes to prove someone is scamming when they're providing someone something else they have said it in the chatlogs, for example. No one obviously should get punished unless it's evident beyond reasonable doubt that someone did something dishonest towards anyone. No one wants anyone to get punished due to bogus reports, I honestly wouldn't care if you didn't catch a single case where it's evident beyond reasonable doubt that someone scammed. Only the matter that you do not allow it is what this mainly is about.

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You don't need to hear the stories of anyone, no one should get punished based on a story someone told but to be punished on the evidence you have from logs. All it really takes to prove someone is scamming when they're providing someone something else they have said it in the chatlogs, for example. No one obviously should get punished unless it's evident beyond reasonable doubt that someone did something dishonest towards anyone. No one wants anyone to get punished due to bogus reports, I honestly wouldn't care if you didn't catch a single case where it's evident beyond reasonable doubt that someone scammed. Only the matter that you do not allow it is what this mainly is about.

Chatlogs? So you are suggesting that they not only keep logs of whispers but they are available to moderators as well?

That's a huge fucking privacy hole. It's not clear if you are referring to that exactly but I hope no one thinks like that.

 

The problem with this situation is the lack of reliable evidence. Screenshots are not. Stories are not.

And another thing is that communication can be done outside the game, lets say that i want to get someone banned, i can contact him in real life (no evidence whatsoever, skype call etc) and tell him that i will give him for free a shiny. Then claim that i lend him my shiny but wont give it back.

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Chatlogs? So you are suggesting that they not only keep logs of whispers but they are available to moderators as well?

That's a huge fucking privacy hole. It's not clear if you are referring to that exactly but I hope no one thinks like that.

 

The problem with this situation is the lack of reliable evidence. Screenshots are not. Stories are not.

And another thing is that communication can be done outside the game, lets say that i want to get someone banned, i can contact him in real life (no evidence whatsoever, skype call etc) and tell him that i will give him for free a shiny. Then claim that i lend him my shiny but wont give it back.

 

The administrations of the PokeMMO have access to our chatlogs if they so wish.

 

From the Privacy Policy of PokeMMO: "PokeMMO may store all communications exchanged between You and any other person while using the Game's Services. This not only includes "public" messages, but also includes all messages exchanged in private using our Services." So the moderators are able to reach our chatlogs if the admins so wish. As I have understood it only GMs and higher are able to do this, but yes by playing this game you do accept the fact they can monitor your private chatlogs.

 

Therefor there's no need for screenshots or stories because they can read our chatlogs if they so wish. What comes to your argument about shinies and Skype and whatnot, that falls to the part of not being able to prove one being guilty of scamming if there is nothing in game chatlogs that refers to any goods being scammed.

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The administrations of the PokeMMO have access to our chatlogs if they so wish.

 

From the Privacy Policy of PokeMMO: "PokeMMO may store all communications exchanged between You and any other person while using the Game's Services. This not only includes "public" messages, but also includes all messages exchanged in private using our Services." So the moderators are able to reach our chatlogs if the admins so wish. As I have understood it only GMs and higher are able to do this, but yes by playing this game you do accept the fact they can monitor your private chatlogs.

 

Therefor there's no need for screenshots or stories because they can read our chatlogs if they so wish. What comes to your argument about shinies and Skype and whatnot, that falls to the part of not being able to prove one being guilty of scamming if there is nothing in game chatlogs that refers to any goods being scammed.

I have no doubt that an administrator can access those without reading the privacy policy and I don't think that moderators(cms whatever you call it, people that don't have administrative rights) have access.

Are the "i lost my shiny pls ban" kind of requests being handled by admins?

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As a quick fix to the trade evolution issue we could hax all trade evos to be item evolutions instead.  Like graveler holding a hard stone.  Haunter holding a poison barb etc.  It could give obscure items with little use some more value albeit very little extra haha.

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