Has the scamming on the server ever been worse?

There are... several members that were experienced scammers and con-men... I'm not going to say any names but you never experienced the most of them. I experienced one before, who scammed various (Over 20) people. That's all I'm going to say, but there are many, many others. Thankfully we have an ingenious owner who knows to perma-ban those scammers. You don't know how bad scamming was, if anything now is much better than it has been many times before.

 

Don't do any ridiculously stupid things and you'll probably come out unscathed. Too good to be true? Don't buy it.
Looking for a loan? Chances are they are just going to steal your money, but sometimes they really do need a loan.
Be street smart and avoid scams. Sometimes, they are inevitable

 

Ooh boy, there was a lot of scamming going on about a year ago.
People would steal things, people would scam builders with fish for diamonds (if you were there, you would know) and one ast thing...
"Pumpkin axes." Those were imo the worst of the time, people would say they were selling a pumpkin axe and it technically farms pumpkins so it is a pumpkin axe, that was bad too.
The worst one was when people would donation scam, there was a lot of that, and there still is.

Its slightly better, the pumpkin axe thing has fixed itself with the new trade/auction rules, but yeah it is lower now but still high.

 

The stupidest scams ever were:

Auctioning "eggs" that people would think are horse eggs, therefore they bid very high.
Auctioning "a melon and a sword" and some people would consider it a melon sword
Selling a "pumpkin axe" which was really just an axe, but could farm pumpkins just like all other axes.

This server has had many stupid scammers, but still the current scam rate is fairly low compared to what it had been a while ago.

 

It seems like the incidence of scams, and other non-cooperative behavior, increases as a function of the server's difficulty. Let me be very clear, I do not support making the server easier, period. I however follow an egalitarian policy of sorts where I provide the means of success to all members of my town. My investment into the future success of my citizens acts as a grief deterrent, because the citizens are being provided a better way to find success and are consequently, hopefully, unable to justify grief and noncooperation. It seems to work, because Epigraph has only seen one major grief event in the past 1 1/2 years of operation, and it wasn't even that bad.

If noncooperation is caused by the non-egalitarian allocation of opportunity, then a lower incidence of noncooperation ought to be observed where opportunity is equalized.

 

Scams (that actually made a difference / were large and/or severe) started to really happen when Mojang added enchanting to the game and Andrew finally enabled it on ECC. I don't know how long ago that was, but I've seen the most and worst scamming only within the last year. Once it started to become severe, and complaints were posted, people took the "idea" and it's just gone crazy since then. :/ EDIT: Enchanted stuff isn't the only scamming... but it started most of it.

 

A while ago there was less of it, but when there was a scam it was more major in my opinion. I believe Andrew took a scammer to court to win the money back after the user restored the purchase after receiving ingame donation perks. And I'm also pretty sure Andrew won it.

 

I could be terrible wrong, but I heard a rumor.

 

I can say that in the time I have had on ECC I have been scammed 3 mswords and 625k total with numerous small scams

 

As a staff member I know that we work hard to help right the wrongs that scams cause. Here are a few things you guys can read to help prevent scams from occuring before it happens.

http://ecocitycraft.com/forum/threads/transaction-safety-tips.58061/
http://ecocitycraft.com/forum/threads/preventing-donation-transaction-scams.58067/
http://ecocitycraft.com/wiki/index.php?title=Loans_and_Lending
http://ecocitycraft.com/wiki/index.php?title=Donating_to_the_Server
http://ecocitycraft.com/wiki/index.php?title=Collecting_Proper_Evidence
http://ecocitycraft.com/wiki/index.php?title=How_to_post_a_screenshot

 

To be honest I have never been scammed. I deal with people I trust and always search if they had previous bans/complaints.

 

I know a lot of times in the past Dork has pushed and pulled to get things one way or another. Sometimes I agreed with him. Sometimes I didn't.

But to be perfectly honest...

There needs to be more done.


As time goes on the trolls, scammers, hackers, and other people get smarter. They think up new ways to scam people. They think of ways of bypassing the system. Most times, our system isn't adapting. Scammers are getting better, we're not.

The bottom line is, we need to upgrade our system to keep up with the scammers.


I debated a lot with myself over this subject. No matter what action we take to fix this, that will cause a problem. If we let people know who the scammers are, the community will break out against those people. I've seen what this community can do to people it hates. It's not pretty. I don't wish it on anyone.

But then again, we can't really protect these scammers, they deserve to be punished. People deserve to know.

It is, in essence, a real pickle.

 

I have been on the server for more than a year now. Honestly, scamming was definitely worse in the past. I have watched the staff develop procedures and then work so hard to educate us all about how to cope, what to do and what to avoid to protect ourselves from scammers.

Following both my own common sense as well as the guidelines posted by staff is the way to go. Even players have helped by having posts listing people that can be trusted. There is more info out there that may surprise you. First make certain you know and understand the rules! If you don't know those you are much more susceptible to scams. Know what moderators need to a have in the way of evidence - and the good news is there are usually several ways to gather evidence that is acceptable. Know what the jerky folks can get away with and protect yourself against them. Be fully informed of what those same jerks can and can't do!

Just remember, the rules apply to everyone and just like in real life you are responsible for taking sensible precautions. Threats of punishment seldom stops the bad guys... they are bad because, well, that's just the kind of people they are. If you leave your iphone on the table unprotected and walk away, odds are, some bad guy is going to walk off with it.

As a parent I can tell you that one of the good things about gaming is learning how real life and real people interact. This is one of those situations and as much as it hurts this IS a game and this is a better place to learn than where it is really serious.

Good luck to you. Avoid the bad guys!

Rheasmom

 

This is what I keep hearing. And to be honest it's not working.

People don't have common sense. People don't want to spend the time to look up people. People don't ever get access to this information until it's too late. We're on a server with a bunch of teenagers and kids. They are very easy prey for the mature smart people that decide to scam. So in a sense, we have to protect them.

In real life things are much different, because only adults deal with these issues, and most adults are smarter/maturer then kids. Therefor they don't get preyed upon so easily.

Yes, some of it is the player's fault. But that's like a police officer saying "Sorry, we aren't going to track down the thief, you should have got a security system for your house, or hired a guard. Or bought a gun. Better luck next time."

 

Well, this "sounds" like you want the police to arrest anyone who MIGHT be a thief, or who MIGHT harass you, or MIGHT scam you, or MIGHT say cuss words?

Granted, children need protection from themselves and other people, but part of being a child is learning not to touch the fire because it's hot and will burn the heck out of you. There are safe games for young children out there that actually do protect young players from any and all harm. They cannot trade things between themselves at all, they cannot type numbers and potentially reveal their phone numbers or other personal information; they cannot hit or come into any "ingame" contact with another player, only speak with limited or preset words just to protect them from contact with unscrupulousness.

Minecraft is not that kind of game. We interact, we have an economy, we have PvP and can deal outside of the game with real money for donations, gift cards etc. This is not a game I would allow a vulnerable, inexperienced child to play. On the other hand, personally, I would not want to play a child's games with those types of restrictions. If a parent decides to let their child play a game like Minecraft, then they have decided it's time for their child to begin making some of their own choices and discover what goes along with that.

I grant you that it is a sad state of affairs when people take advantage of young players, but too often, it is the younger players themselves doing the scamming, trying to take unfair advantage or acting in an unfeeling, insensitive manner. Yes, we have lots of young people on this server, but to make this game suitable for immature youngsters is not the answer.

 

I agree, sometimes children do need to stick their whole hand into the fire and learn their lesson. But we're overlooking another element here. ECC's goal is bring people in. More builders, more players, more donators, etc. Having a bunch of open fires around isn't the best idea when that's your goal. Because as we all know, sometimes someone will get burnt and decide not to come back.

But Rheas, you seem to be missing that fact that 90% of children are immature and inexperienced.

I agree, our goal is not to make ECC 100% child safe. But we aren't trying to make it a battlefield where noobs learn how to survive or get killed. We have to guide new players safely into ECC, and then allow them to decide things for themselves after they get a handle on things.


We can't just shake our heads and say "it's a sad state of affairs". Sometimes we have to take some action.

 

I've never really been scammed although I've been playing for over 10 months, mainly because I don't buy to many things in auctions, I only buy if its a resident plus, and I don't buy things like melon swords and such unless a mod is watching, so yea.

 

I've quite playing ECC for a looooooong time.. I go on the complaint section on the forums from time to time, and now I see all of my old friends scamming people.