First to get my post straight that I have done bad throughout my ECC life (Just so dork doesn't come up with something to say like "Your a scammer" but he probably will) I think that a balance reset would be a ok way but if they don't have any money then thats a problem Maybe after a complaint is taken and sufficient evidence is provided but awaiting a supermod+ to review or to make the final statement we make a /mutebal command to mute the bal of the player who is getting complained on. Ill post later, dinner
So, I have thought about it, and came up with this thread: http://www.ecocitycraft.com/forum/threads/81032/
Sorry, I must have read his post differently than you. The way I read it, the people that were buying the features were slacking. He wasn't calling them slackers though. He was simply saying that in that point in time, they were being a bit lazy. Now the way it looks like you saw it, he was calling the people who got scammed lazy people. Not just saying that they were being lazy, but plain out calling them lazy people. Maybe he meant it the way you read it. I don't know. As for scamming, I see what you are trying to do. Honestly, I wish that we could do this. However, there are a lot more factors to consider. Most of which I already said. The system that we are using right now isn't the best and I think that andrew and the rest of staff would agree. I don't think this is the solution though. Just taking out money from the scammer's account. I don't think it could work. But who knows? I've never run a server so I wouldn't know. This is just my opinion.
Yes, they should get a refund, as the scamming player should not have scammed in the first place. It's wrong, greedy, and all over stupid. Have you got nothing better to do than scam people???
Ok, ill make this quick. After reading revanrose6 's post I thought "hmm why dosen't Andrewkm take money out of the economy, and pay scammed players like that?". Because we all know the economy is tipped toward a richer scale of market. (Btw I am doing just fine). So I believe Dork that we should refund players who have been scammed, but because we have an unbalanced market, andrewkm takes money out of the economy and he repays the scammed player. This can happen until THE ECONOMY RE-BALANCES. Thank you and I hope that solves your question dork1877.
it doesn't but thanks for participating in the conversation and we shouldn't tag Andrew ever only staff is allowed to tag Andrew and only when totally necessary
It serves to under cut your highly simplified summarization of the problem. But I appreciate your participation like I said
I think that if the scam was proven and the amount was proven and the amount is in the banned persons actual balance, then that could easily be returned to the other user. HOWEVER, my understanding is that it would probably require an action by Andrew to actually make this happen because he is probably the ONLY person that can add money to an account. And I think that I just stumbled on the real reason why it isn't feasible to do. ECC takes a lot of administration that is performed by moderators. Moderators don't have access to the commands to remove/add money to accounts. The only thing that a moderator can do is ban a person/unban a person. That can verify that the unbanned person has delivered on their promise to make repayment, but they can't actually touch the money. I think that this is one of the reasons why ECC is so good, because moderators have limited power and even the power that they do have is logged (e.g. removing lwcs). Why? because power corrupts and moderators still only have limited power. I've been on servers where a "moderator" would remove stuff from my inventory or teleport into my stronghold and search through my chests. But, then again, I could be wrong.
HuntFishLive @ Say Person A wants (donation feature/cool item), and Scammer B is selling it for X amount (large quantity), and a scam is perpetrated over a period of time where Scammer B does not buy Person A the feature or give whatever was agreed on... in the interceding time, Scammer B could have used that large quantity X ecodollars to buy tons of stuff from the marketplace, or in direct transaction with other users... The result is that Scammer B no longer has X amount anymore, and Staff C has the ability to drain accounts of money, Staff C still can't make the money out of thin air... or can they? If Scammer B does not have X amount anymore to be drained by Staff C to return to Person A, and we want to continue with this scenario, then Staff C is going to have to create the lacking ecodollars to re-imburse to Person A. If this became policy, this opens the door for a whole new type of scam, where a Scammer B can scam Person A of tons of money, hand X amount out to several people, and Scammer B gets banned and Person A is reimbursed... if the other people were part of the scam, Person A suddenly has double the amount they had before. If Staff C was to simply do a rollback in all incidents like this, (humor me and my limited understanding of the rollback system) then anyone who may have done a legitimate transaction with Scammer B in the period after sacma and before inquisition may get their legitimate transaction amounts deducted --- and they won't know why... What if those people used that transaction amount in other legitimate transactions... Suddenly a matter can now affect many many more individuals than just Person A. The fact of the matter is, our system appears to act like a real world system, where when Scammer B is brought up on charges, Scammer B needs to pay back some kind of X amount to Person A if Scammer B wishes to rejoin the server. At any rate the best way to protect you is for you to protect yourself as kukelekuuk00 said. Only purchase from trustworthy individuals. How do you know who is trustworthy? Well, who would you be ok giving your entire balance (right now) to without the assured promise that he/she will give back that total amount the next moment (a trust test)? People say that trust is earned, and it is, so long as you give it out. That puts your evaluation in control of the situation. So if you made a bad evaluation, you need to reevaluate your standards of evaluation and or take measures to protect yourself. If you are paying a large quantity for donation features of gift cards (an amount that is no trivial matter to you) then you can try to look into the history of Person B. Ask and investigate some questions: Has Person B made forum contracts for transactions similar to yours or other large transactions? Have the only contracts been conducted recently, and not over a longer period of time where possible default and investigation procedures may have taken place? Has Person B defaulted on these, have complaints been filed and had bad resolution? What if Person B does not have a history of contracts? From Person B's perspective it can be impossible to gain history then... The truth is not so grim though. Lets go back to the trust test... If Person B was an interactive and trustworthy person, it is likely that Person B will have or shall earn friends who trust Person B, and will have or be willing in the future, to conduct important transactions with Person B where his/her metal shall be tested. The other possibility is that Person B can buy him/herself donation features. This can be significant because like my profile shows, I have between $500-600 in donation features. If I am an intelligent person, I wouldn't want to put all that into jeopardy and risk getting banned or permabanned. Some may say that Person B may not have actually purchased the USD and bought it off someone else. Regardless, the higher badge amounts are some measure of work, whether it is personally RL worked for $500-600 USD or an in game worked for ecodollar equivalent amount ($500 USD x 5000 [per usd] min = 2,500,000 ecodollars) to get features worth $500 USD from others. That is a lot of if's and things to evaluate. The fact is. If you do care about being scammed, then take the effort to protect yourself. It is extra work, and it isn't easy, but neither is the grief from being scammed. So again, it's your evaluative standard. If scams and defaulted deals becomes a widespread problem, I wonder if forum contracting parties could be required on the forum to post when the contract terms were carried out successfully - a simple acknowledgment from both parties should suffice, and the contract then link to this result, or the acknowledgments posted in the contract thread. Meaning perhaps, a moderator should confirm a contract, and not lock the contract till acknowledgments are confirmed. There is a strong possibility of 3rd parties trolling the contracts, so I don't know if threads can be limited to the participants. If they can, maybe the evaluating staff's duty when confirming a contact should be to conduct this limitation. Procedure: Party A makes contract Party B accepts contract Staff C confirms contract and limits thread to the Parties (transaction) Party A acknowledges successful contract Party B acknowledges successful contract Staff C or D locks the thread --OR-- upon failure to complete transaction, the dispute is made in the contract thread, and upon allegation of dispute, the thread is moved to the complaints section, and complaint procedures begin? That is a lot of work though on behalf of staff. But I wonder if some measure of this can be implemented if true scamming becomes a large enough problem to warrant it.
Very good post OnScene In addition to what you mentioned about acting like a real world system, I may be able to shed some light on how the courts in England & Wales deal with a similar situation to this. The process the courts use is called Tracing. In very simple terms, if it is possible to trace (identify) the stolen money into a bank balance or a purchase like a car for example, then it is possible to enforce the return of the money back to the victim. There are loads of different situations/scenarios concerning mixing the stolen money with money of your own before buying something etc, but I won't go into them unless someone particularly wants to. I could spend hours writing about this (it made up hours of lectures last year!) but probably going into too much detail for a mine craft server haha. My point really is that theres a middle ground between the two situations you mention OnScene (Either the victim is left with nothing, or the server has to 'create' the money to pay them back). Of course, if the money has been divided and spent with different people, then it still is tough luck for the victim. But I do think that if the money is still sat in the perpetrators balance (ie. traceable) then it should be returned. It may then seem harsh on the victim if this isn't possible, but then nothing has changed in comparison to the system we have at the moment under which they wouldnt get anything anyway. It just allows a fairer outcome in some cases, which is surely an improvement worth implementing?
But you have been given the tools to an extant. History is recorded on the forums in the contracts and complaints section. The fact is, if you buy a sandwich from a vending machine in real life and bite into it, only to find that it is rotten, you most certainly can call up the vending company and complain, or go to court over it, but at the end of day 1, you have at least a bad taste in your mouth, and possible a bacterial infection or worse making you uneasy or sick. Are you saying you may not responsible for your actions? Are you saying you may not responsible for your evaluation? If that is the case, then please everyone who is afraid of scams or bad choices, give me all your monies and I will evaluate the choices for you when you need it, when I have the time for it.
Day 1: Person A makes a deal with Scammer B to buy $100 USD gift card (500k ecodollar minimum value). 120 seconds later, Person D makes a deal with Scammer B for a melon sword (500k ecodollar minium value). Day 2: **Person A and Person D file complaints** Staff C: Who gets refunded what? - k lets refund you all equally of the remaining balance in Scammer B. Matter resolved Day 3: ***UPDATE: new complaint from Person E*** Person E made a deal with Scammer B for $200 USD in gift cards (1 mil ecodollar minimum value). Staff C has a headache.
It would obviously be a hassle for the Staff but in that situation they could take possession of the sword and could approach Person D to see if I he would be interested in reversing the trade, or possible even selling it themselves in order to re-coup [some] of the lost money. That isn't an ideal situation but it is possible. These situations are tough, and it may be that sever doesn't attempt to change the current black letter policy. But I was mainly getting at in my post was that there are more straight forward situations when returning the money would be straightforward.
My answer is No, this is because Trading or paying other people for a donation feature/ service is a risk. A risk you would like to take, or not. I will give a few examples. When you are looking for a person who can donate for you when you pay him ecodollars: Several people are making advertisements in-game to donate for Ecodollars. When you refund a scam the trading will be chaotic, just because everybody can/ and will take a Risk if they get a refund for a scam. So, refunding scam-money will encourage more people to scam or be scammed.
