A Scam attempt foiled : Big Thanks to MA team and community members for preemptive action

Divinity

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Jun 1, 2010
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India
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Divinity Deth Undefined
I was standing at my Twin Peaks Bank entrance when i was approached by Mr. X ( Forum rules state that i cant name scammers and so i shall hereby refer to him as Mr. X) to sell his 0x0f Tier 6.9 and detpil vrex2ksga t5. A small negotiation followed at the end of which i had the vrexsga with me and we decided to conclude on the 0x0f pending more discussion. All's good and well till then.

Around 30 minutes later i was talking to James Bling Cash about the deal and he mentioned that Mr X was borrowing the 0x0f from what he recalls. Many thanks to Bling for if it was not for his information I would not have smelled anything fishy in the whole deal. He confirms with Mr. X who tells him that he is. “Hmmm, it did not seem like the item was not his while negotiation” I thought.. Bling could not get out who's 0x0f he was borrowing and that sort of left a question mark in my head..

Fast forward an hour, I knew a friend of mine from soc “ The Red Black” had a similarly tiered 0x0f as he had been looking for skills to be able to use it. Not sure why but i wanted to confirm the status of his 0x0f and so i asked him. To Red's horror and my surprise in a few minutes we figured out that it was his 0x0f that Mr. X was trying to sell with no information about the trade to Red. A second shock came when Red claimed that the vrex2ksga i had bought was from another guy named “ Many Smoky Nights”. Red contacts Smoky and in the next 20 minutes we figured out what was happening. I immediately removed the vrex2ksga from the shopkeeper at twins so that it does not get sold to someone else. Basically Mr X was trying to sell the items he had borrowed from people.

Red tried getting back his 0x0f from Mr. X as he had not traded it with me yet telling him that he wanted to tier the gun to t7 but Mr X went non committal and logged out. Both Red and Smoky were pretty bewildered at this point of time and there seemed little going our way. I asked my friend Aurora Linzey Zamperath to see if he could help get this information to MindArk , because that was the only way anything could have been done. A big thanks to ya buds for being of immediate help and helping us solve the issue. He contacted Charlie and within 10 minutes I was told that they will be have someone look into the matter immediately. Big Thanks to Charlie for the pro activeness shown. We were asked to send support cases as well with details, which all 3 of us did. Needless to say both Smoky and Red , while they felt much better then before were still anxious to see where this leads to as i bet anyone else would be with there gear being up for grabs.

We waited another day making sure not to let the information leak out as we did not Mr. X to get wary and act compulsively while we could not get information whether his account was locked or not. The next day Red found Lupus @ Icarus and communicated with him and was told that they have already taken preventive action and the case was pretty much in MA's radar already and they are working on it. We were told that our support cases were being replied to and to be precise within 10 minutes we received our responses through support (I think Red has still to receive his response but i wont bicker about that as the larger issue was what concerned us).

We are all awaiting MA's decision on the matter but I would like to take the time and thank MA for being proactive enough to prevent this almost certain scam from happening. Appreciate Charlie's , Lupus's and the supports response to the issue at hand and hoping for a speedy analysis.

“Trust Scams” are the worst as it comes from quarters very close to heart. Its like a double edged dagger as it leaves you both emotionally and financially drained.

We are sharing with the community our experience so it helps all of us going forward to be more vigilant and helpful to each other. Traders are usually the first who get to act responsibly as items stolen need to be sold and if you see a deal which raises suspicion, please go forward and think beyond your profits and see if you can truly help someone under duress.

Of late i have seen a lot of faps being passed around among people and i have personally warned a lot of my friends against the same. I know its not ideal but we all need to safeguard ourselves when the system cannot. “ Trust Scams” are often perpetrated by people who we consider trustworthy for years. These primarily happen because of irl changes to a persons financials which leads to desperate attempts by them.

Keep tuned as i will update this thread with the conclusion of the episode. If anyone would like Mr. X's identity , feel free to pm me.

Stay Safe

Divinity

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Update 1


Taking a look at the events from The Black Red's perspective

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Update 2

Hi Deth,

We will now begin to reverse the trades, you will be returned all your money that you payed for said items as soon as possible, in the meantime I will move the items back from you to the original owners and move the PED back to you as soon as we can.

Please be patient for a little while we begin this operation.

Kind regards,
Ulf | Entropia Universe Support
 
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+rep for the way you handled it, and another +rep for MA that lately seem to take these things more seriously just like they should.
 
Indeed...trust scams are the worst.

But in any case, I can't help but be left thinking that its your "connections" that helped you in this situation. If it were the ordinary peeps like us. I don't think things would have gone so well.
 
Nice turnout of events, but also sad, as mentioned earlier, ppl without contracts r screwed, me with like 5 other ppl were trust-scammed by a Pro Gamer and support only responded the same copy paste shit as usual to all of us. But still, its nice to see sometimes items return to the rightful owner
 
Nice turnout of events, but also sad, as mentioned earlier, ppl without contracts r screwed, me with like 5 other ppl were trust-scammed by a Pro Gamer and support only responded the same copy paste shit as usual to all of us. But still, its nice to see sometimes items return to the rightful owner

I see what you did there, and yes its awful.
 
Couldn't say any of it better... Nailed it word for word...

As im sure you could have made a big profit from this item, but instead have taken a leading action not to, also heading up a proactive search for information immediately.

This should shoot a clear message to MA that this is a caring community of quality people who will pass up personal gain to do the right and just thing.

In my opinion there was no negligence here,
If you're friend who you've known ask to borrow your car to go out for a while,
You mostly would allow them to,
If they didn't bring it back...
Then they have clearly stole it, no grey area.

That is when the higher powers to be would step in and recover your car and apply a punishment.


Mostly, im just tring to say most of us gather a bond of friendship here as we dedicate time and money, researching things and this game is woven in as a part of our lives. What good would it be if we weren't able to share that with the people we spend our time with.

Helping us weed out these threats will go a long way to stopping this activity. Word would quickly get around that all scammers and those who make these attempt account get locked immediately and never have any hope of seeing 1 ped in real cash no matter how they attempt it.

Thus in the long run scam's will become all but a memory and the universe will become richer and more robust with a feeling of security and trust among its community.
 
Moral of the story is: Make friends with Linzey :ahh:
 
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Sad story with a good end, very well done solving it to the best and thx for sharing :D
+Rep m8
 
+rep for the way you handled it, and another +rep for MA that lately seem to take these things more seriously just like they should.

Thanks a lot buds. Much appreciated. :)

Indeed...trust scams are the worst.

But in any case, I can't help but be left thinking that its your "connections" that helped you in this situation. If it were the ordinary peeps like us. I don't think things would have gone so well.

To be fair, the victims here were Red and Many. We all know somebody who knows somebody else who can be of help. That is why i congratulated the community as that's what its all about in my honest opinion :)

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Divinity again.

Oops, I am flooded :D j/k ofcourse :)

Nice turnout of events, but also sad, as mentioned earlier, ppl without contracts r screwed, me with like 5 other ppl were trust-scammed by a Pro Gamer and support only responded the same copy paste shit as usual to all of us. But still, its nice to see sometimes items return to the rightful owner

I remember that avatar very well. I will not get into the details but would only say " When something is too good to be true, it usually is". I perceive you would understand what i mean by that :)

Couldn't say any of it better... Nailed it word for word...

As im sure you could have made a big profit from this item, but instead have taken a leading action not to, also heading up a proactive search for information immediately.

This should shoot a clear message to MA that this is a caring community of quality people who will pass up personal gain to do the right and just thing.

In my opinion there was no negligence here,
If you're friend who you've known ask to borrow your car to go out for a while,
You mostly would allow them to,
If they didn't bring it back...
Then they have clearly stole it, no grey area.

That is when the higher powers to be would step in and recover your car and apply a punishment.


Mostly, im just tring to say most of us gather a bond of friendship here as we dedicate time and money, researching things and this game is woven in as a part of our lives. What good would it be if we weren't able to share that with the people we spend our time with.

Helping us weed out these threats will go a long way to stopping this activity. Word would quickly get around that all scammers and those who make these attempt account get locked immediately and never have any hope of seeing 1 ped in real cash no matter how they attempt it.

Thus in the long run scam's will become all but a memory and the universe will become richer and more robust with a feeling of security and trust among its community.

Agreed completely. I think MA would want that as well for the good of EU. Trust is very important and helps build a better community.

Moral of the story is: Make friends with Linzey :ahh:

Hahahahaha :D

IMO trust and confidence to this game is everything, the day we dont trust the game that day we cant stay around anymore.....nice way and contribution to keep us believing :)

Totally. In an RCE , trust is a cornerstone as everything has a real value. I hope MA will eventually bring in a system which nurtures the sentiment amongst us.

Sad story with a good end, very well done solving it to the best and thx for sharing :D
+Rep m8

The end is yet to happen but thanks m8. Very much appreciated :)
 
What I meant to say was...

If it was us ordinary folks, we wouldn't have been able to detect that it was a scammer with "dirty loot", might have proceeded with the trade and ended up with a locked account ourselves.

But nonetheless, your actions of bringing down that fella is praiseworthy. As well as being able to bring down the "hammer" this fast. If it went through the usual support case line...it might have been slower and the fella might have escaped...or something like that.

Anyway, let's hope that the victims get a satisfactory end result.
 
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."


Beautiful example of what men and women of high integrity can accomplish in a community. Thanks for setting the example Dvinity and thank you MA.

I understand the risks of loaning things here, just as I understand them in life. There are people in my life and in this game that I would happily loan anything I have to and I may get burned for it someday. I will not ask those people to cough up collateral and I may pay for that some day. But I prefer to accept that risk in order to avoid reaching a place where I cannot assist in meeting the needs or even desires of 999 people I love for fear of the 1 who may finally "get" me.

We determine what kind of community we will live in, and this proves to me we do have enough men and women of integrity here to make the risk worth the gain.


Storm


...you must spread some rep... :/
 
I hope this all ends good! You have always been a fair and trustworthy in all our dealings, and I expected nothing less from you when I saw this thread title. Good job!

I know you can't name names yet but when you can, drop me a pm.
 
Good to hear at least one scammer was taken down.

Now if I could get linzey to speak to MA regarding the otorugi brain.. that would be fantastic. :)
 
+rep Div

I think with these things its always best to bring them to light.

MindArk needs to create a solution because it happens too much. A simple one would be a restricted lending system that allows for the rental of only a few items at once.
 
+rep Div

I think with these things its always best to bring them to light.

MindArk needs to create a solution because it happens too much. A simple one would be a restricted lending system that allows for the rental of only a few items at once.

Yeah, the simplest thing would be a window (different color, shape than the trade window) where the giver of the item places it, and then picks a set amount of time in hours/days that the item automatically returns to lender, both parties accept, that item flags as rented (cant transfer or sell item), and if the borrower loses control, (tries to sell it to tt, drops it on ground) it automatically returns to lenders inventory. One day of coding. Done.
 
Hope the item is returned to its rightful owner and everyone can live happily ever after, with the exception of Mr.X

Good Job MA for quick responses, and +Rep Divinity for doing the right thing.
 
Thanks for posting.

Something I was thinking about is that not only do you have to consider your trust of the person trading, but consider that other people may have access to their account. (maybe it's your best friend and you trust them, but their brother gets on that account, etc.)

It's hard to trust someone with an item worth a lot. I don't think the few instances of scammers have disturbed the trust between people overall.
 
I hope MA sets in place an appropriate punishment for this sort of behavior. Let that be a warning to all of you that think you have close friends online you can trust! As a personal policy, I've always asked for collateral, there have been a few times I haven't. Just reading this now reinforces my practice to require collateral from people for things, even w/ friends. People should never get offended if a close friend asks for collateral, it should just be a normal practice and completely expected. A real friend is someone who is gonna say hey, wait, no, I can't borrow that without giving you some collateral.

Really sad to see this btw.
 
+rep
I would like to know who Mr. X is as well please.
 
Nice, I hope MA does the right thing.

Can I have his name in PM or something please?

Thanks.
 
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:silly2::silly2::silly2::silly2::silly2::silly2::silly2::silly2::silly2::silly2::silly2::silly2::silly2::silly2:
 
Collateral should always be required. As we know from a certain someone that starts with an L, you can always just spin up an alt and restart your same behavior after scamming. None would be the wiser.

Friends can become thieves in as small as $20 or even the price of a pack of smokes.
 
Collateral should always be required. As we know from a certain someone that starts with an L, you can always just spin up an alt and restart your same behavior after scamming. None would be the wiser.

Friends can become thieves in as small as $20 or even the price of a pack of smokes.

​I can haz?
 
recently loaned and safely returned an Unlimited L2 mining amp

i must be trustworthy :p

it's great that this is being looked into by MA but it's a shame their (average) level of care is seemingly less dilligent, to this day i've never seen a game that has so much going for it have so much also holding it back (needlessly and frustratingly)
 
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