How I deal with Scammers.

[Calud]

Ticket:
Hi, I just hit the wrong button and deleted the wrong profession by mistake!

GM talks with player:
GM: Hi, so, which profession did you delete?
Player: Uh, Blacksmithing, must've been around 400. (400 is almost max and Blacksmithing is really hard to skill up.)
GM: Sure thing. Will escalate you to our specialists. This may take a while, don't close the ticket.

I get the ticket:
1. Run search on lost profession.
2. See that his lost profession was 72, not 400 skillpoints.
3. Run a chatsearch.

Scammer: Haha, so I told the GM I had Blacksmithing at 400 rather than 72!
Scammerfriend: Haha those idiots will never get you!
Scammer: I'm so awesome!

Me: Interesting.
Prepares mails, suspensions and notes.

Me: Hello Player. You have a second?
Scammer: Sure!
Me: So, I've checked on your lost profession and not only did I find that, but I found something else too!
Scammer: Oh? What is it?
Me: Oh it's something really really funny.
Scammer: Tell me!
Me: Not only will you not get your profession back, no! You'll also not be able to complete your RAID Instance. Have fun on your three hour break.
Scammer: Wait wha.....
/Nukes and suspens


I love my job.

[Hanzoku]

Greetings GM - nice pwnage. =)

Though I would be annoyed if someone disappears out of my raid... then again, noone in my guild would try to scam the system.

[Eric the Grey]

I want your job !



Eric the Grey

[edible_hat]

Can I please have a button that kicks people who try to sell stuff in non-trade channels?

[Imogene]

*bows to the god of Azeroth (elementary, my dear Watson...)* Stupid morons...

Somewhat related, I once got a notification from another player that he was going to report me for posting my guild's recruit message immediately after his, and mine was apparently long enough to scroll his off screen.
And that I'd done it repeatedly, and was malicious about it, and blah, blah, blah.
I replied, "Random chance did that. I post it the moment I walk into town, I'm busy adventuring in the wilds of AzureMyst. I don't know what you posted just before I got into town," roughly.

My guild leader caught wind of my anxiety about the guy claiming he'd report me... did the guy actually have a valid complaint? Or would it have been more of a case of unintentionally bad etiquette?

[calulu]

Calud, how'd you like to make some extra money? I have a 32 year old daughter addicted to that game to the point that she ignores kids and family. She hasn't cooked or cleaned in months. We tried to do a family intervention and she swore she didn't have a problem but went right into the other room to meet up with her guild for another damn raid.

How much would it cost to ban her by IP addy? ROFLMAO.... (wish it was possible but I know she'd find a new game to obsess over..)

Excellent ownage btw

[Jacen]

*bows to the god of Azeroth (elementary, my dear Watson...)* Stupid morons...

Somewhat related, I once got a notification from another player that he was going to report me for posting my guild's recruit message immediately after his, and mine was apparently long enough to scroll his off screen.
And that I'd done it repeatedly, and was malicious about it, and blah, blah, blah.
I replied, "Random chance did that. I post it the moment I walk into town, I'm busy adventuring in the wilds of AzureMyst. I don't know what you posted just before I got into town," roughly.

My guild leader caught wind of my anxiety about the guy claiming he'd report me... did the guy actually have a valid complaint? Or would it have been more of a case of unintentionally bad etiquette?

No valid complaint. Blizzard's rules state that spam is when repeated messages happen in a short period (or certain other rules such as gold spam and casino spam). Posting a 255 character message right after someone else's is not against the rules (255 being the limit I believe)

Harrassment? Not likely.

[tropicsgoddess]

Nice!!! I love happy endings, especially the ones that involve pwnage.

[Hanzoku]

There's no way he could prove malicious intent, without a long list of incidents, I'm sure you were fine. The other player was just being a jerk. (And sad that his guild isn't getting recruits.)

[Imogene]

Posting a 255 character message right after someone else's is not against the rules (255 being the limit I believe)

Harrassment? Not likely.

The message wasn't even close to the 255 limit... It was a relatively short message...

[Slytovhand]

That pawnage was AWESOME!


Still a bit OT, and following on from Juwl's question... (and a bit irrelevant, since I don't WoW anymore - though I'm currently Lotro'ing)

One of my guildies got burnt in a trade (item taken, payment not given - newb to WoW... oh well). And said scammer would constantly spam trade... so, I did a macro so that every time s/he spammed, I would click my button to say "Don't buy from X, they are a scammer and will rip you off" or words to that effect..

How would that be seen by the mods??

Oh, and I might just add... I had a query regarding naming conventions... how is the name Burnthewitch any less offensive (and thus, shouldn't be allowed) than, say (merely for example here, gang -ok??) Stonethemuslim, Gasthejew or any other similar name? I saw one once, made a complaint... and still saw said character and name running around later.... (Nagrand server)

[EmilyRose1982]

WOOT a WoW thread!

I'm a WoWhead, all the way, heheh.

I've seen scammers all over the capitol cities in Trade channel. Back before Inscription fixed this issue, I saw one Enchanter offering to enchant people's gear with high level stuff for a hefty price. Unfortunately for the newer players, they didn't realize he was sneaking crappy low level enchants on their gear and making off with quite a bit of their gold. I'm not sure what happened to him, but I know a GM went after him, hehe.

I wish I could become a GM--that would be so much fun!

[Calud]

Just a few quick things before heading to bed (I am in Europe, not US):

Scam: Write a ticket with all the data. Items, money, date and we'll take care of it. In 98% of all cases we'll do something about it. Telling everyone the guy is a scammer is a bannable offense though. You shouldn't do that. Just do the ticket.

Guild Message thingy: Nah.

Namethingy: Dunno, it's case to case. Can't tell you why did changed something/didn't change something.

And no, we can't ban anyone by IP that is not really what we do.

[karath]

Hey Calud, quick query; how long you been with blizz? I started in billing back in Feb over in the Irvine offices. Been a lot of fun so far...reminds me, I should share a couple stories of mine

[Eric the Grey]

Guild Message thingy: Nah.

Namethingy: Dunno, it's case to case. Can't tell you why did changed something/didn't change something..

Personally, I just wish they'd keep the guild recruiting to the proper channel. I'm never on it so I wouldn't have to listen to them that way.

As for the name thing, I've only ever felt the need to report a name once. It was crude, and racist, and I wonder to this day how it got past the filters, but I reported it, and my ticket said only "Read the name, 'nuff said".

I got a response from a GM saying basically, "Thank you, it's been taken care of"



Eric the Grey