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Virtual MMO Currency Trading Crippled By Fraud

Posted by simoniker on Tue Jun 22, 2004 09:28 AM
from the taking-advantage dept.
PC Games (Games) Role Playing (Games) Entertainment Games
Thanks to Terra Nova for pointing to the Gaming Open Market website, home of "the next generation of [MMO] game commodity trading", where there's an announcement that: "Until further notice, Gaming Open Market will be closing its doors to all game currency trading except Second Life." There's more information in a post at the official Second Life forums, where Jamie Hale explains: "Yesterday, I had a user breeze through spending over $3000 USD on [EVE Online] and [Star Wars Galaxies]. Immediately after taking delivery of the ISK and credits, he reversed all the payments, claiming he never received the goods. This is a well-known loophole in PayPal's seller protection policy. Basically, I have no recourse at all. PayPal accepts no form of proof of delivery except physical waybills (UPS, FedEx, etc)."
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  • Stunning facts about this... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by justkarl (775856) on Tuesday June 22 2004, @09:31AM (#9494691) Homepage
    I heard recently that the "virtual economy" created by the world of MMORPGs is larger than the Chinese stock market.

  • The thief e-mailed and confessed? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by whoda (569082) on Tuesday June 22 2004, @09:35AM (#9494723) Homepage
    Quit messing around with Paypal, and call the District Attorney where the guy lives.

    He has admitted he commited fraud, get him arrested and see him in court.

    • More updates (Score:4, Informative)

      by whoda (569082) on Tuesday June 22 2004, @11:58AM (#9496447) Homepage
      "This incident has been reported to the FBI Internet Fraud Department, and tomorrow to the RCMP. We have compiled as much information as possible on this person, including his name, address, phone number, email addresses and the IPs used to log into our site. All of this information will be turned over to the authorities."

      And that should just about make sure the guy is found. Paypal does do some 'decent' checks to verify your identity when setting up accounts.
    • Quit messing around with Paypal, and call the District Attorney where the guy lives. He has admitted he commited fraud, get him arrested and see him in court.

      Good idea. District Attorneys work hard, and could use a good laugh now and then.

      To get the DA interested, the seller would have to be selling something that they actually have a right to sell.

  • From the thread:

    "So basically, we're out $3000, or about 70% of our profits since January. And to be completely honest, it hurts."

    Sorry, you sir need to get into a new business. The one you are currently in sucks for you, sucks for the game, and sucks for the people playing the games. MMORPG's are NOT a job. People who are spending real money for in-game advantage through third parties should be shot in the street for being so stupid.

    That said, you're an idiot for using PayPal. Blame yourself, not the pe
    • People who are spending real money for in-game advantage through third parties should be shot in the street for being so stupid.
      Now, why is that exactly? Let's look at the situation.

      Person A spends 20 hours a week playing MMOX to build up his level 245 Necromancer Dark Elf Paladin. He then enjoys playing the game as such.

      Person B spends $200 on a level 245 Necromancer Dark Elf Paladin. He then enjoys playing the game as such.

      Frankly, I don't see any objective difference between the two. Granted, the specific gaming experiences for players A and B are different, but externally they're the same. One spends his time, the other, his money. Both to play A GAME! IT'S A GAME! GAME!!! It's supposed to be FUN! FUN! GAME!

      Games are NOT serious. Player B didn't enjoy working through a level grind to get the character he wanted, or maybe he makes enough per hour to justify the expense. Either way, it's all for the sake of fun. Just because he has fun with the result, while you have fun with the process, doesn't mean he's any different from you.

      You see, these are GAMES. You play them to have FUN. Not everyone has fun in the same way.

      So, my question is basically why does this suck for the game, and for the people playing games, if the purpose of a game is to have fun?
      • It sucks for the game because the person who bought the level 245 Necromancer Dark Elf Paladin is skipping the majority of the world that the developers put their blood, sweat and tears into.

        It sucks for the players (not all of them) but the ones he might interact with because having skipped the majority of the game, in all likelihood, doesn't know shit about the game and will wreck nothing but newbie havok upon those stupid enough to group with him.

        MMOGs are a game, yes. But it's also a type of business that relies on player retention. When someone skips from the beginning to the end the chance of retention is probably dropped about 90% because the only thing the player will take part in is the endgame.

        The person who played 20 hours a week may very well have catassed his way up there. But I can guarantee you he'll generate more free PR through word of mouth than the guy who dropped his wad on a pre-leveled character.

        Doesn't sound like you play MMOGs much.
        • It sucks for the game because the person who bought the level 245 Necromancer Dark Elf Paladin is skipping the majority of the world that the developers put their blood, sweat and tears into.

          The person who played the character to level 245 didn't skip the majority of the world.
          • The person who played the character to level 245 didn't skip the majority of the world.

            So what? It's not a 1:1 correspondence; the Level 245 characters tend to come from one person making characters and selling them as a job. Besides, you're not refuting his point at all; if the person who bought the character instead started from scratch, then you'd have two people playing through the game instead of one.

            Rob (I almost typed "paying" up there instead of "playing." That certainly would've been apropos)

        • Re:Awwww, poor baby can't run his crappy gaming si (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Danse (1026) on Tuesday June 22 2004, @11:53AM (#9496372)

          It sucks for the game because the person who bought the level 245 Necromancer Dark Elf Paladin is skipping the majority of the world that the developers put their blood, sweat and tears into.

          So what? If he paid for the game like everyone else, then the devs got their money for their blood sweat and tears.

          It sucks for the players (not all of them) but the ones he might interact with because having skipped the majority of the game, in all likelihood, doesn't know shit about the game and will wreck nothing but newbie havok upon those stupid enough to group with him.

          And that's different from about 90% of the rest of the idiot players how exactly?

          MMOGs are a game, yes. But it's also a type of business that relies on player retention. When someone skips from the beginning to the end the chance of retention is probably dropped about 90% because the only thing the player will take part in is the endgame.

          How is this the player's problem? If the devs made the game more interesting in the beginning instead of just a leveling treadmill, then maybe people would be more inclined to play all the way through.

          The person who played 20 hours a week may very well have catassed his way up there. But I can guarantee you he'll generate more free PR through word of mouth than the guy who dropped his wad on a pre-leveled character.

          Again, that's someone else's problem, not the player's.


        • Doesn't sound like you play MMOGs much.

          That's a pretty unnecessary statement. I'd venture to say he's played them enough to know full well what the phrase "level grind" means. Well enough to understand why some people will spend real world money on preleveled characters to skip the whole process.

          Personally, I play several MMOs, and I'm the type who levels his character through the conventional means, grinding away. Because for ME, it's about experiencing the game the developers created -- that's FU

      • Not completely disagreeing with you. But MMORPGs go well beyond games for a lot of people. They are environments for social interaction with other humans. As such, the word "game" is almost derisive.

        And I rarely heard my fellow EQ players 5 years ago call the level grind fun. City of Heroes might be a different story from what I've heard.
      • You post sounds like someone who only plays single-player games. From that POV your post makes complete sense, but this isn't about single-player games.

        "Not everyone has fun in the same way."
        For example, griefers have fun by ruining the fun of others. And cheaters have fun by changing the rules midway through the game.

        I ask you to choose a game you really enjoy, play it with either a griefer or cheater, and then TRY to repeat your assertions.
    • Sorry, you sir need to get into a new business. The one you are currently in sucks for you, sucks for the game, and sucks for the people playing the games. MMORPG's are NOT a job. People who are spending real money for in-game advantage through third parties should be shot in the street for being so stupid.

      The best argument I've heard thus far FOR the practice of buying MMO items and money is that some people simply don't have the time to play as much as others. To some it's not a big deal to spend some cash to get themselves to the point where the powergamers already are at. I'm not saying I agree with the tactics of the fraudulent bunch out there, but I don't think executing people for legitimately spending their money as they see fit is a valid argument either.
    • Second Life is not a game. The developers ENCOURAGE online money trading.
      SL is more like massively multiplayer productivity software with a social aspect. In it, you can create just about anything you can imagine, you can build 3D objects, script them, you can customize your avatars to the hilt and make custom animations for them in poser. It is a dream for machinima.
      After setting up a shop and making a few cool items, you can make money without spending a single minute in world. Since 99% of the content in
    • Actually no it's the gaming companies that suck. They should be providing equivilant services, rather than catering to the whims of a few loudmouthed brats who scrape their $15/month together to sweat and slave in their parents basement then get upset when someone else buys a level 245 character.

      There is a demand for this sort of service to go on. The world of MMOs is getting crouded, and sooner or later some publisher is going to latch on to the idea (actually, Second Life already has but sooner or later

  • Had a friend with the same experience (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Oz0ne (13272) on Tuesday June 22 2004, @09:45AM (#9494804) Homepage
    What you need to do is ship a cd to the buyer with the codes to access the virtual items/characters.

    That is a physical delivery, and paypal WILL support you and help you solve your problem. Very sad that you had this problem, but you need to make sure to use any/all services you subscribe to your advantage and not blindly trust in your customers. There are a lot of people that will do you much worse than a couple thousand given the opportunity.

    • Re:Had a friend with the same experience (Score:5, Insightful)

      by timlee (303958) on Tuesday June 22 2004, @10:06AM (#9495040)
      That has a lot of disadvantages because many legit buyers look for "instant delivery" and "24/7 service." If you want someone to wait 2 to 5 days for a CD to arrive with access codes to how they can get the goods they paid for when there are hundreds of other sellers out there who are willing to ship instantly, then you are going to lose that customer plain and simple.

      I think PayPal, with its current policies, is not geared to serve virtual trading. There needs to be a service that can verify virtual delivery of virtual goods. However that in itself is a problem because game developers are generally against the real life trading of their virtual goods that they technically still own.

      The line between virtual and physical goods is still very defined. The cooperation of game developers is needed in order to cross this line and for safe transactions to occur.
    • That just shifts the scams to the seller side. Since the seller can "prove" he sent the item whether it contains the goods or not. What can the buyer do if it contains only 1copper.

      At least with the sellers getting scammed it keeps the item selling in check. With a buyer-gets-scammed system, I think the market would be larger then currently.

  • So... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hookedup (630460) on Tuesday June 22 2004, @09:46AM (#9494819)
    Who's going to start the first escrow service for gamers..

  • Payment? Lessons? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 22 2004, @09:54AM (#9494888)
    The thief emailed us and explained that the goods he stole will be kept as "payment" for the lesson he taught us.

    Yep, if a theif is able to steal something, he should be entitled to keep it and go free. I'll try that line the next time I "teach Best Buy a lesson."

  • Good (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lowmagnet (646428) <eli...sarver@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday June 22 2004, @10:11AM (#9495114) Homepage

    Now if a certain development house (NCSoft) would just kick Chinese IPs from their NA servers like they did to NA IPs on their Korean servers, I can start really playing, and I can safely ignore cries of RANG RANG and 999999 from ebay/etc. adena farmers.

    Finally, one less site selling in-game stuff for money. Almost every MMO has a policy against this, but they do it anyway. It has to stop. It is cheating. I don't care about any arguments about the time it takes to do X in the game. Why not just create an idspispopd equivalent? That's what developers are doing if they don't at least fight this.

    • Wait isn't idspispopd the noclip code?
      wouldn't idkfa be the code you meant.

    • Re:Good (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Danse (1026)

      Well, someone had to spend the time ingame to get the money or goods to sell, so it shouldn't really matter one way or the other who currently has possession of the goods. You may not care about time arguments, but for many people, time is valuable. Leveling treadmills aren't very enjoyable for many people, but playing as a powerful character is. So they trade their money for someone else's time. Doesn't seem like cheating to me. I could pay a friend to play my character for me for a month and it would

      • Actually, a lot of the time, these people who collect in-game money, sit amongst 2 or more computers whilst macros take care of most of the work for them. I don't think this is the same as your friend working for you. Also, these people make the game experience unenjoyable for people who like the leveling treadmill.

        Adena Farms Inc© [lineage2.com] is a good explanation of how this hurts the gaming experience.

        • I have a friend that plays EQ on 2 computers at the same time. He doesn't use macros, he just has to keep track of both of them. I could see making the argument that using macros is cheating, but I really don't see paying someone else to play for you as cheating. There's still a person playing.

  • Mail them codes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FesterDaFelcher (651853) on Tuesday June 22 2004, @10:32AM (#9495335)
    Mail them a piece of paper that has the codes on it. They have to sign for the letter, they are liable.
  • If you want to keep control of 'your'character, the solution is still simple. Create a third online character, give the third character all the virtual money, send the codes for the third character via registered post.

    This may require a new subscription to whatever game you happen to be playing, but in the grand scheme of things the cost for one month's subscription is peanuts compared to $3000.

  • This is why I hate PayPal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PktLoss (647983) * on Tuesday June 22 2004, @01:46PM (#9497831) Homepage Journal
    PayPal seems to try and market itself as the new way to pay for things online. However it is completely incompatible with any sort of online only system.

    I work for a small software company, $20 buys you the current version of our software, and all future versions for free. You pay via paypal, use the software for a while, then force a refund since (as has already been mentioned) there is absolutely no way for us to contest it. The PayPal resposne boxes just don't work allow for anything other than a tracking number. You get the refund, and we get squat.

    This is only moderatly bad for us, I can delete the account, so there is no real loss (apart from my time). But take a company like www.TransmissionFilms.com, if they took PayPal and random client B watched a movie, then reversed payment, they have no recourse. And worse than that, they might be contractually obligated to pay the creator of the film $X since the film was watched.

    I think that PayPal needs to step up and embrace the technology that allows it to thrive. Allow merchants to specify exactly what will be provided during registration (ie username, password, account name, etc), and possibly some third party way of validating that data. The customer would be presented with information on exactly what PayPal thinks they should be receiving, at time of purchase. The fraud department would also need to be staffed with people, not drones, to deal with issues that arised thereafter.
    • This is the same problem porn site operators are having, except with credit card "charge backs" rather than Paypal. It is my understanding this is part of the reason American Express doesn't accept porn sites.

      Speaking of porn and paypal, you need to be very careful who you accept and/or send payments. A large number of accounts have been frozen (along with all the money in them) because someone was discovered to have some link to the porn industry. I'm not talking about someone running a porn site and usin
  • Let me see if I understand this correctly. On the board (link in the article) Jamie Hale admitted that he knows why Paypal won't do anything about this. Namely because there was no physical shipment. Well, why don't they throw that step in? Ship out something the user has to recieve as verification, and talk to paypal to verify that it would count as "goods recieved".

    Or how about actually creating a working relationship with the company that produced/developed the game? Then he could have re-couped al
    • I would *love* to create a working relationship with the game companies. Sadly, despite all the effort I have put into turning the existing out-of-game trading into a safe and efficient marketplace, I have received nothing but dead-air from most of them. Linden Lab has been very supportive. There Inc. has been supportive - just not publicly so. Mindark (Project Entropia) has given an unofficial nod with some fine print. Sony, Artifact Entertainment, CCP, etc. have said nothing. Their legal departments prob
    • No. Defrauding someone like the guy in this article did is illegal. Show me a court case or law proving that selling virtual goods is illegal. Simply put, it isn't. There is a difference between being against the EULA (which selling money and items in MMOs usually is) and being against the law.
    • Currency trading is wrong and contributes to the decay of the game

      Yeah, because no one ever gives someone an advantage they didn't earn in an online RPG.

      well, except people who power-level others. and friends that pump up friends with ultra-twink gear. oh, and people that just out-grew a set of equipment and are willing to give it away for free.

      about the only thing wrong with item currency exchanges is that it's an unfair advantage over other players that stick solely to the game. but, it's not like

    • Stop posting about that which you know nothing about. Oh, wait, this is slashdot, I should be expecting this kind of thing already.
      Buying and selling money is a normal aspect of SL, encouraged by the developers. And SL is not a game either.
      • Stop posting about that which you know nothing about. Oh, wait, this is slashdot, I should be expecting this kind of thing already. Buying and selling money is a normal aspect of SL, encouraged by the developers

        Perhaps you should take your own advice. (Hint: the person who "bought" the items and didn't pay was not buying SL money. He was buying SWG and Eve Online stuff).

        • Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Lordfly (590616)
          Definitely more artists and creative types. There had a "waiting list" for approval by the developers, to make sure you didn't say anything offensive. in SL, pretty much anything goes. The creative output of the playerbase is nothing short of amazing.

        • Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)

          by jafuser (112236) on Tuesday June 22 2004, @12:01PM (#9496501)
          it looks alot the same as 'There' which i 'played' the trial version of

          On the surface SL looks a lot like There and Active Worlds, but the difference is that SL is more geared to giving everyone tools and letting them create the content instead of feeding you with content created by the company itself.
          And are they mostly 3d-modelers/ coders on there, or a more general mix of people

          There are a lot of amateur and professional coders and 3d modelers in SL. I know of at least a few people who have admitted to me that they currently work with big 3d game companies and have shown me their real-life professional portfolio.

          The tools are actually surprisingly good too for such an environment. Most technically-minded people seem to be impressed by what they've created.

          - Building and linking models using 3d primitives
          - Scripting objects to interact, move, or exhibit certian behaviors. The syntax is much like event-modeled C and the API has over 200 function calls.
          - Custom texturing where you upload arbitrary TGA/JPG textures which you can place on any object or wear as clothing
          - Custom sounds where you upload arbitrary WAV files and can script them to play however you want
          - You can now also upload custom "poser" animations you can script or apply directly to your avatar

          Of course with a lot of amateurs there will be varying degrees of quality for different builds. Some people are content with sticking with the default "plywood" texture that comes when you build, and others seem to remind me of the days of the netscape (blink) tag as they like to try to use every feature in the toolbox on their builds. But for the most part it's a trip to explore the world and quite easy to make things.

          Admittedly the name of the world is quite cheesy, but the technical achievement is fairly impressive and worth taking a look at.

          My sig contains a referral, but if that offends you, click here [secondlife.com] instead to go directly to the website.

          Ignore the crappy screenshots and BS marketing crap on their website, it doesn't represent the in-world well, and you'll find it's a lot more impressive once you log in than the website will lead you to believe. =)

      • Re:oh no (Score:4, Interesting)

        by L7_ (645377) on Tuesday June 22 2004, @11:23AM (#9496022)
        No offense, but $800 dollars in a MMORPG game is not that much money.

        Castles and rares in UO sold for THOUSANDS at a time, I was too young to know what the hell was happening or how much money was actually changing hands. However, there were cases of people in Asheron's Call made upwards of 50k a year selling (duped) items and pyreals, and one character in September 2000 sold for $5000. I never played Everquest, so I don't know the numbers on that game, but even in the "non-major" games there has been lots of money floating around.

        And although it may seem like a lot of money to a college student, $800 is nothing to someone that has been around the scene for a while.
    • Okay, I'll bite (even though you are trolling just as much as those you are complaining about):

      For those of us who do take a character in an MMORPG and raise it from Level 1 to Level Whatever for the pure enjoyment of the game - meeting other people, learning the lay of the land, testing how our spells and items work in specific situations and against different types of things - feel slighted by people who don't want to do the groundwork in the early levels to build that character. That's a fact. I can'

      • No, it's not cheating, it's market forces at work. As much as you'd like you MMORG to be seperate from RL, it's not. The very foundations of commercial MMORGs are based on the market. That's why you're paying a subscription fee, that's why the developers get paid, etc., etc.

        "Time is money" is a cliche of capitalism, but it's still true. Right now, I have some guys doing yardwork for $8/hour, because my time is more valuable than $8/hour. Sure, I could do the work myself; it's probably great for character b
        • No, it's not cheating, it's market forces at work

          By that argument, using steroids isn't cheating for an Olympic athlete, and corking a bat isn't cheating for a baseball player. Market forces drive them to do it, after all.

          Market forces are irrelevant to what is cheating. Cheating is determined entirely by the rules. For many MMORPGs, it is stated right in the rules that it is cheating. Market forces might determine why someone cheats, but not whether or not what they do is cheating.

        • Part of "my problem?" You really need to learn to read what has been written rather than what you want to see. Your grasp on the language is not weak - but you exhibit a clear need to grasp at straws. Stop that.

          And, no, you are wrong. The problem at play is that these systems are not part of the game itself. It takes place outside of the game. Let's continue to examine the FFXI example above:

          Player A has played the game since introduction, building the character into quite a forceful Level 75 Monk

          • Re:Not surprised by the lack of factual arguements (Score:4, Insightful)

            by V_M_Smith (186361) on Tuesday June 22 2004, @08:27PM (#9502153)
            There is no difference between a player who cheats at poker and one who buys his way into a specific position in an MMORPG.

            There is a world of difference. Poker is a zero-sum game. In order for me to succeed, you must lose. Any MMORPGs I've played do not have that property -- in general, everyone can go along being happy, killing things that get in their way, finding treasure, making bandages, whatever.

            You might not want to hang out with with a level 75 Monk n00b, but you may also not want to hang with a jerk who's worked his way up to level 75 who's going to killsteal and make a pain of himself. One can be just as damaging as the other.

            The solution? Don't hang out in-world with people you don't like. Whether they've catassed their way up, or bought an ubercharacter shouldn't make a difference. Live and let live.

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