Guild Wars 2

When is this topic ever going to end, they keep spamming in whisper and you have to stop what your doing in order to look at it, i got the account but it could change, but here is is anyway. “asdfsdgsadf.7025”, as sood as i identified him in map chat the logged off.

“get rid of the “whisper” perhaps.

thanks

Report and block. ArenaNet takes care of the rest. No need to advertise here on the forums.

Be careful. A post with that kind of links goes against the Forum’s rules too.

You might want to remove the account name from your post. Calling out other players for breaking the rules is against the forum code of conduct (even if the “player” in question is obviously a dummy account set up by a gold seller).

You might also need to edit the topic title – linking to illegal gold selling sites is against the rules and I suspect that might stretch to typing out enough of the URL that anyone who hasn’t already seen their messages could find it.

Anyway, in answer to your question there are two things which make it very difficult, if not impossible, for Anet to stop them completely:
1) It’s not one account. Gold sellers often have dozens of accounts – usually stolen from former customers or purchased with fake/stolen credit cards. In GW2 they might use free accounts too but a lot of the restrictions on free accounts are there entirely to make that impractical.

2) The people behind it likely live somewhere other than the USA and the website will be registered outside of the USA too. They are committing a number of illegal activities (starting with selling in-game assets which are legally Anets intellectual property and continuing to stealing accounts, credit card fraud, and in some cases even slavery and trafficking – seriously there’s some fascinating and terrifying articles on the kinds of things gold sellers get up to outside of games).

But international law enforcement is horribly complicated at the best of times, so it’s usually only worthwhile for major crimes. And there’s a good chance these guys are operating out of a country which either does not consider those activities illegal (at least not if the victims are outside it’s borders) or simply does not have the resources or inclination to enforce those laws because they have other things to worry about.

Which means Anet are extremely limited in their options. They can and have introduced a number of security features to try to prevent players accounts being stolen (which is the sellers main source of gold and unbanned accounts). They’ve introduced features to stop them using bots to farm gold. They’ve added a report feature which allows us to identify sellers accounts so they can be banned.

If you can think of a way they can stop it completely I’m sure Anet, and every other MMO developer in the world, would love to hear from you.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Edited title to remove name of spamming RMT company.

Please click on the spammer’s name in chat, right click, choose “Report” and then cite them for gold selling. It can be done in about 5 seconds, and the team is usually very quick to handle these.

Thank you.

I am curious, how many get banned aprox daily?

I don’t understand why anet are not filtering that URL in chat. Sure, the sellers would just find another way to display it but then you block that as well. Eventually the URL becomes relatively difficult to decipher and looks more and more amateurish. That reduce the take up.

I’ve seen it in another game where the spammers had to say stuff like:
\/\/\/\/\/\/ (d ot) etc. to get through the filter. You could still read the URL but you had to put in a bit more effort.

It’s cat and mouse and you never completely eradicate it but at least make the spammers work for their $$$.

DoctorDing.5890:

I don’t understand why anet are not filtering that URL in chat. Sure, the sellers would just find another way to display it but then you block that as well. Eventually the URL becomes relatively difficult to decipher and looks more and more amateurish. That reduce the take up.

I’ve seen it in another game where the spammers had to say stuff like:
\/\/\/\/\/\/ (d ot) etc. to get through the filter. You could still read the URL but you had to put in a bit more effort.

It’s cat and mouse and you never completely eradicate it but at least make the spammers work for their $$$.

you start doing stuff like this it makes it exponentially harder to post legitimate links, and if you start blacklisting certain link combinations it’d take too long since they’ll just set up a new site that’s exactly the same as the old.

In what situation would you need to post a link in the game? I mean they cant click it so you might as well link your friend in discord or teamspeak or whatever messaging program you use, if you’re spamming links to strangers i’m all for making that harder.

Fremtid.3528:

In what situation would you need to post a link in the game? I mean they cant click it so you might as well link your friend in discord or teamspeak or whatever messaging program you use, if you’re spamming links to strangers i’m all for making that harder.

The most common one I see is giving guild members the link to either the guilds website, or specific pages on the website (like the one with instructions on downloading the guilds chosen voice chat program and relevant passwords).

But also links to guides, videos, or just interesting things you’ve seen online which you want to share with your friends. Sure you can tell them what to search for and which of the results to click on (and hope they’re not hit with something like googles “helpful” personalised searches which promise that no two people will get the same results) but unless it’s a really long and complicated URL it’s often easier to just type it out and have them copy it.

Fremtid.3528:

In what situation would you need to post a link in the game? I mean they cant click it so you might as well link your friend in discord or teamspeak or whatever messaging program you use, if you’re spamming links to strangers i’m all for making that harder.

Wow, I send links all the time via mail or in chat. Today, I let people know about a website that showed all the Bloodstone Fen journal entries in chronological order, making it much easier to understand them in context than reading them in game.

I used tinyurl, because I didn’t want people to have to try to type an unfamiliar URL (and possibly end up on the wrong site) and because GW2 doesn’t offer clickable links.

Mind you, if this inconvenience has reduced gold selling by 0.1%, I’m willing to live with it. I just want to point out it is an inconvenience, a big one for some of us.

If you also call out to get guys in WVW to join the commander in TS, it’s also a link.
So i guess blocking all types of URLs out of the question.

Since they tend to bypass filters anyway, it probably makes more sense not to block it but rather fire an automatic alert when it shows up…

The root cause of the gold seller spam is the number of gold BUYERS. Finding new ways to slither through the blockade is obviously worth their effort to reach this market.

So the best way to beat them is to starve them – tell your friends not to buy from them in the first place.

/thesource

I wasn’t suggesting blocking all URLs, just the specific one(s) they use.
Make the bad guys work to get past the filter and keep updating the filter to block their latest attempt.
Each time they tweak their “advert” to get past the filter it becomes less readable.
You can never stop it all but you can damage their sales.

At the moment it feels like anet are happy to leave their front door unlocked and their windows wide open.

DoctorDing.5890:

I wasn’t suggesting blocking all URLs, just the specific one(s) they use.
Make the bad guys work to get past the filter and keep updating the filter to block their latest attempt.
Each time they tweak their “advert” to get past the filter it becomes less readable.
You can never stop it all but you can damage their sales.

At the moment it feels like anet are happy to leave their front door unlocked and their windows wide open.

So it may look. But a few points to consider. First of all, has ArenaNet the technology to filter one specific URL? If not they have to assign resources to make something. Don’t know if I want them to put resources into developing this technology.
Secondly, to me it seems the gold spammer links in chat are ignoring existing filters. I don’t think I can make a chat message like the one I get every few weeks. So adding an URL filter would probably not do anything against this kind of gold seller spam.
Lastly, reporting and blocking costs a few seconds. And for most players the amount of gold seller spam is not high lately. I got one earlier this week. The last one before that has been at least a month ago. So, I think ArenaNet is actively doing something against these gold spammers.

I wonder why Anet don’t make gold in such a way that you are not allowed to send it at all.That will fix 2 problems people getting flagged all the time and getting banned and gold sellers they will have no way to sell their gold since they can’t distribute it.

Dronikal: Then they would just have someone put a cheap item on the TP for an exorbitant sum that no one else would pay, and they would transfer the gold that way. It wouldn’t stop anything, making gold unsendable, and it would hurt a lot of players who send gold to their friend and things like that.

Elyssandariel.2679:

Dronikal: Then they would just have someone put a cheap item on the TP for an exorbitant sum that no one else would pay, and they would transfer the gold that way. It wouldn’t stop anything, making gold unsendable, and it would hurt a lot of players who send gold to their friend and things like that.

That involves way too much risk and no normal human being will fall for that it does not guarantee the trade and its not possible since how many low price items are available that have no existing prices on them a few and to buy them you have to first buy the whole stack from other players.So Yes it will fix it.About the player sending players gold that was never a good idea and will never be unless they add some restrictions like max gold per mail like 10 gold that is enough for a friendly gift or ok 100.Anything above that should go through the TP.

dronikal.8150:

Elyssandariel.2679:

Dronikal: Then they would just have someone put a cheap item on the TP for an exorbitant sum that no one else would pay, and they would transfer the gold that way. It wouldn’t stop anything, making gold unsendable, and it would hurt a lot of players who send gold to their friend and things like that.

That involves way too much risk and no normal human being will fall for that it does not guarantee the trade and its not possible since how many low price items are available that have no existing prices on them a few and to buy them you have to first buy the whole stack from other players.So Yes it will fix it.About the player sending players gold that was never a good idea and will never be unless they add some restrictions like max gold per mail like 10 gold that is enough for a friendly gift or ok 100.Anything above that should go through the TP.

No one needs to fall for anything – it’s not about trying to trick random people into buying overpriced items. The idea is the person who bought gold (by paying real money outside of the game) puts the worthless item up for sale and then the gold seller buys it…so the end result is the ‘customer’ has their gold. They’ve already been doing it for a while and it does work…or at least it used to. I think Anet are onto them now and have found ways to identify and stop those transactions just like they do with mail.

Why do you say sending gold is never a good idea? I agree it’s not a good idea to trade outside of the trading post, but sending gold as a gift is both not uncommon and can be a very nice thing to do. Someone was nice enough to send me the gold I needed to finish my legendary when I ran out of laurels and gold just short of having enough T6 mats. At other times I’ve sent gold to new guild members who were struggling to afford things they wanted. (Usually things that were inexpensive for an experienced player but seemed incredibly expensive if you were new and hadn’t had much time to earn gold.)

If you’re expecting something in return then there’s a huge risk in sending it through the mail, but if you just want to give someone a gift there’s nothing to worry about.

Do you even know how the TP works to buy the most expensive item you have to buy first the stack of cheaper ones so it DOES NOT WORK.Cmon think about it if you have a twilight listed for 10000 gold and one at 3999 and one more with 5000 gold you will have to first buy that items for the 3999 and 5000 gold .

For years I’ve said they need user controlled filters where we can add words or phrases to prevent messages with them. As an example, let me add “SSL Approved” and half the spam from these bozos would never show up!

Being user configurable also means nobody has to do anything to keep getting the messages they are already.

Blockhead Magee.3092:

For years I’ve said they need user controlled filters where we can add words or phrases to prevent all messages with them. As an example, let me add “SSL Approved” and half the spam from these bozos would never shows up!

Being user configurable also means nobody has to do anything to keep getting the messages they are already.

you know that will fix nothing they will start exploiting the LFG tool and then you will have another mess to fix

dronikal.8150:

Blockhead Magee.3092:

For years I’ve said they need user controlled filters where we can add words or phrases to prevent all messages with them. As an example, let me add “SSL Approved” and half the spam from these bozos would never shows up!

Being user configurable also means nobody has to do anything to keep getting the messages they are already.

you know that will fix nothing they will start exploiting the LFG tool and then you will have another mess to fix

LFG also contain messages. Filter applies there too.

Its not something that will catch everything, but at least eliminating the general chat and whisper spam would be of immense value (to me anyway).

Gaile Gray.6029:

Edited title to remove name of spamming RMT company.

Please click on the spammer’s name in chat, right click, choose “Report” and then cite them for gold selling. It can be done in about 5 seconds, and the team is usually very quick to handle these.

Thank you.

or a freaking better and much simpler solution that is looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong overdue:

Change the Whisper System, so that you can receive whispers only from FRIENDS!!!

Problem solved once and freaking for all!!

DoctorDing.5890:

I wasn’t suggesting blocking all URLs, just the specific one(s) they use.
Make the bad guys work to get past the filter and keep updating the filter to block their latest attempt.
Each time they tweak their “advert” to get past the filter it becomes less readable.
You can never stop it all but you can damage their sales.

At the moment it feels like anet are happy to leave their front door unlocked and their windows wide open.

Filters never work. Look at how people in these forums get pass the kitten filter. ANet blocks “DoctorDing.com” and the spammers come back with “dOcTOrdINg.com” then “d o c t o r d i n g DOT c o m” then… They’ll always find a work-around (or a new URL).

In the meantime, ANet’s spending resources on improving the block filter in addition to people following up on requests to go after the spammers that get through. Not only that, each new complicated filter ends up accidentally blocking some of us, too, which leads to increased player frustration.

It’s not impossible — it’s just not the most efficient use of ANet’s resources, especially since their core business is gaming, not block filter technology.

tl;dr Block Filters are more work without extra benefits in the long run

Gaile Gray.6029:

Please click on the spammer’s name in chat, right click, choose “Report” and then cite them for gold selling.

If only this worked for Guild Wars 1, I’d be happy.. but alas it doesn’t…..

Please please please can a gm or someone do a ban wave of RMT sellers in GW1.. Even if it’s once a week.. Something needs to be done.

Was sat for a while in Spamadan, and pretty much 1/2 the trade messages were RMT messages.