Guild Wars 2

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4149jf/til_using_the_trading_post_is_buying_gold_rmt/

TL;DR: Person sells expensive item on TP, gold seller buys said item. Anet takes away the gold from the person who sold the item and doesn’t refund the item.

Arena Net’s response on said reddit thread:

We monitor all incoming and outgoing sources of wealth. The gold that was used to purchase your arcane slivers (4 of them) for a total of 499.99 Gold originated from a RMT source and while your item listings may have been setup 8 months ago, that doesn’t change where the wealth originated (which was banned).

While the transactions completed, and do not appear to be any fault of yours, we still needed to reclaim the gains from it to remove the wealth from the economy that you should not have gained in the first place. Since we only removed 300g, it looks like you are netting about a positive 166 gold from this. We’ll let you keep that, and I’ll take the strike off your account for buying gold.

Should we avoid using the trading post with expensive items, just in case some one who violates TOS may end up buying it?

I admit I was pretty shocked by that. On one hand I can see them wanting to protect the economy however for a long time they didn’t remove RMT gold. They only banned the gold sellers and the economy was going along ok. I have to feel that this is unfair to the seller and that Support should have done something else if the RMT buyer didn’t have the gold to remove, such as remove items worth that amount of gold from the RMT buyer instead of removing gold from the innocent player.

Avoiding the TP would have likely resulted in you getting scammed with no recourse to support at all.

Other cases of things like this are generally resolved if you are persistent enough. I would recommend writing clear calm (not the angry tone so often seen here) letters to support. Persistence is the key word.

What should have happened is at least that you got your slivers back after losing the gold.

There were plenty of actions that could have been taken against the buyer up to and including outright banning.

well look at it this way if it wasnt for the gold seller bought his stuff, those items will still be sitting in the TP for another 3 years.

Taxidriver.2043:

well look at it this way if it wasnt for the gold seller bought his stuff, those items will still be sitting in the TP for another 3 years.

It’s not just items that sell very rarely that’s impacted by this. What if an RMT buyer used RMT gold to buy a Legendary you were selling and you lost the gold from Support taking that gold from your account?

looks like he was buying gold and using arcane silver to transfer gold with the gold seller.

https://www.gw2tp.com/item/20802-arcane-sliver

Look at that thread on reddit one reason why I hate reddit. Anet respond and it get down vote in to dirt because reddit forum do not agree even though it is important reply. Current -32 point. If OP did not link Anet respond in reddit post no person ever see it. Now post from Anet bury and any explain from Anet respond later bury unless make new post.

Taxidriver.2043:

this is not a legendary weapon, no one is buying arcane silver and this guy decided to sell them at higher price all of the sudden and then all of them got bought out at the same time. He was buying gold and using arcane silver to transfer gold with the gold seller.

Did you miss the part where ANet said the guy who lost his gold was not at fault yet still removed 300 gold from his account?

ChrisCleary

We monitor all incoming and outgoing sources of wealth. The gold that was used to purchase your arcane slivers (4 of them) for a total of 499.99 Gold originated from a RMT source and while your item listings may have been setup 8 months ago, that doesn’t change where the wealth originated (which was banned).

While the transactions completed, and do not appear to be any fault of yours, we still needed to reclaim the gains from it to remove the wealth from the economy that you should not have gained in the first place. Since we only removed 300g, it looks like you are netting about a positive 166 gold from this. We’ll let you keep that, and I’ll take the strike off your account for buying gold.

That… is absolutely ridiculous.

If the gold is taken out of circulation, then the seller should obviously get the slivers back and what they cost to put on the TP, while the buyer should get the slivers removed. Seller would loose nothing, while the buyer lost his bought gold and get nothing.

How does this even work? You can’t pick and choose which person you buy or sell from on the TP.

If you’re selling an item, it can only be bought when all cheaper quantities have been sold. If you’re buying, you can only purchase the cheapest available.

This would require a very specific set of circumstances. And even then, there’s going to be hundreds of players who would be ‘involved’ because they have an item priced cheaper than the intended RMT target purchase.

Something seems really fishy from reading the comments on the reddit. This line in particular by Chris: “The gold that was used to purchase your arcane slivers (4 of them) for a total of 499.99 Gold originated from a RMT source”.

Following that there is another comment: “Since we only removed 300g, it looks like you are netting about a positive 166 gold from this.”

According to Spidy the price of Arcane Slivers has never gone above 42.5g (unless I’m reading it wrong?). Even at that price, 4 of them would be 170. Keeping the 166 gold vs being given back 4 Arcane slivers sounds like Anet is doing the person a favor, not hurting them.

Anyway, it does seem like the best and safest course of action is for the gold to be removed (all of it), the slivers+listing fees to be returned.

Edit: Nevermind, seems like Spidy is giving me data from a year ago.

RMT gold is like counterfeit money. It’s not your fault for getting it but what you sold is lost.

I do wonder if more to this story that we do not see. Hope Anet will explain more. Of course maybe never see it because it maybe down vote to dirt.

ya like gold seller buys up all of the 9 gold arcane silver and proceed to buy the 300 gold one just for hell of it? lol

Dawdler.8521:

That… is absolutely ridiculous.

If the gold is taken out of circulation, then the seller should obviously get the slivers back and what they cost to put on the TP, while the buyer should get the slivers removed. Seller would loose nothing, while the buyer lost his bought gold and get nothing.

They still netted 166g well above any cost associated with said item.

That said im all for an actual policy being put in place to stop said anomalies going forward.

That is a very crappy way to handle it.

Correct thing would have been to take back all the gold, refund the items and the list fees and taxes. Assuming OP had nothing to do with gold sellers.

Taxidriver.2043:

ya like gold seller buys up all of the 9 gold arcane silver and proceed to buy the 300 gold one just for hell of it? lol

ANet said the guy was innocent but you’re ok with ANet seeing no evidence of gold buying yet removing gold from the account.

If ever you sell something expensive on the trading post and it’s bought by a RMT person, causing you to lose both the gold from selling it and the item(s), don’t come crying to the forum about it just because it happened to you and not to someone else.

If that’s actually how it went down, then yeah. That’s pretty messed up. We can’t control who buys our goods on the TP, and we shouldn’t be punished for it.

Behellagh.1468:

RMT gold is like counterfeit money. It’s not your fault for getting it but what you sold is lost.

The trading post was supposed to be a safe trading platform. It was supposed to prevent scamming.

At the very least, if ArenaNet takes the gold, they should return the listings as if they were never purchased or return the items as well as the listing fees.

Considering the guy paid 75 gold to list the items.

Disgusting on ANET’s part, Really, really cheesy BS. But that is what ANET is all about these days. Common sense and decency left their building long ago.

Behellagh.1468:

RMT gold is like counterfeit money. It’s not your fault for getting it but what you sold is lost.

I don’t get to inspect the gold coming form the TP to see if it originated from a gold selling account.

I can inspect real money to see if it’s counterfeit or not.

Really disgusting the way Anet has chosen to treat legitimate players like this. Pretty clear that all they care about is their money, and to heck with the players.

i simply dont trust that op despite what chris cleary said.

If that’s really the company policy that’s really messed up. What if it had been Eternity he had sold for 5000g? I guess it’s a rare case but it still discourages player from using the tp.

insanemaniac.2456:

i simply dont trust that op despite what chris cleary said.

But one should be treated as innocent until there’s evidence that proves otherwise. If Chris Cleary is saying that the player is innocent, then I’d be inclined to believe him.

like how often do you even get a item that is worth more then 50g????……

I’ve been crafting a daily Damask, Spiritwood and Deldrimor and I’ve starting holding on to them to see if the prices are better when Legendary armor comes out. What if I put several hundred gold worth of these items for sale and they are bought with RMT gold? It’s hardly fair to have ANet go into innocent accounts and remove the gold gotten from hours of farming then crafting these items because someone else bought gold from a gold seller.

It happened ONCE that we know of and after support looked into it the items were given back (and the player is now up 166 gold).

Not sure what all the fuss is about??

Glacial.9516:

How does this even work? You can’t pick and choose which person you buy or sell from on the TP.

If you’re selling an item, it can only be bought when all cheaper quantities have been sold. If you’re buying, you can only purchase the cheapest available.

This would require a very specific set of circumstances. And even then, there’s going to be hundreds of players who would be ‘involved’ because they have an item priced cheaper than the intended RMT target purchase.

Edit: Nevermind, seems like Spidy is giving me data from a year ago.

The velocity is not that high for all the items in-game.

That’s why RMT traders choose markets that have a really low supply or items that can no longer be acquired in-game by any other means rather than the residual supply in the tp like the arcane sliver market. It was not a coincidence. If you don’t have a a very specific set of circumstances, you create them.

Also, I would use gw2tp instead of gw2spidy. https://www.gw2tp.com/

Azure Prower.8701:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4149jf/til_using_the_trading_post_is_buying_gold_rmt/

TL;DR: Person sells expensive item on TP, gold seller buys said item. Anet takes away the gold from the person who sold the item and doesn’t refund the item.

We monitor all incoming and outgoing sources of wealth. The gold that was used to purchase your arcane slivers (4 of them) for a total of 499.99 Gold originated from a RMT source and while your item listings may have been setup 8 months ago, that doesn’t change where the wealth originated (which was banned).

While the transactions completed, and do not appear to be any fault of yours, we still needed to reclaim the gains from it to remove the wealth from the economy that you should not have gained in the first place. Since we only removed 300g, it looks like you are netting about a positive 166 gold from this. We’ll let you keep that, and I’ll take the strike off your account for buying gold.

Should we avoid using the trading post with expensive items, just in case some one who violates TOS may end up buying it?

No, of course we shouldn’t avoid the TP for transactions. Changing behavior based this single story is like deciding to hire a bodyguard because someone 3,000 miles away says they got mugged carrying the same smart phone that you carry.

1. We only have this person’s side of the story. Not ANet’s.
2. We don’t have any evidence — or hint of evidence — that this happens to others, never mind if it happens frequently.
3. On the contrary, we have plenty of evidence that tons of items are able to be sold/bought without issue every day.

tl;dr even if the story is 100% accurate and even if it represents more than a one-time glitch in the system, there’s no lesson to be learned for anyone except the ANet staff (who should figure out what happened and why and ensure it doesn’t again).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Azure Prower.8701:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4149jf/til_using_the_trading_post_is_buying_gold_rmt/

TL;DR: Person sells expensive item on TP, gold seller buys said item. Anet takes away the gold from the person who sold the item and doesn’t refund the item.

We monitor all incoming and outgoing sources of wealth. The gold that was used to purchase your arcane slivers (4 of them) for a total of 499.99 Gold originated from a RMT source and while your item listings may have been setup 8 months ago, that doesn’t change where the wealth originated (which was banned).

While the transactions completed, and do not appear to be any fault of yours, we still needed to reclaim the gains from it to remove the wealth from the economy that you should not have gained in the first place. Since we only removed 300g, it looks like you are netting about a positive 166 gold from this. We’ll let you keep that, and I’ll take the strike off your account for buying gold.

Should we avoid using the trading post with expensive items, just in case some one who violates TOS may end up buying it?

No, of course we shouldn’t avoid the TP for transactions. Changing behavior based this single story is like deciding to hire a bodyguard because someone 3,000 miles away says they got mugged carrying the same smart phone that you carry.

1. We only have this person’s side of the story. Not ANet’s.
2. We don’t have any evidence — or hint of evidence — that this happens to others, never mind if it happens frequently.
3. On the contrary, we have plenty of evidence that tons of items are able to be sold/bought without issue every day.

tl;dr even if the story is 100% accurate and even if it represents more than a one-time glitch in the system, there’s no lesson to be learned for anyone except the ANet staff (who should figure out what happened and why and ensure it doesn’t again).

This part here is ANet’s side of the story. It’s a direct quote from Chris Cleary where he came to the thread on reddit, checked the OP’s account and admited the OP is not guilty. Yet ANet removed 300 gold from his account because another account which had a RMT bought items from the Trading post from the OP.

We monitor all incoming and outgoing sources of wealth. The gold that was used to purchase your arcane slivers (4 of them) for a total of 499.99 Gold originated from a RMT source and while your item listings may have been setup 8 months ago, that doesn’t change where the wealth originated (which was banned).
While the transactions completed, and do not appear to be any fault of yours, we still needed to reclaim the gains from it to remove the wealth from the economy that you should not have gained in the first place. Since we only removed 300g, it looks like you are netting about a positive 166 gold from this. We’ll let you keep that, and I’ll take the strike off your account for buying gold.

FlashAhAhh.4307:

It happened ONCE that we know of and after support looked into it the items were given back (and the player is now up 166 gold).

Not sure what all the fuss is about??

The player didn’t get the items back. And yeah, they let him keep 166g out of the 400ish gold he had from his items selling. So, he’s out the 300g they took away, plus the listing fee he paid when he listed the items some months back. That’s kind of a crappy deal.

FlashAhAhh.4307:

It happened ONCE that we know of and after support looked into it the items were given back (and the player is now up 166 gold).

Not sure what all the fuss is about??

Perhaps…….

It has happened only once, or twice now with this story, because it’s a new policy with ANet to remove all gold from RMT, not just the gold inside of the guilty accounts. If you recall, removing any gold at all is a fairly new development. Previously they were only banning the gold selling accounts and not touching the gold buying accounts. If this is a new policy, then we should hear more of these happening as more innocent accounts have gold removed because RMT accounts purchased items from them at the TP.

Think I wait to hear more from Anet before decide what this all is about.

After looking into this in depth i understand this issue as:

There is a kind of sliver that is currently useless in game because the recipes have not been added to make items from them.

The OP had 4 slivers sell for a total for 499g99s that they had placed on the broker as an investment in hopes they would sell when the recipes were eventually released.

These sold to a player who was in possession of gold acquired via real money transaction or disreputable means.

Anet, in an attempt to protect the market economy voids all sales when it has reasonable cause to believe rmt gold was used the completion of the exchange so the sale was voided and gold/items deleted.

Anet still allowed the seller to retain 30% of the proceeds to recover their losses and cleared the seller of any wrong doing.

According to the seller they actually still made a net profit from their original investment, but are upset they didn’t make the killing they originally thought they had and feel violated that Anet removed currency from their bank.

Something doesn’t jive here though. The seller was one of the few people speculating that a useless item was valuable enough to pay a 25g listing fee and leave it sitting for 8 months.

This is the kind of activity I would watch if I were an Anet rep.

(Following is my opinion and not facts as I have come to understand them)

It far more likely that the seller/OP had placed these items on the TP 8 months ago to circumvent the RMT for gold restrictions which started 10 months ago and im even willing to bet if we could see his historical listings we would see a trend reflecting this.

@OP I’m not afraid to put items on the TP because if i’m not doing anything wrong and I’m not LOOKING TO ATTRACT players who are then I have nothing to worry about.

BooHoo you lost a couple gold, I’m betting the hardest part of making your reddit post was getting your account down to 160 gold so you could look poor because i’m not buying you speculated 125gX4 on an item when the listing fee was 15% of your total bankroll.

Muusic.2967:

After looking into this in depth i understand this issue as:

There is a kind of sliver that is currently useless in game because the recipes have not been added to make items from them.

The OP had 4 slivers sell for a total for 499g99s that they had placed on the broker as an investment in hopes they would sell when the recipes were eventually released.

These sold to a player who was in possession of gold acquired via real money transaction or disreputable means.

Anet, in an attempt to protect the market economy voids all sales when it has reasonable cause to believe rmt gold was used the completion of the exchange so the sale was voided and gold/items deleted.

Anet still allowed the seller to retain 30% of the proceeds to recover their losses and cleared the seller of any wrong doing.

According to the seller they actually still made a net profit from their original investment, but are upset they didn’t make the killing they originally thought they had and feel violated that Anet removed currency from their bank.

Something doesn’t jive here though. The seller was one of the few people speculating that a useless item was valuable enough to pay a 25g listing fee and leave it sitting for 8 months.

This is the kind of activity I would watch if I were an Anet rep.

(Following is my opinion and not facts as I have come to understand them)

It far more likely that the seller/OP had placed these items on the TP 8 months ago to circumvent the RMT for gold restrictions which started 10 months ago and im even willing to bet if we could see his historical listings we would see a trend reflecting this.

@OP I’m not afraid to put items on the TP because if i’m not doing anything wrong and I’m not LOOKING TO ATTRACT players who are then I have nothing to worry about.

BooHoo you lost a couple gold, I’m betting the hardest part of making your reddit post was getting your account down to 160 gold so you could look poor because i’m not buying you speculated 125gX4 on an item when the listing fee was 15% of your total bankroll.

I’m somewhat agree with this post.

RoseofGilead.8907:

FlashAhAhh.4307:

It happened ONCE that we know of and after support looked into it the items were given back (and the player is now up 166 gold).

Not sure what all the fuss is about??

The player didn’t get the items back. And yeah, they let him keep 166g out of the 400ish gold he had from his items selling. So, he’s out the 300g they took away, plus the listing fee he paid when he listed the items some months back. That’s kind of a crappy deal.

Yes he did get the items back. It says so on the reddit thread. There is no problem here.

So they got the item back plus gold but not enough gold? This is a huge issue?

Yargesh.4965:

So they got the item back plus gold but not enough gold? This is a huge issue?

Judging by the response made in that thread I’m not so sure he would’ve gotten the item back if people hadn’t made it a huge issue.

Reddit is terrible, can ArenaNet please stop feeding the fire of ignorance that is reddit, and just support your own company’s official forums, providing all relevant information here first at least?

I throw up when reading reddit most of the time, how can anyone spend so much time on that site.

FlashAhAhh.4307:

RoseofGilead.8907:

FlashAhAhh.4307:

It happened ONCE that we know of and after support looked into it the items were given back (and the player is now up 166 gold).

Not sure what all the fuss is about??

The player didn’t get the items back. And yeah, they let him keep 166g out of the 400ish gold he had from his items selling. So, he’s out the 300g they took away, plus the listing fee he paid when he listed the items some months back. That’s kind of a crappy deal.

Yes he did get the items back. It says so on the reddit thread. There is no problem here.

Ah, the last time I’d looked at the thread, he hadn’t gotten any of the slivers back; I just saw Colin say “Oh, we let you keep the 166g”. I now see the most recent edit to that reddit post, though.

Keep in mind that this thread was posted before support finally agreed to give him his items back. So, the first half of the thread is responding to the issue as it was before the final edit to the post where the player got their stuff back.

RoseofGilead.8907:

FlashAhAhh.4307:

RoseofGilead.8907:

FlashAhAhh.4307:

It happened ONCE that we know of and after support looked into it the items were given back (and the player is now up 166 gold).

Not sure what all the fuss is about??

The player didn’t get the items back. And yeah, they let him keep 166g out of the 400ish gold he had from his items selling. So, he’s out the 300g they took away, plus the listing fee he paid when he listed the items some months back. That’s kind of a crappy deal.

Yes he did get the items back. It says so on the reddit thread. There is no problem here.

Ah, the last time I’d looked at the thread, he hadn’t gotten any of the slivers back; I just saw Colin say “Oh, we let you keep the 166g”. I now see the most recent edit to that reddit post, though.

Keep in mind that this thread was posted before support finally agreed to give him his items back. So, the first half of the thread is responding to the issue as it was before the final edit to the post where the player got their stuff back.

Just noticed the edit myself. I’m glad the guy got things straightened out, but I wonder how many other users have had their items and gold removed in this manner and never had any compensation for it. There is no way this is a one time event.

RoseofGilead.8907:

FlashAhAhh.4307:

RoseofGilead.8907:

FlashAhAhh.4307:

It happened ONCE that we know of and after support looked into it the items were given back (and the player is now up 166 gold).

Not sure what all the fuss is about??

The player didn’t get the items back. And yeah, they let him keep 166g out of the 400ish gold he had from his items selling. So, he’s out the 300g they took away, plus the listing fee he paid when he listed the items some months back. That’s kind of a crappy deal.

Yes he did get the items back. It says so on the reddit thread. There is no problem here.

Ah, the last time I’d looked at the thread, he hadn’t gotten any of the slivers back; I just saw Colin say “Oh, we let you keep the 166g”. I now see the most recent edit to that reddit post, though.

Keep in mind that this thread was posted before support finally agreed to give him his items back. So, the first half of the thread is responding to the issue as it was before the final edit to the post where the player got their stuff back.

In addition to this, what do you want to bet that guy wouldn’t have gotten his slivers back if he hadn’t posted on reddit and got a lot of attention from what happened to him. Since Support didn’t do it automatically I betting he never would.

I’m on the fence about this. On the one hand, I can understand ANet’s reasoning for it. They don’t want botted gold to leak into the economy and thus slowly but surely cause inflation. On a moral level, there’s also the “people shouldn’t profit from the proceeds of crime, even if they were unaware”.

On the other hand, as others have said we have no control over who buys our items, or sells items to us. It’s hardly our fault whether the person who buys our goods turns out to be a gold seller, or an ANet dev. The second issue is that the source of the gold, while objectionable, is functionally no different from other sources of in-game gold (that is, it was spawned into existence from nothing). There are ways in the game now to instantly spawn hundreds of gold (e.g. Ecto gambling) that far exceed the speed at which gold farmers typically make it.

So, while I’m ultimately leaning a little more towards the second position, in the end I’m glad this isn’t a call I have to make.

The bigger issue at hand, which people seem to have ignored so far, is what was that gold seller doing buying those arcane slivers in the first place? Was it simply a mistake and they were intending to buy something else (and if so, what?) Or was it a clever scheme to try and get gold to a buyer without ANet noticing? (And in which case, we now know that ANet can also track gold transactions via the TP, even though buyer and seller are hidden from each other.)

If the latter, how many other times has this gone on? How many other rare, but highly expensive, items on the TP are being secretly used by gold sellers to launder their illegal gold? (And a side concern of that, does that mean that the supply of some rare goods are being deleted from the economy because the gold sellers buy it up, only to get their accounts banned and those items thus deleted?)

BloodyNine.7504:

I actually agree with removing the money from the economy. Sounds like he should get the item(s) back. The selling fee back. It should be as if the transaction never occurred.

Agree +1

Lucifer.7289:

Reddit is terrible, can ArenaNet please stop feeding the fire of ignorance that is reddit, and just support your own company’s official forums, providing all relevant information here first at least?

I throw up when reading reddit most of the time, how can anyone spend so much time on that site.

QFE

Lucifer.7289:

Reddit is terrible, can ArenaNet please stop feeding the fire of ignorance that is reddit, and just support your own company’s official forums, providing all relevant information here first at least?

I throw up when reading reddit most of the time, how can anyone spend so much time on that site.

I’ve never used reddit so I really don’t know if it’s that bad, but yeah I mean Blizz, Trion, Zenimax, [insert company here] all MMOs I’ve played their main outlet is the forums with the exception of twitter for answering some player questions because it’s faster/easier I guess

I think ANets policy (not sure if this is NCSoft or what) is not to talk about the game much before it’s already happened in an update , their lips are literally sealed on 99% of things. It’s why the communication feels so barren, and yes it’s a horrible, HORRIBLE PR statement.

If you can’t talk to us about your own game and settle the players with some info on your official forums, there is a problem. If you have to resort to a 3rd party website in order to talk to your players without getting in trouble, you KNOW there is something kittened up.

A question that never gets asked, and its relevant to all games that have gold sellers and some form of trading system is where do Gold Sellers get the gold they sell from?
And the answer of course is that they get it from all the other players in the game who buy goods from the TP.
So , all the games players are bankrolling the gold sellers, albeit unintentionally.

If ANet are going to charge a listing fee and a sale fee for items on the TP then THEY need to take responsibility and not penalise their customers for using the only system that ANet provided.