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[Infamous Flame]

Please see the announcement for full details.

[derfy]

It could save your account.

Example.

Please help us help protect you.

[derfy]

We are going to start enforcing a new policy of not allowing email and IM details in posts/threads. This is a security measure and will help prevent scammers and phishing. Giving out these details can still be done via PMs and the 'email a member' function.

Thanks!

(updated to display to the end of 2008)

[kendrah1]

Kendrah1's verification process:

Due to popular request, I'm going to compile a verification list that I use on all buyers and sellers I interact with. This list I have found, reduces your chance of scams greatly. While it's not 100% foolproof, it has been showing great potential. This is a general list, and should be compatible with any mmorpg game.


After successful negotiations of an account sale/purchase, the questions I ask are as follows:

1.) Do you have a paypal verified account, and if so what is that email address so I may check your rating?

2.) Do you have a phone number available in which I can call you? It doesn't matter if it's a cell, or a landline, and I'll tell you why in a bit.

3.) What state do you live in? I'm am located in (such and such state). This requests info from them, but at the same times shows your sincere about telling them the state in which you live.

4.) Do you have any additional credibilities such as Trustwho verification, Positive Ebay ratings, Positive rep here or on any other sites? If so, what are the links or ID handles to verify that information?



Now, what to do with this information, and what we are looking for.

First, I have a slight advantage over many, whereas I can see the IP address of anyone that does business on this site. However, that's not a requirement, as I'll show you how to get the IP address of anyone without it.


1.) The first piece of info we want to do is check the paypal verification. Make sure it's a verified paypal account. I recommend to never do business with nonverified members. Rating is desired, but not required, as you will often run across people with zero ratings, we look for verification.

I've held a paypal account for nearly 5 years, and my rating is only 10. It doesn't go up quickly unless your doing thousands of transactions a year.

2.) Phone numbers. With everyone going to cells these days, you will run into people that just don't have landlines.

What we want to do is check the area code of the phone. Go to yahoo.com, and type in (area code) location. Remember the state and potential cites that area code pulls up.

3.) Does the phone area code match the state in which the person offered? If not, why, and ask the seller why.

4.) Check the additional credibilities the other party offers, if applicable. For example, if they offer an Ebay rating, typically these users have a location such as city and state attached to their account. Use this to see if it's different than the research you come up with.

5.) Take the user Handle, and email address provided, and type it into www.google.com, or yahoo.com. Do you get any matches indicating of past scams? If so, pass on this user.

6.) Now, for the IP address. Request the other party to send you a test email to your email of choice. If needed, take the negotiation from PM to emails to serve this purpose.



Within all preferences of email accounts, you can choose to turn on entire headers. Your looking specifically for the IP address of the other party, as there should be one generated from them, then one generated to the IP provider out to you.

Take this IP address and plug it into the following website services:
http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm?GetLocation
http://www.melissadata.com/Lookups/iplocation.asp

From the results of BOTH of these locators, your looking to see of the state matches up, city is more irrelevant.

Now that you have the state of origin told by the other party, checked by phone area code, and again checked by an IP locator service, do they match up? If not, why don't they match up? The other party better have a very convincing story as to why not.

The last order of business is to call the other party. Shoot the breeze with them and get a feel for the situation. Most of us are gamers, we have enough to talk about. If you have suspicions about someone, cancel the deal and move on. There's a buyer right behind that one if it doesn't pan out.

It's not worth the few dollars you might recieve in your account for that day, if a scammer is going to reverse the funds on you tomorrow. You want to verify people and reduce your risk.




TIPS and ADVICE:

Paypal:
Paypal is the most widely used processor to transfer funds around the world in our industry. Without it, you eliminate nearly half your clients or more. So before we just randomly use this uninformed, let's get informed.

Paypal is a wonderful tool, but it offers little protection for people buying and selling virtual items. You could be either a buyer or seller, your chances of recovering from a claim or dispute in the event of one, is 50/50. If the buyer uses a creditcard, and pulls a chargeback against you, it's zero percent unless you find a willing paypal staff member to honor their tracking policy. Then you might have a small chance.

People have the misconception that when a buyer sends money to a seller, and the seller has these funds sent to their bank, they are home free. This is incorrect. Paypal reserves the right to pull any negative funds from a credit card source, or attached bank account should a claim or dispute be opened in which your account goes negative, upwards of 45 days. For credit card purchases, it's up to one year. Should you not have the funds in your account, or on your attached credit card, OR not in your personal bank account, they will go after your credit report. They will certainly do some damage there.

It is extremely important to verify the people you do business with to avoid these situations as best as possible.

I personally dislike paypal, and here's why. Read this site, www.paypalsucks.com , and educate yourself as to what others around the world go through. The more educated you become, the better protected you are.


Paypal Chargebacks:
When I deal with people, I like to ask how they plan to pay for a purchase. Most use cash out of their paypal accounts, some use credit cards. When credit cards are used, sometimes a chargeback can occur. This is simply a dispute with the other party that usually results in 100% return of their money. In additon to this, you take on a $25-$35 merchant fee. Unfair right? Yes indeed.

What most people don't know, and for scammers reading this, is that credit card companys only allow a certain amount of these to occur before they eliminate your credit card access, or drop you. Usually over the limit chargebacks, a percentage I won't mention here, or abuse of the system results in internal investigation, and sometimes fraud investigation where authorities are involved. While this does happen, the scammer really has a limit on how often he can do this. I doubt most scammers know about that piece of info.

Furthermore, if paypal finds out you have participated in virtual transactions, and this is usually done with a claim or dispute, they have been known to suspend paypal accounts for up to 6 months. This applies to both the buyer and the seller. Depending how long your account has been open, and how often it occurs, you might be granted some flexability. However, if you start a new account, and you have this happen, there's a very good chance at a suspension, as a few of my friends have found out first hand.


Middleman Services:
Middleman services are a wonderful way to do business. As a buyer, there's really no reason you should ever go without using one, unless you have developed the knack of verifying your customers and feel comfortable about taking a potential risk.

Know that there are very few middlemen out there in this industry, and only one recognized by this site. As a 3rd party entity endorsed by the site, his/her reputation speaks for itself.

Careful using middlemen services that randomly appear out of the blue. Take care when ANYONE contacts you offerings middleman services, and especially take care when someone says they know this guy. Read up on the middleman services, their history before you use them. If there's no history, or positive rep, don't use them.

Remember, honest middlemen DO NOT contact you to solicit service. You as a buyer or seller, need to contact them. If someone is contacting you through email, or PM, for the sole purpose of offering their services, they are not a legit middleman and your risk factor just goes through the roof.


Western Union or Money Orders:
Personally I will never use these payment methods to ever send someone money. The reason why is they offer zero protection for the buyer. As a seller, you could simply send a level 1 account and call the transaction complete. Who can you complain to that would do anything about it? If your sending money order, what if the seller sends you nothing? Now it's your word vs theirs.

The only acception to this rule, and I say ONLY, is when using a middleman. Once the middleman claims a temperary hold on the account, it's out of the sellers hands. Once you as a buyer, send a money order or WU payment, that money is out of your hands, unable to recover. This creates a situation where neither party can reverse what they have delivered, and is very secure. Both parties get what they want, as the money is sent to the seller, and the middleman actually checks the account contents as accurate or not, before sending the account.




Scammers:
Here's a few things I've come to find about scammer patterns:

1.) Most scammers do not like to reveal information about themselves. When people bulk at sometimes direct questions, they get nervous and cancel communications. Most scammers do not like to speak over the phone, and this is why it's very important to phone verify people. If little 15 year old Jimmy knew that you had the means to call his mother after he scammed you out of $300, he might take a minute to recalculate his intentions. Or better yet, If 30 year old Bill knew that all information registered to a phone is information that is available through purchase, he might reconsider his position as well. Most phones are registered by an actual owner who provides complete information upon activation, many scammers forget this.

2.) Some scammers like to offer MORE money than your asking price, so they can draw your attention away from everyone else. This is when they can start their master scam, while your preoccupied by the dollars in your eyes. Most people that offer more than asking price without valid reason for it, have proven to be scammers.

3.) My personal favorite is leet speak. This is a good tool you can use to guesstimate the age group of your other party. Most adults don't use this garbage, and when I run across it I just junk the email. With hundreds if not thousands of dollars on the line, it should be a requirement to use common grammer and basic communication skills. When you run across leet speak, really verify individuals properly. If you have any doubts, move on to the next buyer/seller. I don't deal with people that type in leet speak.

I'm sure there's more to come, as it comes to me. The best thing we can do for ourselves is prevention. We can't get rid of the scammers, so protect yourself and verify users. Your money depends on it.

[Infamous Flame]

Do not register more than one account on our forums for ANY reason. If you have not received a validation email, submit a support ticket. It is much easier and quicker to do this than try to do it after you have made two accounts. Also, if you create two accounts you will be banned from the forums, and we do not automatically reinstate people who don't follow the procedure posted in this announcement.

If you cannot login:

1. Check your email (including spam/junk) for an activation email from us. Yahoo and AOL are particularly bad for mis-identifying our emails as spam.

2. Reset your password using the forum software. If you cannot login due to an incorrect username/password, you will be prompted and asked if you would like to reset your password. This sends an email out to your registered address so keep an eye out for it.

3. Submit a support ticket. We will then look into the issue and can manually activate you.

Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you create a second account. We are cracking down on this, as so much of our support staff's time is being taken up by people not following the rules.

Shortly, we will initiate a zero-tolerance policy, and any bans of this nature will not be lifted, and will not be considered.

Thankyou for your co-operation.

eGaming Supply Staff