clearly botted accounts

Describe the problem:

It has become increasingly obvious that some account sellers are falsely advertising botted accounts as hand-trained. In some cases, sellers claim to hand-level every account despite listing or selling a volume of accounts that appears unrealistic without workers. See @OSRS Acc Hub who likely scam quit after not being able to bot any new accounts due to jagex crack down on bots. He had 0 workers working for him but was selling hundreds of accounts off site & advertising multiple accounts onsite.

What current rule(s) tackle this problem:

I thought that there was a rule that sellers were required to accurately disclose whether accounts were botted or hand-trained, but I couldn't find a rule here.

Explain the change:

Allow moderators to require additional verification when there are reasonable grounds to believe a seller is falsely advertising botted accounts as hand-trained.

This should be handled on a case-by-case basis using moderator discretion. Relevant factors could include the volume and frequency of listings, off-site listings, and any other information that reasonably calls a seller's claims into question.

Verification could include evidence that the accounts were legitimately produced, such as proof of workers, or an explination on how they have so many accounts.

Explain why this change will fix the problem:

This wouldn't eliminate falsely advertised accounts, but it would improve the current situation where clearly something is going on, but because you don't have direct proof nothing can be done.

Side-effects:

• Increased workload for moderators.

 

Support. Although I don't see it being implemented.

There are a number of 'bigger' sellers on here that advertise hand-made accounts & hand-done services that are clearly botting.

This sums it up - lack of proof = no action, the burden of proof would still be on the buyer and its not exactly easy to prove after the fact.

 

Even screenshots of level up wouldn't completely solve this either, it's not really solvable.

Could instead recommend to users that they only buy accounts > 1 month old, this would reduce the chance you buy an account and it gets banned for macroing before you get to do anything on it. However it wouldn't be perfect as they'll often flag accounts and only ban them once they begin to be used for money making activities.

 

it wont solve it entirely, but it would be obvious when billybob is selling 20 accounts a month with no workers

 

But they can just claim they have workers who aren't registered on Sythe?

 

To add on @iJava

I'd leave it to the common sense of buyers when assessing statements such as 'safest!' - or in this case 'hand-trained'. Buyers can always ask the seller for substantiation of claims; "can you provide evidence that it is hand-trained", etc.

Making the administration of (hand-)training mandatory documentation will dissuade selling to an unwanted degree. I dont think that will benefit the market overal

 

This is an inevitable consequence of AI and botted accounts, same concept as replacing an entire call-centre of human workers with an AI chatbot that can do their job for free. If this continues it will turn the RS account market upside down and make "human trained accounts" pointless to train up when most buyers simply want a high-level account and not care how it was made.

Do Jagex even have a solution for this? From what I've read we will get to the point (if not already) AI just becomes undetectable, regardless of banning it.

For the sake of market stability I would support this suggestion of adding it to the rules, but also no way of detecting or enforcing it unless the seller admits it is a botted account.

 

Main idea around the age is that it reduces the chance of a user buying an account and then it being banned for macroing if it's been "rested" already, not 100% but if you bot an account then don't get banned for a few weeks you're usually.

Although totally hear you on the recommendations being ignored.