PlayerAuctions Hosted Discussion: Game Account Trades

Hi Guys,

Most of you know me (Jacob), as I've been around Sythe going on... 8 years now (wow).

I will be shifting into a new role at PA focusing exclusively on Community & Strategic Partnerships. Sythe has always had a special place in my heart, so I am going to give this 'community townhall' a try with you guys first.

Before we begin, I'd like to address a few things:

1. Yes, I know our Customer Support needs work. We've improved leaps and bounds since 3 years ago in this area, but we are not yet at Apple's level of customer service.
2. I will discuss PA fee structures in another thread.
3. If you have an order that has an issue, PLEASE PM me, you'll get a faster response, as I won't be in this thread all day.
4. D) Yes, I prefer rum to whiskey.

Okay, with that out of the way, I wanted to break this down into two sections:

GAME ACCOUNT PERFORMANCE ON PA.
GAME ACCOUNT ISSUES/FEEDBACK RELATED TO SYTHE & RS

Let's Get Started.
GAME ACCOUNT PERFORMANCE ON PA.

PlayerAuctions have been securing trades for gamers since 2000. I joined the team in 2008, and for anyone with a long memory, I can say confidently that we have come LEAPS and BOUNDS since we re-launched in 2008, let alone within these last 3 years.

Our transaction value/order volume performance was double in 2015, than what it was in 2013.

That being said, despite having an A rating on the BCA, and top notch reviews on Trustlink, Sitejabber, and a few others, we still have one thorn in our side: Game Accounts.

To give you guys a run down, for our total site performance, we have about 2% average in game account reclamations amongst all of the orders we fulfill across the platform. Not bad, given that we've devoted the entirety of our mind and business purpose to securing trades for gamers.

More specifically however, Unescape/OSRS have about a 6% recovery rate. While that may still seem impressive and very low, it is actually a significant burden on a business like ours which operate on very slim margins (that 10% fee covers administration, product development, salaries, marketing, and fraud loss). Paying out a $100 account, means we need to sell an additional $900 in sales to break even.

This isn't to say we are struggling in this market, because we aren't. It just means that RS/OSRS market is not as efficient as others.

The thing that IS a deal breaker however, is the number of users negatively affected by this. In an industry where praise is rare, even a single complaint on the net can cost us hundreds of new users. And having been scammed myself, I can say that it's not just about losing customers... its far more about providing a GOOD experience overall.

So... I'd like to engage the community and see what you're thoughts are. WoW, EVE, LoL, CoC, and all the other games, we have down pat. But RS needs some love.

GAME ACCOUNT ISSUES/FEEDBACK RELATED TO SYTHE & RS

For those of you who sell professionally, or have a lot of experience in RS trade, I'd love feedback on the following:

• - What scams are you aware of that are prevalent for RS account trades
• - Would it be better to limit the RS/OSRS market to verified 'Original Owner' accounts only?
• - Would it be better to make the RS/OSRS market, invitation ONLY for sellers?
• - Are there ways we could effectively deter seller fraud, without discouraging listing offers?
• - Should we keep the account section open for RS/OSRS?
• - Are there changes in our process we can adjust to improve RS/OSRS trade security?

This isn't a state of emergency for us. If anything, this is us being nit-picky and perfectionist wanting to improve an already decent performance number.

I have already spoken to a Sythe Admin and gotten his feedback which will be monumentally helpful in our game account reclamation investigation process, as well as some other helpful tips he's given.

I'd love to open this up, and hear what others have in terms of ideas which might make us more effective in protecting you.

Cheers,
Jacob A.
Diego Miranda - Feels Good (Original Mix)
Feel the Music Deep Down Inside

 

hire customer service that actually know what they're doing instead of imitating work and giving generalized responses instead of actually taking care of it

 

I bought an rs3 account on playerauctions for like 125 dollers a couple years ago. roughly a month or two later it was recoverred. your site support was so absolutely terrible that i gave up and got nothing back, just lost like 125 dollers lol. I couldnt even change my feedback on the deal so that guy STILL has positive feedback from me for an account sale. I checked and he has sold that same account 3 times now. and i assume has recovered it all 3 times like he did to me lmfao. So a good point to start would be making sure some1 doesnt sell an account, then recover it, then several months later sell the same account.... also make it easier to alter feedback later, so if an account is recovered then we can update our feedback so other people actually see that.

 

I agree there needs to be some sort of system where it checks accounts. Theres so many people of PA that sell the same account over and over again usually they only alter one or two things in there listing but an average buyer viewing it can clearly see its a recovered account and a previous account they already sold.

More support for accounts needs to be put in place. Like maybe checking the listings of the people selling accounts on a regular basis and getting them to provide proof of the account or something like having there listing approved before its live.

Other than that to be honest customer service has improved alot so heads up for that.

 

I personally haven't bought an account from PA, but I do want to point out one thing I consistently see:

I think ur % might be up to 6% because it looks like people are selling accounts, and recoverying them then re-selling them.


I personally have seen at least a dozen complaints about this specifically, I don't know what else might be a problem but it seems like people selling accounts, recovering them then re-selling them on ur site seems to be a fairly large issue.

 

Is the 6% the amount of orders that PlayerAuctions accepts as recovered and refunds, or the amount of complaints you get?

From what I've seen/heard a lot of people have bought accounts from PlayerAuctions, they've been recovered and they haven't had any resolution. In fact, I've never heard of someone actually being compensated when the account is recovered, but this is probably just because those people have no reason to make a loud comment.

Jagex have a strong policy that they abide by with accounts; the original owner always has precedence. To show how strongly they abide by this there was a guy a few months ago who had been playing on 'his' account for 8 years, he was maxed on rs3 and 07, had bils in gear, but the account was actually created by his friend all those years ago and he just took it over shortly after it was created, the 'friend' was able to recover the account 8 years later even though they had only actually played on it for a few weeks at the start, and Jagex wouldn't give it back to the guy who had devoted thousands of hours to it over the 8 years.

This is the reason that very few people buy and resell RS accounts, you can have all of the correct information needed to recover the account, but if the original owner recovers it then Jagex will ignore all other requests.

There is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from selling an account on PA, waiting for their dirbursement and then recovering it, it would really be amazingly easy, and they would have no punishment as far as I can see. I remember reading somewhere that PA will get the account banned if it is recovered but this seems to simply not happen.

I'd say making it invite only would be the best course of action.

 

Thanks Divica.

6% are the total amount of game account reclamation cases we receive from users reporting lost access. So, 94% of game account orders on PlayerAuctions close to successful order completion with both parties leaving positive feedback, and having NO recovery reported within a 12 month period FOR RUNESCAPE. (That is how we defined the metrics, our 'no issue' success order rates are higher for the platform average of 97.6%).

76% of recoveries happen within the first 60 days of transfer, with the fair rest happening within the following 9 months. Very rarely do we have account recoveries reported after 12 months of completed sale.

I had posited the question to another major seller "What about limiting it to original owners only"?

The response was:
- Significant Inventory Size reduction
- Second hand accounts can't be recovered by re-sellers, since they don't have the original owner's info.

But still, second hand accounts are not secure either due to the chain of ownership.

I am thinking we may implement an invitation-only RS account market. Though it seems, that people re-use accounts and change hands frequently?

So even if we had a reputable seller, selling accounts, he still may get in trouble because of one rogue account, that happens to get recovered.

Lots to think about.

 

New Question:

SPECIFICALLY for Runescape Accounts, what special things should we consider, or introduce to the Game Account Inspection Process?

What should we check on the account, account details pages, account history, etc. ?

 

All selling threads must contain pictures of the following:
•Screenshot of the account's levels
•Screenshot of the lobby screen (If membership is specified)
•Screenshot of the account's wealth (If wealth is specified)
• Offense history

Those are the sythe requirements for a thread to remain open, so I would say at the minimum those @ PA.


I would advise you also asking for off-site reputation if any if ur going to turn it into a invite only market, evidence of off-site reputations may signicantly decrease PA scams if its invite only, or even if its not it might still help, it would be a fairly easily thing to do to, just give ur reps a list of valid offsite sites that can be used as offsite reputations for rs account selling.

 

I'd suggest adding a new section. Such as you need 50+ feedback to be able to post an add on it. That way people can easily sift through the non-trusted account sellers and go right to the more trusted ones. Of course, there would be a section for every to be able to put their own ad up, but a section specifically only more trusted users could sell on.

 

just add off-site vouch confirmations, so the seller would risk to get banned on all market websites if he scams. If he doesn't confirm his offsite accounts hes most likely a scammer anyways