Rule Reform: Sniped/Scammed RSNs

You shouldn't be punished saying a certain name was sniped from you. There is no solution to this except trading with trusted users

 

I've been a little busy and haven't been able to address this for a while, here are a couple of my thoughts:

• If the name request thread were reinstated, and I'm really not saying that it ever will, then it will have to be run by a sythe.org staff member, probably Dunworry. It is a little troubling to give a name trader control of a thread listing other name traders as scammers without proof of a scam.
  
• The *solution* suggested that we keep the thread, and have name owners prove that the names were legitimately obtained was already the case last time. I am personally not a fan.
  
• I'm leaning towards keeping it removed, but still very open to hearing alternatives or other reasons why it should be reimplemented. Please feel free to PM me or post here with your ideas, I'll leave the thread open

I really do recognize that the Name Sales market is very problematic and exceptionally difficult to maneuver. Thank you to @Aklan for keeping track of this thread for me and helping out here

To clarify, this isn't aimed at punishing people for posting that a name was sniped from them. One way to look at it is, we are saying a thread listing people as scammers without proof is not allowed. It so happens that the list uses RSNs to identify them as scammers instead of sythe.org usernames, skype IDs, etc.

 

Understandable, my wording was just not very clear

 

I feel there is a simple solution.


1. Make the user transfer the name to a level 3 (before attempting to sell the name)

2. Make the user give the account to the buyer and let him change it on his own time. Be it in 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or 1 year whatever he decides to do. Make him change the password, register an email on it etc.

3. Since there is no possible way to tell when the user is going to attempt to change the name, the time frame would be near impossible to guess.

 

This is already the standard of how most people sell names on Sythe. It's pretty much customary for names to be delivered on fresh accounts with no registered e-mail, etc. Unless you're suggesting this be a concrete rule in Name Sales as to how names should be sold. But it still doesn't really change the matter at hand which is that people need to be able to be given fair warning a name is sniped or scammed as to avoiding being a victim themselves. There's always a risk a name can be recovered (as easily if not more easily than an account), and buying a name from someone who obtained it illegitimately increases the chance of this. Not only is there a likely chance the seller will recover it, but perhaps the original owner. I just think it's safer to be able to give the most current information on a name as 9/10 times it seems to be accurate. Maybe 1/10 times a name will be falsely labeled as illegitimately acquired but it's not very hard to prove it was legitimately acquired if that's the case, in which the status would change from illegitimate to legitimate.

 

Problem with doing name transfers this way, is that when you give an account to someone to transfer the name from, the name is always at risk of being recovered. This is because the seller can claim to jagex that the account was hacked, and Jagex will believe this because of the new IP on the account as the buyer transfers the name over.

This is the method of name transfer I use on my name sales thread, which I believe to be the safest possible way and I have never had any problems/issues, all name sales have been successful:

"I do not buy accounts with the name on it, I only buy names by you changing your name to free it up, and me grabbing it instantly. You change your name via the in-game name changing system, a bond or via the website. The preferred way would be via a bond or the in-game name changing system, as then I can be stood next to you when you change your name, on the account I am grabbing the name on, to make things easier.
Once you notify me that you are about to change your name in the next couple of seconds, and we are both ready, I will start to spam click on the name change to grab the name instantly. I also take other precautions to make sure I am as quick as possible in grabbing the name, which you can ask me about. Once the name is successfully on my account, you will be paid the price we agreed on.
You can safely trust that I, as a $1000 Donator, Sythe Verified User and having over 1000 vouches, would want the trade to go as smooth and safely as possible."

 

I wouldn't support forcing people to sell names from level 3's for 2 reasons:

1: That means additional risk of the name being recovered. When I buy a name, I don't like going on the other person's account. This means that if they try to recover the name, they have a higher chance of success as it looks to JaGeX that their account was hacked.

2: This makes the sniping issue worse. A current method of scamming is for snipers to ask people to transfer their name to a brand new level 3 and that they will buy that. This sounds harmless, but what it does is allow the sniper a free opportunity to stick an autoclicker on the name and snipe it.

 

1. At least you can get the scammers banned, right now you can't prove who snipped. At least with this you can get the scammer banned as you can show he recovered.

2. Doesn't make it worse. They need to transfer the acc before posting a thread. Meaning it will already be ready. You don't make a thread "selling the name Maldesto" then try to transfer it to a level 3, you change the name and swap it with a level 3 and THEN make a thread. 0 chance of sniping.

 

1. Why would we want to make a rule to promote scamming?

2. That assumes people will read the rules. How it would actually go is many people would post a thread selling the name. We would have to police them and make sure it's on a new account. When someone says that it is not, we would then need to tell them they would have to transfer it to one, giving snipers a free shot at the name.

Transferring a name more times than it needs to be is not the solution.

 

1. What? So you'd rather people be allowed to snipe names with no reports, because it is impossible to prove who SCAMMED. This would allow people to actually report the scammers, not just get their name stolen and nothing happen.

2. Make the section approval based, it takes literally 5 seconds to read a thread and pm them before approving the thread and say 'make sure you read the rules and see we make you transfer the account name to a level 3 www.sythe.org/rulessellnames'

This isn't really that difficult, just shows how much work is really going to be put into this. Not much at all it seems.

 

There are a few ways, the biggest and most common being reselling the stolen name.

If you're going to snipe a name, it's most likely for these two reasons:

1. To sell it yourself.
2. To keep it for yourself.

It's possible to get caught doing both.

 

Correct. Most sniped names end up resold. But names move around quite a bit now that bonds make transfers quick. Very simple to claim you bought it legitimately "from a random guy for dirt cheap" and that you "swear you didn't know it was sniped". Pass the blame on, and noone can prove otherwise. Thats the issue.

 

Sounds eerily similar to a certain guy we know. With previously scammed/sniped name someone could also sell it 'legitimately' and just have a buddy or something make a fake skype and set up a chat to make it seem as if he bought it legitimately if they really wanted to go the distance. So when you think of it like that it's near impossible to 'get caught' when you can just as easily set up a fake scenario of a legit trade, especially if the trade was done with "just some random guy that doesn't use sythe"

 

In this case I support that there definitely needs to be a clearer rule reform for names that end up like this. On the other side of the card, there are many more names sold by snipers to users who didn't know they were sniped than snipers who claimed they bought their names in attempt to sell sniped names. I've been confronted with this exact problem time and time again where i've been accusing of sniping a name i've bought and have had to prove myself innocent multiple times. That being said, I do still agree placement for a rule regarding this should be effective immediately. This type of scam has been attempted before by 'F34R' aka 'Webra' aka 17, who keeps claiming he got his names from friends when in reality it's been him the whole time. An idea to combat this would be an official "friends list" for sniped names. Every name that is reported sniped or scammed will be added to a friends list and when the time comes and someone attempts to sell the name but claim they 'bought it legitimately' the 'friends list' can go back and confirm this by checking if the name changed owners or not. Obviously this will not 100% confirm that it actually changed owners, but it definitely could be beneficial in helping to combat some of these scams. This is by no means a common scam in Name Sales but at the moment there is nothing to stop this type of scam from occurring. The only problem with the 'friends list' idea is the new rule reform where the blacklisting of names isn't allowed. By today's standard (especially with the new rule implementation) there is nothing stopping someone from doing what you stated above and there needs to be a rule change regarding this as soon as possible. A lot of accusing of scamming without definitive proof would need to be involved, but there has to be some form of this to help determine weather a name was obtained legitimately by someone or not. Just my two cents.

 

Support, I agree that there is really no way to prove a name has been sniped/scammed beyond accusations. Names could have changed hands multiple times since originally being sniped/scammed as well

 

Still looking for opinions/potential solutions.

 

I think that it could be fairly easy to spot a scammer who sniped an RSN. That is if both are within the Sythe community. It would just be up to the original owner of the name to watch the Name selling forum to find out who sniped it. I do agree with you, though, that it may be harder to prove who did it. I think there is another case (although highly unlikely) where someone outside of the black market community snipes the name, then it is just total loss for the original owner, as I figure that would not technically be a scam, just an extremely unlucky instance. As far as a solution goes, I think it may just be up to the original owner to monitor the selling forum when they can to make sure no one else has it at that point.

 

How I see it is that everyone is aware of the risks of name-sales. If you willingly participate you assume those risks and should just suck it up if it goes sour because you entered in a huge gamble.

There's no real solution as far as I can tell. I say leave it and don't whine if it doesn't go your way.

 

There is always risk involved when trading virtual goods. Name market is not an exception...

It is possible to make it more difficult to snipe using middleman. Why not choose few market mods that could only focus on name sales. They can make fresh accounts and hand them out to ones whoever want to sell names. This would eliminate both criterions: 1. account is not recoverable 2. name could be transfered before publishing it to forum (thread). After that whoever buys the name will receive name with fresh safe account and what he/she does with that is his/her own decision

 

Still looking.