(Denied) Hold service providers accountable

** Our terms of service: **

**1. You agree to Discord's TOS

**2. You are responsible for your own account security. It is highly recommended to change your password before and after each service. We are not held responsible if your account becomes compromised after the completion of a service.**

**3. You are not allowed to log into the account while a service is being completed unless stated otherwise. This is to protect you and our workers from any false reports. **

**4. You must remove any unnecessary wealth from the account before any service is done. Unless we can insure the account's wealth according to the worker's deposit. **

**5. If you fail to remove unnecessary wealth from the account before a service is started and we have not insured your account then you acknowledge the fact that we are not responsible for any loss of wealth. Before, during or after the service. **

**6. We reserve the right to decline & refund any order at any point. **

**7. Refunds are accepted if the job has not started. The job is considered started from the moment you send your credentials to the worker. Any possible refunds after a job is begun will be faced with a 20% fee penalty or possibly be refused a refund depending on the progress of the job. **

**8. We are not reliable for any Bans, mutes, HCIM deaths or defense levels gained during or after a service. We will of course try to prevent anything like this from happening. **

**9. You are not entitled to compensation if a delay during a job happens. Delays and problems happens. However we will try to compromise with you to make sure that you're a satisfied customer. **

**10. Services will begin ONLY after payment in full is made. Unless told otherwise. **

**11. Only Owner & Manager are allowed to receive payments. **

**12. We reserve the right to add any minor changes to our TOS without notifications.**

**13. No jobs will be done in private **

**14. You are responsible for supplying bonds and GP for supplies when you're purchasing a build

**15. Purchasing PREMADE accounts (applicable for ONLY accounts in stock): **
*15.1 - All premade accounts are created in house
*15.2 - We are not responsible for any bans that occur after a purchase is made.*
*15.3 - All sales are final*
*15.4 - We will maintain "Recovery responsibility" for premade accounts sold for 30 days. After this period has passed, we are no longer responsible for the account. However, don't hesitate to reach out and we'll try to assist you even if 30 days has passed. We'll always try to satisfy our customers***
*15.5 - If you resell the account or get banned, we will no longer be responsible.*
*15.6 - "Custom builds" are NOT a part of premade accounts. They're considered "services".*

**16. All MMO Gold purchases are final.**

**You hereby accept everything that is stated in this channel before initiating any service. **




This is an example TOS (taken some bits out to reformat from discord->sythe)



Look at #4, #5, and #8 and the closing note in particular. How is this just allowed and generally accepted?


These service providers are not able to be held accountable with these blanket discord ToS's. They could take your wealth, your name, bot on your account & get it perma'd, die on your HCIM, etc. and we the users can do nothing about it.


A counter argument would be: "Okay so just negotiate ToS?" Except none of the big service providers will negotiate, they'll just decline service. These service providers get away with anything and everything because of these. A blatant disregard for the consumer is bad business practice & it's the only thing being offered unless you want to grab a newcomer and use an OMM and have a 50% or greater chance to get your account stripped and banned.



My suggestion: take some power away from these blanket "we can do no wrong" ToS's and use a general ToS created by the community. One where both the buyer & service provider are protected, but neither favored.

 

Yet, why will the clients accept the ToS then?

And providers can't be held responsible, if they example catch a service ban? Is it on the provider then? No, it's on the client for taking the risk and willingly knowing the risk, but doesn't has the time or can't be bothered to do X piece of content. The risk lays within the client, and not the provider. Thus, they have these ToS for bans, hcim deaths n similar.

No support.

 

Thanks for your input. As a previous manager/owner of a service your reply is what I expected. Would you allow a customer to negotiate ToS or would you refuse them service if they tried to do so? I believe people agree to these blanket terms because they have no other option besides newcomers or people trying to build reputation. Not out of willingness to take on 100% risk to their wealth and account.

 

Thanks for popping in President. Your ToS on your service are interesting and seem generally more fair than most. Your ToS is (understandably) also service provider sided. Seems I might not get much support here as most well established users of Sythe like yourself are providing services. Although I agree having a million rules is annoying, I still feel the risk should be 50/50 in terms of ban/loss of status = refund. Your specific ToS is 25%, which is admirable since most services are 0%.

Thank you for your input and perspective

 

yeah, I don't mind negotiating, however I mostly stick to what I currently have.

 

Seems like this suggestion has been played out time and time again, I should have done proper research on the suggestion thread before opening this.


For anyone browsing this thread in the future, your best option would be to use a service provider who has generally "fair" ToS and:

1) Meticulously gather evidence throughout the service (which is what you should be doing during any type of trade anyways) in case you are mistreated. Staff may overrule ToS but you will need extensive evidence.


2) Take a chance and try to negotiate terms in the beginning. If they say no, try for a few hours/days to find another reputable service who may budge a bit


3) Start a thread and as the buyer set your own ToS. Offer to use an OMM and use an account you don't care about. Once you find some freelance workers who seem to do a good job, you can move onto other accounts that you care about more



1&2 are in conjunction


3 is an alternative



@President this can either be left open or closed, but I won't be replying to it anymore. I realize that it's probably in the site's best interest to allow providers some form of protection since they are what keeps the site going, so this suggestion being enforced would only hurt Sythe as a whole.

 

Feel like its just a grey area that can never be regulated. Lost two main accounts due to service providers botting or handing off to 3rd party to complete. Can't control them and you are doing something against the rules either way, no real way to hold them liable

 

Monopoly. That's what occurs.

A sythe user looking for services won't use a service provider who isn't trustworthy (IE - one without any vouches). As such, the handful of trustworthy service providers that are established can monopolize the market and create very one-sided ToS. Users have no leverage because there are no other viable options. At the end of the day, there really isn't a whole lot that can be done about it though. Sythe is, and always has been, a free market. If ToS truly became too one sided, then the market would naturally adjust as demand would decrease.

As others have mentioned, someone wanting services can ask the provider to remove or add things to the ToS. I personally asked @Worthy Services to remove one of the items from their ToS when I was having a service done and they were very fair. If a service provider is not open to legitimate fair requests and communication, then I wouldn't let them service my account anyways.

 

Specifically for the bold portion, i'm failing to follow your train of logic at all.

Why exactly would a ToS that is more inclined to removing liability from a service provider decrease demand? There isn't exactly a shortage of lazy people who need their accounts trained (or people/groups who need their accounts trained for particular unlocks to use bots).

If the service provider amends their ToS to remove most, if not all of the liability from themselves, what would that have anything to do with the rate of the demand? Is the claim that if there isn't a safety net promised everyone will just jump ship?

In reality, if a ToS were changed or amended for such cases, it'd just be a few words changed in some channel somewhere that nobody would really take notice of, and business would continue as usual.

An incident where something goes wrong typically belongs to a minority of cases and happen only after the service has already been paid for; if anything an increase of these kinds of incidents could perhaps hurt the reputation of a service provider, depending on how they handle it, e.g "lul not our problem cuz ToS" vs... "ok our bad here's a refund/credit/w.e".

Depending on their response to the situation, that could influence public opinion and could steer risk averse folk into looking for other service providers that might offer a leg up in that regard, but what's more likely to happen is if other service providers see someone getting away with it, they'll probably just follow suit. If that happens - risk averse folk might be inclined to stop using service providers, OR they might just bite the bullet and hope it doesn't happen to them.

Which do you think is more likely to happen?

 

You're referencing individual service providers / situations; I was making a point about the fluidity of the marketplace over time. Regardless, the snippit you chose to highlight was not the point of my post.

What you're essentially implying is that ToS have no real impact on the service market. If that were the case, then every service provider, naturally, would have ToS in place that hold themselves harmless in any circumstance. That would never fly.

 

"The case" is ultimately what will or won't be policed. This is where the service providers more or less align to since they are required to if they wish to operate and advertise on Sythe. These principles will be enforced if any incidents make their way to the report section.

This is not so different than the real world, where certain regulations are put in place to keep organizations honest. If the policing were to stop, and service providers realized this, there would be nothing stopping them from changing the way they operate (outside of the "kindness of their hearts", if you believe in such a thing).

 

I see the point you're trying to make and I don't disagree with bits of the logic.

However, it simply isn't true that regulations are the only driving force to fair business practices. Let's say the regulatory force [in your real world instance] is the government. Sure, their laws influence how a business operates. However, that isn't the only force impacting business function. Demand can influence competition based on fair or unfair trading/selling/operating practices. Think of it this way: if the main auto manufacturers [Merc/Audi/BMW/Ford, etc.) collectively chose to cut their 4-year 50K mile warranties down to 1-year 10K miles, therefore further limiting their liability [their ToS], it would naturally decrease the public demand for new cars. [This is just an example, for goodness sake please don't google what the law requires car manufactures offer for warranties. I have no clue what it actually is. )

This has derailed from the point and I don’t really want to keep going back and forth.

 

Can you explain to me why changing some words in a warranty, especially collectively, is going to influence demand? What will people do instead of buying cars? Walk? Use a bike? Public transportation? If there is no viable alternative that replaces cars, they'll just keep buying cars.

 

No support for me.

This is a free market, we can not enforce too many rules, otherwise it wouldn’t be a free market anymore. there is possibility to negotiate tos, you as a customer can set your own tos where the provider has to accept. But chances this will happen is slim.

If you choose to take the risk for a service, you are very well aware that a ban can happen.

 

From a service provider perspective:

Holding providers accountable, is definitely something that is important.
it keeps providers on their toes, making sure that there's a clear focus on quality.

regarding the 3 main ToS discussion points, let me, from a providers perspective explain why they are there & are near mandatory to have:

4&5 are saying basically the same.

**4. You must remove any unnecessary wealth from the account before any service is done. Unless we can insure the account's wealth according to the worker's deposit. **

**5. If you fail to remove unnecessary wealth from the account before a service is started and we have not insured your account then you acknowledge the fact that we are not responsible for any loss of wealth. Before, during or after the service. **

Majority (if not all) providers have a deposit on their workers.
this will be anywhere in the range of 50m to.. well.. we have 1B for example.
upon sending a pre-made message to client we inform him again, to please ensure that there's less than 1B on the account & to provide a screenshot, in order to ensure safety.
however, there are clients not reading this and randomly giving workers access to accounts with bank values way beyond their deposit range or are asking for 10B to be insured. i only know very few workers able to place down such deposits.

in short, these terms are there to protect PROVIDERS against retarded customers & potentially also fraudulent workers, who could just have their friend order 1 quest on a 10b value account. loot it & claim funds back trough the provider.

**8. We are not reliable for any Bans, mutes, HCIM deaths or defense levels gained during or after a service. We will of course try to prevent anything like this from happening. **

We all know that "delayed bans" are a thing.
as such not having this could result in completely unrelated bans becoming the responsibility of the service providers.
Loss of HCIM or getting unwanted levels is an interesting one, which i personally find better off discussed on a case by case basis.

regarding the earlier comment, that "ToS can be overruled at any time" Write Your Unwritten Rules is a great example. It's still vague when ToS can be overruled.
in a "FREE MARKET" ToS should hold over ANYTHING.
As it currently stands, if you dont have an airtight ToS, you get screwed over.
however if you have one, it may still get overruled & you get screwed over.

 

I agree with what you said.
Although I’ve never seen a TOS overturned in a case it really shouldn’t have been. I believe tos should be overturned if the provider is clearly abusing it and it’s causing more harm than good. (Repetitive bans, constant loss of wealth, etc)

I believe it’s important to allow these tos mentioned or it would put the provider at a huge risk with possible sabotage by the client.