A stricter enforcement of the False Advertising rule

• False or Misleading Advertising: Your sales/purchase threads must be accurate and updated promptly to reflect your actual prices/offers. If you advertise an offer significantly different to your actual prices then this is false advertising.

It has become clear is that this rule is not being followed. This is not intended to call anyone out specifically as this is a fairly widespread issue. The problem is when users and guests browse sythe expecting one thing from reading threads and titles, but getting a completely different result when they actually try to buy/sell. In particular, the following are now to be expected from all market users:

1. Thread titles and bodies must be accurate and up-to-date.

This generally refers to prices but it can also pertain to payment methods, online status, etc. Your threads and titles must be kept accurate at all times. Any information provided in your thread title or body must be completely accurate. If your price changes, you will be expected to update that promptly. If you are not using a certain payment method but you claim you are, that will need to be updated as well. If you find yourself unable to keep this information up-to-date, please leave it out. It is much more preferable to have no information than false information.

2. You must be actively trading in the relevant area of the threads you bump when you bump them.

This is likely the biggest change in this update, but it has been a problem that has existed for a long time and never properly addressed until now. I will make reference to autobumpers in the next lines because this tends to be the biggest offender, but this applies to manual bumps as well. If you run an autobumper, you (or your workers) must be online and actively trading using the threads that are bumped when you bump them. It is unacceptable to autobump a thread buying gold if you are not buying gold at that time for example. There are other users who are buying gold and your autobump pushes them further down the page. It is disrespectful and misleading to customers and other business owners to operate an autobumper in this way. This is not to say that autobumpers are now outlawed, rather that business owners are now expected to actually make sure their autobumpers are functioning in a market-beneficial manner and not just spamming up the forums every 8 hours regardless if trades are taking place.

Punishments for violating the false advertising rule are as follows but are subject to change:

1st offense: Infraction and a 24-hour lock of the offending thread
2nd offense: Infraction and a 72-hour lock of the offending thread
3rd offense: 3-day market ban and lock of all market threads in and for the specific market
4th+ offense: 7-day market ban/lock

As this is somewhat of a big rule change we are allowing a grace period of 1 week starting from today. If you are a thread owner, you will be expected to follow these rules starting at 1:00 AM EST 6/11/17. Until this time, please refrain from reporting threads that are false advertising.

I am also encouraging feedback regarding these changes from both shop owners and from customers. We will be enforcing this rule more strongly starting next week and there will be an edit to the official rules with clear expectations and punishments outlined at that time. Until then, I would like to know your thoughts on this and if you have any questions or concerns as well. Thank you for reading

 

Knew this was coming good changes.

Rip @Bus369 lol!

 

How will this effect work with designers? Our rates can change depending on the amount of work involved and how the client is working with us.

 

I keep all my threads updated, I literally update our gold price live in our thread titles every single day myself and I despise this.

More market restriction as always, like the market isn't dead as hell already.

Not a fan.

 

Support, annoying to go into Pie's livechat, wait 5 mins for an agent, just for them to say they're selling for 10% higher then what their thread says

 

Looking forward for those changes, I have a question, are you gonna do something in specific for people who use prices like: "Buying from 0.87 - 0.99 " and on the title of their thread they use like "Buying 0.98" In some people's opinión thats "fine"meaning they are open to different prices, but Im a person who thinks thats really misleading and they just should update their prices to reflect their current ones, not just a large margin of choices.

 

Thank you for the update. Maybe the people that have threads titles that say things like: Buying 07 gp $1.3/m [BEST RATES] will finally update their thread titles now lmao.

 

About damn time

 

I agree that if you choose to list your prices in thread they should be updated constantly according to what you are currently offering and that you shouldnt actively bump if you are not engaging in these types of trades.

But one hour later after the bump and you are now full, what happens then? You need to update your thread? You just bumped when you were actively trading and shouldn't be expected to update your thread if it was accurate at the time of the bump. This is just some bullshit rule and it's honestly appalling.

 

That's false advertising without a doubt.

Putting something like this *We are always actively buying at the time of our bump but there's a chance we are full on stock when you contact us" in your thread as a disclaimer would protect you I would believe.

Edit - If you're wondering how to protect yourself from having to constantly update prices, yes I know that can be a pain, you're allowed to have a price bracket as long as ur title and the contents of the thread match.

For example if you put Buying 07 gold ~0.90 - 1.00/M in the title and the thread stated you were buying for 93 cents then you'd be fine and wouldn't even need to update your thread or your companies thread very often at all.

 

This is awesome! Great addition, good job staff team.

 

Good work. Also please address the sellers that have "Starting from $XX" People will attempt to circumvent this rule by saying things like: oh if they buy 1B and hand me cash in real life it's actually $XX. The price advertise should ALWAYS match that is stated on the site- there is no excuse for gold sellers to not update the thread title anymore as it can be done by any user.

 

I don't have an issue with this update if this is the case. I thought you had to edit your bump "not buying anymore sorry" or something along the lines which would be very troublesome for anyone to keep up with.

Anyone who actively posts a price on their thread/title needs to keep it updated there should be no exceptions. If your price isn't the same as you posted then that is strictly false advertising, nothing else. If you can't keep it updated or honor those prices then simply don't post them. This is where the major problems of false advertising occur and can be easily proven.

 

@video Does this also apply to threads advertising ex: "Cheapest Rate", "Best Rates", "#1 Gold Site" as a lot of people use these sort of generic terms, including in the real world as a marketing tactic. I feel like this should still be allowed as it's not specifying an exact price for example, and as long as the user isn't guaranteeing some sort of payment if the 'Best Rate' isn't met I don't see anything wrong with it. You still want to have a reason for users to use the Sythe marketplace, not completely eliminate it by taking away things allowed in a free market.

 

For #1 gold site that's subjective. I feel like anyone can proclaim that their site is number 1, but I agree on the "best rates" and "cheapest rates" terms. It's just horridly misleading to consumers - a more reasonable and accurate title to use would be "beating competitor rates" or "best rate guarantee."

 

it was about time..

 

I love this! However, I think the small issues brought up in this thread should be addressed clearly in the OP before making the penalties live

 

About time this was enforced!

I remember reporting threads back a while ago and the response I got from staff members was along the lines of 'market prices change often so it's difficult for OP to keep the thread up-to-date'

All I could do was shake my head and hack the fact that I had to pay more for the GP I was purchasing then for the advertised price

lmao



Edit:

@Lalapo14 That's not what @PartyPeteShop means so you're agreeing to something he's disagreeing on

 

Even in sythe advertisement slots the prices are fake.... just saying