[APPROVED] Discord Impostering

The suggestion: Sythe need to make a new standpoint on PM verifications regarding Discord trades, because with the bug below a PM confirmation with your discord and the customers discord will look exactly the same even if they are speaking to an imposter. This is better to be addressed sooner rather than later in the dispute forum whereby a user can be wrongfully DNT'd for a substantial amount of time while staff make up their mind. Also i believe their needs to be more stickies in the market forums regarding these current bugs + with a potential working solution (joining the sythe discord + contact the verified member within that discord) for safe trading practice.

Reason for suggestion below.

There is a new bug on Discord whereby discord tags can look exactly the same.

This isnt a lowercase L and uppercase i scenario - its believed to be a bug with the mobile version where certain characters do not appear correctly and therefore display the exact same as their english character counterpart.

Here is one example - when searching for Dieze, once the Z is typed the imposter doesnt show up - meaning its the z that isnt actually a z, just looks like z.



another example from an encounter i had today - in this case it was the "i" that was the issue. As you can see it looks exactly the same. This one is even worse, as somehow the guy managed to get the same #2762 at the end of his name without nitro (assuming he just made alot of accounts until it reached it)



The issue with discord is only getting worse, when a verification PM is sent, mine and his discords look exactly the same so a verification PM will not help in these circumstances - so a standpoint needs to be made by sythe in regards to any potential reports.

The only viable solution i can think of currently is to make the users join the official sythe discord - and all the verified users will appear in the member list and you can open a conversation with them. Also open viewing mutual servers - sythe.org will be shown with the name used in there.

Any feedback on this would be appreciated on how it can be combatted

WORKING SOLUTION - BUT TEDIOUS

If you go to discord settings -> Appearance

You can turn on developer mode.



Once this is done, on the drop down to any message - you can select "copy ID" and this will give you the ID of the user that has posted the message. These user iD (unlike discord IDs) are completely unique.



Issue with this, most people most likely will not go through the process of doing this, but you can use this in reports to check if the actual user committed the offence i suppose.

 

This is a huge issue, I've pointed this out with staff before and have been waiting on some response, but nothing has been done. Granted, 2 of those staff members ended up retiring and getting demoted, but still there should've been some update.

 

I am the one who saw that account today. Something definietly needs to be done, if I hadn't had previous chat history with the real @Dieze I would not have been able to tell the difference at all. Always check mutual servers on discord, when the person who added you is not in Sythe discord or any other major discord just make sure it is the right person by searching them up on the server and then clicking the send message thing to see.

 

added a working solution to check the real discord user in OP

 

They tried contacting me , impersonated me and even asked legit Dieze for a Pm so i would think it was the legit MM. Luckily me and Dieze were alert and didn't fell for it so watch out guys.

 

I mean I wouldn't force people to join discord server if they don't want, but at this point discord is a use at your own discretion... if you don't ask for a sythe pm you are asking to be scammed by an imposter, and even then people don't take the time to check if it is really you anyways... also with the copy ID, who is gunna put in the effort if people can't even check tags now.. just my thoughts. I like the idea, but no support.

 

Requesting a PM does nothing at this stage because the discord IDs are identical

 

Recently was a victim to this myself..

Traded with "aribagold" The discord I.D was EXACTLY the same as the real aribagold, as advertised.

I ended up losing 100M 07 GP, as I went first, without asking for a PM because I knew nothing about this and simply trusted the Discord I.D resemblance.

Something does need to be done, I lost money, but I gained a lesson to be learnt.

Always ask for a PM, and I will be doing that method you pointed out @Dieze Thank you for that.

Edited for note : Should be added to guide forums? This is a real ongoing issue Rn.

 

If the user doesn't confirm they are talking to you then it would matter, as you would have to confirm it, show pictures for confirm

 

How can they confirm if they are talking to you, if the discords look exactly the same? Thats the whole point of this post. My Imposter looks IDENTICAL currently due to a bug. He added me impostering the other guy with the same bug and asked me to PM the other guy. The only way i knew this was fake is because i had a chat already with the guy previously and we had mutual servers. If this happened to someone i didnt already have added - the scam would have succeeded.

I'm not sure what you've missed in the OP but hope this helps make the point clearer.

 

Because the real user on sythe can send pictures of the chat to the user via sythe pm, if they are even talking to them, it is flaw proof lol. Don't pm for people, only directly pm.

 

Somewhat agree, a little extra time and care, would be sufficient enough to make sure you are trading/talking to the right person.

I have learned this now, after I had mentioned before in a previous comment, I was scammed for 100M, due to not asking for a PM on Sythe and confirming it was the real person. I simply assumed it was the correct person due to the identical Discord I.D, and no previous conversation with the "real" trader.

My own fault for being naive, lesson learnt.

Always ask for a PM, if you need more proof before trading anything, due to this Discord bug, simply request a picture of the chat, takes literally less than a minute.

 

Depends how good the imposter is, a lot of imposters literally pm the real user with the exact same messages, and reply with the exact responses, this isn’t flawless but goes a long way. The point of this is, no matter how good the pm is, whilst the discord tags appear exactly the same there is scenarios can occur whilst the verification pm has been sent properly, and the scam still taking place. It’s unavoidable in some cases with this bug. IMO sythe need to take a standpoint on how these will Be addressed in future reports.

 

Also depends on how naive the seller is to.

An experienced trader won't fall for this. However new and upcoming traders, this will effect.

They have no experiences on this type of scam.

 

I think this is how I got scammed. Do you know what language the people are using to make it look like the same charcs?

 

Support. Fed up with imposters

 

every time I see a discord nitro user or if they have a new user tag im always cautious

im all for stopping discord scammers so support

 

Ehhh idk, I have mixed views, even being scammed by this, I still think I myself was responsible for being naive and not confirming it was the correct person. As I have mentioned before, I learnt a huge lesson, lost some wealth, no problem.

I understand, it is a glitch, and as a result, people are victims to scammers posing as the real traders. But if the person is made aware of this Discord glitch, I think that would help. It would of helped me, but no notice of it on the Sythe forums, untill now.

Now I make sure, no matter who it is, that I am speaking to the correct person, by asking them to PM me a picture of the Discord chat, as well as paste logs of the chat.

 

Users should always confirm trades! Failure to do so is their own liability.

 

I had this from with an imposter last night.