Make Punishments more Severe?

Make Punishments More Severe?
by traythemayday​

Allright, so heres the lifecycle of a typical scammer.
1. Scams Someone
2. Gets banned.
3. Make another account.
4. Scam someone
5. Get ip banned.
6. Repeat?
= Profit~

Reason:
When a scammer successfully scams someone, they always profit. The value of an average sythe account is not worth ANYTHING. If they scam for 1m, or even 100k, they still earn a profit.

Solution:
So maybe I was thinking, what if the punishment for scamming would be a lawsuit or something similar? Honestly, saying you comply with the TOS and signing isn't shit. Half of these scammers don't even know what TOS means.

How:
You can get so many things off someones IP. Their ISP, full name, phone number, country. I believe this is sufficient to be able to sue a bitch.

Solutions/Problems:
Of course classifying a scammer would also have to get more in depth. You would have to have DEFINITE proof that the said individual is a scammer.

Yes, they scammed you 100m. However, they would be down maybe a thousand dollars for that 100m, which is not worth it. Yes, the scammer may be able to use a proxy or what not to hide their IP. In the process though, you would sucessfully reduce the amount of scammers. Some scammers will be scared. If there is one less scammer on sythe, won't it be a better place?

You can also threaten to send information of the scam to Law Enforcement Authorities, but, sythe being the "black market" of runescape...

Another way is to "advertise" their full name, phone number, and other meat on the internet. However they may be able to file a lawsuit on you...

You can also charge a GP or $ fee on registration (10m or more maybe?), which imo isn't really nice but it will reduce the amount of scammers, however may also reduce potential legitimate seller/buyers. The reason it reduces the amount of scam taking place is because it reduces or causes a net loss in the scammers profit, which is a turn off. It also turns away legitimate seller/buyers because it also reduces their profit.

Conclusion:
There may be other ways to reduce/elimate scammers, but really sythe, I truly believe the punishment for scammers should be escalated. Maybe not escalated to my extent, but at least get the scammer a little harder then a tiny little "ip ban."

More punishment = Less/no scammers = happy panda

Discuss? Agree? Disagree? Opinions? I'm all open for it. Everything is constructive from my perspective? "My idea sucks balls!" Post it! I want as much feedback as possible.

 

Registration fee = Site Dies.


While I do NOT support scamming in any way, It is NOT sythe's place to file a lawsuit for us any more than it is for craigslist to do so.


If you want to bring the law against a scammer you will need to somehow collect his information...

IP addresses have the possibility of proxies, dynamic, PUblic services, etc.
You REALLY can not track people by their IP.
If you do try to catch a newbie of a scammer who didn't use a proxy it's still going to be a long running case...


Sythe cant do this, and you can't do it yourself. Sad but the assholes can get away with it.

I read a "Verified User" Suggestion from a while back.
Basically the site (Sythe) gets peoples info and verifies it... Sythe himself said no we cant.


While I would really love to see every scammer ever brought into court, These people are not going to be caught that easily, it's too expensive to track them!

 

A lawsuit for so small a crime isn't worth it; law enforcement wouldn't do anything; we don't have access to their full names, phone numers, and addresses; a registration fee would never be implemented because it would detur nearly everybody from joining.

In the end, it is the responsibility of the individual buyer/seller to ensure a successful transaction.

 

*Thanks for your feedback! Yes, you bring out some extremely valid points. However, whats the logic behind the registration fee killing the site? Legimate buyer/sellers would still be able to gain a profit, its pretty obvious that the amount of user's would go down, but sythe would basically be scam free, kinda.

* = nevermind, I understand why it would kill the community.

And for proxy/proxies? =P, I believe its possible to have your site reject the use of proxy using the following method? http://www.phpgenious.com/2009/03/block-proxy-servers-using-htaccess/

and I'm not saying a lawsu... Ok maybe I am, but I'm also free to having less extreme methods of getting back at the scammer or a little more punishing then a cute little ban.

 

This.