Yes, that is correct.
It is true that this number was higher once upon a time (around 5%), and I believe some of you may remember me commenting earlier this year, that we had been considering shutting down the RS market for accounts.
While 5% may seem impressive compared to performance in a straight forum-trade, it is in reality, awful for us considering the following:
- The amount of manhours spent on investigating and lending support to recovered accounts
- The fact that we give after sale guarantees and award market credit to users who purchase insurance packages
It results in a negative, return on investment product group which not only affected our bottomline, but ever since I took over PA last year, I have been always concerned about the "user experience", and let's face it, purchasing something, and then losing it... well, that's pretty shitty.
Over the course of this year, I've worked with our Risk Management department to pay special eye to RS markets, and adjust rules accordingly. Which, as other people have mentioned in this thread, the increased "strictness" with this market lead to there being more fraud deterrent measures in place which ultimately lead to our marketplace being a very "inconvenient place" to scam.
I also have to place some credit in the hands of this community as well. As some of you have given some important insight to RS account trade which have helped us to spot patterns as well and improve the overall performance of our black lists.
The fact is, we are a marketplace. We don't sell accounts directly at 30% - 50% margins. We operate very thinly on 10%, and when we have to pay out for a $250 account with market credit, it hurts us quite a lot considering it takes an additional $2,400 to break even.
We dont' really have a choice,
but to do our part and keep the markets as safe/clean as possible, espescially if we intend on having any future