Clarify TOS/HCIM Death/Account Valuation Rules

After reading a report a user made in the RAS section, I feel like as a site some certain rules really need to be clarified. Here's the case i'm talking about:
@CherryTree (He isn't a scammer, but I have an issue that needs mediation)


User Maxed Pure told service provider that if the HCIM dies, it's useless to him.

I messaged Max Pure and asked him if they had any prior TOS:
Screenshot


Service provider kills the account out of negligence, and now maxed accept a 400m refund (which he does not want), simply because it's the only option.

In this scenario, how was the 400m refund for the death decided? He spent 1070m, are we assuming he will be able to sell it for 670m? Oh, that's not including the 1 year membership it has that user spent another $70+ on minimum.

I ask in this specific case, did you take into account the market value of the account at all? This is the account's stats:
Imgur

It cost the guy 1B to train his account, he gives the account to a trusted service provider who agrees beforehand to not kill the account. He kills the account completely out of his own negligence, and now the customer is forced to accept a 400m refund.



What I am asking to be clarified for people like me so I don't have this issue later on:
If I (as a service provider) kill someones HCIM, will the refund be calculated the same way?
If a user makes an agreement with a service provider beforehand, and this exact same situation happens again, will it be the same result? Are all sythe reports based on precedent?
What made 400m the magic number in this case? Was it decided by 1070m - market value of the account he will get once sold = 400m?
That would be valuing the account at 600m+


Editing this in, just saw this report also. Another example of what is wrong with this system;https://www.sythe.org/threads/actavas-worker-scammed-me-for-my-ironman-bank-70m-service-300m-bank-with-many-rares/#post-45738274

Sythe staff determined the iron mans bank to be worth 314m. Ironman gold (if not obvious) is not 1:1. They just can't be replaced, so a logical way to calculate it would be the cost to acquire those items back.

A sythe user brought up a good point, if we made IM gold worth more, there would be a lot of issues with framing service providers. One suggestion could be to make clear to users that even if their account is an ironman, they will only be getting a 1:1 refund. I GUARANTEE this will make users think twice about who they use.

WHAT I AM SUGGESTING:
1. Make customers aware (with a sticky maybe?) that if their iron man account gets cleaned by a worker/service provider, that they won't get a refund on the time spent to get the items. They'll get a flat refund of the GP amount those items are worth.

2 . Clarify what the payout rate will be when a service provider turns a HCIM into an IM.

3. Why cant there be a rule that says you have to agree to a certain compensation BEFORE THE SERVICE PROVIDER STARTS TRAINING THE HCIM

 

Precisely my point.

I know whats fair and what isn't.

I'm not trying to cause any problems.

I've been patient and polite throughout this depressing scenario that has really pissed me off quite frankly, because not only did cherry kill the account, he didn't even keep his promise that the order would be done within the time frame confirmed. Instead, he only completed 30% of the order within the suggested completion ETA, which for reference, if he were to compensate me on a fresh HCIM, would take ages.

The progress lost, directly equates to the gp/xp rates provided by other service providers on this forum, so surely I should be entitled to a compensation price close to the quotes provided by the other trusted sellers to regain what was lost with the death.

Also, the account isn't just useless to me. It will not sell on the forum. I'm a newcomer and never intended to use the forum to sell. Nobody will buy from a newcomer firstly, and secondly anyone with any knowledge of account selling/buying knows accounts are not worth anything because there will always be a recovery risk.

This just further firms my argument that I should not be held responsible to sell the account. If anything, Cherry should find some value from it and send that as further compensation.

I'm trying to be as impartial as I can putting my emotions to one side, as I said I don't have any ill feelings towards Cherry but its his fault the death happened, regardless of mistake or not, we all knew the terms of the service before any payments were made, so I don't understand why the compensation amount is a fraction of what it would actually cost another provider to regain the progress on a fresh HC account.

Many people including Legend have came forth, impartially and said that 400M themselves is insulting and highly unfair.

It is what it is.

After this experience, I know never to use Sythe again for anything in the future.

 

I just want to clarify that this report is the reason I am making this thread, I had no relation to Maxed until I messaged him 15 minutes ago.

Again, this suggestion was NOT made to be a suggestion SPECIFICALLY regarding Maxed Capes report, but it is true that his report is the one that brought this issue in front of my eyes.

 

So true both those Ironman got fucked by those decisions. The one guy is a new user he will have close to 0% chance he will be able to sell his ironman for anything close to 600m(which would only break him even on the amount he spent on his account.)

The other one is even more of a joke. Abra price shaman kills at 60k per kill.(With a Cannon) If you go on drop rate that alone is 300m. Not to mention im sure he had close to completed Barrows which is 1500 chests. That alone is another 80 hour grind that he will have to do. That compensation is a joke.

 

Exactly this, couldn't have said it better myself.

New user has 0% chance of selling it for 600m, what made staff give that 600m valuation?

There is nothing about that account that is worth 600m. It seems staff is confusing the fact that he paid 1b with market value of the account, which if you get appraised by many people, will not be worth more than $150 (if you take into account his reputation, probably less. It's nearly IMPOSSIBLE for people to sell accounts with 0 rep, and everyone on Sythe knows that)

The market value of the account is not 1b, it would cost 1b+ to bring a fresh account back to its original state.

 

In this case, staff estimated the loss of the HCIM's hardcore status at roughly 20% of the account's value. The percentage isn't that important, but let's say 1,070 * 0.20 = 214m if we take the account's original value at 1,070m. However, as you mentioned, the account is worth far less than that, so let's call it "far less than 214m" for short. The service provider had offered 400m as compensation, and so we took the larger of the two (400m vs. "far less than 214m") to arrive at the 400m compensation value. 400m also exceeds pretty much any realistic account value multiplied by any realistic % loss for losing hardcore status.

Note that the fact the user finds his account worthless is irrelevant. It still has value on the market whether he wants to sell it or not. Compare this to a real-world car accident; wrecking your car doesn't make it worthless all of a sudden, but it does take an instant value hit after an accident occurs.

He didn't spend 1,070m; his estimated replacement value was 1,070m based on asking a small sample of Sythe providers for quick estimates. I would wager he could get it done for far less, but again, the exact value isn't that important.

Spending an amount of money on something does not make it worth that amount of money. Any time and effort that the user spent training on his account has been lost, which sucks, but that time and effort is a sunk cost not relevant to determining a fair compensation in this case.

For another real life example, let's say you spent $10k modifying a car that was in an accident. Those modifications would not increase the value of the car by $10k (if at all). The same is true for basically any sort of service; spending $x to get something done always results in < $x worth of product (otherwise we'd spend all our money on services that increased in value).

The membership is still active. This is another sunk cost but, again, does have value on the open market. It's not $70, but it's something.

This is obvious and true for all accounts, not just ironmen. I don't think we need this additional clarification, so I don't support your suggestion.

---

For what it's worth, @Maxed_Cape has been extremely courteous about this whole situation. It totally sucks, and I understand that. But hopefully this post helps explain our thinking and why we ruled it the way we did.

 

Excuse me but why do you insist on referring to existing accounts with similar progression?

The fairest solution would be to calculate the human hours spent completing the progression using the lowest quote by a premium service provider, the cost of paying someone else to regain what was lost prior to the death of the account, excluding the agility xp.

The account has 0 value. I am a newcomer, nobody would purchase the account from me. I'd be lucky to receive 20-50m for the account. Why are you reiterating this fact as if you haven't acknowledged the facts and my circumstance?

I actually spent over 1 hour contacting every single premium service provider. The screenshots in my report reflect the lowest quotes gp/xp, negotiated to the lowest price point. I did not simply inquire for quick quotes. It took me a while to research the prices for the 21M xp I grinded out of my own spare time, along with the items on the account that took ages to obtain on my HCIM.

You keep referring to the account as if it has any value and keep insinuating that my compensation should reflect that of someone buying the account. This is completely backwards. The compensation should 100% reflect the man hours I spent on the account, relating to human hours spent grinding, calculated by other service provider quotes. I specifically said to Cherry and told him to agree that the accounts status should remain HC, if he cannot meet the initial terms of the trade I would have never proceeded with the order.

Seriously, I would've much rather done the agility myself if I knew I was employing an afk/careless person to handle my precious HCIM that I spent countless hours on, death being a mistake or not, to die training agility is 100% gross negligence.

You keep saying the account is worth 200-300M so that's the market value, but we both know I would not be able to sell the account, A, because I am a newcomer and never use Sythe, B, because the market for accounts are polluted with scammers and recovery risks will always be an issue with purchasing accounts, why on earth would I pay large amounts of money for service providers if I could simply purchase an account off the jump without the additional effort? Please understand. The account has no value on the market, nor to myself.

I was also going to bring up Cherry's terrible service to Sythe but I thought I would give him the benefit of the doubt as he told me he had IRL complications. But seeing as he only managed to gain 30% of the order within the ETA promised for completion, I know 100% that if I were to select compensation to retrain a fresh HCIM, it would take far too long, it would drag along, high risk of him having to die and reset etc.. which I stress I am not willing to wait for.

400M isn't satisfactory.

If we were to talk specifically about all the efforts lost and human hours wasted, which should've been easily avoidable, along with Cherry knowing full well all the terms before the payment was made, I should be compensated entirely for the entirety of the account as its my right to claim, since Cherry did not fulfill his promises, and quite frankly he's a slow deceptive service provider that promises ETA's that he knows himself he cannot achieve. For that reason, instead of having him compensate by levelling a lvl 3 HCIM, which would take forever, I would much rather, him pay me the hours he would spend doing this for someone else and call it a day.

Its his mistake that as a business owner he should admit to and realise to always formally prompt his clients to remove the NPC attack option. This is a simple cost of business. I deserve my right to maintain a fair compensation.

1. The account's HCIM status had been agreed by Cherry to be of upmost importance/highest priority above all, without the status, there would be no reason to carry out the service, nor for me to play on the account.

2. The account's value on Sythe, sold by myself Maxed_Cape, a newcomer with 0 feedback, would never sell, nor would it sell for a satisfactory price, you, I and everyone on the forum knows that.

3. Progress lost: 20M xp, all the essential items for a startup HCIM for early and mid game, prospectors outfit, tomb of fire, 2 rare pets (1 obtained by Cherry), graceful set, anglers outfit, 30M bank value. The human hours spent to accumulate this on a fresh lvl 3 HCIM would cost around 900M-1.1B, according to 5 different top tier service providers on Sythe (with the best feedback/vouches). This is simply what is fair for me to receive as I lost my account (yes its completely lost as I've made clear to Cherry what would happen if the account died, I wouldn't play on it).

4. I had 1 years membership £50ish on the account that I would also demand included into my compensation.

I would be happy to meet Cherry half way with the final payment due: 400M (Order refund) + 700M (Compensation)

700M calculated from the median of both the lowest quote from the service provider(s) = 900M, and Cherry's quote of 400M.

Even this proposal would not allow me to pay someone else to regain what had been lost, but I already accepted the fact that HCIM has been ruined for me by this careless death. I couldn't see myself making a brand new HCIM because of all the tedious tasks etc. to just have it killed by a miss click from a death I had no control over, as I thought he would take care as he suggested prior to payment.

I want to stress, had I known he would take 2 months+ to complete the order, and high risk of killing the account I would've never employed Cherry or anyone for that matter, as my accounts HCIM status was far too precious for any amount of xp. The xp would be useless without the HCIM status.

If you still remain firm with 400M compensation, then I demand 800M is paid to me by the end of the week, and I will never use Sythe again because my experience has always been terrible, and I have always been polite and patient with everything.

Sincerely MC

 

Also your analogy regarding the car doesn't make any sense.

This would be more comparable to someone building a house and paying builders to build the house then destroying it and not willing to pay the builders the end sum of their work because the house is destroyed, therefore they will only receive a fraction for what they worked for.

I know I am right, I study law and own 2 businesses.

Cherry's 400M compensation is simply not fair in this scenario.

 

But Zora, Cherry never mentioned what would happen if the account was killed and he was responsible. All he said was that he has never killed a HCIM in the past and that he take upmost care when handling the account. I stressed to him the importance of the status and he knew the terms. He also knew what would happen if he killed the account, FAIR compensation. Which means, a refund on the order, along with compensation for all the countless hours and efforts I spent on the account grinding. Which he agreed to, which is what initially gave me the confidence to proceed with the order. With good intentions in mind and everything being confirmed from Cherry. There should not be any risk of dying when training Agility, I'm sorry, the only time he would be on the account would be on a rooftop course with 34 HP. Agility is one of many safe skills in OSRS. If you die training agility, its pure carelessness. This isn't even me venting my emotions everything is impartial and I'm analysing everything from a business perspective. I shouldn't have to assume any risk if the provider makes assurances like this prior to the payment as well as common knowledge that Agility doesn't involve any forms of combat. Even in the early stages of the training, I would provide Cherry with a full inventory of food before he logged in for his sessions everytime, as you sometimes fail the course at lower levels. Every precaution on my end was met, he simply didn't match up to his own expectations with this order, its as simple as that.

 

Also, as I've mentioned before, I would've been open for Cherry to compensate me by regaining everything on a fresh HCIM, but knowing his work rate, this would take a year easily. Time I'm not prepared to wait. If Cherry could regain everything lost along with 99 agility within 2 months, then I'd be open to this, but with his excuses and referencing how it went with my agility order, only meeting 30% of the order by the time it was supposed to be finalized, just shows how impractical this form of compensation would be. Hence, why I would rather him pay the amount that it would cost him to do this on a new account for someone else.

 

Furthermore, you could not state that I'm partially to blame, as Cherry knew full well that I will have access to the account, if he didn't provide that access then I would've never paid in the first place.

He never explicitly mentioned to keep the NPC attack option on HIDDEN everytime he logged in.

He has been on the account for 45 days prior to the death and I have been changing that option every single day, he didn't mention that would be a problem, so therefore, I am not responsible in any shape or form - even Cherry agrees with this and has now made it mandatory for future HCIM orders to specify this to his future clients

 

So you as a service provider agree beforehand what would happen if the account died. They did aswell, they said fair value, which in this case i'm arguing isn't fair. I'm not asking you to offer a HCIM service that would require you to pay 1b.

I'm asking for there to be CLARITY beforehand.

Why do you think Cherry phrased things the way he did? Intentionally, it doesn't take a fuckin rocket scientist. I do the same shit and so do you I bet. Everyone does, everyone wants to avoid liability.

Quote frm Maxed: "But Zora, Cherry never mentioned what would happen if the account was killed and he was responsible. All he said was that he has never killed a HCIM in the past and that he take upmost care when handling the account. I stressed to him the importance of the status and he knew the terms. He also knew what would happen if he killed the account, FAIR compensation."

So it was talked about beforehand, but Cherry never set any specific terms.

"In this specific case as well, you could say the customer is partly to blame as well due to switching the attack option from hidden to left click. " - This is even more of a pathetic joke. It's the service providers liability to ensure that he account doesn't die. It's not customers fault that service provider didn't realize that the attack option was on. Did service provider clarify that beforehand? No? AGAIN, HIS FAULT

"It really does such for this user but keep in mind this also sucks for the service provider. Cherry did not only lose his time wasted on the account but also lost an extra 400m. This situation sucks for both users"

As a customer, I don't give a shit that it's a waste of time for Cherry. this is not even relevant, I am so shocked how you could even say this lol. Cherry admitted to dying out of his own negligence. It wasn't the customers fault at all. Why the fuck would you feel bad for the guy who caused the problem to happen rofl.

 

Again back to this point: Screenshot

If service providers (such as Zora) have to state the certain conditions on a case by case basis, I don't think it's obvious at all.

@Maxed_Cape Did you know the refund would be a "fair market value" of the account?
I'm sure he didn't.

 

@Superfluous

These 2 reports are not the only ones. If you spent 50 hours grinding for a bandos set on your ironman, and some dipfuck comes along and steals it, you would accept $20 as a fair compensation?

 

Not at all. I assumed that fair compensation would equate to either;

- Paying the money referencing gp/xp / item quotes etc

or

- Regaining the progress on the account in a timely manner. Not over 5 months time. That is not a fair compromise.

 

Here's another screenshot from the report that's being brought up constantly in this suggestion.

What happens in this scenario? Service provider agrees to remake the account, but his timeframe is a lot more than what it should be. So even service provider agrees that Maxed Pure should have a remade account, but he juts seems to be too busy to complete it in a timely manner. Whats the next logical move? Get the account made by someone else.. WHICH IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO POINT OUT

To us, it seems that Cherry offered Maxed Pure the option to make an account from scratch?
Look at this bs.



WHO WOULD WANT COMPENSATION FROM A SERVICE PROVIDER QUOTING 5 MONTHS for a job that took OP 31 days of play time?

This is maxed pures time played:



31 days * 24 hours = 744 hours/8 = 93 days

It should take ~3 months to complete playing 8 hours a day. It's pretty obvious that cherry does not want to remake the account (who would want to do 3 months of work for $200, are u fucking kidding me?)

What's even more funny is that Cherry was telling Maxed that he'd rebuild it in a way that the account would be prioritized. It's pretty obvious that his account is not going to be prioritized (EVEN THOUGH IT SHOULD BE, THIS ALL STARTED OUT OF NEGLIGENCE OF CHERRY)

Maxed pure was quoted 5 months from the jump (I assume so that he can just say na, a refund is easier) when it should take about 3 max. Let's not forget his original quote was 30 days for 99 agility, but at 45 days it was not even 50% done.

I think it's pretty obvious that the resell value of the account is not relevant.

 

This is what I've been trying to stress, I don't get why this concept is being disregarded.

I don't even know Legend and he is impartially siding with my views that the compensation should relate to the efforts spent on the account and not the market value of the account, with a market that doesn't even really have a sustainable marketplace in the first place otherwise I would've simply purchased a maxed HCIM and not go through all the efforts with service providers.