How do GW2 transactions work?

[ByTheBooks]

I'll be selling my GW2 gold and maybe items, and eventually the account.

There are limitations in the game as to how items can be transferred safely though (no secure direct trading, sending lots of money in the mail can get your account flagged). So I'm wondering how people generally trade things in this game.

I think the safest way to trade to avoid getting flagged is to invite someone to a guild and put the money/item in the bank for them to pick up, but there is a 72-hour wait before they are allowed to pick up items from there, and they must be on the same server (there are big transfer fees).

I've seen listings on playerauctions where they promise delivery within 20 minutes. I don't know how they can do this without running into the above obstacles. Perhaps they have an account with lots of gold/items on each server? Perhaps they mail gold to customers, but I can't imagine how they'd not get flagged. And these listings don't mention anything about "for people on my server only".

I can't figure out the way people are trading safely.

Also, questions about middlemen.
1. What is the benefit? I'm told they don't protect against paypal chargebacks, so what do they protect against?
2. Why do people MM for free? Are they getting anything more than a warm fuzzy feeling from it? =|

 

[Panicjsp]

Being it your first post, welcome to the community.

The trading post is a safer option - just have to make it seem believable - but yes, the guild is a great way.
Player Auctions does it via mail and really has no regard for your account getting flagged.

1. Using a middleman to my knowledge just makes sure you have the necessary proof to get that user banned from Sythe - they cannot replicate the gold or money you may lose. (To my knowledge)
2. They MM for free to attain proofs - hopefully ending up as them becoming an Official Middleman.
(Read more here: http://www.sythe.org/middleman-appl...an-application-process-updated-9-13-12-a.html)

 

[ByTheBooks]

Oh weird, I had some posts in an intro thread but they didn't count towards my total I guess.

I just don't understand how the people on playerauctions can trade so much and not get flagged. Guild banks don't work that fast, and you can't trade gold via the trading post. The only method I can think of that they do is sending stuff in the mail. But I don't know how they haven't been flagged. They have so many transactions.

I haven't seen many posts here about GW2. I saw an old thread that had a link to the GW2 section of the forums, but the link is no longer valid. I guess it's not that popular to trade stuff in this game.

Thanks for the answers btw. I'd like to have been selling stuff already, but the confusion about the next steps have been making me put it off. So any info makes me feel more comfortable.

 

[Panicjsp]

Post count must be turned off in there.

They most likely do - a lot of them farm gold on multiple accounts and/or use a vpn.

Yeah, it's a shame, it's the one game I play - so feel free to PM me have you any questions etc.

Guild Wars 2 trading is a massive gray area, it's better to be safe than sorry in my complete and honest opinion.
They haven't released too much information regarding the flagging system, so I'd play it safe.

 

[ByTheBooks]

Well I've been looking at the official forums for topics by people whose accounts were accidentally permabanned for goldselling.

They were mostly people who were sending money in mail to friends to get the Golden title. Even though after all trades were finished, and everyone had the same amount of gold that they started with, some of them got banned. Not all. It seems like sending large amounts frequently with little break in-between will get you flagged. And there's either some randomness or other factors involved.

Some people even reported getting banned via using a guild bank to send money around to get golden titles. Guildie A put in 25g, Guildie B put in 175g, Guildie C put in 0g. They all took 200 out and put it back in. Only Guildie A got banned. Another person got banned for sending 250 stacks of ecto, mithril, and cores (some were just borrowed, others were crafting forge food for others). It didn't seem like money was exchanged for it, so items without payment may flag things. Another case where a person transferred mats to a 2nd account to keep their eggs in 2 baskets. Lots of small transactions via guild bank caused a ban. Could be that the guild bank looks like you're trying to get around rules, and looks MORE suspicious.

One person wrote to anet in advance, telling them they will be sending gold to their fiancé, and still got banned after it happened.

These cases got reversed by submitting a ticket and having a human brain examine the context. So one would have to be creative in sending money/mats to other players by creating a context that sounds justifyable.
The anet person did say that if legit players want to send to each other safely, "I would do the one transfer, make a clear transmittal in-game mail". Another one said "items/money deliveries should not be sent in excessive quantities or repeat themselves on a very daily basis". They also said that every flagged account gets a review, although I can't see how this review is more than 2 seconds long with some of the blatant false positives.

It probably helps to have a conversation with the other person ahead of time, include some text in the mail message, have them on your friends list, and send infrequent money/items in varying amounts (not 250 stacks).

I should note that these examples were mostly from jan-july, 2013. I have seen a few posts in a google search that were more recent but the threads were deleted. So hmmm.

Anyway, hope this helps!