Do you realize how big Sythe.org really is?[MUST READ!!!]

I request that this information be given to the general public of Sythe, for everyone to see so that everyone is aware of the risks that come with this site.


I'll start from the beginning.


I was playing on Runescape this morning, and joined the "Zezima" FC(Actually extremely active). Everyone was talking about stupid shit so I just kinda left it up and ignored everyone as I skilled.

After not even fifteen minutes of cooking, my eye catches the word "Sythe" being used by a player on the FC, so I immediately scrolled up to read, as nobody in Runescape says Scythe without the "C" in it unless they know what they are talking about, or cannot spell, so I figured I would just check and be safe.

Come to find out, they had been talking about decent money making tricks, and someone spouted off their mouth with "The easiest way to make 300m is to scam on Sythe."

Literally the minute I get to reading, the FC is flooded with "WTF is Sythe???" and "No shit, 300m?!?!"


Eventually things die down, people spam a bit and people talk about something else, as the person who mentioned our website had left the FC, not even been kicked.

About an hour later, same topic, different person, same story. "Money making is easy, just scam on Sythe, get any acc you want."

More blow ups, more people talking about Sythe, and questioning it, and again, the user disappears.


I have brought this to you're attention because I am now in fear that my beloved community is actually using Sythe as a scamming tool for money making, and is now becoming a common knowledge website.


People asking about Sythe(I even got a PM from someone asking if I knew what he meant) on Runescape is only going to make our site more known to normal users, thus not only making it more suspectible to scamming, but also more likely to be looked into by a mod, possibly even found.


I know there isn't anything we can do to prevent the talk of Sythe.org between Runescape users, but I thought it would be good for regular buyers and sellers to keep an eye out for more scams in coming months, and possibly watch for more ban-evaders looking to strictly use the site for profit(Scamming, that is, not our normal profit) that have really no clue how black markets work.

Also by this I have judged that there will now be an increase in people being introduced to black markets for the first time, and most are being sent here to scam for a quick buck on RS, not knowing the possibilities of money making that the TRUE black market has to offer.


Please discuss, and add anything you'd like. I need everyone's input.

 

I'm pretty sure almost all newcomers come here to scam (or try to, at least). I don't really know how it used to be, but I assume it's always been like this.
Not trading with newcomers/not going first to them is an easy fix, I guess.

 

It's the source that bothers me, not the newcomers coming to scam.

If people are saying that, then obviously people that got away with hundreds of mills are still getting away with them, and thinks it is damn easy on this website to pull off.

I also assume from these people's knowledge that they have been here for a while, or at least know what Sythe is more than some common newcomer.

 

So what do you propose can be done to stop scamming?

There is nothing that can be done without turning away potential legitimate users. Also, sythe is huge, the biggest black market for runescape and other games on the internet. Just because someone mentioned it on zezimas FC does not mean thousands of people are going to swarm in and start scamming. Chances are if they are playing runescape, they are already a member here, and a legitimate member at that.

 

As I already know Sythe refuses to put a post count limit on newcomers before buying/selling things here at Sythe, something like that could potentially eliminate so many of the scammers found here at Sythe.

The mods and admins tell us to just be smart and use our brains to know who we should trade/not trade and follow their guidelines for trading and all will be well. While I am not questioning their methods to keep the scammers at bay, it's obviously not working as well as they hoped.

It's a black market, and people are going to scam there is no way of stopping this. But why not require them to have a post count before doing any buying/selling? The only reason I can think of is that they are afraid people will not stay because they don't want to put the effort into getting their count up and actually contributing to our community before they have the ability of selling/buying anything.

But think of it this way, if they don't want to stay in for the long haul there are only two other reasons they are here.

1. To scam
2. Sell something real quick and never return.

So either way there still not getting more active users.

I've kinda made this into a long ramble about my opinion and honestly I agree with you about how we are going to have to start looking out for more and more scammers as Sythe grows and I highly suggest they think of a way to keep them at bay before they get here and before the flood destroys our community.

 

It is an unfortunate reality that there are a lot of scammers on Sythe. It sucks. Because it if a member gets banned for scamming, they just come back on a new account and repeat. It's too easy, definitely one of the things I would change if I could.

But yeah, Sythe is quite a popular name in the Runescaping world. Almost everyone involved in the RuneScape Blackmarket has heard of us. And all it takes for a regular RuneScape user to find us is google "RuneScape cheating" or "How can I get cheap membership/free gold" and we'll be found.

 

Regarding scammers, no matter what site, what rules, and what necessary precautions are taken; if an individual is here to scam, none of the above will stop them. Placing 'barriers to entry' when trading on black market forum, isn't a great idea, and I have to agree with Sythe.

 

Not really - think logically.
A) If you can guarantee a 300m scam, then the amount of work put into raising postcount is technically worth the effort - it's $150 for say 100 or 200 posts
B) People naturally distrust newcomers, forcing them to earn their trust enables larger scams to be prevented later on - if you have to work a week for 50m and 2 weeks for 100m, but you force everybody to put in at least 2 weeks of effort, you get a net increase in newcomer scam value to 100m

Basically bad idea all round

 

What about IP banning any scammer? I don't see why we wait for them to ban-evade so many times before IP banning the user. Nobody has a reason to EVER make another account once they have been banned. NEVER should a scammer be banned with the assumption that they won't make another account and do it again.

We are CONSTANTLY finding new ban evaders we didn't even realize were still around from 2006-2008 that have had accounts since 2010 and are just now getting banned for 'vading. This is complete bullshit, and should just be stopped, and I believe this is an extremely easy way to get rid of scammers once they are found, and prevent future scams from any of these scamming individuals.

Look at it from a scammer's perspective -- 100m gold, and just ditch out with the goods after being caught and banned, or 200m gold, possibly more, and continue gaining until the connection is finally cut between the IP and the user?

I honestly think that, to prevent scamming, this would do wonders. I mean hell, half of our members could be scamming ban evaders(COULD BE!!!!) that scammed once and ban evaded and didn't scam again/yet, we just don't know it. If we IP ban, then at least we can trust half of our regular members, and not question every single person, regardless of their join date/post count/vouch count. We should rely more on IP's for trustworthiness, as well.

I know it doesnt seem like a perfect, flawless plan, but to put it in better terms that you CANNOT disagree with...

If I were to scam right now, on my IP, and get IP banned, I would never be able to return to Sythe, as I own just one computer, and have just one IP address.

Problem solved if I were to scam, correct? Stops me dead in my tracks, because I honestly don't know what form a proxy even comes in, lol. I honestly have no way of changing my IP/using another IP to scam or make accounts.

So, if this even stops one scammer, how is it NOT WORTH IT??????????

PLEASE do tell why this hasn't been done.

 

I'm pretty sure they are IP banned the first time, and we don't wait.

Also, proxies aren't anything that is discouraging.

Also, rules to live by to not get scammed, that even I don't follow all the time.

1. If it sounds to good to be true, it is.

2. If the person is brand new, but knows how trading works perfectly, he is a vader and gtfo of the trade.

And guys, stop saying we will be found. We aren't hiding, this isn't some crazy underground site like you might think. Jagex knows about it, Pmods know and use it, regular and cheating players use it.

 

Members often aren't I.P banned anymore because you can only register one account per I.P anyway. Which means that everytime someone ban evades, they're using a new I.P or proxy anyway.

Even before Sythe added the above feature, I.P bans weren't often given out. They were too easy to get around.

 

I'm pretty sure they have always given IP bans, hence why some people can't register in dorms/unis etc. But not getting scammed is quite simple, don't go first and don't use paypal, you'll never get scammed and don't buy recoverable items, i.e. accounts from someone not extremely trusted.

PP can be used but you have to be smart about it.. I see so many people getting charged back on PP because they are oblivious about how easy it is. I've been scammed maybe 5x in the past 5 or so years, all paypal chargebacks. I'll often see reports from users selling through PP to a newcomer, that's the main mistake people make here. Use PA if you need to use PP, or be aware of the risk and have avid discretions regarding the users you sell to.

More on-topic, the only way to keep this community going and rid ourselves of most scammers is going semi-private. By semi, I'm implying that we close registrations and require new users to apply for membership, and allow referrals as well; if a referred user scams put that against the person who referred him, perhaps 1-3 strikes before perm banned. Screening each new user is not a difficult task, and I'm sure most of the community would help in anyway they can, not to mention it'll rid us of the ban evaders who consistently scam over and over. That or fully private, but that'll severely limit the amount of people here if we went fully private; most private trading communities have zero scams..

 

Is that what you had in mind as a newcomer?

It's not working as well as they "hoped" because a lot of people still aren't using their brains when they trade. Either that or they're not well informed of the methods for safe trading (Middlemen, for example)

 

^Void my idea, this is way better.


If we were to go semi-private, we wouldn't have as much unregistered traffic, we wouldn't have advert. accounts being made every day, we wouldn't need to worry about anyone except who was already here, and we would also be able to check each and every user's IP's as they come and go from the site, thus potentially fixing every problem stated in the OP.

Although I strongly disagree with going fully-private. This would cut traffic down over half, many users would leave, 1/2 would get banned, and then we'd have 100 active users -- MAX.

I understand that it is initially up to the user to prevent scams, but if we are common talk on Runescape, and have been for a while, and people are consistantly creating accounts JUST TO SCAM, I think it's time to step our game up at least slightly. Look up Nyx's high pardon request if you want to see what I mean. Nyx was someone supposedly trusted that ban evaded nine confirmed times, had scam reports on multiple accounts, and was convicted of scamming on one of these accounts and accidentally slipped up one too many times. Mind you, some of these accounts were accessed though the same IP and still not even checked for a whole year by anyone, including admins, until he requested the high pardon on his 9th account(Could be more accounts, even.)

The only problem I am currently seeing with a semi-private plan would be the fact that if someone wanted to dispute their ban, they would not be able to without extra caution and work from the staff, which we should be coming up with ideas to LESSEN the work load of the staff, and make it easier to trade accounts with someone without even questioning something as rediculous as a post count.



Would going semi-private even be a possibility for us at this point?

 

You need to broaden your horizons. In essence, this is a site privately owned by Sythe. I assume he gains considerable income from it by monetizing it with adverts. It is not in his interest to limit traffic, in any way.

In the end if you have common sense you're better off than 80% of Sythe to begin with. Add to this some safety measures and you won't get scammed.

 

this is pretty old news, back when i did play rs and was in the pure clan community this was mentioned alot.

 

Is that what passes from our Mods/Admins around here anymore? I was clearly stating my opinion like I was asked to at the end of this thread and I get told to go get educated?

Sorry I put my opinion out there like the rest, I'll remember next time to sit quietly like a good boy and let the adults speak since my position isn't "Righteous"

 

IP banning is relatively pointless. As stated earlier in the thread, there's already a system that doesn't allow you to register more than one account on an IP. Besides that, it isn't all that hard to change an individuals IP address, or to use a proxy.
As for the whole scamming aspect. If people traded more carefully, it really wouldn't be that big of a problem. It's been a few years since I've been scammed, and when I was it's because I was 12 and an imbecile. Honestly, if someone says their pure account needs 50M; therefore, they're selling their maxed main, and you believe them. You must have no common sense.

How to fix this problem? Don't buy accounts, or if you are go off someone with a good track record. Don't trust people for simple trades, if they don't have a good trading history, use a middle man that does, or simply find a better buyer/seller. Don't use paypal, use mail, bank transfer, WU, or something else along those lines.

There are copious amounts of other methods that can be used to avoid being scammed, but people are either to greedy, or just don't bother. What do I mean about being greedy? I for example sell all the mils I make from various things on Sythe to a buyer such as: Grave. He'll flip it and make a profit. Why do I sell it cheaper to him? He will take the risk and sell it for higher, but I get a good amount of money either way. It's their business and it works for them, but since I'm not trying to be greedy and get as much as possible for my mils, I don't need to worry about a chargeback.
Note: I'm not calling Grave greedy, it's his business and he's operating one. I'm calling people that must get every nickle and dime out of what they have, and in turn sell it to someone that's offering a to-good-to-be-true price.