Fastest way to make millions of credits / get guild ship components

[DOHboy]

Again, it goes back to how much they actually know. The quickly and easily part is exactly what I am referring to. I have said all along it would take more work than doing nothing. But then if they want to do nothing to keep me around, then I will do nothing to stay.

 

if you're willing to quit because of it, by all means feel free to do so. I think that's petty expecting them to go beyond reasonable just for you.

[EazyWin]

Because literally, every item would have to tracked... they would have to manually follow every different item, every breaking of the item, every GTN transaction of the item, every trade of each item, every credit lost by a player to this, every credit gained by the thief doing it... it's an insanely complex, and rather unrealistic to call reasonable, amount of effort at this point.

 

The Ravagers was a different story because they had a distinguishable event on all the accounts. There was an achievement which stood out like a sore thumb. There was a setting of a phase and an instance ID they could track and a relatively limited amount of players who participated in it... and it still took several weeks for them to compile the data and execute their actions.

 

It's not one and the same. The answer is, they probably could track everything down... if they could stop the servers dead in their tracks for a week or more.

 

I don't see why it would have to be that complex. The ledger shows what was taken and by whom. Find that guy, or when he was deleted, and see who he sent stuff to before burning the toon. Do those people still have it? Probably not. Are those first recipients his other toons or other people in his guild? Check to see if those toons were created from his IP. Do his guildmates know? Is he even in a guild? if not, he's probably just doing this to be a turd, and that's what the internet is for. The possibilities are endless, but the lack of discernible effort to find and stop this guy is what gets me.

 

It has been too long at this point to return each of those unique items, I get that. If there really and truly is the risk of a game breaking duplication bug from copying those items back into the GB, fine. But why not put that little bit of non-technical info into the response. Also, there doesn't need to be a detailed list of actions taken against the thief, but a blurb that says actions are being taken is better than nothing.

[branmakmuffin]

Check to see if those toons were created from his IP

Why do so many people seem to think an IP address is some magic internet ID tag?

[Bachannal]

You are absolutely right, and I hope it is apparent that my disappointment is not with an individual CS worker. I fully expect that Bioware keeps a skeleton crew in their CS department to save money (because those execs need their bonuses!). That being said, I would think the cleaning out of a guild's bank would be a higher priority ticket (due to the effect on multiple people/accounts) than the standard bug report. Also, the initial response was to a different problem than the one we were actually having, which contributed to the feeling of dismissal.

 

I will agree that if you go through in-game support *especially*, the lack of proper triaging is egregious. I once had an issue in the game - sent in all my PC specs, all symptoms associated with the problem - a laundry list of things to help them better troubleshoot my issue - and they responded back with a canned response *asking me for everything I had already sent them*.

 

To me that indicates that their in-game support ticket volume is probably insanely high and they're just rifling off responses as fast as they can. Would *I* do it that way? No...but I've worked for CS teams that managed to convince management that volume doesn't equal quality, and taking the extra time to properly review issues is worth it in the long run. Having to double, triple or quadruple touch a support ticket is something you try and avoid if at all possible in a really solid support org. The least amount of back and forth communications the better.

 

My advice is to take your campaign to social media outlets if it's something you all feel strongly about. Post on their Facebook page about it. Post to Twitter about it. A lot of times if the social team gets wind of things that people complain about, to mitigate public dissent, they'll actually address issues they might not ordinarily address. Be clear, be concise, don't be heated or use passionate language...just state facts and displeasure at how the scenario played out. Worth a shot anyway.

Edited February 27, 2015 by Bachannal

[EazyWin]

There is nothing quick and easy about what you are asking for that doesn't come with an extremely high risk of exploitation. Between giving you everything lost based on your ledger and doing nothing, they have to do nothing to because it is the lesser of two evils. What reasonable alternative do you have?

 

This person is costing them money, so it sounds very reasonable to me. This is my first MMO (as I'm sure some have derisively guessed before) and I get that this has been a problem for multiple games. Some people will always take whatever they can lay their hands on. That being said, locks are not what deter thieves, police are. Locks deter casual thievery, but the risk of being caught and punished is what limits professionals. The lack of effort will directly impact the amount of people participating in this tactic.

 

As for reasonable alternatives, I detailed them in my previous response. Talk to us like normal human beings, explain what can and cannot be done, and leave it up to the individual to make their choice. I've made mine, and many others disagree. I won't apologize for that, and I don't expect them to weep for me either.

[EazyWin]

I will agree that if you go through in-game support *especially*, the lack of proper triaging is egregious. I once had an issue in the game - sent in all my PC specs, all symptoms associated with the problem - a laundry list of things to help them better troubleshoot my issue - and they responded back with a canned response *asking me for everything I had already sent them*.

 

To me that indicates that their in-game support ticket volume is probably insanely high and they're just rifling off responses as fast as they can. Would *I* do it that way? No...but I've worked for CS teams that managed to convince management that volume doesn't equal quality, and taking the extra time to properly review issues is worth it in the long run. Having to double, triple or quadruple touch a support ticket is something you try and avoid if at all possible in a really solid support org. The least amount of back and forth communications the better.

 

My advice is to take your campaign to social media outlets if it's something you all feel strongly about. Post on their Facebook page about it. Post to Twitter about it. A lot of times if the social team gets wind of things that people complain about, to mitigate public dissent, they'll actually address issues they might not ordinarily address. Be clear, be concise, don't be heated or use passionate language...just state facts and displeasure at how the scenario played out. Worth a shot anyway.

 

I appreciate the help and insight from a CS veteran. The irony is that I don't even have Facebook or Twitter. I suppose I could make one, but that's a can of worms I would rather not open, personally.

[ScarletBlaze]

I feel sorry for you but there is a way to keep this from happening.

 

My officers in the guild are only restricted to promote some to a normal rank and that rank is set very securely how much they can remove from the guild.

 

They can not withdraw any funds at that rank and very few items from the bank.

 

For anyone to get a higher rank promotion they have to go through me and my boyfriend no matter what they try to tell the officer, it will not work.

[EazyWin]

Why do so many people seem to think an IP address is some magic internet ID tag?

 

Lack of knowledge, usually. I'm not an IT person. The idea behind that poorly executed bit of information is that the actual person sitting at an actual desk should have actual difficulty in trying this against other people in the future. It sucks enough for me to want to leave, I don't want other people to feel the same.

Edited February 27, 2015 by EazyWin

[aeterno]

I don't see any way CS could distinguish between a genuine and a faked case of this happening. So there is no chance of them acting on it. And imho you can't really blame them.

[DEATHICIDE]

Scam your way into a guild bank and loot all of their rare mats. It's ok, nothing will be done.

 

TL;DR: Cancelled sub that was active since launch since BioWare doesn't seem to care about people impersonating others to get months worth of stuff in an afternoon

 

I was really hoping it wouldn't come to this. I've been around since the beginning and I wanted to play until they turned the lights out. Unfortunately, it really doesn't look like that will happen because of the response to a single mistake a guild officer made.

 

Some of you have probably read what happened when the GM of Kinetic made his thread detailing the scam and what went wrong and what to watch for. It was basically a social engineering plot where the infiltrator joins a guild, finds the GM and his alts names, makes something similar, and logs in with the fake alt to get promoted to GM so he can clean out the bank. Yes, mistakes were made but I don't think people should allowed to profit so enormously from it. We're in a game to have fun in a galaxy far far away and not have to deal with (as many) a-holes or bullies as we would in this world.

 

This was not a case of "hey new guy, welcome to the guild here are the keys to the cash register". This person waited until he knew the GM was offline and had given the reins to someone else. He created an alt specifically to mimic the GM. I have seen in the thread mentioned earlier that multiple guilds may have been hit on or about the same day, in a similar manner. Again, mistakes were made but the other choice is to treat every newcomer like a potential criminal, which is hardly conductive to a multiplayer experience.

 

More information can be found in the Guild Bank Scam thread in this same forum. The two tickets submitted to Customer Service were returned with form letters basically saying "Too bad, so sad". Then they have the gall to add at the end of the response form that Customer Service is their specialty. Saying it doesn't make it so, that has to be earned.

 

So I'm done, sub has already been canceled, why bother even posting here on the forums? Two reasons, one because I apparently auto-renewed less than a month ago, so I have some time to see if anything gets done now that it is starting to affect their bottom line. I am under no illusions that my individual wallet will make or break their year. One sub and a few crates is miniscule by itself, but who knows. Maybe it will start something. Two, to report the utter lack of Customer Service support to any that will hear, because they have earned that.

 

If somehow, someone in Customer Service wants to find me and discuss this further, they can backtrack all of this anyway. Start with the scammer, then let me know how you want to work this out from there. Stercus'accidit is my main on the Shadowlands server.

 

Did you try calling SWTOR customer service?

They may not have the power to literally fix it for you themselves, but they get to write the CS ticket for a team to look into. Something tells me that these tickets are more likely to make it to the right people VS one of the in game text using CS agents deciding to simply auto reply button you, or whatever.

 

I had an issue that needed fixing, and though the CS agent on the phone still gave me another email address to fwd my complaint to, he also told me he was notating my account regarding the issue detailing our conversation for whoever answers my email to see.

I can only assume it must have said something like "this guy is legit and I think it is in our best interest to grant their request if your investigation supports his claims". Someone resolved my issue shortly after, which was previously not being viewed as actionable.

 

It's worth a shot?

 

(PS: It may interest you to know that the cs team looked up transactions for me dating back nearly a year, with the exact date and time etc. Believe me, they can definitely take action against the offender, if nothing else, don't give up yet, you may just need the right agent)

Edited February 27, 2015 by DEATHICIDE

[Bachannal]

Did you try calling SWTOR customer service?

They may not have the power to literally fix it for you themselves, but they get to write the CS ticket for a team to look into. Something tells me that these tickets are more likely to make it to the right people VS one of the in game text using CS agents deciding to simply auto reply button you, or whatever.

 

I had an issue that needed fixing, and though the CS agent on the phone still gave me another email address to fwd my complaint to, he also told me he was notating my account regarding the issue detailing our conversation for whoever answers my email to see.

I can only assume it must have said something like "this guy is legit and I think it is in our best interest to grant their request if your investigation supports his claims". Someone resolved my issue shortly after, which was previously not being viewed as actionable.

 

It's worth a shot?

 

Great advice! I have likewise found their phone support to be quite helpful- they at least make an effort to put you in the right direction.

 

In hindsight, thinking about how their in-game ticket system works, it may be just set up that all 1st responses are coming from an autoresponder that just looks at keywords and sends a response based on them. Pure conjecture mind you, but I've seen it done before.

[DurdensWrath]

Scam your way into a guild bank and loot all of their rare mats. It's ok, nothing will be done.

 

TL;DR: Cancelled sub that was active since launch since BioWare doesn't seem to care about people impersonating others to get months worth of stuff in an afternoon

 

I was really hoping it wouldn't come to this. I've been around since the beginning and I wanted to play until they turned the lights out. Unfortunately, it really doesn't look like that will happen because of the response to a single mistake a guild officer made.

 

Some of you have probably read what happened when the GM of Kinetic made his thread detailing the scam and what went wrong and what to watch for. It was basically a social engineering plot where the infiltrator joins a guild, finds the GM and his alts names, makes something similar, and logs in with the fake alt to get promoted to GM so he can clean out the bank. Yes, mistakes were made but I don't think people should allowed to profit so enormously from it. We're in a game to have fun in a galaxy far far away and not have to deal with (as many) a-holes or bullies as we would in this world.

 

This was not a case of "hey new guy, welcome to the guild here are the keys to the cash register". This person waited until he knew the GM was offline and had given the reins to someone else. He created an alt specifically to mimic the GM. I have seen in the thread mentioned earlier that multiple guilds may have been hit on or about the same day, in a similar manner. Again, mistakes were made but the other choice is to treat every newcomer like a potential criminal, which is hardly conductive to a multiplayer experience.

 

More information can be found in the Guild Bank Scam thread in this same forum. The two tickets submitted to Customer Service were returned with form letters basically saying "Too bad, so sad". Then they have the gall to add at the end of the response form that Customer Service is their specialty. Saying it doesn't make it so, that has to be earned.

 

So I'm done, sub has already been canceled, why bother even posting here on the forums? Two reasons, one because I apparently auto-renewed less than a month ago, so I have some time to see if anything gets done now that it is starting to affect their bottom line. I am under no illusions that my individual wallet will make or break their year. One sub and a few crates is miniscule by itself, but who knows. Maybe it will start something. Two, to report the utter lack of Customer Service support to any that will hear, because they have earned that.

 

If somehow, someone in Customer Service wants to find me and discuss this further, they can backtrack all of this anyway. Start with the scammer, then let me know how you want to work this out from there. Stercus'accidit is my main on the Shadowlands server.

 

You would have survived one week in EVE. That's basically exactly how that runs.

[EazyWin]

You would have survived one week in EVE. That's basically exactly how that runs.

 

Although the game did in fact intrigue me, part of the reason I didn't play is due to the stories about the online community. Same for League of Legends, but that is a different topic.

 

Did you try calling SWTOR customer service?

They may not have the power to literally fix it for you themselves, but they get to write the CS ticket for a team to look into. Something tells me that these tickets are more likely to make it to the right people VS one of the in game text using CS agents deciding to simply auto reply button you, or whatever.

 

I had an issue that needed fixing, and though the CS agent on the phone still gave me another email address to fwd my complaint to, he also told me he was notating my account regarding the issue detailing our conversation for whoever answers my email to see.

I can only assume it must have said something like "this guy is legit and I think it is in our best interest to grant their request if your investigation supports his claims". Someone resolved my issue shortly after, which was previously not being viewed as actionable.

 

It's worth a shot?

 

(PS: It may interest you to know that the cs team looked up transactions for me dating back nearly a year, with the exact date and time etc. Believe me, they can definitely take action against the offender, if nothing else, don't give up yet, you may just need the right agent)

 

I believe the GM was planning to call CS on Monday. Thank you for bringing this up though, it occured to me after reading this that I may have jumped the gun a little bit if they indeed are more receptive to taking action for those who call.

 

In hindsight, thinking about how their in-game ticket system works, it may be just set up that all 1st responses are coming from an autoresponder that just looks at keywords and sends a response based on them. Pure conjecture mind you, but I've seen it done before.

 

Wouldn't surprise me. Sounds like the sort of efficiency initiative that gets people promoted and departments axed.

[Bachannal]

Wouldn't surprise me. Sounds like the sort of efficiency initiative that gets people promoted and departments axed.

 

 

Honestly...this is just how the vast majority of all companies treat customer service. They'll tell you that as a rep you're their "front line", their "marines" - and how they know how valuable CS is - and then promptly neglect CS teams in just about every way imaginable. They'll spend as little on CS reps as they can, and then wonder why their reps don't care as much as they'd expect them to. They'll saddle their CS org with so many ridiculous policies that they have to enforce that it can make it difficult to provide even decent customer service to the user base. A sad reality really.

 

Aside from my own personal interests, I'd like to see more companies have CS orgs like Amazon, where they have nearly carte blanche to resolve issues right away with very little hassle (at least in my experience...and they tend to have very high customer satisfaction scores in this regard, so I think they must be doing something right). They also pay their reps pretty well, which is not common.

 

I had a place offer to make me their DIRECTOR of customer support, and only wanted to pay me around $45K per year...and I live in Northern California outside of the most expensive city in the country. That kind of treatment of CS people is far more common than the opposite.

[branmakmuffin]

You would have survived one week in EVE. That's basically exactly how that runs.

Since TOR is not EVE, your post rates a big "So what?"

[soratoyuki]

I really didn't want to get involved in this thread, but, ugh.

 

I'm in <Kinetic>. It's a cool place. We have a medium-sized, very stable group of players that breeds a lot of familiarity and trust, and in that context, one officer had a hilarious slip in judgment by trusting someone for a poor reason. Guild bank looted via a pretty simple scam, totally our fault, and Bioware has no reason to fix any of it. All of us get that. The only complaint anyone in the guild has is Bioware's TOS, which specifically state two things:

 

"Given the customizable nature of the Guild Bank vault access settings, we hope that Guild Banks will be well protected from unscrupulous players. However, we also recognize that the availability of these settings are not protection enough against some players who will use tactics like social engineering to gain increased access to Guild Banks. We sympathize with any Guild who find themselves targeted in this manner, and would ask that the Guild Leader contact our Customer Service team for their assistance in the matter." And: "Impersonate another person (including celebrities), indicate falsely that you are an EA or BioWare employee or a representative of EA or BioWare, or attempt to mislead users by indicating that you represent EA or BioWare or any of EA’s partners or affiliates." Bioware's words, not mine.

 

That's the only reason our GM has been so intent on trying to move up the CS chain. I think all of us accept this as our fault. I think all of us accept Bioware cannot and/or will not magically restore our items. Literally all we want is a human to read our support ticket, say "Yeah, the TOS implies we'll actually help you if your scammed, and yes, the TOS implies we should track down and ban the scammer for impersonating someone else. We're still not going to do it, but yes, the TOS does imply such." That's all we want. Bioware doesn't have to do anything about the issue at all. All we want is the ackknowledgment of the underlying issue in this specific situation, and then continue to not do anything.

 

That's why EazyWin, I think, is unsubscribing. Getting 8-man loot from 16-man Ravagers, and being ignored by CS. Dying on the final boss of Ravagers and not being able to loot after the kill, and being ignored by CS. Underurker's cross mechanic not working, and being ignored by CS. Every other patch breaking Groupfinder, and being ignored by CS. But on the flipside, the one bug in this game that actually gives an advantage to the player--the Ravager exploit--gets a hotpatch and also gives numerous players a (token) ban. I don't know how many of you played SWTOR before the F2P transition, but CS used to be exemplary. But the state of CS and in-game support in general seems like a pretty legit reason to unsubscribe to me.

[DurdensWrath]

Since TOR is not EVE, your post rates a big "So what?"

 

That's pretty much how I feel anytime you post.

[Billupsat]

I really didn't want to get involved in this thread, but, ugh.

 

I'm in <Kinetic>. It's a cool place. We have a medium-sized, very stable group of players that breeds a lot of familiarity and trust, and in that context, one officer had a hilarious slip in judgment by trusting someone for a poor reason. Guild bank looted via a pretty simple scam, totally our fault, and Bioware has no reason to fix any of it. All of us get that. The only complaint anyone in the guild has is Bioware's TOS, which specifically state two things:

 

"Given the customizable nature of the Guild Bank vault access settings, we hope that Guild Banks will be well protected from unscrupulous players. However, we also recognize that the availability of these settings are not protection enough against some players who will use tactics like social engineering to gain increased access to Guild Banks. We sympathize with any Guild who find themselves targeted in this manner, and would ask that the Guild Leader contact our Customer Service team for their assistance in the matter." And: "Impersonate another person (including celebrities), indicate falsely that you are an EA or BioWare employee or a representative of EA or BioWare, or attempt to mislead users by indicating that you represent EA or BioWare or any of EA’s partners or affiliates." Bioware's words, not mine.

 

That's the only reason our GM has been so intent on trying to move up the CS chain. I think all of us accept this as our fault. I think all of us accept Bioware cannot and/or will not magically restore our items. Literally all we want is a human to read our support ticket, say "Yeah, the TOS implies we'll actually help you if your scammed, and yes, the TOS implies we should track down and ban the scammer for impersonating someone else. We're still not going to do it, but yes, the TOS does imply such." That's all we want. Bioware doesn't have to do anything about the issue at all. All we want is the ackknowledgment of the underlying issue in this specific situation, and then continue to not do anything.

 

That's why EazyWin, I think, is unsubscribing. Getting 8-man loot from 16-man Ravagers, and being ignored by CS. Dying on the final boss of Ravagers and not being able to loot after the kill, and being ignored by CS. Underurker's cross mechanic not working, and being ignored by CS. Every other patch breaking Groupfinder, and being ignored by CS. But on the flipside, the one bug in this game that actually gives an advantage to the player--the Ravager exploit--gets a hotpatch and also gives numerous players a (token) ban. I don't know how many of you played SWTOR before the F2P transition, but CS used to be exemplary. But the state of CS and in-game support in general seems like a pretty legit reason to unsubscribe to me.

 

You guys also need to realize that customer service probably gets hundreds to thousands of tickets a day, they are probably understaffed and simply don't have the willpower or time to address each ticket personally. That, and a company will never ever admit to something they should be doing but can't/won't. Its just not something they are going to say/do and not something their bosses would be happy about if they did. Does it suck that they cannot address this issue to you properly or any of the ravager issues your friend is having, but you have to realize if he's submitting tickets on ops, there are probably dozens of other players doing so, and that to respond to all of them in a timely fashion they feel they need to send out automated response and TBH to expect more than that at this point to anything but death threats against you made by another player is, well, to be blunt, ridiculous. Sorry, but it is.

[Papazmurf]

I originally said tough luck earlier in the thread. However I will admit the CS for this game has been extremely lackluster. Not sure I'd quit a game over CS if I REALLY liked the product. My interaction with them is too infrequent. However they do just send cookie-cutter responses.

 

It's not just Bioware/EA, it's most big companies. I laughed, when last year, Comcast said they were "shocked" at the horrible CS complaints they were getting and that their CS people will be "trained" better. BS. First line of CS is deny, deny, deny and pretty much make you give up on pushing something further. Companies gamble that it's not going to be worth your time to keep fighting. It's sad, but it's real logic, especially with every day utilities. SWTOR isn't a need, it's a want though and generally CS is better for that kind of stuff. If this game shuts down, EA has more to lose than the player base.

[Aerilas]

Too bad, so sad

TM

if it's true, OP.

 

However, I'd blame the officer that promoted the thief. He should've known it wasn't the GM. I'm an officer myself in our guild and usually take care of this sort of stuff and rest assured it wouldn't happen. We use TS a lot, I have the GM on skype and Whatsapp. Also, i actually know his alts, what he still wants to make as character and what he doesn't. Also know all the chars he has.

 

Oh, and at the people saying to CALL customer support. LOL, just LOL. In the 3years I've been playing this game I have needed CS three times. Every call was in vain. Or well, you're not expecting me to wait at the phone for >30minutes for a international call do you? Every time the waitlist was >30minutes no matter what hour I called.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Aerilas

[branmakmuffin]

That's pretty much how I feel anytime you post.

Stalker.

[lightSaberAddiCt]

Why would the items have to have been destroyed? I am legitimately confused by this.

 

Because chances are a guild member is in on this, whether you want to believe it or not. They cant restore your ledger without knowing the other items are removed from market. Otherwise your guild could scam the system, and double your items.

 

This is not a BW issue, it is a guild problem. Your officer did something stupid, at least be adult enough to own up to it, and not carry on that you want your stuff replaced or your quitting. Your guild, in the overall picture, isnt that important.

[Transcendent]

This was not a case of "hey new guy, welcome to the guild here are the keys to the cash register". This person waited until he knew the GM was offline and had given the reins to someone else. He created an alt specifically to mimic the GM. I have seen in the thread mentioned earlier that multiple guilds may have been hit on or about the same day, in a similar manner. Again, mistakes were made but the other choice is to treat every newcomer like a potential criminal, which is hardly conductive to a multiplayer experience.

 

To be fair it's pretty poor guild management to allow someone to simply be promoted into a position where they can clear out the guild.

 

My guild has it set right, we all have our mains listed, and any additional characters are set to alt with minimal permissions.

 

We have other ranks, but again with specific permissions, and the ones that have pretty much unlimited access to materials don't have access to unlimited credits etc. Perhaps the issue isn't just with the person who did this (douchebag as they are) but also in the way the guild is being run. No it isn't nice to treat everyone like a criminal, absolutely agree, but welcome to the internet.

 

On the flipside of this, not everyone is a complete jerk on the internet, my guild leader on one of my guilds has been afk for over a month which has made me the "caretaker" guild leader. With a fair few millions in the guild bank, and tons of mats. Could I simply take everything and call it a day? Sure, but why be that person?

[Prototypemind]

I really didn't want to get involved in this thread, but, ugh.

 

I'm in <Kinetic>

 

Literally all we want is a human to read our support ticket, say "Yeah, the TOS implies we'll actually help you if your scammed, and yes, the TOS implies we should track down and ban the scammer for impersonating someone else. We're still not going to do it, but yes, the TOS does imply such." That's all we want. Bioware doesn't have to do anything about the issue at all. All we want is the ackknowledgment of the underlying issue in this specific situation, and then continue to not do anything.

 

 

Honestly, it's a silly sword to fall on, but I guess you can't help but want what you want.