The Credit Selling Ring Bust Worked! Result? 150% Increase in Credit Spam. Why?

[Papazmurf]

This was initially a reply to one of the many credit spam threads, but since it's been such an issue I figured I'd make my own thread. That, and I haven't really seen much discussion as to why there has been such a dramatic increase. In my opinion all of this recent credit harassment has stemmed from Bioware stopping that credit selling ring. The thing is when you take over 9.2 billion credits from the market you can really start affecting people's livelihood.

 

I'm working under the assumption that most of these credit sellers are based in poor countries. From what I see in the whispers 1mil cost $3 U.S. So if I take 9.2 billion divide it by 1mil and then multiple the resulting number by 3 I get $27600. Now in the U.S. and not living in a major city that would probably be a comfortable salary for one person. It's about 6$ above the national minimum wage if you do it hourly.

 

Now there are countries poorer than China, but for arguments sake I gathered sources from these sites.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-increases-minimum-wage-rates/

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-hourly-rate-for-a-factory-worker-in-China

 

Based on the above info, minimum wage salary in Shanghai China comes out $3,516 a year! Somebody making ~$7k in China would be making double the minimum wage there. When you factor in cost of living, it's probably not a bad a lifestyle in China or the neighboring countries.

 

Now I have no idea how many people work at these credit selling places, if they get paid below the table and below minimum wage or if it's just a one man shop. The point is, if people were buying just half of that 9.2 billion for real money before they got busted, at $13.5k/year in a poor area someone or some people were making money to live off of by solely doing this.

 

In order to make up those lost wages, we now see an increase in credit spam and whispers in a desperate attempt to diversify the pool of buyers. Where prior to this you only saw the spam on starter planets and fleet, now you see it everywhere and it's even worse now considering the random whispering on every planet and ships.

 

Now my logic is rudimentary at best, but if Bioware is going to do these kind of crack downs, they're going to have to keep their foot on the necks of these people or else you'll get what we are currently seeing with the vastly increased spam. This is an expected result and unless Bioware is really ready to go war with these folks I don't see it getting any better.

 

TL;DR: Credit sellers likely live in poor countries and due to the Bioware credit selling bust, they are in a desperate attempt to make up lost wages to live off of.. If Bioware wants to keep busting these guys they need to keep resources dedicated to it or the sellers will keep coming back and worse than before as we currently see.

Edited May 20, 2015 by Papazmurf

[Nireos]

Credit sellers/spammers are like Hydras, you cut off one head and two more grow in it's place. It is a never ending battle for most major online games these days. This problem is not exclusive to Bioware/SWTOR.

[lightSaberAddiCt]

The only way to stop spam is to be a subscription model game. F2P is credit/gold spammers bread and butter. People want to play a game without investing in the game through subscription, well the result is having to deal with credit spam.

 

I dont know of any F2P game that doesnt have credit spam.

[Papazmurf]

I agree with the two posts above me. I was giving more of an explanation as to the massive increase in spam. I probably could've made a better title, but there was a character limit.

[Drimoac]

This new whisper thing the gold spammers are doing is annoying and intrusive. Beyond hitting "report spam" and "ignore" there isn't a lot we can do about it in game.

 

That being said, I welcome every new thread on this topic.

[Malastare]

I agree with the two posts above me. I was giving more of an explanation as to the massive increase in spam. I probably could've made a better title, but there was a character limit.

 

I think you did a good job of describing the issue.

 

And it goes hand-in-hand with the increase of whisper-spam, as I suspect that whisper spam probably has a similar "hit rate" for "customers", but generates a lower report-rate than using Gen Chat or yelling. Until it became apparent that the spam reports were actually being used, there was no reason to resort to the more difficult whisper-spam. Until something is done to discourage whispers, they'll likely continue.

 

The one thing you sort of missed is the amount of income. There are suggestions that a decent amount of the credit-sellers income is actually made through not-so-legitimate business. In particular, the selling of customer information, ranging from names/addresses to the actual credit card numbers in some cases. Even just a few credit-card-fraud events could easily pull in quite a bit of cash for a credit-seller.

[Sindariel]

Those recent credit seller whispers are freaking annoying and distracting. Especially during boss fights.

 

I dont know of any F2P game that doesnt have credit spam.

 

lol. As if credit sellers were limited to f2p games...

Edited May 20, 2015 by Sindariel

[sarbonn]

Those recent credit seller whispers are freaking annoying and distracting. Especially during boss fights.

 

Bosses totally understand credit spammers. The other day, I was fighting Lord Deathguy and he stopped the fight, stating: "Excuse me, Sir Jedi I am about to slaughter, I must take a moment and ignore this credit seller." Short pause. "Okay, we may now continue!"

[WorldSmasher]

I don't know about the F2P angle. F2P characters are limited to how much credit they can have at any one time. There were gold farmers in WoW, way before they started playing around the the free until level 20 model. And there were credit spammers in SWTOR from nearly the beginning of SWTOR.

 

So, to say that F2P is the root, or the "breeding ground" of the spammers does not hold water, in my view. Some of the best loots on sale on the GTN cost a lot more than what an F2P player carries on their toon, so they can't buy some of that stuff, but sub players can, but don't always have enough credits for it.

 

Credit spammers sell credits. They also sell loots for crazy prices on the GTN, recover some of the sold credits and the credits earned through hard work (grinding) by honest gamers, then resell those credits - in addition to having credit grinders and security chest bots.

 

BW busted ONE ring of credit spammers, and made tweaks the the system that locked them out of spamming in gen chat, but it was one set actions they took, there are probably other actions that they preparing to implement, but just as in the real world, where the law constantly fights drug dealers on the streets, credit spammers is one problem that will not go away, but if left unchecked will grow worse.

 

All we can hope for is for BW not to give up, or it will get a lot worse. In addition to busting credit spam rings, if BW could drop the perma ban hammer on credit buyers and make a examples of them, I think it would cause a very chilling effect on the attractiveness of buying illicit credits. If the profits go away, so do most of the spammers.

Edited May 20, 2015 by WorldSmasher

[TUXs]

The way you stop this is simple...you have a person that monitors chat and can ban/silence the player on the spot. One employee could monitor every server with ease.

[Code_Airwolf]

bosses totally understand credit spammers. The other day, i was fighting lord deathguy and he stopped the fight, stating: "excuse me, sir jedi i am about to slaughter, i must take a moment and ignore this credit seller." short pause. "okay, we may now continue!"

 

lol

[ScarletBlaze]

Yes the whispers are getting annoying. I could ignore them on the fleet but the whispers are getting annoying especially when you are in the middle of a fight.

[Holocron]

I miss the days when credit sellers would mail you a credit.

[Infernixx]

Yes the whispers are getting annoying. I could ignore them on the fleet but the whispers are getting annoying especially when you are in the middle of a fight.

 

Yep, that happened to me the other night. Seems like the best way to fix that is to remove the /tell /whisper ability from F2P accounts until level 20.

[MaximusRex]

This was initially a reply to one of the many credit spam threads, but since it's been such an issue I figured I'd make my own thread.

 

So in reply to the spam about spam threads you decided to spam another thread on spam.

 

Thanks!

[TUXs]

I miss the days when credit sellers would mail you a credit.

Right?! Those guys I didn't even report...

[MaximusRex]

Yep, that happened to me the other night. Seems like the best way to fix that is to remove the /tell /whisper ability from F2P accounts until level 20.

 

With 12x and 7 day trials, 20 isn't that high. I recently ran a completely new character through, and I was lvl 15 before I even completed Korriban, and I only did class story.

[Papazmurf]

I don't know about the F2P angle. F2P characters are limited to how much credit they can have at any one time. There were gold farmers in WoW, way before they started playing around the the free until level 20 model. And there were credit spammers in SWTOR from nearly the beginning of SWTOR.

 

So, to say that F2P is the root, or the "breeding ground" of the spammers does not hold water, in my view. Some of the best loots on sale on the GTN cost a lot more than what an F2P player carries on their toon, so they can't buy some of that stuff, but sub players can, but don't always have enough credits for it.

 

It may not be the root but it makes it a lot easier to have farm accounts. The credit sellers likely have a few subbed accounts. With a 6 month sub, it would cost a selling ring ~$154 year. You figure they have a few accounts that the F2P accounts can funnel money to.

 

I agree that credit selling would still be here if there was no F2P, but F2P definitely makes it easier to spam and keep up accounts as there's no initial cost. I imagine the sellers are making 100's of accounts a day.

 

The one thing you sort of missed is the amount of income. There are suggestions that a decent amount of the credit-sellers income is actually made through not-so-legitimate business. In particular, the selling of customer information, ranging from names/addresses to the actual credit card numbers in some cases. Even just a few credit-card-fraud events could easily pull in quite a bit of cash for a credit-seller.

 

I think this adds even more credence to my point, because they can't get credit cards if they don't have product. So now their bottom line is being even more affected and I'm sure there's other factors at play.

 

Your post gives an explanation to how these credit rings are likely getting their money for the accounts they do use for subbing.

 

I shouldn't be surprised all of this stuff goes on over a video game, but it's just crazy when you think about it.

[Papazmurf]

So in reply to the spam about spam threads you decided to spam another thread on spam.

 

Thanks!

 

Well if the credit sellers are any indication, the strategy obviously works. That and, with the time I took to write the post I didn't want it lost in the other threads. Thanks for reading!

Edited May 20, 2015 by Papazmurf

[Holocron]

Right?! Those guys I didn't even report...

 

Me either, I would just laugh and watch my bank account fill up. I do have to commend them though on their ability to try new sales tactics.

[Infernixx]

With 12x and 7 day trials, 20 isn't that high. I recently ran a completely new character through, and I was lvl 15 before I even completed Korriban, and I only did class story.

 

Yeah, you gotta be subbed to get 12x XP. And remove it from trial accounts as well.

[sxykitten]

Credit sellers/spammers are like Hydras, you cut off one head and two more grow in it's place. It is a never ending battle for most major online games these days. This problem is not exclusive to Bioware/SWTOR.

 

eevery sub game has them to..you cant kill them if people will buy...

[Monumenta]

I don't buy the 'get rid of f2p and the credit sellers will leave' theory, the only way to handle an invasion of chats, forums, and internets of all kinds is proactive moderation, until they implement something like that credit spammers, scumbags, and perverts can post whatever they want with little fear of real repercussions.

[Alec_Fortescue]

Man, just after they broke the credit ring i started getting few WHISPERS daily on my Guardian :/

[Infernixx]

I don't buy the 'get rid of f2p and the credit sellers will leave' theory, the only way to handle an invasion of chats, forums, and internets of all kinds is proactive moderation, until they implement something like that credit spammers, scumbags, and perverts can post whatever they want with little fear of real repercussions.

 

Restricting chat-access for F2P accounts would do a lot to limit the spam. I mean, with F2P, all you need is an email address to make a new account. That's it. So, you get all kinds of new accounts being spam-created endlessly.