Forum Discussion - Stance on Scamming

http://www.fantasicaunofficial.com/t9349-global-announcement-revising-our-stance-on-scamming - thread.

Any concerns, please discuss here.

it sounds like you will no longer be banning 'alleged' scammers from the forum?

Wait, this forum actually did something about scammers in the past? Other than the rarely updated known scammers list and a thread on how to protect yourself, I am not aware of anything.

Even if they did scam, and were banned how hard was it to go make a new account, and scam again?
Its like moderators banning people on another forum I visit nothing happens as 5 mins later there is a new user spouting the same exact thing that the person just banned was.
Also proving there was a scam is another thing. Its almost a witch hunt as very few times do you get both sides of the story. So I can see why they decided to take this stance. I've seen people agree to trade terms on other games then say they were scammed after as they didn't look at the item prior to paying for it.

Scamming happens everywhere. There will always people who try to take advantage of you.

Here is a polite way to say no to anyone, including people you trust

Spoiler:

Some people need to learn how to say 'no' as scammers always have a silver tongue.

So, theoretically this means that I could go scam multiple people on my account and anyone who posts on the forums that I am doing so will be moderated?

Cool.

It is always good to know that a community forum is following the corporate guidelines rather than what the community would prefer. /sarcasm off

I guess the main point is a good one: never, ever for any reason make a trade or loan without collateral, it sucks but you really just can't trust anyone that you don't know in real life with your cards. It always bums me out when I get an email about someone getting scammed for a really rare card, because there really is nothing I or anyone can do about it.

That being said, I do think it is important to maintain a stance against scamming and scammers, if nothing else to let them know that the community does not condone their actions, and hopefully make it just a little harder for them to do their nefarious business.

Just my two cents though, not much anyone can do either way.

Remember kids: Get collateral or do not trade!

BkWiz wrote:

So, theoretically this means that I could go scam multiple people on my account and anyone who posts on the forums that I am doing so will be moderated?

Cool.

It is always good to know that a community forum is following the corporate guidelines rather than what the community would prefer. /sarcasm off

But in all honesty how could it be enforced accurately
Like say you got me mad after I did a trade I could always go fake some chat logs, and other junk post them here, and show you "scammed" me even if you didn't.

I played a MMO where they did trust screen shots, and knew people that got banned for doing nothing wrong as you could EASILY impersonate a diff player and make it look like they were breaking the rules. They kept that policy till I made a fake screen shot that showed one of their GM's breaking the rules, and the owner(he played too) telling the GM he was proud to like it up his bum(he didn't think it was funny ). Stuff like that happening is why I called it a witch hunt.

So in all honesty as its a he said she said situation its better for the community, but that is just how I see it.

BkWiz wrote:

So, theoretically this means that I could go scam multiple people on my account and anyone who posts on the forums that I am doing so will be moderated?

Cool.

It is always good to know that a community forum is following the corporate guidelines rather than what the community would prefer.  /sarcasm off

Note that nowhere in the announcement did they condone the act of scamming.

As sycovenom has said, the sort of evidence that are used to "prove" scamming are digital in nature, and can be easily fabricated or even abused. And trusting the word of the victim that he/she was scammed, and using that as a basis to ban/shame another user does not sound like a very fair way of doing things to me.
As such, I find their decision not to make investigations into scamming to be fair.

That being said, this stance applies only to the moderators. But the moderators are NOT the community. Just because the moderators have decided against taking action does not mean that the community cannot. Someone will simply have to step up and do it.

We've reached the point where:

a) it's impossible to prove that anything was done wrong.
b) it's impossible to prove who was wronged.
c) it's impossible to even so much as inconvenience the person what done the wrong.

basically if you get scammed, you're up shoot creek without a paddle. but so is everyone else.
Nobody can really help you if you get scammed.

Woosh.

That was my point going right over your heads.

Can the moderators do anything? No.

Can we the community do something about it? It's limited but yes we can.

By aligning a community forum with the guidelines of Silicon/Mobage, and then basically posting that if you are an idiot if you get scammed, you are essentially taking the stance that not only do we not see scamming as a problem, but we think anyone scammed is an idiot (FYI this states it very clearly in the new policy).

In addition to this, posting about scammers or being scammed = taboo.

That moreso than anything which is why I am so sarcastic about the new policy.

A simple, there is nothing we can do about scamming, is a lot more tactful and precise than saying, we follow corporate policies and modes of thinking so you are an idiot for being scammed.

Whichever moderator wrote up that "policy change" has the tact of a drunken red neck frat boy from a hillbilly ghetto family from the Deep South trying to get some tail from a girl at a bar. (Yes, I'm purposefully being tactless to give an example)

Somewhere along the line, moderators here have forgotten that they are here to moderate forum discussions, not dictate policies except in certain cases (ie talking about illegal issues)

There has been many points raised in here that are indeed relevant.

The main point is that one we can't do anything to stop scamming and that if you are albuming without precaution then there is little we can really do.

I don't want this to be a "lol" you got scammed. It's more of a take no risk stance

BkWiz wrote:

Woosh.

That was my point going right over your heads.

Can the moderators do anything? No.

Can we the community do something about it? It's limited but yes we can.

By aligning a community forum with the guidelines of Silicon/Mobage, and then basically posting that if you are an idiot if you get scammed, you are essentially taking the stance that not only do we not see scamming as a problem, but we think anyone scammed is an idiot (FYI this states it very clearly in the new policy).

In addition to this, posting about scammers or being scammed = taboo.

That moreso than anything which is why I am so sarcastic about the new policy.

A simple, there is nothing we can do about scamming, is a lot more tactful and precise than saying, we follow corporate policies and modes of thinking so you are an idiot for being scammed.

Whichever moderator wrote up that "policy change" has the tact of a drunken red neck frat boy from a hillbilly ghetto family from the Deep South trying to get some tail from a girl at a bar. (Yes, I'm purposefully being tactless to give an example)

Somewhere along the line, moderators here have forgotten that they are here to moderate forum discussions, not dictate policies except in certain cases (ie talking about illegal issues)

I appreciate your honesty. I will revise the guidelines to incorporate a bit more helpfulness

I have revised the policy so it incorporate what has been discussed. Thank you for the feedback everyone