Away with Skype. Scam reports can only be filed for PM transactions.

[Moo]

A common pattern we are seeing now a days here on MC-Market is scam reports dealing with individuals who have encountered Skype 'Impostures' and Skype provided evidence that could possibly be edited / manipulated. A recent suggestion thread was introduced the other day regarding MC-Market and the 'approval of scam reports for transactions made outside of the forums' which sparked interest within me.

First, let me explain to you all my routine when undergoing a sale here on MC-Market. My technique is simple, safe, organized and will help the report staff team save time. In return scam reports can realistically be dealt with easier and faster.

The Routine:

• All transactions that I do here on MC-Market are done strictly on the forums PM (private messaging) system. That being said, no communication is ever transferred to an outside source or 'Skype' as many individuals use when doing sales.

• For organization purposes, the PM's title for the transaction taking place would be something a long the lines of "<Username> Sale" or "Regarding the sale of <Username>". This not only saves me time when searching back through messages trying to find specific account transaction, but keeps things highly organized.

• Within the first message that is sent to the buyer, I tend to specific that I am selling said <username> for the amount of <$> <Currency type> and would like the payment to be sent via <bitcoin/paypal/etc>. The next step would be for the seller to provide the terms and conditions that were posted in the account's "for sale" thread and make sure that it is agreed upon by the buyer at some point in the messages before the sale is done.

Spoiler: Transaction Introduction

• Now that you have provided accurate documentation of what you wanted out of this sale and how you wanted it, it can be later accessed if needed for evidence. This process also eliminates most misunderstandings and puts everyone on the same page. By the buyer agreeing to the terms provided, they are now locked in and responsible for abiding by said terms.

• Documentation. THIS. IS. A. MUST. You want to always remember to document your sales for the fullest security. Documentations include but are not limited to: payments sent/received, Mojang account passwords changed / Mojang security questions disabled or enabled / emails changed AND VERIFIED. (Yes, you can stay logged into the account even after information was changed as long as you simply refresh the page. This will allow you to get a screen shot of the buyer verifying and securing the account if they refuse to post documentation themselves). The main thing to remember here is that you want to cover your ass to the best of your ability.

Spoiler: Documentation Examples

• That's that. Now you have a place to go and look back to if ever needing to review a sale/purchase. Organized in your PM's and titled for efficient searches. Documentation successful with screen shots that you no longer need to try and find / hold on to and are already there to be reviewed if needed. Terms of agreement, purchase amount and type approved and understood by both parties.

Now, what are the benefits you ask?

• No more needing to search for evidence as it is provided at the click of a button in order and ready to be reviewed.
• No more using Skype conversations as evidence. Skype conversations can easily be edited and manipulated, thus hiding important information or even so giving false information that can not be proved elsewhere without the staff actually having access to that Skype account.
• No more Skype impersonators. No more risking users who are unfamiliar with how MC-Market functions. Considering you will be working via PM's one on one with the seller / buyers main MC-Market account, there is no way for you to not know who's behind the computer screen. Thus no more scam reports that in the end waste's time due to it being ruled as an impersonator. Not to mention anyone can create their own impersonator and say it's not them. This can allow them to get away with endless scams and never be punished because it's not the 'main Skype account' that people know them by.
• Easier, more efficient scam reports. No more waiting on buyer and sellers to communicate back and forth to the thread, at least for the first portion of the scam report. Scam report staff will be able to access the private messages where these transactions took place and instantly review everything that was said, agreed upon and acted out. They will then know hands down what actually happened and can piece everything together easier.
• No more misunderstandings. By providing all information that you need via the PM's you will then be obligated to agree upon them. Upon bidding in a forum thread you are usually always made aware of the seller/buyers terms, but now that it will also be posted in the PM, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to be unsure about what they are both agreeing upon.
• Staff being responsible for issues happening outside of their forums / website. This should absolutely never be the case. MC-Market is not Skype and anything happening outside of the forums should not be any part of MC-Markets responsibility. If a user decides to invest into a transaction on Skype without notifying or checking said users MC-Market profile, later being scammed by an 'imposture', that is not MC-Market's problem. If you choose to communicate on Skype and some how can not provide accurate evidence, tampered evidence or claim that you misunderstood what the seller/buyer was saying, that is not MC-Markets responsibility.
• Skype voice chat transactions. Firstly, this is idiotic of anyone to do. I understand that a lot of use are lazy and prefer to use Skype to complete transactions because you can voice chat, however, a lot of important information can be lost via voice chat. A lot of valuable evidence can go missing and then it turns into a "he said, she said" situation which can not be used as evidence. This eliminates this problem completely.

I'm not entirely sure how everyone will respond to this idea, but I feel if you are an honest person here on MC-Market and here for the right reasons you will be okay with putting in a little bit more effort to keep EVERYONE secure.

Thanks for reading and love you all!

*Special thanks to bannah for purchasing my account shown in these examples and being a very lovely person.

 

[Moo]

Additional suggestions:

• MC-Market provides users with a secondary inbox or a 'Completed' sale folder where they can store their finished transaction messages. This will keep things from becoming clustered in the main inbox.
• MC-Market provides image hosting so that screen shots uploaded and documented in private messages will forever be saved within the system and accessible at all times when needed.

 

[Walrus]

That's actually a really nice system, only if people didn't try to cheat it with inspect element or photoshop, things would go much smoother. I believe MCM is planning to add a live PM system in the next update, so that should help by a ton. Simple precautions like this would be very useful for scam reports, but I'm not sure if it would work with PayPal disputes unfortunately.

 

[Moo]

That's actually a really nice system, only if people didn't try to cheat it with inspect element or photoshop, things would go much smoother. I believe MCM is planning to add a live PM system in the next update, so that should help by a ton. Simple precautions like this would be very useful for scam reports, but I'm not sure if it would work with PayPal disputes unfortunately.

Both parties would be providing documentation and it would be 'real time' documents. If the information posted in the PM's is not correct, it is the other persons responsibility to say something about it or cover their own ass and post their documentation as well. I highly doubt that many people would continue with a trade if the person they are working with provides false information within the PM screen shots.

"I'm not sure this would work with PayPal disputes".
Not quite sure where this fits in with my suggestion. PayPal isn't MC-Market and any issues regarding purchasing made through PayPal would be taken up with PayPal accordingly. One point of doing transactions through PM's was to allow a place for staffing to access all documentation at the click of a button where they will be able to read everything that you guys did and agreed on. This will make the first part of any scam report a breeze, for all they would need to do is access said transaction PM and read it. If they need further evidence provided from any PayPal related issue, then both parties would be responsible for posting evidence. The use of Skype can be prevented, paypal/bitcoin can not.

 

[Ivain]

While I think it is definitely advisable to implement this in its basic idea, I dislike putting all my eggs in one basket (aka all transactions in PM on this website). If something like the data loss a while back happens again, I'd lose a lot of potential commissions and clients. Not to mention I get commissions from outside McM as well, and it would suck to have to use 2 different forms of communication.

as for McM providing image hosting, they already do in a way. you can add pictures to posts as attachments. But the simple truth is that McM cannot afford to host each and every image involved in deals on here. That would involve so much storage, they'd need to add in ANOTHER donator rank to be able to afford it.

I say that skype-based scam reports are not abolished or ignored, but I do suggest that scam reports involving on-site communication only are given priority over those involving skype transactions (aka staff focus on those first). Then, once the website has all the tools needed, (such as the mentioned live pm chat thing), the transition to no more skype scam-reports would be easier if it is still needed, since people have already learned that deals via skype are risky because scam reports will move much more slowly.

I concur that agreeing to transactions using only voice chat is idiotic. And a lot of idiots fail to confirm that the person they think their dealing with is actually legit. But there is a simple enough solution to this. I no longer accept skype requests from people unless they've PM'd me on here about it. It's quite a recent decision, but if everyone was to do it it would solve the problem as well.


All in all, its a valiant effort, but it really should not need to be necessary. If people on this website all acted with some sort of sense, this entire system would become unneeded. I still have some shreds of hope in that direction, so I kindof want to wait that out. Which is why I suggested an intermediate system. A simple way to implement that intermediate system would be to add a checkbox for "was this transaction conducted partially outside the website?". All reports with that checkbox ticked would then be marked low-priority, only to be dealt with until all non-skype reports of that batch are cleared.

 

[Tylerzz]

I was going to suggest this my self if no one did soon, the only use private message feature for all sales and deals and not Skype.

 

[Moo]

• 
  
  

  While I think it is definitely advisable to implement this in its basic idea, I dislike putting all my eggs in one basket (aka all transactions in PM on this website). If something like the data loss a while back happens again, I'd lose a lot of potential commissions and clients. Not to mention I get commissions from outside McM as well, and it would suck to have to use 2 different forms of communication.
  
  as for McM providing image hosting, they already do in a way. you can add pictures to posts as attachments. But the simple truth is that McM cannot afford to host each and every image involved in deals on here. That would involve so much storage, they'd need to add in ANOTHER donator rank to be able to afford it.
  
  I say that skype-based scam reports are not abolished or ignored, but I do suggest that scam reports involving on-site communication only are given priority over those involving skype transactions (aka staff focus on those first). Then, once the website has all the tools needed, (such as the mentioned live pm chat thing), the transition to no more skype scam-reports would be easier if it is still needed, since people have already learned that deals via skype are risky because scam reports will move much more slowly.
  
  I concur that agreeing to transactions using only voice chat is idiotic. And a lot of idiots fail to confirm that the person they think their dealing with is actually legit. But there is a simple enough solution to this. I no longer accept skype requests from people unless they've PM'd me on here about it. It's quite a recent decision, but if everyone was to do it it would solve the problem as well.
  
  
  All in all, its a valiant effort, but it really should not need to be necessary. If people on this website all acted with some sort of sense, this entire system would become unneeded. I still have some shreds of hope in that direction, so I kindof want to wait that out. Which is why I suggested an intermediate system. A simple way to implement that intermediate system would be to add a checkbox for "was this transaction conducted partially outside the website?". All reports with that checkbox ticked would then be marked low-priority, only to be dealt with until all non-skype reports of that batch are cleared.

  
  Thanks for the input! I actually appreciated this well thought out response : )

 

[Skionz]

That's actually a really nice system, only if people didn't try to cheat it with inspect element or photoshop, things would go much smoother. I believe MCM is planning to add a live PM system in the next update, so that should help by a ton. Simple precautions like this would be very useful for scam reports, but I'm not sure if it would work with PayPal disputes unfortunately.

The staff shouldn't be going off images of conversation they should be going off the conversations themselves which cannot be modified.

 

[Skionz]

Skype messages can.

Read my previous post. Anything client side is vulnerable as I have said multiple times now.

 

[Overlord]

as for McM providing image hosting, they already do in a way. you can add pictures to posts as attachments. But the simple truth is that McM cannot afford to host each and every image involved in deals on here. That would involve so much storage, they'd need to add in ANOTHER donator rank to be able to afford it.

mcm makes a lot of money. 4 figs from ads alone I'd guess, add on TWO paid membership (NOT donator), and then add on awards.

they easily make more than they should be making. I bet it all goes into a louis vuitton bag for Mick

 

[Ivain]

With live updating already, keep a tab open on MCM or just visit every few hours and you won't miss a message by too much time..


Not true whatsoever. Shared hosting can offer unlimited BW and unlimited web space for a fairly cheap price.

http://www.hostblast.net/web-hosting
http://www.hostgator.com/promo/penny-offer?AID=10854181&PID=2942509&CID=1722629
http://www.webhostingpad.com/
http://www.ipage.com/ipage/index.html?source=ELI&PPCPN=
http://www.fatcow.com/fatcow/special-promo.bml?LinkName=No_Name
https://www.hostexcellence.com/?sc_cid=aff-he-dotmarketer
http://www.hostpapa.com/?utm_medium...transaction_id=102f251664208e4cf8686e432dc719

All under 10$/mo.

So less than 1 upgrade per month to keep a CDN with all pictures posted here uploaded.

Unlimited eh? I'm curious to see how that works out in practice, but I guess it's true enough.

 

[Ivain]

They sell enough services that use very minimal amounts hence it being allowed. The only issue is you're sharing the same box along with x other amount of sites so sometimes the box can get a little slow.

yeah, true enough. Still, I've got a feeling that in practice it will mean images load slow AF. I've seen this happen on PMC a lot.

 

[Overlord]

By the way, when you upload attachments they should/can be minified and compressed (gzipped). So, essentially, it would take a lot of attachments to make attachments a problem. Even if you don't purge attachments, you'd need a lot for it to be problematic.