Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Virtual MMO Currency Trading Crippled By Fraud

Posted by simoniker on from the taking-advantage dept.

Thanks to Terra Nova for pointing to the Gaming Open Market website, home of "the next generation of [MMO] game commodity trading", where there's an announcement that: "Until further notice, Gaming Open Market will be closing its doors to all game currency trading except Second Life." There's more information in a post at the official Second Life forums, where Jamie Hale explains: "Yesterday, I had a user breeze through spending over $3000 USD on [EVE Online] and [Star Wars Galaxies]. Immediately after taking delivery of the ISK and credits, he reversed all the payments, claiming he never received the goods. This is a well-known loophole in PayPal's seller protection policy. Basically, I have no recourse at all. PayPal accepts no form of proof of delivery except physical waybills (UPS, FedEx, etc)."

4 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. The thief e-mailed and confessed? by whoda · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Quit messing around with Paypal, and call the District Attorney where the guy lives.

    He has admitted he commited fraud, get him arrested and see him in court.

  2. Had a friend with the same experience by Oz0ne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What you need to do is ship a cd to the buyer with the codes to access the virtual items/characters.

    That is a physical delivery, and paypal WILL support you and help you solve your problem. Very sad that you had this problem, but you need to make sure to use any/all services you subscribe to your advantage and not blindly trust in your customers. There are a lot of people that will do you much worse than a couple thousand given the opportunity.

    1. Re:Had a friend with the same experience by timlee · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That has a lot of disadvantages because many legit buyers look for "instant delivery" and "24/7 service." If you want someone to wait 2 to 5 days for a CD to arrive with access codes to how they can get the goods they paid for when there are hundreds of other sellers out there who are willing to ship instantly, then you are going to lose that customer plain and simple.

      I think PayPal, with its current policies, is not geared to serve virtual trading. There needs to be a service that can verify virtual delivery of virtual goods. However that in itself is a problem because game developers are generally against the real life trading of their virtual goods that they technically still own.

      The line between virtual and physical goods is still very defined. The cooperation of game developers is needed in order to cross this line and for safe transactions to occur.

  3. Payment? Lessons? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    The thief emailed us and explained that the goods he stole will be kept as "payment" for the lesson he taught us.

    Yep, if a theif is able to steal something, he should be entitled to keep it and go free. I'll try that line the next time I "teach Best Buy a lesson."