[Suggestion] Help Pay Back Scammed Players

That would be so illogical and too confusing. Why would someone have to pay the server back, when chances are, the person that got scammed isn't going to get the $100k they were scammed out of. That's too many steps for a two step process.

 

They would only pay the server if the server has already paid back the player's debt. It isn't that complicated.

 

It kind of is actually. How do I pay the server? How is that done? What if the other player hasn't fully received the money from the "lottery fund"? There's a lot of questions to be asked, and answered. It's a lot more complicated than it may seem.

 

But if people are guaranteed to have their scam paid off, more people will trade, meaning more people will get scammed, meaning more people will probably leave the server.

 

Pay the server using a command - or sign. Have one GA+ make the sign, another break it, and keep the amount in a running tally. Or move the money to a separate staff run account. Easy enough.
If the money has been split between the fund and not being paid back, the GameAdmin+ handling the appeal can take note of this and make arrangements for the split payment. Again, easy enough.

 

If they are being paid back, why would they leave the server still? I don't exactly understand what you mean.

 

I like this idea and would be willing to contribute to such a fund. I do also think we could put measures in place that would reduce the number of people who actually end up being scammed (prevention rather than cure).

Most scams revolve around or stem from the lottery from what I have seen and limiting the number of tickets that can be purchased per lottery would go a long way. I also fail to understand why the server would allow a player with a temp ban for scamming to play the lottery when the temp ban expires. They owe money to another player, If they win great but if they don't the reality is the server is likely to lose not only the scammed player but the person who scammed in the first place as after losing his or her balance in the lotto they are past the point of no return. A temp ban for scamming should mean a ban from playing lottery until debts are repaid.. why? Well because it is a Lottery a game of chance, not a guaranteed source of income.

I accept that the server will never be able to stop all scams but I do think more could be done to prevent it. If a player can watch another go relatively unpunished for scamming numerous players while gaining features and ecd as they go what message does that send to those watching on? Let's not forget each person who scams get's multiple chance's to repay these debts and in effect they are getting an interest free loan for a period of time which they dictate.

 

How is that illogical and too confusing its a pretty simple concept. Person gets scammed. Person gets paid by server to make up for scam. Then ideally scammer gets unbanned. Scammer pays the fund the payed the scammed. It's not the illogical and confusing.

 

Ok, I want to add some figures to this discussion as I think that it may be a bit of an eye opener for some.

ECC has an extremely delicate economy that requires a lot more observation than many people realise. A HUGE amount of money is 'spawned' into the economy on a daily basis from /sell, well in excess of 1,000,000 ECD per day. The lottery tax plays a HUGE part in balancing the economy. I have looked into it a little bit and between November 15th - 18th (inclusive) $4,572,000 was taken out of the economy in lotto tax. So on a very rough basis, lotto tax amounts to a similar amount as what is brought into the economy using /sell. To reduce the amount taken out of the economy through lotto tax will indeed lead to an imbalance..

Now, how much of an imbalance would it cause?

Well lets take Clou's option 2. Up lotto tax to 20% for 1 whole day and then give half to scam victims. I'm going to take a random day.. November 16th. $1,279,950 was the total lotto tax on that day. That equals 8,533 tickets being bought, which if the tax rate was 20% would amount to $1,706,000 tax. Lets say we half the tax to scam victims, that is $853,000 for that day. SO, the difference for the economy between the normal 15% tax and giving half of 20% tax is $426,950 that isn't taken out of the economy. If we did that once per week, 426k every week will very very quickly lead to a very imbalanced economy.

(Note: I haven't worked out the effect of the Crazy lotto element to the suggestion, but I imagine that it is very similar effect. I can do similar if people ask me to)

So you can see how this may have significant long term effects on our economy.

Here are my other thoughts:

1. This represents a policy shift away from the hardcore economy side of ECC. There is a risk that by protecting players too much that they will just become reckless in who they lend to and won't take the cautious approach that one should take when loaning. As in all the real world, profiting from something nearly always comes with a risk. This suggestion would remove all risk from lending.
2. GA+'s would have to be responsible for collecting debts of players who appeal. This would create a significant amount of work for senior staff as we would have to keep track of all loans 'owed to the Server' in order to file complaints/follow up on debts etc. This would also become very impersonal and would limit the current freedom to negotiate. Now if a player appeals the two players can discuss and come up with a mutually agreeable solution. If senior staff were responsible for debts that weren't their own personal debt, they would likely just apply a strict deadline.
3. It would also create work for a member of staff who was responsible for repaying scam victims. As this would be a HUGE fund, only SA+'s at the very minimum (and would likely only be Phys) would have access to it. So creates work for the very most senior staff.
4. There is also the issue of altering the lottery plugin on a day-by-day basis.

Please don't get me wrong, I do want to help protect victims of scamming, but there are far too many issues surrounding this in my mind at the moment. Fundamentally however, any interference with lotto and tax could have drastic effects on the balance of our economy and it isn't just as simple as saying 'Oh, it's only 1 day a week' or 'only 5% more tax'. Yes the number may look small in %'s, but when you calculate what that is in ECD and multiply it over a prolonged period of time it could lead to very very significant consequences.

 

What if the lotto tax was still given to the scammed players, but the scammers still had to pay the amount they would to get unbanned and that money would be taken out of the economy? It could cause an imbalance, but then if people refused to pay back then they would be banned forever and that's another scammer off of ECC which means less lotto tax being used to pay back victims. It's basically just a way of guaranteed scam prevention that has a way to ban scammers or take money out of the economy.

And if the scammer refused to pay back, then just clear the scammer's balance.

 

Is it possible to create a command on the lotto to make a so called 'whitelist' or blacklist' where people can be removed and added back to it if a contract is accepted.
This would:
A:/ Encourage players to make contracts official and on the forum so their money wont be spent into the lottery.
B:/ Keep scammers or potential players who have loans to lose their money within the lotto.
Being contracts are already handled by staff who are online at the time, adding them to a mod which can add and remove rights to lotto would not really make any more work, but decrease the amount of scam's in my opinion.

Im not saying its a full-prove idea, but something thats worth thinking about if most people think lotto is to blame for a lot of scamming.

 

And when the scammer doesn't appeal?

 

Maybe a player vote? Or only the staff team votes?

 

I addressed that. The person would simply be banned and that would be another scammer off of the server. Good riddance if you asked me, because I've seen many scammers that scammed more than once or twice.

 

Or we could do it like everyone only gets a certain % of their scammed money based off how much they were scammed
like for example;

$0 - $5000 = 100% back
$5000 - $15000 = 90% back
$15000 - $20000 = 85% back
$20000 - $35000 = 80% back
and so on, but this is just an example. This doesn't have to be the actual amount reimbursed, nor would I expect it to be.

 

If you don't agree with the lottery idea, do you have any issues with the charity-centered idea where users can put money into a pot for a scammed user?

 

And the peope reimbursed are chosen how?

As well, nobody should receive a medal for philanthropy. If you helped someone, great. But by all means, we shouldn't be putting them up on a pedestal for giving a donation to a scam victim. While in reality, before they went into a trade they should have known there could be a scam. Dewsy put it perfectly as to why this will not happen.

 

What if when voting reminders popped up, a reminder to screenshot all transactions popped up as well? I wouldn't be against that. Just vote to get rid of it, lol. It would also serve as a good reminder as people might get annoyed by seeing it and the message will get stuck in their head because it's annoying.

 

This is when the correct answer is nobody.