EverQuest 2 Game Update Blog

If you read the above headline and immediately checked your bank statement, well, that’s probably not a bad habit to get into, but we weren’t actually talking about Account Security. In today’s article, we talk about how plat farmers have gotten more sophisticated and are picking SOE’s pocket via new (StationCash Gifting) and old tricks (Legends of Norrath packs).

Fraud Happens

Every online business has its share of Credit Card Fraud. However digital currencies like StationCash have been especially prone to this problem, due to the immediacy of the conversion from real dollars to virtual ones. Scammers can create thousands of SOE accounts using automated scripts, activate them with stolen or faked credit card information, “fund” them with StationCash via more fraudulent transactions, and now with the new StationCash Gifting feature, “sell” items to players in-game using their ill-gotten StationCash. The scammer gets the platinum for the sale of the SC item, and then they can turn that platinum around to a plat-selling service. They get money for nothing via a bit of digital switcheroo.

By the time the dust settles, and SOE realizes that a House, Pegasus, Glider Mount, or other SC item has been ‘gifted’ to another player without SOE having received a penny, it’s too late. What is SOE going to do, cancel or take back the item? SC items have no inherent value and taking back pixels would just infuriate the ‘customer’. It’s lose-lose for SOE.

Moves and Countermoves

Potential fraud has always been a spectre over MMO transactions, and every design decision has to consider that possibility. In the past few weeks, SOE have taken many steps to try to throw a wet blanket on the scammers and plat farmers seeking to defraud SOE (and sometimes players).

Recently, StationCash Gifting, the ability to mail a Marketplace-purchased item to another player, was changed to permit no more than 2 gifted items per 24 hours. A minor inconvenience for some, but it was done to try to stem the tide of fraudulently-purchased StationCash. I and others have suggested what may seem an obvious fix — limiting StationCash Gifting to accounts that are older than 30 days or even setting the threshold to 6 months.

However as SOE International Customer Service Manager Ima Somers (interview @ EQ2Players) told us at Fan Faire 2010, not only do hackers have a lot of pilfered SOE accounts on hand, they have a lot of very old accounts, acquired by phishing for passwords not only for EQ2 but from its competitors such as WoW and even banking sites. The human foible of using the same password on different websites has led to tens of thousands of old SOE accounts — from people who no longer play — falling into the hands of plat farmers and others who would readily use them in any scheme that will make a buck. Hopefully, the forced password reset instituted by this spring’s security breach will help cut off scammers from many of these dormant accounts.

A Chronology

SmokeJumper on July 20th explains the change to 2 SC gifts every 24 hours:

It’s per account, not per character.

It’s also a first step. We now have the ability to throttle it further in different ways if we need to do so. But plat farmers are like other business folks. If something becomes too inconvenient or costly, then they’ll bail on it to find another way. We’ll see how this change works. It has worked well with other things (like character transfer tokens).

SmokeJumper on July 21st about whether SOE looks the other way when a gold/plat seller has lots of active accounts:

Actually, that’s not true. We’re actively combating this right now because we don’t get a red cent from those folks. Trial accounts or fake credit cards are used in most gold farmer/pirate transactions.

The reason it may seem we’re not responsive is a) we don’t talk about our struggles with these thieves very often, and b) we have lots of competing priorities, so until it ratchets up to problem size we do have a tendency to let it exist. We think it’s a problem now, so some changes are occurring. But if we can come up with “silent” solutions that don’t require pop-up dialogs and such, we will choose the silent options every time. No one wants to play a game and think about thieves all the time. My personal opinion.

Players on EQ2X noticed that SC-purchased Mastercrafted armor had disappeared. SmokeJumper on August 29th:

[Mastercrafted] equipment has been *temporarily* been removed from the marketplace as we look into ways to keep it from being involved with fraud. We expect to have it back up again next week sometime hopefully.

Players couldn’t help but notice that just as Double XP Weekend was getting underway, XP and Vitality potions became ungiftable. SmokeJumper on August 1st:

Turning off Gifting for the potions was a temporary measure. We have some stuff going in soon that will hopefully enable us to free up the gifting restrictions again.

as to why it’s being taken so seriously:

It changes it from being a slap on the wrist “don’t do that” kind of thing to being an actual crime. We don’t want it associated with our game. So we’re making changes.

From SmokeJumper on August 1st, regarding Tradeskill Rares purchased through the EQ2X Marketplace suddenly becoming rare:

We hope that this is a very temporary measure as we fight back against the credit card thieves that have been abusing our Gifting system.

We have some measures going in soon that we think will resolve this entirely, and if so, then we’ll back off the Gifting restrictions ASAP thereafter.

Amnerys on August 4th, 2011:

The sale of Legends of Norrath cards through the in-game Marketplace has been temporarily disabled as a means to fight fraud. In the meantime, clicking to purchase cards through the Marketplace will redirect you to the Legends of Norrath’s online store. Purchases of cards can be made through the website, however please be advised that these sales are only possible with a credit card and not with Station Cash.