Just as a tip, you might want to avoid showing names there. The mod team might not care as much about RMTs but it's easy to run afoul of that "don't name and shame" rule.
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RMTs have gone crazy and yeah, I know that SE has limited /tells somewhat. But I honestly think they should look into limiting /tells more, they're so obvious now! I mean, instead of using www. they use wvvw. etc etc
Yeah it really has been bad lately. It is unfortunate because it had died off to maybe 1 or 2 every few days, now it's several or more in a span of only a few hrs
Also i have found a few characters which i suspected are the ones selling gil and such. Some botanists in the same exact areas that are there like every day and all hours it seems. They are level 50 but still use level 20 gear, and no not spirit binding as the one person i have seen has had the same gear for over a week.
I reported them but alas they are still around
RMT really hasn't been a problem for me. My blacklist is still less than half full and the only friend requests I've received were during Christmas holidays.
Maybe I'm just lucky. Go figure.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think less tells = that server has less business, or more tells = more business. If they have an account, they probably have at least 1 character on each server. So business shouldn't matter, they have a character on every server so they spam every server regardless of the business they get on each server. I think that makes sense. I just confused myself though.
If you aren't getting many tells, it could be that your server has character restrictions so they get banned (hopeful thinking there) but they can't remake their spammer because the character creation is off.
That assumes only one RMT account per server.
The reason you'll see more RMT tells on a server where there are more buyers is simple, more gil buyers = a larger market. A larger market encourages multiple RMT efforts that compete with each other. They compete in terms of price and visibility to capture the attention of the gil buyers. Hence more tells.
Unfortunately, it works like real life, the larger a market, the more competition, the more advertizing...
As I said though the best solution is to stop people buying gil in the first place. The less likely gil sellers are to sell their product, the less viable it is for multiple efforts on any given server. So if players wake up and stop buying gil, the RMTs will thin out, and ultimately dwindle.
But, for that to happen, something has to stop people from buying gil. Asking them nicely doesn't work, as SE and anyone else paying attention should have realized by now. Therefore, more direct actions are required. I'm not suggesting naming and shaming, although I wish there was some way for a player's reputation to be quantified and inspected.... What I am suggesting is that SE can use their database of all transactions in the game to identify customers of gill sellers, and take action against those players for violating the terms of service for FFXIV. Temp bans might help, but ultimately some may see that as a price worth paying. So, I think it needs to go further into gil confiscation, or perhaps some kind of level penalty to force those punished to re-level their classes as a reminder of their offense.
Whatever happens, until buyers are deterred from buying gil, there will be people selling gil. A few really loud permanent bans that everyone hears about might help put the fear of the Twelve into these people, but I thinkk something more practical might be needed.
yes... yes, this does need a new thread daily. it has been well over a year and there hasn't been even the slightest drop in RMT activity. they did that chat log spam filter-thingy, but still... i am tired of constantly checking my whispers to only see RMT. i am tired of constantly being on /busy status and nobody can whisper me, or invite me to a party. seriously... it is getting old, and SE hasn't shown any sign of cracking down on it.
That's your personal experience, in mine, Behemoth was down to less than one RMT per week at one point, now it's a dozen a day. So, yes things can and do change, and SE clearly does do something, otherwise they would not be permanently banning several thousand accounts a month from FFXIV.
So I see no reason why anyone would bother with your "does this need a thread" sentiment. If anything, more discussion on the forum would help the community monitors to flag this as a major issue.
Early on, they did do something along the lines that you suggested: confiscation of ill-gotten gil and banning-without-warning of RMT-affected accounts. People flipped their shit and the forums were filled with threads complaints about losing gil or being outright banned. Sure, there were (and are) plenty of innocent victims of RMT-related activities, but in those threads you couldn't discern who was legitimately a victim and who bought/sold gil and claimed to have been a victim of account reprimand.
I'm sure every one of us has ill-gotten gil from RMT activities and not even know it. And if they were to resort to the mass RMT gil confiscation that they did early on I would initially be shocked and disappointed but, ultimately, understanding. I'd rather have RMT gil* taken from me than have my account banned.
*RMT gil - my definition is gil that have been acquired via someone whom had purchased gil via RMT and used said gil to purchase services (such as Primal/Coil clears/crafting/melding) and goods off of the market boards.