Does this constitute cheating or is it against the TOS?

I've had a player threaten a price war with me due to an undercut, wasn't even an undercut I set some hq books at the price the rest were at.
Nothing ever came of it, but worrying about an entire cartel tho, unless it's just them trying to scare you "oh look I'm in a big gang now do as I say"

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Originally Posted by Kayo

Dont sound too bad to me. In fact this is an interesting idea, if not good. Undercutters suck! Theyre the Walmart of MMO's! I always thought there should be some regulation on the AH, like a minimum value for items. Having a free market is great in RL because there is a certain value on time and a necessary minimum living income over time spent on resources and manufacturing. Not so in MMO's where we are all just playing a game and while there is an interest in making profits, there is also interest in just getting rid of it for more than vendor change (undercutters). I do this myself to a degree, buying from the next guy up from the jerk who obviously put the item up for 5g less than the next guy.

Of course it can also be a double edged sword where this "cartel" can monopolize the market and charge whatever they want.

As for the tell, im not sure if its harassment or recruiting. I like how theyre seemingly fighting undercutters in the form of a union but it can also be interpreted as "join us and we'll protect you from ourselves."

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They threatened OP to undercut him out of the market if he didn't join them, it's harassment.

I think this is awesome. The leatherworking mafia is attacking! Nggghh

i would check the lodestone an see how big is ls really is. i'm betting money that they dont have enough members to seriously control the markets, especially since they use extortion tactics to get new members. do you really think alot of people would agree to that, or would they say screw that guy an go lower their price just to mess with him? lol but ya the gm will prolly tell you that it was harassment an he'll look into it, an that if he does it again let him know. As some others have already said u might want to change your retainers name to something else. And if they do continue to mess with you on the boards, 2 can play at that game, you can start undercutting wars on purpose too.

/baseballbat
/kneecaps

You're gonna find a chocobo head in your grand company utility cot.

creating a crafting 'union' (read: racket) isn't illegal at all. If players want to get together and establish prices, corner markets and try to make lots of money together so be it. buttttttttttt bullying you into complying with their sales practices, thats not ok. So feel free to report for harassment

I really want to know what items these guys are crafting since they're on my server haha

According to the ToS harassment is:

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•The use of language that is generally considered unacceptable in a public venue
•Any language that is purposely meant to harm or harass a third party
•Any language that promotes the discrimination of any race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation or gender

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Now I would consider it harassment due to the fact of the middle one "any language meant to harm or harass" seeing that the person told you in tells:

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“It is in your best interest that you join our union and stop undercutting, or we will make sure no one outside our union, makes gil on the ltw markets.”

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I'm sorry, but that is a blatant threat, which is harassment. But I would also consider the next part which is "Inappropriate Behavior" which states:

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Disturbances that do not fall under the harassment category but are intended to prevent or hinder game play for others are considered inappropriate. Examples of inappropriate behavior are spam, gridlocking, and scam. FINAL FANTASY XIV respect individual player’s unique play style.

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By trying to force you into this 'union', they are not only disrespecting you unique way of play, but hindering your game play and rights as a paying player. If you go out and farm the skins, make it and put it up, you should not be held down by another players rules of how many skins you can put up at what prices per day. If you want to fill up 20 posts on your retainer, it is your right.

In all honesty, if I agree or not with this practice, they can do as they like and if that is what they want to do. I don't think SE could have told them to stop. But when they threatened/harassed/disrespected your rights as a player, that was when they stepped over the line and that (in my mind) made it something that a GM can now look into and maybe put a stop to.

I would hate to see this spread to my server too.

Sounds like they are harassing you & trying to bully you. So, the harassment specifically action is against the terms of service. I so want them to come to my server & try this. I'll set whatever price i want & they won't be able to do a thing about it. /blacklist /report