Handling of RMT is way below adequate.

Not only do I have to deal with the incessant, daily spam messages from gil sellers, now I have to deal with their friend requests. This is compounded by the fact that its easier for them to send the request than for me to deny them.

Please make a challenge request like entering in a string of randomly generated numbers before anyone can send a friend request. Also, the developers should make it easier to decline the requests. Right now I have to open the request and say that I don't want to have them as a friend, then I have to decline the request again. I DON'T WANT TO DO THAT! Make it a one click process whereby I can just deny them.

Thank you.

highlight their name in chat and then blacklist them. It's the fastest way to ignore them

If the devs wanted to, they could implement much better measures than what they currently have. They could restrict the amount of tells that a person whos under level 10 or 15 could make in an hour. They could also restrict it by number of hours logged. They've implemented measures (and I forget exactly what they are) in FFXI and they worked like a charm. I don't see why they can't do that in FFXIV.

I believe the friend request disables the ability to quickly black list people until you have dealt with their friend request. The interesting thing to me is why this is a beneficial business strategy for RMT? I can't imagine that annoying potential customers is a viable method of gathering consumers.

There are several automated methods that could be implemented and have been proven quite effective for other online games at handling the RMT plague. It remains a question of why SE in particular has never taken it as seriously as they could. A thousand ignored suggestions over the entire course of their MMO exposure hasn't changed their inadequate stance on this issue.

Having the active friend request blocks the ability to blacklist until the f/r is dealt with, that's WHY the spammers do it.