3/10/2016 announcement "RMT"

The new announcement after the patch talks about action taking on accounts concerning "RMT". What is RMT? Is that related at all to the spammers in game trying to sell Gil?

Side note: is there a way to report such spammers? They seem fairly frequent.

“RMT” is an abbreviation of the term “Real Money Trader”, meaning a person who would trade Real Money for In-game Items, like currency (Gil).

The article you were referring to mentions the amount of people who were involved in RMT Advertising (the chat messages which invites you to buy an x amount of Gil for dollars), RMT/Illicit activities (for instance buying Gil through RMT means, Hacking or cheating), and the people who were participating in the said activity.

If you believe that someone is cheating or you wish to report an RMT, you can go to the Support desk menu of the game and file a “Report Cheater” report. You can find it under the following menu in-game:

[System Menu] -> [Support Desk] -> [Contact Us] -> [Report Cheating]

Please be aware though unlike other games that won't do anything about spam. SE likes to build a record and track RMT. So some cheaters may be in game months before they are removed.

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Originally Posted by Stormrider

Please be aware though unlike other games that won't do anything about spam. SE likes to build a record and track RMT. So some cheaters may be in game months before they are removed.

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I think it might be a broad statement of other games won't do anything. I know of a few instances in other games where people got a ban for doing just that. But hopefully SE is more active as you indicate.
I do suspect that if it does take months that for many of the spammers the loose of said account that spams for a month or more is no problem, versus if they had to spend more resources.

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Originally Posted by DoUrden

I think it might be a broad statement of other games won't do anything. I know of a few instances in other games where people got a ban for doing just that. But hopefully SE is more active as you indicate.
I do suspect that if it does take months that for many of the spammers the loose of said account that spams for a month or more is no problem, versus if they had to spend more resources.

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The Special Task Force (STF) has been around since somewhat early into FFXI, and they're generally the ones who supposedly handle most, if not all of the RMT related accounts (and bots/hacks to a small degree) and its investigations. Chances are, it's comprised of no more than 2 or 3 people to handle every server for not just XIV, but probably XI too... though I doubt they focus much on XI anymore. That's likely why it takes so long to ban any accounts, as rare as it actually is (and it truly is a rare occasion).

Having said that, their practice of waiting as a norm for every report or case is counterproductive to getting rid of RMT related activity. The reason being that they intentionally allow for their continued presence for a rather lengthy period of time. Business is up and running long enough to actually get results, as it's not like RMT are being sued or losing real money in the process of getting banned. Dummy accounts are lost, more come in to replace them. This practice of waiting might have worked in the past to a degree, but it obviously doesn't mean much today. Granted however, just as it's likely why it takes a long time to see any action taken, it's also likely why this is the only reasonable course of action with so small of a team (if that's really the case).