A curiosity on RMT spam

Something came up in FC chat the other day that's made me wonder whether (some) RMT are targeting players based on something more than just being logged in.

My blacklist is empty, and has been for months and months and months. On a bad day, I get two RMT tells; it's usually one or zero. And I've never gotten an accompanying friend request.

I'd always thought it was just Gilgamesh being cool like that, but the other day some FC members were saying they get a lot more spam than that, and that they had gotten the friend requests, too.

Both myself and another FC member have pretty much the same experience, and it sounds like we do things largely the same. We're hardly ever on a job that isn't 50 (he doesn't have any, and I only switch for a couple roulettes/leves/whatever when I have time), and we both do our shopping & idling & such in Limsa a lot more than the other two cities.

So it's got me wondering if (at least some of) the spammers are actually being a bit selective about their targets instead of just blasting anyone & everyone they can find. Has anyone else noticed anything like that? Do you get more tells in one city/zone or another? Do you get more tells on sub-50 classes? When you're doing something in particular?

I only get tells from Gil Sellers in Lavender Beds or North Shroud.


I was on my Bard. So...maybe?

I get them on any character, any level, any region, at random intervals. But much like you, only a few times a day, maybe 2-3.

I only seem to get friend requests in certain zones. I spend most of my time in The Goblet. Don't get tells very often, and I get zero friend requests.

However, whenever I'm out in certain zones, such as Western Thanalan or Lower La Noscea, I get friend requests.

always in new gridania, I think my blacklist list is brimming lol I kind of agree that the targets might be lowbies (I get those tells on offering fast leveling or something) because while in the high level maps I don't get any tell. I had assumed before that it might be due to my party finder details, because when I'm partied with my choco it's quiet (except for actual friends tell)
I seriously hope SE find a pattern here and obliterate the lot asap

one oddity i've noticed recently, that i keep getting spam but no friend requests, but others in FC keep getting requests but no spam. I'm mostly in Mist or on a random map hunt or S marks.

Theory 1:
Sellers target mostly Gridanian players because Limsas pirates would probably run off with the gil while Ul'dahns flip the taple and sell something to them, something they dont need and overpriced. But tree-huggers on the other hand....


Theory 2:
Sellers are actually run be SE for some extra income. They use their RNG to randomly select you over and over again (or never). Would be interesting to check on ATMAs when you get a lot of tells...

I get alot and its been this way since right out of beta when the Gil Sellers players started showing up. I dont know if its because at first I used to tell them to stop pming me *maybe responding was a bad idea* or wut because I get spammed alot both with tells and friend invites. Im online alot thou so maybe thats why i get more even thou I tend to idle most of the day? :( wish there was a way to just stop people from sending me tells all together.

Hi,
RMT / Tell-chat Spam is brutal and persistent on Adamantoise regardless of the victim's location. At least 2 of the big RMT companies send repeated friend requests. There is no way to decline and run the blacklist macro fast enough to circumvent their follow-on friend requests. They continue this for at least 10 minutes, and the only recourse is to wait it out.

At least 3 of the big RMT companies detect user logins and commence the spam within about 15 to 45 seconds of character appearance. They probably intercept the data-stream packets using their 3rd party softwares, then use bots to commence the spamming upon detection of a user's login.

I, and fellow FC members, receive about 15 or so spams per login. I have to spend considerable time purging the blacklist. I report every incident, hoping that something will be done to mitigate this.

I haven't had much RMT trouble since the limited /tell patch, but I have had some incidents. Usually it's just a /tell (and typically when I'm out of Mor Dhona, oddly perhaps). Once i got a friend request. Upon declining it it was immediately resent. I thought this was a bit odd and perhaps a bit clever, but declining it again and then blacklisting them quickly worked. Usually I only get about 1 RMT /tell per hour or two online, so it's significantly better than it used to be. A very minor annoyance now as far as I'm concerned.

Hi Nutz,

The RMT harassment situation is getting progressively worse on Adamantoise. Yesterday a RMT spammer continuously repeated his "friend request" harassment for nearly 45 minutes. During this time, my blacklist capability was rendered useless, since a new friend request was in the queue before every attempt to blacklist the RMT bot.

Probability is high that the offender's RMT corporation is using 3rd party software to capture and modify data stream packets. I posted remedial suggestions to a non-Square Enix website and I was flamed by others who argued that implementation of best security practices would crash the game's source code. If this were true, then e-commerce would not exist.

I've been getting RMT tells/yell/shout in populated cities, mostly in Limsa and even at Mor'dhona. Also, I noticed I get them when I participate in fates such as fates in Coerthas and places where a bunch of people gather, like hunt marks and Odin/Behemoth. It's like they have a normal player around, but they are actually scouts, and I get a tell/friend request from the usual noticeable RMT character name. Makes me wonder if some normal players are scouts for RMT activity, since I get them when I'm alone in The Goblet. This is on Exodus btw, dunno if it's better or worse on other servers.

Now that you mention that lower leveled characters could be a target, I have been working on leveling my classes, and I may or may not have specifically noticed, but now that I leveled all my DoW and DoM classes, maybe I will see a decline in RMT crap. We shall see.

I received a tell/friend request when I was going through the intro cutscene in Limsa. Not even a chance to move my character.

Hi Violyre,

Thank you for bringing this up. Having endured the insidious RMT spam-houses for a year, this is way to frequent to be considered coincidental:

Anytime I perform an action which causes the hotbar to temporarily disappear (blacklist macro is on my hotbar) the giant HK based RMT corporation sends spam into the / Tell chat. Examples are usually when the retainer is summoned, or use of market board, or any other action that disables hotbar.

I submit that RMT spammers detect user actions, and program their bots to send spam into the victim's chat box upon any action that disables the hotbar [containing the blist macro}. Spammers are likely to be intercepting and modifying the network data-stream packets, given that ordinary users have no way to detect another users login or other actions. Hope is that Square Enix personnel will mitigate any vulnerabilities that allow RMT employees to hack into their network.

I think the friend request ones are for the purpose of hacking your account, like maybe logs on the client account info in some way because only once did I accept friend request from one once when first started playing because did not realise that's what RMT sellers do and thought was just normal person who sent it. I then got locked out of my account by Squeenix and had to change my password as Squeenix thought my account might have been compromised according to them.

When RMT sellers target me they never seen to stop too in the sense I had one few days ago message me spamming his RMT selling information and I ignored it but kept sending me friend requests and messages for over 30 minutes before I realised ignoring alone doesn't work so I blacklisted and reported.

One thing I will say though is Squeenix does seem to ban RMT spammers but never seems to ban RMT funding bot accounts or people who bot for self gain, I was shocked how Yoshi said in an interview he actually doesn't mind botters and instead of telling people not to do it he just asked them not to get caught. Goes to show the mentality of the developers when they are trying to help botters cheat in this game by giving them advice and never banning them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Snugglebutt

I was shocked how Yoshi said in an interview he actually doesn't mind botters and instead of telling people not to do it he just asked them not to get caught.

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He said that about DPS parsers, not about botting.