so much RMT!

[Alipoprocks]

I like the idea about only being able to receive /tells from people on your friends list with busy up. And take it a little step further - people should not be on your friends list until you accept. Because there was that time when the RMT would add us to friends list and then spam.

[Elusana_Celah]

But it is a slippery slope... if I start getting tons of friends requests instead of /tells from these gil sellers I am going to go insane cuz that's A LOT more irritating omg

[StouterTaru]

Give Me a Tell From FRIENDS ONLY Option please ---- Bye bye RMT.

You mean bye bye RMT tells, hello 30 RMT friend requests per day.

[Saseal]

Hrm.... does 'Busy' filter out friend requests like it does trades/party requests? o_o If it does, then RMT friend reqs won't be a prob (but I'm not sure if it does...)

[HeroSamson]

You mean bye bye RMT tells, hello 30 RMT friend requests per day.

not if they give a option to turn on or off friends invites.

Only turn on friends invite if you need to, make it friends and free company can send tells.
I used to say Linkshell but they could make a linkshell and try to invite you that way so scratch that.

Though should be no excuse for this, we pay a subscription fee for a better service not to have RMT spam and it to be dealt with showing the number of bans every so often is not cutting it, you see the very same rmt still around and wonder if out of those 5000 bans why wasn't that person apart of that or the bot hacker who teleports.

so basically could do 3 things.
1 Free company and friends only private messaging.
2 Shut off and turn on friends invites option.
3 Bring the Shout filter from FFXI where shouts deemed as spam are blocked.

I mean they are already protected on forums, you can't say their name, you can't GM them in game because they tell you to come to the forums and report them, which basically you can't because if you mention name you are name shaming and you end up getting banned.

Pretty messed up if you ask me.

[ChiefCurrahee]

you weren't around at release were you? with the spam shouts.. the odd tell doesnt phase me :P

edit:

having seen some of the replies looks like i am getting off easy, i get one every couple of days, report it instantly and dont get anymore

I've been here since alpha 1 FFXIV 1.0 2010. I remember the gil sellers farming in 1.0, I remember the /shouts and /yells in 2.0 launch. I'm a paying subscriber, I feel that SE should set their task force into high gear to stop these spammers dead in their tracks. Either implement restrictions on /sh /yell /tell on characters below a certain level, implement a keyword filter to block messages or if a person sends more than X amount of /tells in Y seconds they get locked out of /tell for several minutes.

[ReddAxel]

I noticed spam has been getting worse as of late. I swear I had gotten at least 30-40 RMT tells just yesterday.

If only they made it an option to receive tells from friends only, that or if you have a listing in party finder perhaps will you be able to receive tells from people who are interested in joining. I don't want to set myself to Busy and block out all tells just because SE can't do anything to resolve this.

[Elusana_Celah]

Hrm.... does 'Busy' filter out friend requests like it does trades/party requests? o_o If it does, then RMT friend reqs won't be a prob (but I'm not sure if it does...)

It does but gil sellers will be actively trying to get on people's friends list so they can get a message out to all the people who are frequently keeping /busy on. Besides, this is going to end up with half if not more of the game's population always keeping busy up which is a little silly really now that I think about it but it'll be more incentive for gil sellers to try to get in FCs and on friends lists to increase their advertisement potential.

Point is, they will just become more annoying in other ways.

Now if you look at other methods such as filters to let you restrict people under a certain level from messaging / friending you well that would just increase BOT activity and there is nothing more immersion breaking for me than seeing a swarm of bots... I had a damn bot tanking my tam-tara dungeon once so what the hell?

[Kietsu]

I say we do the EVE Online thing - give us the option to tax people gil for sending a /tell before we read it, and then give them the option to either pay or not send the tell at all. We wouldn't actually receive the gil, to prevent abuse, but losing all the extra currency would be absolute hell on their business model.

An easier solution would be to implement a filter that doesn't just look for plaintext keywords - changing an o into a 0, or a W into those... weird Wish shapes that have sprung up recently, shouldn't foil a filter made by a competent programmer. Making it too difficult to actually say the URL of the website might be the best option in the long run, not banning anyone who says 'life is acceptable' all the time. Multiple passes should be done as well - the message seems legit? What about with all punctuation and symbols cut out?

[Saseal]

It does but gil sellers will be actively trying to get on people's friends list so they can get a message out to all the people who are frequently keeping /busy on. Besides, this is going to end up with half if not more of the game's population always keeping busy up which is a little silly really now that I think about it but it'll be more incentive for gil sellers to try to get in FCs and on friends lists to increase their advertisement potential.

Point is, they will just become more annoying in other ways.

It i s incredibly silly for server populations to require having busy symbols up just to play. I guess we should 'look forward to it' - seeing busy symbols -everywhere-. Kinda breaks immersion and will look silly/cluttered though.
I'm not sure getting their bots into FCs/friend lists would cause a prob - if everyone had the BUsy symbol, they wouldn't get the RMT tell even if they were. If the bot sent an RMT to someone/everyone in the FC, they will more than likely be reported by the FC and kicked.
Theorizing, though x.x