Shell FCs are a bigger problem than we think...

[Nepentha]

Shell FC are on that not a problem, its just that there are always players who abuse these things. And most important would be that SE should simply just ban those abusers. Its very clear when this was done, and in this case which accounts were involved


(i bet all of them were trial accounts, and only the winners ended up becoming a sub). At such scale you nearly always will notice a pattern (same FC name, same email domain that isnt a large hoster, same bank account, all trial). It would be efficient if SE can react on that.

But they don't, that's the problem. For some reason you can report obvious ToS violations till the cows come home, but SE will not read and/or act on them. Their solution to these people abusing the system is to change the system to try to stop them. But humans (being ingenious when it comes to finding ways to exploit things for money) will always find a way around any new obstacles you toss into their path.

I'm not saying don't take these measures to combat housing cheats, but like... translate and read the reports people send in, investigate them, and actually remove the problem players, too.

Also trial accounts can't participate in the housing lotto as far as I know.