Just a friendly warning to all EQ players out there - yours truly was the
subject of a scam that takes advantage of a new bug/exploit with the trade
window. An individual on Saturday night, who will for now remain anonymous,
offered to sell myself a Thick Banded Belt for 7500pp cash.
Because I have been looking to obtain a Thick Banded Belt for quite some
time now, I eagerly went to the bank in Neriak and withdrew the money. Upon
my arrival in Eastern Commons, I found the individual where they said they
would be. They immediately placed the Thick Banded Belt into the trade
window, so I put my 7500pp there as well. I waited a few seconds, and then
the individual hit their trade button. I examined the item to ensure it was
what I was told it was. Once I verified the item to actually be a Thick
Banded Belt, I hit my trade button.
As I began to walk away with my newly found and much sought after piece of
gear, I opened my inventory to find it so that I could equip the item. To my
amazement, it could not be found within my inventory. I immediately searched
all my packs, and it was no where to be found. Now I know what you must be
saying to yourself; that I must be stupid for having dropped such a valuable
item. Let me assure you that I had, and still do have more than enough empty
spots in my packs to hold many items, let alone just one.
I immediately began to accost the individual responsible for having managed
to pull off this scam, and as I suspected, the individual had logged off
shortly after the transactions completion. I immediately petitioned a GM,
and approximately an hour later I received a response.
I quickly explained what had happened to the GM, and was informed that a
database cross index search would be performed to find the account
information. The GM went on and explained to me that EVERY single trade or
transaction with an NPC/Player is kept track of so that in instances like
these or in the event of bugs, they can track down the information to
isolate the incident in question. The GM went on to say that they didn't
like to perform this type of search, as it was a long and involved process.
I went on to explain to the GM that I had screenshots of the transaction in
progress, and was promptly told that any and all screenshots were totally
useless as evidence. After all this had been explained to me, I was informed
that I would be contacted when the search had been completed.
Sunday night came, and once again I petitioned to find out as to the status
of the search. After waiting approximately 2 hours, I was informed by the GM
that the account information had been found using the character name I had
provided. I was informed that they could find no records of a trade having
ever taken place between myself, and the exploiter. I was informed however
that they had at least been able to verify that I did indeed have 7500pp on
my character as I had claimed, and that they had no idea where it had
disappeared to. I was also informed that the character in question had been
deleted sometime in between Saturday and Sunday night.
After a long and heated debate with the GM over the matter, the GM finally
reluctantly agreed to pull the character information off of the backup tapes
to see if the character in question had actually taken my 7500pp. The GM
went on to say that they could find no trace of the money on the character
in question, nor had the character traded it or any large amount of
expensive items off to someone else. The GM also stated that it made no
sense to delete a character that had such a large amount of cash, and that
in most all likely hood neither the Belt nor the cash would not be restored
to me. I was then informed that I again would be contacted after the
offending characters backup data had been viewed, so that they could verify
if they had actually gotten my cash.
To date, the offenders entire account information has been found. It has
also been verified that I had 7500pp on my person as I had stated. However,
the servers GM can not find any record of this entire transaction having
ever taken place, but are totally ignoring the fact that 7500pp just
vanished off of my character without a trace. At the very least, the sudden
disappearance of 7500pp off a character with no log as to it having been
traded away would signal that there was a serious bug/glitch that caused it
to disappear. To top it all off, I have screenshots of the transaction, but
the GM said they were useless. In addition to this, I have screenshots of
the conversations with the GM showing that all I have stated is true.
I will again tonight (Monday Feb 7, 2000) try and speak with the GM's to
get this matter resolved and have either my item or cash restored, and the
offender banned if I have anything to do with it. Why you ask have I posted
this information everywhere? I do it simply to warn everyone! Be extremely
careful who you trade with or you'll end up like me - 7500pp in the hole,
and no item to show for it! So now, I sit here on pins and needles, waiting
and hoping that the server didn't screw up and not save the data, so that I
may have my items/cash restored!
Jarlax T`Kaedra
Highly Agitated SK of the 38th Rank
Bertoxxulous
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