Gaming Open Market suspends trading after being defrauded
by Alphaville Herald on 22/06/04 at 9:36 am
Our friends at Gaming Open Market have suspended trading in all game currencies except Second Life Lindens after being defrauded for $3K US by a buyer of ISK and SWG credits. As might be expected, it is the usual scam taking advantage of the fact that PayPal refuses to honor purchases of “virtual” goods. (Remember Julian Dibbell’s problem with this last October?). Also, as might be expected, the lazy fucks at Sony are doing nothing to help GOM in this matter. Kudos once again to Linden Lab for being supportive of GOM. Jamie Hale’s press release follows.
Sunday afternoon, a new client purchased over $3000.00 worth of ISK and SWG credits. He nagged us for delivery, and then immediately after receiving the goods, reversed the charges claiming we never delivered. He was making use of a well-known loophole in PayPal’s chargeback policy that favours the purchasers of “intangible goods” over the sellers. He explained this to us in an email he sent today. He claims the ISK and credits he stole are “payment” for the lesson he tought us.
This incident has been reported to the FBI Internet Fraud Department, and tomorrow to the RCMP. We have compiled as much information as possible on this person, including his name, address, phone number, email addresses and the IPs used to log into our site. All of this information will be turned over to the authorities.
Now, the complaints registered with the FBI were two-fold. The first was about this person who scammed us. The second was about PayPal. PayPal’s policy rewarding the perpetrators of this type of fraud not only makes it easy, it actually *encourages* it. Please take this as a lesson learned the hard way. If you deal in any “intangible goods”, be it downloaded software, music, documents and data, or game currencies or items, PayPal is *not* your friend.
We are currently providing as detailed information as possible to the PayPal fraud department, but we’re not holding out hope for a favourable settlement. Our PayPal representative has made it very clear that we can provide any evidence we want, but that it doesn’t matter – we deal in intangible goods and hence have no rights.
*** NOTE: Any employees of CCP or Sony Online Entertainment (or any other game publisher for that matter) are encouraged to contact us. We know we violate your user agreement – we just want this behaviour to stop! It hurts everyone, *including* your paying clients! I know you have detailed transaction records proving exactly when and where those transactions were made. This information could help get the ball rolling. Linden Lab has worked with this. So can you! ***
Now we have always called ourselves a “secure way to trade”. By that we mean that we *actually* provide seller protection because *we* guaranty delivery. We are holding true to this policy, and absorbing this $3000.00 loss. This $3000.00 is approximately 70% of our profits since January. We didn’t build GOM to make us rich. We built it as an experiment in digital world economies, and to provide people like you with a cheaper and more efficient alternative to eBay. We cannot afford to be tought another lesson.
Until further notice, all trading in *all* games except Second Life is halted. All currency you may have on deposit with us will be returned to you at a mutually convenient time. Please request a withdrawal and contact either Tom or myself to schedule it. PayPal withdrawals will also be made on our regular sporadic schedule.
Linden Lab (creators of Second Life) is the only publisher to support our efforts. Second Life business will continue as usual. Please accept my apologies for this delay. Linden Lab has worked with us before on this type of fraud, and we’re confident that our future with them will be long, happy and prosperous for all. 
Keep yer stick on the ice.
Jamie Hale
President – Gaming Open Market Corp.
jamie@gamingopenmarket.com
Mr-President
Jun 22nd, 2004
That’s a shame..
Good thing 2L shows support.
MattyS
Jun 22nd, 2004
I’m surprised y would any game help them? I thought no game supported selling of virtual goods.
JC Soprano
Jun 22nd, 2004
Unlike TSO, in SOE they do not allow any player currency selling. TSO’s ToS state you can sell in-game items as long as you do not advertise you are doing so in the game. SOE’s ToS state that selling virtual items created in the game are means for immediate discipline. My question is then, why give SOE static about it? Nothing they can do. It’s not like they are ignoring this guy going sorry ain’t gonna help you, they can’t. It states in there ToS you may not do these type of things. If they reported it to SOE they would end up being disciplined. It’s my understanding that Lucas Arts legal is going as far to try and get E-Bay to suspend and remove any SWG auctions in the future.
Personally I think SOE Customer Service rocks. Blows EA out of the water (not to hard though lol). I mean if you so much as lose $1 u just send a note to customer service and usually same day they are creditting you what you lost including objects with no questions asked. All the issues I have had with SWG from signing up to present have all been resolved in a timely fashion (except the weekends, no tech support). In fact SOE has the best customer service I have seen in a long time.
As for PayPal, ya there policy is virtual items cannot get a shipping # to verify the item was shipped so they will not intervene in virtual item cases. Most they could do is call the cops, fraud is still a felony and since it’s worth $3K I beleive that is Grand Theft as well. My thing is though, OGB claims to make 6 figures a year (thast per staff member according to a staff member I spoke to), if they are doing that much business truly, why the need to suspend business over $3K. Rule of thumb, get payment first and only accept certain forms of payment, like instant payment for example. Can’t bounce that, comes right out of PayPal immediately. Of all the business I have done selling Simoleans and Strategy Guides for TSO, I’ve never been ripped or had a chargeback. Not all fraud is preventable, but most is with some common sense.
JC Soprano
http://www.thesimmafia.com
*Sips His Absinth*
JC Soprano
Jun 22nd, 2004
My bad, ignore the OGB comment, I misread.. Thought this was Online Gaming Bucks not Gamers Open Market.
JC Soprano
http://www.thesimmafia.com
Mistakes Happen, Deal With It
Storm Armone
Jun 22nd, 2004
lol SOE cannot stop the selling of currency with sites like OGB going…
MattyS
Jun 22nd, 2004
see so my point is why do u exspect them to do anything when your not surpost to be selling it in the first place?
Aaron Levy
Jul 6th, 2004
Why was my cut-n-paste of the announcement that they will be going to use PayPal deleted?
Aaron Levy
Jul 6th, 2004
Why was my cut-n-paste of the announcement that they will be going to use PayPal deleted?