Anyone else seeing a major uptick in gold seller spam?

[Kaalenarc]

<p><span style="color: #ffff00;">Couple of nights ago I got a tell from someone that looked like a cross server /tell. It was something like LP2.Friends.somename tells you "How do you get to the guild halls?" </span></p><p><span style="color: #ffff00;">It was late, I was tired, and I wasnt thinking. So I answered with "who is this?"  - no response of course. Within 10 minutes the spam filter had caught several tells directed my way. I viewed a couple and sure enough ppl trying to sell me coin. Sigh.  My emails have been getting a few a day now as well. I do the right thing, click Report and move on, but I thought it was odd seeing this uptick after not getting any for months. Was wondering if anyone else was experiencing the same thing?</span></p>

[Xethren]

<p>You arent the only one. Past month or so Ive been getting spam daily again too. Sometimes even by in-game mail.</p>

[Psyren]

Spam is still checked in your chat options. Works wonders when you uncheck it.

[Kaalenarc]

<p><cite>Psyren@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Spam is still checked in your chat options. Works wonders when you uncheck it.</blockquote><p>True - guess im still paranoid about missin a tell where someone mentions plat heh. Good call</p>

[Psyren]

You won't lose any legitimate tells. Trust me.

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Psyren@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>You won't lose any legitimate tells. Trust me.</blockquote><p>I have.</p><p>Granted the error rate is somewhere in 1:5000</p>

[shadowscale]

<p>its getting closer to the holidays, they start earlyer every year. atleast thats the only reason i can think of for the influx.</p>

[Gorpier]

<p><cite>Kaalenarc@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ffff00;">Couple of nights ago I got a tell from someone that looked like a cross server /tell. It was something like LP2.Friends.somename tells you "How do you get to the guild halls?" </span></p><p><span style="color: #ffff00;">It was late, I was tired, and I wasnt thinking. So I answered with "who is this?"  - no response of course. Within 10 minutes the spam filter had caught several tells directed my way. I viewed a couple and sure enough ppl trying to sell me coin. Sigh.  My emails have been getting a few a day now as well. I do the right thing, click Report and move on, but I thought it was odd seeing this uptick after not getting any for months. Was wondering if anyone else was experiencing the same thing?</span></p></blockquote><p>This may have absolutely nothing to do with it, or it could be that it does, but I've recently come back after having played World of Warcraft.  People there are getting bored.  Very bored.  At least on my former server anyway.  I hear a bunch of folks there saying things like, "I'm going back to EQ2.  It was fun.  Not sure why I quit."  Could be that the gold spammers are in anticipation of an influx in player base.  Or, it could just be that they decided It was time to bug the crud outta us on EQ2 and that there is no other reason than that.  *shrug*</p>

[thephantomposter]

<p>ditto, this week I have had 5 now, nothing for a year or so.</p>

[GrunEQ]

<p><span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; font-size: small;">I've been getting a lot in the mail and of course been reporting them.  </span></p><p><span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; font-size: small;">Sigh*  hate to get somewhat excited about getting a letter to find it's just junk mail. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2e207fad049d4d292f60607f80f05768.gif" border="0" /></span></p>

[hellfire]

<p>I get none on my  2 mains  on my 2 accounts.</p><p>I do get some when log over to my level 6 crafters...spam filter picks em up of corse</p>

[Seidhkona]

<p>I've gotten a ton of in-game plat spammer mails recently. I really like having the ability to click a button to report it as spam and go on.</p>

[Wilde_Night]

<p>I haven't gotten any on any of my 12 characters x 2 accounts.  Though, my characters names are often hard to spell.  *coughs*</p>

[Jrral]

<p>None for me lately, though that might be because I have the "Spam" setting unchecked on all my chat tabs so I never see anything that's caught by the filters. I did get a couple-three spams via in-game mail over the summer, but nothing in the last month or so.</p>

[Gamer1965]

I've been seeing an uptick recently with in-game emails, so I just click report and wait for the next one... <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Barx]

<p>I've seen a few mails make it through recently, and a small increase in the spam filter tells. Being /role or /anon seems to help with both though.</p><p>Probably some new gold seller trying their hand at EQ2.</p>

[Sedenten]

<p>I haven't gotten many, but the ones I have gotten are usually the scripted ones where they try and get your attention by starting off with a question like, "Hello, how are you?".  That usually follows with 5 more tells where they break up the URL of whatever site they are advertising into several different tells.  By the time they start the main part of their drivel, I usually have them on ignore and reported.</p><p>It's not near as annoying as it used to be, thanks to how well the spam filter has picked them up.</p><p>I also haven't had too many false spams, but the very few I've gotten the person in question usually sends another tell.  I figure if the tell I miss due to the filter is important enough then that person will try and get in touch with me again.</p>

[LadyMist]

<p><span style="color: #3366ff;">I haven't gotten any /tells but my mail box has seen a sudden influx of spam plat sell mail for some reason. They are definately coming back, ofcourse I report each one but it's getting rediculous. My friend says he is having the same problem too.</span></p>

[Rijacki]

<p>They're simply trying new ways to get around the filters and momentarily suceeded.</p><p>The new mail one I've seen is instructions on how to search for them on Google.</p><p>BUT, as long as there are players who buy from them (and get away with it ever), they will continue to sell. It doesn't matter if only a small portion of the community buys or if the rest of the community that doesn't buy doesn't condone it, if -any- buy, they still have a market and still make money.</p><p>Paper spam (in your RL home mail box), email spam (in your RL email boxes), and in-game spam don't need to get "hits" from everyone they're sent to. If only one or two of thousands sent get a favourable (favourable to the spam sended) response and the cost to send out the thousands cost less than the profit made on the one or two favourable responses, then it's lucrative and there is no incentive to quit trying. When the cost to send exceeds the profits on responses, that's a lot more motivation to 'give it up' than any filter.</p><p>The increase might also mean there has been an increase in the number of compromised accounts (their use of a compromised account drecreases their operation costs). The MoTD admonishing players to be wary of their account security might have come from an increase in CS calls about compromised active accounts. If there is an increase in compromised active accounts, surely there was a corosponding increase in compromised in-active accounts, which likely wouldn't get noticed by the player whose account was compromised.</p>