CCP's War On Illicit RMT: Receiving Stolen Goods

Genuinely wondering why the most commonly used excuse for receiving CCfraud proceeds from obvious RMT'ers is "its my RL friend!" #tweetfleet

— CCP Peligro (@CCP_Peligro) September 3, 2015

Today's tale of woe comes from a truly woeful place: the Public Demands forums. The spiritual successor to the forums that hosted the now-defunct Roid Ripper mining bot, the place is really run down. When the professional operations moved out in early 2013, the place became crowded with scammers. Apparently, the "professionals" now plying their trade are not much better.

The players in the little drama that played out over the course of the month of August are Alienhated, a representative of an ISK selling site, and acidkhmer, a long time PLEX buyer on Public Demands.

acidkhmer - (3 August): 

"Hi, i purchase some plex, from this seller, and now im permanently ban!

"This seller use fraudulous method to gain plex, isk, account hack, CCP telling me.
Don't use iskvault!!! be aware"

Alienhated - (15 August):

"Bans happen when doing RMT, I have a warning on the website and on my other thread! Your post makes false claims."

acidkhmer - (28 August):

"I've been banned because of ISK vault, where's the false Claims? on it? i'm talking with CCP administrator for nearly one month now with dozens of mails, the result is the guy who's giving me the plex obtained it by fraud!

"I'm buying plexs on public demand for 5 years now, it's the best place for regurly buyers like me, never have a single issue, problem.

"It's very simple for proof, if Public demands administrator is asking to proove this issue, i'll send to him all my CCP mails discussions. and we're going to sse if i'm lyer or not?"

Alienhated - (30 August):

"The e-mail sent by CCP was the standard mail sent when someone is caught doing RMT. Easy to read for a person with average intelligence. It lists a range of activities which are associated with RMT, it doesn't imply that I necessarily did any of them, but even if it did, why would he choose to focus on the fraud aspect? It seems nothing more than an attempt to discredit our name.

"I'm selling ISK for years, sometimes we inevitably get caught, both buyer and seller should be aware of the possibility."

So why did acidkhmer choose to focus on the fraud aspect of the letter? Perhaps because a first offense normally only results in a temporary ban of one week. If the ban was acidkhmer's first and he received a permanent ban, that means Alienhated sold acidkhmer PLEX either obtained through a hacked account or via credit card fraud.

Game companies hate credit card fraud. If someone purchases PLEX using credit card fraud, the fact usually reaches CCP's financial team. From that point, Team Security just needs to track down the life of the PLEX and see where it exchanged hands without a visible means of payment. And then? Permanent ban.

At today's prices for ISK in Jita, buying PLEX from anyone but CCP or an authorized PLEX reseller is pretty stupid. Is saving a few dollars, pounds, or euros really worth the risk of losing one week of training on your accounts? And if the seller acquired the PLEX using credit card fraud? Well, I hope you like playing World of Warcraft, because you're losing all your accounts.