Apologies for the overly long wall of text.
I decided to “sleep on it”. Re: Machetebill: I basically had two options. I could (a) bury my head in the sand or (b) Take action. I know that several people really dislike what I have done to the community, my practices and my rules, and I will admit that I have got it wrong in several big ways in the past. However, I genuinely feel that I have no option here in this particular matter. If I didn’t post it would mean that the MLD community on europe would simply not know what had happened and would play on until someone did it again.
To summarise the situation and my course of action:
A number of accounts were stolen from members of the community who shared their accounts with several users. The users involved have been identified as: angel_elite (lost his many accounts, 75K+ worth of items), Leevolka (“lost” his accounts but is also accused of stealing accounts either directly or indirectly) and Tr4dy (User who is accused of the theft, and does not deny the theft) and Royalton (User who uses at least one of the scammed characters).
A small note on Leevolka – this is now the 4th or 5th time that his accounts have been “scammed”. In the past everyone assumed that he was just stupid or naive when it came to account protection – he shared his accounts with multiple users and forwarded passwords via email. Either through befriending the wrong person / key logging or email account theft, for it to happen so many times seems too strange. Most people involved simply think that it has happened too frequently to be a co-incidence. This loss will mostly hit the ladder players where he used to always return to as he always shared ladder accounts with multiple users and did to Ladder what I did to Non-Ladder (TVT’s / Tournaments etc). Note that his JSP a/c is no longer in use by “him”. I don’t know for definite that Lee is now using another JSP a/c or if he is in fact Royalton.
This theft killed off a section of the community. The user (Tr4dy) who stole the accounts “donated” some of the stolen items/characters to other users. One of these new users, Royalton, has entered the community, is aware that he is using stolen goods and does not see why I have a problem. The user is polite and articulate and reminds several users of Leevolka. He is using stolen goods, knowingly, from his “friend” who stole the items. His “friends”, among them past and present members of the euro community: Maximus_Le_Roi (Paul) & Dwerfs (Dej). Neither of these users understands why I am making a big deal out of this.
The LLD community, on every realm, has people that share their accounts. Some people share one account, some people share many accounts. Both Paul and Dej previously benefited from shared accounts from both myself and older members such as Perserker[PVP], Leevolka and MrHandsome (Jim). The issue is that Royalton is benefiting from items stolen from friends of mine. Both Paul and Dej previously played with these users. Think of it as “Item Laundering” if that helps identify the issue.
Paul, I don’t get you at all, you have used Leevolka’s accounts in the past, these are included in the accounts “stolen” and yet you see no problem with your friends using these accounts that belonged to a user that shared accounts with you as a “friend”? You are aware that the bowazon is the one that Leevolka was using? How can you expect me to ever trust you? You ask me if I “have nothing better to do” Are you for real? You talk about not making scamming legitimate but that’s exactly what you and your friends are trying to do here. Both you and the person who scammed the items are saying “you prefer the items to be not used and to fall in forgets? At least some use them, play with them, and make the community more alive” That’s such a fail argument Paul.
Dej, I don’t get you at all either. You are older then Paul and more mature with a lot more experience. You should know better. You have benefited a lot from the sharing of accounts with users on the realms.
Your arguments in this topic consist of:
(1) Deriding me with “ferdia’s bandwagon” and “this topic is all about showing you who your real friends are”
Not sure how this is supposed to validate your point of view.
(2) “I don't really see the problem… most godlike items that have been around for a good time have been scammed atleast once…I never understood the hatred towards scammers”
Just because people steal does not make it right.
(3) “What's the difference between someone gotten the items donated to them and someone who buy FG for various of thousand euros just to buy everything and overbid everyone? not really any.”
The difference in this case is that the user is benefiting from theft.
(4) “What can you do about it? (See Below) It brought people here, caused activity. Royalton get tvt games/duels up daily and you dislike it?
Let me dumb it down for you: Your account gets stolen from you. The user that stole it gives it to his friend. This user then makes games and tries to integrate into the community as if nothing happened. I’m sorry but no, I won’t be a party to that and yes I dislike it a lot.
(5) “If you actually share your accounts you need to be prepared there's a risk”
Then there should be an equal risk for being caught or benefiting from the theft.
(6) Picking at my sentences without giving a valid counter argument is not a valid argument in itself, and neither is picking on my duelling tactic's a valid argument for account theft.
I don’t play this game as much as I did, but my course of action is pretty simple:
Dej, you no longer play at Europe so this won’t affect you much. If I bump into you on another realm I will simply leave the game. For the record though, you will never use any of my accounts again and you are no longer welcome by me either in-game or on JSP.
Paul, you are banned from my tournaments, you will never use any of my accounts again and you are no longer welcome in any TVT or event that I organise.
Royalton, You are banned from my tournaments, and you will not be welcome in any TVT or event that I organise.
I will pm all users that I play with this message in full so that they are fully aware of the situation and where I stand, I acknowledge that some users will play with these users, I won’t judge them, but I refuse to play with users who condone this behaviour.
Any user who condones or benefits from theft is not welcome by me.
I made this post as a record for what I am going to do going forward and for people who are like-minded to know what has happened. keeping it private would not create the awareness that this post will.
This post was edited by ferdia on Oct 11 2010 06:27am