Dispute Investigation Terms Added

[EpicNPC]

Today we have updated our dispute rules to add a new "Investigation Guidelines" area that discusses how we will investigate disputes going forward.

The thread can be found here, but I have also posted the new guidelines below.
https://www.epicnpc.com/threads/90442-Dispute-Rules-amp-Terms

EpicnNPC has always provided free dispute resolution services for all members regardless of where the sale occurred. As the site grows we have come to the realization that this is not realistic or possible to continue as these services are very timely.

To conduct a proper dispute investigation it cant take many hours. Even the easy disputes can take 1-2 hours, but the more complicated one's can easily take 10+ hours of our staffs time.

The decision was made that we need to keep dispute resolution services free and available to everyone. We didn't want to charge anyone, require certain upgrades or require that our Trade Guardian system be used.

Instead we decided to update our investigation practices to speed up the process and have created 3 tiers that offer different depths of investigation.

Below you can read how we will conduct investigations going forward. The biggest changes are the limits to how long we will wait for evidence and how bans are issued. We will be relying on negative feedback a lot more instead of bans if there is not enough evidence or the dispute investigation is inconclusive.

Please read the new terms below and if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to post.


--------------------------------------
Investigation Guidelines

Epicnpc provides free dispute resolution services for all disputes, however the depth of investigation depends on the type of transaction. We have 3 basic dispute types.

• Trade Guardian
• Member Disputes
• Scam Accussations

Trade Guardian - These are disputes that occur via our Trade Guardian system. We will conduct a full investigation for these reported disputes. Victims of these disputes are eligible for our Victim fund if the money or item can't be recovered.
https://www.epicnpc.com/threads/862769


Member Disputes - Disputes that occur between two members where Trade Guardian was not used. This is not a scam attempt, but an actual dispute. We will collect evidence from all parties, but we will not conduct a full investigation. This means we will not wait for evidence after 5 days (support tickets, recalls or things of this nature). After 5 days we will make a decision based on the evidence provided. If new evidence is received later on, the disptue can be reopened by request or appealed via support ticket.

In most cases this will result in a negative feedback instead of ban for the accused, unless overwhelming evidence is provided. Then the accused will be banned.


Scam Accussations - Disputes where a scam was attempted. We will conduct a review of the accused member's account. If we can confirm they are a known scammer or previously banned, they will be rebanned. Evidence is only collected for 2 days. Based on this evidence the accused will be either banned or a negative feedback can be left if there is a lack of evidence.

Negative feedback can be updated and changed to neutral if the issue is resolved. If the user provides evidence it's false, then it can be removed.

 

[ITALY]

I believe a full investigation must be done regardless of the type of trans.
That's why most people use EpicNPC, because EpicNPC is reliable, when something happens you guys try to solve
Lowering the quality of dispute resolution will not make people more willing to use Tradeguarding, it will just drive people away.
That's my thought, i dont want this to be a selfcentered marketplace, i'd rather use playerauctions for that.
Besides most disputes usually take longer than 5days for evidence; IE : Paypal dispute to be closed / cancelled ; Riot to answer tickets and so on, this is not a small "limit" you're putting there, that's a community changing line, because maaaaany games in order to require ticket proofs take at least 1week~
Sometimesd you even have to wait for the Support to redirect you to Higher Ups in order tor etrieve informations about psw change etc
Imo this is a veeeeeeeeeeeery very very very bad change, but thats just my opinion, others may disagree.
Be that as it may thank you for keeping the Dispute System free at least

 

[EpicNPC]

I understand what you're saying, but logistically it's not possible.

One of the following has to happen.

1) Less disputes are opened
2) Disputes are resolved faster

We opted for option two. Support tickets should be opened before a dispute is opened here and should be included as part of the evidence. We will also reopen a dispute if new evidence is provided to us.

For example, let's says a recall dispute is closed after 5 days and due to lack of evidence the user gets negative feedback, no ban. The buyer or seller can open a game support ticket, recover the account or resolve it between themselves. They can then appeal the dispute decision a few weeks later, present all their new evidence, and we'll re-review the dispute and update the decision that same day.

We don't want dispute threads opened for weeks or months as many currently are or have 10+ pages that's mostly arguing.

With this new process it creates more incentive for buyers and sellers to work it out, but still provides an appeal process if there's new evidence.

As for option #1, less disputes, this would obviously be the better choice, however it's not really possible if we plan to review all disputes. For example Trade Guardian Middleman services has had about a 1% dispute rate this year as opposed to the 100+ non-TG disputes opened.

We can try to force everyone to use TG, then there would be no problem fully investigating all disputes. However our goal was to make sure we still review and investigate all disputes, so that's why this option wasn't selected.

 

[doomedtofail]

Some disputes drag on for so long and users specially long term members drag out resolutions by only being semi cooperative. For instance the gamestore dispute. A normal member would have been forced to refund or contact paypal but since they are premium seller they know they can drag it out.

 

[somaliasky]

There is a 3rd option. You can also increase the investigation team and improve the current system.. For example, US legal system has a trial court, court of Appeals and the Supreme court. What EPICNPC can do is to create a similar system like the US legal system.

To start, all the disputes will have to go through the bottom. One of the moderator/judge will decide the initial dispute. If buyer/seller is not happy with the decision. They can appeal decision to a 3 member 2nd tier court. The three member 2nd tier court will decide whether they want to hear the appeal or not. In some cases, it can be appeal to the highest court for final reconsideration.

However, it is important to know that not all cases are appelable. For exmaple, any case with dispute amount $100 and below will not be reconsidered. When the
dispute amount is between $100 - $500, it cna be appealed to the 2nd tier of court. For dispute over $500, it can be appealed to the highest court(which EPICNPC will mae the final decision)

To make it work, EPICNPC also need to expand the first tier judge/investigator.

It`s just a thought. I am an actual US lawyer and a licensed court mediator. If you are interested, I can help you to design a system to make everything more structured.

 

[MistiServices]

There is a 3rd option. You can also increase the investigation team and improve the current system.. For example, US legal system has a trial court, court of Appeals and the Supreme court. What EPICNPC can do is to create a similar system like the US legal system.

To start, all the disputes will have to go through the bottom. One of the moderator/judge will decide the initial dispute. If buyer/seller is not happy with the decision. They can appeal decision to a 3 member 2nd tier court. The three member 2nd tier court will decide whether they want to hear the appeal or not. In some cases, it can be appeal to the highest court for final reconsideration.

However, it is important to know that not all cases are appelable. For exmaple, any case with dispute amount $100 and below will not be reconsidered. When the
dispute amount is between $100 - $500, it cna be appealed to the 2nd tier of court. For dispute over $500, it can be appealed to the highest court(which EPICNPC will mae the final decision)

To make it work, EPICNPC also need to expand the first tier judge/investigator.

It`s just a thought. I am an actual US lawyer and a licensed court mediator. If you are interested, I can help you to design a system to make everything more structured.

Good suggestion but then it would require some kind of compensation,its not easy to investigate and make right decision in big scam casses.Also if it includes repped member there is something which can be done to satisfiy both members but if memeber is unrepped or he doenst care about ban no decision would force him to follow judgement of epicnpc.Current system is fine just should be bit more strict to force people to actually resolve disputes.epicnpc often says in dispute ban in 24h and member isnt banned for 3 or more days , one person cant handle all of this and he should thrive to have someone who will issue bans when proofs arent given.

 

[ITALY]

Good suggestion but then it would require some kind of compensation,its not easy to investigate and make right decision in big scam casses.Also if it includes repped member there is something which can be done to satisfiy both members but if memeber is unrepped or he doenst care about ban no decision would force him to follow judgement of epicnpc.Current system is fine just should be bit more strict to force people to actually resolve disputes.epicnpc often says in dispute ban in 24h and member isnt banned for 3 or more days , one person cant handle all of this and he should thrive to have someone who will issue bans when proofs arent given.

Doomed used to help a little, he was very nice and handled disputes properly.. But having someone to do this will require : trust / reliability / compensation. I don't think anyone would want to waste 2hrs resolving disputes without proper compensation.
So, in order to develop such system you'd need to make the dispute system paid somehow, which is not a good idea, ultimately i have to agree with EpicNPC, if we want to keep this free we must have a smaller workload, therefore simpler resolution of cases, even if it means lowering EpicNPC quality. Tbh i'm fairly impressed he managed to keep up with all the Disputes until now, that requires a lot of free time.

 

[D3BOOST.com]

Let's stick with EpicNPC's idea. I see absolutely no need to complicate things with a 2nd or 3rd tier or whatever else.

 

[doomedtofail]

I did way too much for way too long for no appreciation.

The problem now is the disputes are losing value. The latest lol rule update removes all buyer protections. Its a joke. The seller can decide to keep the buyers money in exchange for a negative feedback.
One negative feedback or keeping $100's of someones hard earned money? And they can do this multiple times before getting banned? Whats next 5 scam dispute negatives before ban on all disputes?

 

[EpicNPC]

[MENTION=227399]somaliasky[/MENTION] that's a nice idea and I wish we could do something like that, but it's not possible to do for free. Most of our mod staff are volunteers and while they help out with many disputes, Epicnpc staff resolve most of them. Disputes are very time consuming, so to ask volunteers to dedicated 10-20 hours of their time each week to review disputes is not realistic. You can see sites like SteamRep where it's all volunteers and they have disputes sitting there for 6 months without an reply. I want to make sure disputes are reviewed and resolved quickly here.

 

[CarterNPC]

I did way too much for way too long for no appreciation.

The problem now is the disputes are losing value. The latest lol rule update removes all buyer protections. Its a joke. The seller can decide to keep the buyers money in exchange for a negative feedback.
One negative feedback or keeping $100's of someones hard earned money? And they can do this multiple times before getting banned? Whats next 5 scam dispute negatives before ban on all disputes?

This is true, as most accoutns by these big sellers, are blantently ******* accounts, now they can sell them without worry, where as before they would just replace the recovered account with another ******* account, as they don't care about negative feedback etc, they can just keep unloading more product, It has died down, mostly because the league market is dead more then it has ever been, but this isn't a good rule, for example, someone sells a riot account for 1000 USD, then simply recover the account, the buyer would be out of 1k and the seller would just get 1 negative feedback,.

 

[doomedtofail]

Mike is just trying to keep sellers here as some are getting banned by refusing to refund cheap accounts or stupid stuff, yes we need sellers here but buyers are imporant too. Playerauctions forgot about their buyers and look how much everyone hates them. Funny you read more horror stories about buyers having issues then sellers, since they get to keep the money they earn no matter if accounts are crack, fraudulent or unsafe.

 

[ARMIK]

I was also thinking what should be done about people who filed chargeback or recovered an account, but then during the dispute the account was returned/money refunded. Would people who ATTEMPTED to scam still get banned after resolving the issue or do we let them go?

====================================================
For example:

A sells account to B.

Two days later..

* B decides to chargeback the amount while keeping the account
* A files a dispute on EpicNPC
* B loses PayPal dispute.

QUESTION: Does A attempt to recover the account and keep it, or does B get banned for attempted chargeback? - Or do we let B go just because he failed to chargeback?

Granted there was no issue in the sale and the buyer just decided to scam?
===================================================

The whole drama with PRO sellers and people that are accused lots of times while only getting negatives is also worrying me. I've talked about that in private with the admins but we didn't reach any agreement on what should be done to these sellers that are obviously selling ******* accounts and even present them in a way that is only used in either bot programs or ******* software.

In my opinion if someone is proven to have accounts that are being recovered way too many times - he shouldn't sell here anymore. Or if he does, he can't do this the way the Gamestore did - which is giving zero damns about the dispute and just letting it go. He is like "I don't have access to the dispute setting" - so the victim has to bare with us and wait 2 years until the dispute gets resolved with G2A. While the seller can continue selling his ******* stuff here without even a negative feedback against them because the times where the account recall dispute occurred were too long. But people avoid the fact that he has 5 negative feedback and 2 neutral feedback given to him for the same reason. No matter when he got it, he got them for a reason. And that should change the way you think and look at such sellers. Because something is wrong with what they sell here.


PRO sellers, verified sellers and others with big amount of reputation should respond to their disputes immediately. They are no different, and I don't understand why they are given more options or more days to resolve issue than other people.


FYI: This dispute has been going on for 3 weeks already. Why would I as a victim have to wait 3 weeks to resolve the issue which seller has caused me. Not to mention that I'm not getting my money back for 3 weeks and that I also don't have an account to play on for the same 3 weeks.

 

[somaliasky]

Easy. If a PRO-Seller/ Verified sellers has too many negative feedback, EPICNPC can require them to put deposit before they can sell more on this site. For example, a Proseller with more than 5% feedback will need to deposit $500 as deposit so in the event of dispute, the claim can be paid with those deposit. EPICNPC can workout the details later but it`s doable. For a PRO-Seller with a lot of negative feedback, I think they will accept the deposit scheme provided the amount is reasonable. It`s the cost of doing business.

The goal is to find a balance that can satisfy both PRO-seller and small/one off buyer. If the rule become too strict and unfriendly to PRO-Seller, it will drive them away to a more business friendly forums.

 

[EpicNPC]

We already have rules to punish and ban members based on too many recall complaints or disputes. If we receive recall complaints in a 30 day time span span, the following happens.

2 recall complaints - neutral feedback added
3 recall complaints - negative feedback added
4 recall complaints - negative feedback added
5 recall complaints - banned

We can't force buyers to report problems, so we are limited to the reports we get, but there is already a system in place.

Keep in mind that a dispute can be opened for one recall and if we find the seller is at fault, they can be banned after 1 complaint. These rules are for when buyers are not opening disputes or there is a lack of evidence.

Mike is just trying to keep sellers here as some are getting banned by refusing to refund cheap accounts or stupid stuff

We have banned large sellers consistently over the years and continue to do so. In fact one of the largest WoW sellers was banned a few weeks ago. They resolved the problem and were unbanned, which is how the system should work.

We get complaints from large sellers constantly saying we always side with the buyer, then we get other members always claiming we protect sellers. We can't please everyone, so we'll continue to make rules that we think are fair and if some need to be adjusted over time, we'll continue to do that also. The current rule changes are meant to speed up the investigation process. If a seller keeps getting negative feedback, that's as good as being banned.

If you think of large sites like Amazon, they don't review complaints or negative feedbacks. Sellers can have hundreds of negative feedbacks and still be able to sell. Amazon relies on their system to weed out bad sellers and buyers can make the decision for themselves when they view someone's rating.

We're obviously no Amazon, but I want our system to be similar, where we reply less on manual dispute investigations and more on feedback.

 

[The Integrity]

We already have rules to punish and ban members based on too many recall complaints or disputes. If we receive recall complaints in a 30 day time span span, the following happens.

2 recall complaints - neutral feedback added
3 recall complaints - negative feedback added
4 recall complaints - negative feedback added
5 recall complaints - banned

We can't force buyers to report problems, so we are limited to the reports we get, but there is already a system in place.

What happens if a seller has a lot of complaints but also a lot of selling volume?

For example, if they sell 500 accounts and 25 get recalled, out of which 5 open disputes while others resolve it with them directly.
That's a recall rate of 5% (1 out of 20), which is a pretty decent recall rate for a large seller.
However, that's 5 complaints in a month.

And someone who sells only 15 accounts per month can get 3 recalls and just get away with a negative feedback, while having 4 times higher recall rate than the other guy would get banned.

Checking feedback count is not a good indicator, since most customers won't leave feedback for buying accounts, especially if they were directed to make the purchase on the seller's website.

 

[EpicNPC]

That would be difficult for us to determine. How would we know the sellers volume? They could tell us anything to make the percentage low.

For high volume sellers, we would probably request that they resolve the complaints and if they don't we would stick to the above rules.

For low volume sellers, you're right, their wouldn't be enough volume to hit five in 30 days, but even 2 or 3, they would start getting feedback that says "high recall" rate, so that would have a huge impact on their account if they only have a few feedback.

We might also reach out to some of those members complaining and ask them to open a dispute against the seller.

 

[MistiServices]

I am not familiar with LoL market but why not making sellers add is account ******* or not.People are selling them anyways no matter what site says.And noone is punished by doing so.There should be option to mark as a ******* ones if someone buys and got scammed then he has no right to open dispute.If account isnt marked as ******* and still gets recovered then seller has to give refund or whatever.


Apparently feedback doenst matter much , people are still buying of them and getting scammed so by banning them only site loses traffic , they can switch to other forums or sites as *** or PA.


Solution 1 :


Require of sellers to state is account ******* / botted / or whatever else can be.If buyer still buys account by knowing that then he should accept his loss ( everyone who buys LoL accounts know real value of them.If something was made on illegal way its sold for cheap ).hat will make things even beetwen big sellers who sell ******* accs and legit ppl who are selling accs made on their own.


If seller sold account which got banned or whatever , then issue 3 day temp ban.For each opened dispute increese numbner of temp ban days.Also refund should be included to buyer ( if account isnt marked as ******* / botted ).


Solution 2 :


Keep goins as this , as we can see sellers arent afraid of negative feedback.And most of those guys are selling ******* accounts for years here without any punishment.While legit people who made accs on their own cant make good deals due unfair competition.


This can be applied on all sold accounts so there is some punishment even if u give refund , to follow rules and state that account isnt a safe one.It will clear dispute section and everyone should be happy since sellers will have obligation to define how accounts are leveled or ranked.And buyers can accept or decline such account so noone loses anything.