Flaws of trade guardian - do not discontinue the live MM service

[The Integrity]

I'm writing my reply here because it will be a long post and I want to see the replies to it separately.

There are some major flaws with an automated MM system, which have not been mentioned anywhere. Let me point them out.

This fully protects both the buyer and seller.

It doesn't fully protect anyone. While it is a much better option than going first. It is inferior to a trade with a live mm.

Buyers can purchase in confidence knowing they will receive the item they purchase and sellers no longer have to worry about chargebacks or Paypal disputes.

The seller protection is a big plus, but I can't say that the buyers can "purchase in confidence".

If there is any problem during the transaction, the credits are held by the system and can be given back to the rightful owner once Epicnpc properly investigates the issue.

The problem is, many times it won't be possible to properly investigate due to how many game companies operate and how much info they can provide, how much info is logged etc. It will be so much better than the paypal dispute resolution of course, but still not very accurate.

Epicnpc will charge a 12% fee for Trade Guardian transactions.

So for a $1500 transaction I would have to give you $180? (The faq page says 15%, would be even worse).
For low valued transactions it's great. For mid value transactions $100-200, it's reasonable. But what about high valued transactions. Definitely won't give you $180. Most MMs would not charge more than $20 for that trade. But what am I supposed to do if there won't be any MMs?

The flaws:

1. It doesn't check the account/item
- The buyer gets what the seller provides. The automated MM does not check the account if it exactly matches the one advertised and if it has any hidden bad features.
The account may seem good at start and the buyer will just release the payment thinking that he has received the correct item, only finding out after hours about a hidden flaw.

2. It doesn't explain how to trade
- The majority of users come here to sell just one account. They just hear about epicnpc and other sites and attempt to sell their account with NO knowledge about how virtual item trading works. Buyers are the same. They want to have an advantage in their game and come here. They might be familiar with the gameplay of their game, but haven't got the slightest idea on how it's account management works, how to take ownership of an account and protect it.
Not to mention when you need to receive the email account in addition to the game account. It's not always gmail or something that they are familiar with. They have no idea about secret questions, recovery numbers and emails, and the company's recovery process.

3. It doesn't give advice on what to do
- Let's say that an inexperienced buyer does find something strange on the account. What do you think will happen now? The seller will say "oh sorry I didn't see about that, here take your money back"?
They will say "oh, that's not a big deal, it's fairly common, it does not do anything...." and the buyer will believe and do the trade. Most of the time. They don't see the seller as someone who will most likely scam them. They see them as someone who is much more experienced and knows what they are doing.
Many times, a traded hires a middleman not because they want to be safe, but because they have no idea what to do, and want someone to guide them.

4. It's complicated to use
- You should already be aware that regardless of how many guides, tutorials and easy to follow instructions you put, there will still be a good percent of people who will have no idea how to use the service. Those people would much rather click on an add to skype button and talk to an actual person who is experienced (with talking to people like them ) and get everything explained to the basics.

Lets give a few examples on how easy it is to scam someone using the automated MM system. I'll give you 4 examples which can be used right now to scam someone by abusing the automated MM service.
[HIDE=13337]1. The phone number recovery
-Steam allows you to connect a phone number with your account, which can be used to recover it at any time. There is also a second level security where you get an app which gives you auth codes and allows you to accept trades. When you only have the first level of protection, the phone number is only specified in the account information page, which is actually away from all the other security options like changing password and email. Also, the Steam guard protection indicator shows the same if you have level 1 phone protection and no phone at all. I have met so many users who have no idea about this. They know about the second level protection, but not about just having a phone number on the account.
How to scam?
1. Give account with hidden phone number
2. Buyer changes all info and releases credits.
3. Seller cashes out and restores account

Will EpicNPC dispute the paypal transaction in buyer's behalf. No, they will tell him that it's his own damn fault.
Is it? Yes.
Is it basically the same thing as going first just easier for the seller to trick the buyer? Yes.
Could it have been avoided by using a live MM? Yes.

2. Dota 2 has a thing called a shadow ban. It is a ban which completely prevents you from finding a PvP match. You will simply search for a match infinitely and never find a game. This ban is not specified anywhere on the account. The only way to actually find about it is to search for a match for 15+ minutes and see that you are not finding it. This ban is rare, only a small portion of accounts have it. Most people have no idea that it even exists.
How to scam?
1. Give shadowbanned account to the buyer
2. Buyer changes all the info, checkes MMR and confirms that it matches.
3. Seller cashes out and buyer is left with a broken account.

3. Dota 2 also has this thing called item gifting. You are allowed to transfer 8 items per day to any other account. The strange thing about this is that it does not follow the 7 day no trading from new device policy. An even stranger thing is that there are no logs when transferring items this way.

1. Seller gives the account to the buyer.
2. Buyer logs in and transfers the 8 (or less) highest worth items to his account.
3. Buyer reports that the account never had those items, seller reports that the buyer gifted them.

There are no logs to confirm and Steam support will not give any information. How would you decide who wins the dispute?

I picked Steam just because it is my most used platform, not because they are full of exploits or something like that. Here is one for Nexon, one that I purely learned by middlemanning:

4. Nexon email revert link
- When you change the email address on a Nexon account, the old one gets a message with a link which allows you to revert the change just by clicking on it.

How to scam?
1. Seller gives account to the buyer
2. Buyer changes the email, password and secret answers.
3. Seller cashes out and uses the revert link to take full control of the account.

[/HIDE]Could all of this be avoided by using a MM? Definetely.
I could give you dozens of similar scams and complications that could occur while using the automated service.

There are a few reasons for the removal.

First, we want to keep things simple and have one standard MM service on the site. Offering both Trade Guardian and a second MM service, offered by many different members, can be confusing for new members.

This is not a valid reson. We had escrow and MM until now. How come it wasn't confusing?
I think that forcing the members to use a new services which they are not familiar with is much more confusing.

Second, we believe Trade Guardian is the superior service. Most middleman services do not accept payment, so they offer no protection against chargebacks or Paypal disputes. Middleman are also not online 24/7 while our system is always ready. In many instances we've received complaints that none of the middleman offer services for the game they play. With Trade Guardian we are able to offer the service no matter what the game.

- Most MM do not offer payment holding, but some do, including chargeback protection. Don't know about others, but I only charge $10-$15 for FULL chargeback protection.
- Saying that your service "supports" all games is wrong as well. MM who offer money holding, technically offer the same as trade guardian, without the flaws that I mentioned earlier.
- MM are not online 24/7, that is true. But has that ever been a problem? Out of the 10+ active MM, you shouldn't wait more than an hour to find one who is ready. Also, MANY users add a MM before even having a trade ready, just to consult.
Saying that an automated service is superior to a live MM is just so wrong. Without the flaws it has, it would be slightly better.

You are clearly forcing the usage of trade guarding for profit purposes. But it most likely will not work. What will happen:
1. Members will use the MMs that they used before or ask verified members to provide MM services.
2. They will search for MMs on other sites like epvp or steamrep.
3. PlayerAuction ads all over epic will start being much more effective in a month.
4. Around 20% users will actually use trade guardian.

I'm not saying that this is something evil that should be avoided at any cost, just that it can't be used for all purposes and replace a live MM entirely.
It definetely is superior when it comes to Steam item trading for example. And many other trades where problems like the one I mentioned are not possible, and where it is easy to check what actually happened when a dispute is opened.

I have done hundreds of MM deals, with hundreds of different people, for 50+ different games, and that's why I know that this system is flawed (again, not entirely). Every other experienced MM can confirm that what I've said is true and that the problems I mentioned do exist and are not rare. Why didn't playerauctions do the same thing?

Also, you said "we believe", who is we?
Didn't most of the mods disagree with this?

I understand that you are leading a business here, and that profit is your main concern. You have so much more experience than me when it comes to leading a business. But probably not when it comes to MMing. Please take into account what I've said and try to reconsider the closure of live MM services. Changes are welcome, but don't remove something that was there for years, and that's irreplaceable for a reason.

Maybe limit how much members can offer MM services? Like how it was before, 1 thread per game up to 3 games. Or make the MM badge a subscription, like pro sellers?

 

[CarterNPC]

I have to agree with this, most of if not all of it is very true especially about not receiving the right account

 

[ARMIK]

Agree with what Integrity said here.

I understand that the admin's decision is the final one, but please try to make like a vote poll or feedback submission to the system so that you know all the pros and cons it has.

 

[Sakura]

I've posted my frustrations privately about this. I support The Integrity.

 

[EpicNPC]

Below I've responded to your factual questions. Many of the other items you posted are claims and opinions base on no data.


1. It doesn't check the account/item - The buyer is responsible for checking the account. They will receive the login info while the funds are being held. They can then inspect the account thoroughly to ensure it is as advertised. If it's is not, they can report the transaction and if true, the credits will be returned to them.

I would argue that having a MM log into the account is actually less safe because now you have another IP address, most likely VPN, recorded on the account. That IP can trigger other types of problems if that IP happens to be recorded on other accounts.


2. It doesn't explain how to trade - This is true, the system assumes some level of knowledge in order to properly buy or sell an account. However this is why we have a Buying/Selling guide (https://www.epicnpc.com/infocenter/buyingguide.html) that discusses many of the things you mentioned. At the very least a user should have some knowledge when trying to buy or sell an account regardless of whether or not they use a personal MM or automated system.


3. It doesn't give advice on what to do - Same as number #2, the buyer or seller should read our guide to get a basic understanding of what they need to do when attempting to buy or sell an account.


4. It's complicated to use - Yes, there will always be people that don't want to figure it out and will want someone else to do it for them, however this is not reason enough to keep the MM Services forum.

That said we can always add a few notification along the way to help the buyer and seller through the process so they check basic information before updating the status.


- Saying that your service "supports" all games is wrong as well. MM who offer money holding, technically offer the same as trade guardian, without the flaws that I mentioned earlier.
---- I have received countless PMs from members saying they can't find a MM for the game they play.

- MM are not online 24/7, that is true. But has that ever been a problem? Out of the 10+ active MM, you shouldn't wait more than an hour to find one who is ready. Also, MANY users add a MM before even having a trade ready, just to consult.
---- Another complaint was the speed and availability. Again I have received countless amounts of PM asking me to MM for them because no one is available. Even it MM are available 90% of the time, that is not 100%.

-----------------------------------

In regards to how members can abuse Trade Guardian. Two of the four examples include account recalls. As stated the system does not protect against recalls and no MM can protect against recalls either. That is just part of account trading.


The difference with Trade Guardian vs a MM is that if an account is recalled and the seller is found to be at fault, we can take any credits on the seller's account and give them to the buyer. Without Trade Guardian the buyer would just lose the account and get nothing. With Trade Guardian there is at least a chance at compensation if the seller takes a ban.

Furthermore we have a credit freeze system. If a transaction is completed, then a few hrs later the buyer finds out something is wrong, once they report the issue, we can freeze the seller's credits. If they tried to move the credits to other accounts or tried to cashout, we can prevent it. We'll be able to trace who the credits were given to, whether or not they are dummy accounts and return all the credits to the buyer. We of course would not remove credits if they were transferred to other legit members for actual items.

Trade Guardian gives us more tools to prevent scamming and offers more methods to provide compensation to victims in case of account recalls.

So for a $1500 transaction I would have to give you $180? (The faq page says 15%, would be even worse).
For low valued transactions it's great. For mid value transactions $100-200, it's reasonable. But what about high valued transactions. Definitely won't give you $180. Most MMs would not charge more than $20 for that trade. But what am I supposed to do if there won't be any MMs?

This example is unrealistic. If a MM accepted a $1500 payment from a buyer, then sent that payment to the seller, are you saying the MM would take the $1500 lose if the buyer chargeback the payment?

The reason the fee is 12% is because we are accepting the responsibility of chargebacks in a serious way. A $20 fee would mean we would have to make 75 transactions to pay for 1 major chargeback. Any MM that accepts payments and only charges $20 will be out of business after the first major chargeback. This is not a realistic scenario. There are reasons why PA and other escrow services charge so much.

 

[The Integrity]

1. It doesn't check the account/item - The buyer is responsible for checking the account. They will receive the login info while the funds are being held. They can then inspect the account thoroughly to ensure it is as advertised. If it's is not, they can report the transaction and if true, the credits will be returned to them.

I would argue that having a MM log into the account is actually less safe because now you have another IP address, most likely VPN, recorded on the account. That IP can trigger other types of problems if that IP happens to be recorded on other accounts.

The buyer should not be held responsible for checking the account when using a MM. Many users use a MM not only because they don't want to go first, but because they want to make sure that they are getting what they are buying. They have no knowledge about virtual item trading and they need a guide.

The IP ban risk is a myth. I have never had a single problem with that in over 200 deals as a MM. No one so far has reported their account getting banned or limited in any way due to IP changes. The IP already changes once, changing it one more time does not make a difference.
I don't know of a single game which monitors IP access and punishes accounts for changes in IP. Some players use VPN for ping reduction or other purposes and never get banned.

2. It doesn't explain how to trade - This is true, the system assumes some level of knowledge in order to properly buy or sell an account. However this is why we have a Buying/Selling guide (https://www.epicnpc.com/infocenter/buyingguide.html) that discusses many of the things you mentioned. At the very least a user should have some knowledge when trying to buy or sell an account regardless of whether or not they use a personal MM or automated system.

3. It doesn't give advice on what to do - Same as number #2, the buyer or seller should read our guide to get a basic understanding of what they need to do when attempting to buy or sell an account.

You can't start with the assumption that users have trading knowledge right from start. Only the minority will actually read the buying guide. Users think that they know more than they do. Most will just create a thread right after finding about the forum, without reading the rules or the guides. If they are buying, they will add a member on skype right away, and expect them to be a guide. Many trades happen every day where the buyer doesn't even have an EpicNPC account, where they simply found a post via google and added the guy who is selling on skype.

I don't think that any type of trading (except maybe forex or binary options) earns more by abusing the lack of knowledge of it's traders than game account/item trades.

4. It's complicated to use - Yes, there will always be people that don't want to figure it out and will want someone else to do it for them, however this is not reason enough to keep the MM Services forum.

That said we can always add a few notification along the way to help the buyer and seller through the process so they check basic information before updating the status.

Those people, sadly, are not a minority.
Notifications will only save a small percent of those people. How many warnings are there throughout the forum about checking with whom you are talking with? A good percent of people still fall for it.

- Saying that your service "supports" all games is wrong as well. MM who offer money holding, technically offer the same as trade guardian, without the flaws that I mentioned earlier.
---- I have received countless PMs from members saying they can't find a MM for the game they play.

Because they open one thread, see that there are only 5 games listed and quit. Few MMs, including me support all games, if not directly, then through money holding.
Those are the people that we are talking about. You can't expect them to have any starting knowledge. You will still get the same amount (probably more) PMs from them about (usually obvious) things regarding the trade guarding.

- MM are not online 24/7, that is true. But has that ever been a problem? Out of the 10+ active MM, you shouldn't wait more than an hour to find one who is ready. Also, MANY users add a MM before even having a trade ready, just to consult.
---- Another complaint was the speed and availability. Again I have received countless amounts of PM asking me to MM for them because no one is available. Even it MM are available 90% of the time, that is not 100%.

Same thing. They add 3 out of 20 and if they don't respond - no one is online.
I agree that it's not 100%, and that is the only advantage of the automated mm.

In regards to how members can abuse Trade Guardian. Two of the four examples include account recalls. As stated the system does not protect against recalls and no MM can protect against recalls either. That is just part of account trading.

No, they are not account recalls. An account recall is if the seller takes back the account by sending a support ticket and confirming ownership of the account.
Taking back the account because the buyer didn't notice that there is a phone number or recovery email stuck on the account and did not remove it, cannot be considered a recall. It doesn't matter if it happened after the trade.
That is something a MM can fully protect you from. The extra disputes that you will start getting, regarding the trades made with trade guardian will mostly be because of that.

In my first example, the MM would remove the phone number and the account would be safe.
In the second example, I personally connect to the seller with teamviewer, and delete the recovery email as soon as it arrives. The automated service will never be able to do that.

There are countless examples of this. One that just came to mind are gift cards. Let's say that I want to sell a Steam wallet code. Buyer deposits the credits and I give him the code. It doesn't work. How are you going to prove if the buyer activated the code on one of his accounts or if the seller gave a non-working code. A MM would again just connect to the buyer via teamviewer and activate the code. The automated service will never be able to do that.
Need more examples? I can go on for a long time. These are not made up examples either. All 5 trades that I mentioned commonly happen in my deals as a MM.

The difference with Trade Guardian vs a MM is that if an account is recalled and the seller is found to be at fault, we can take any credits on the seller's account and give them to the buyer. Without Trade Guardian the buyer would just lose the account and get nothing. With Trade Guardian there is at least a chance at compensation if the seller takes a ban.

Furthermore we have a credit freeze system. If a transaction is completed, then a few hrs later the buyer finds out something is wrong, once they report the issue, we can freeze the seller's credits. If they tried to move the credits to other accounts or tried to cashout, we can prevent it. We'll be able to trace who the credits were given to, whether or not they are dummy accounts and return all the credits to the buyer. We of course would not remove credits if they were transferred to other legit members for actual items.

Trade Guardian gives us more tools to prevent scamming and offers more methods to provide compensation to victims in case of account recalls.

The problem is, there will be many cases where investigation will not be possible. You will simply not be able to determine who is at fault because you will not have enough data. Sure, for some games you can contact support and ask them what happened with the account. But for others you can't. The dispute resolution will become less just and more random.

Put 2 people in a room and ask them what happened. Will you be able to prove what they did 100% of the time?
Put a MM with them, and you will know exactly what happened 99% of the time.
The way that you are presenting trade guardian is as if there are cameras in the room. But in reality, there aren't.

And the buyer does not lose the account and get nothing. He can still fill a paypal dispute and hope to win. They are terrible, but it's still definitely not a 0% chance to recover.

This example is unrealistic. If a MM accepted a $1500 payment from a buyer, then sent that payment to the seller, are you saying the MM would take the $1500 lose if the buyer chargeback the payment?

No, a MM would most likely not risk to provide money holding for such a high amount without asking for a similar high fee. But there is also "normal" service without money holding. Let's say that the payment is not via Paypal. Skrill or WU for example. The seller would be comfortable with normal service for a $20 fee.

The reason the fee is 12% is because we are accepting the responsibility of chargebacks in a serious way. A $20 fee would mean we would have to make 75 transactions to pay for 1 major chargeback. Any MM that accepts payments and only charges $20 will be out of business after the first major chargeback. This is not a realistic scenario.

You are only accepting Paypal payments from verified members. Others can only use bitcoin which cannot be recalled. How many chargebacks do you expect to get from verified members? 1%?
Majority of trades are between 2 non-verified members. They are forced to use bitcoin atm, which is again another complication.

 

[EpicNPC]

I understand some members want to keep MM Services as an option and there are some advantages to using a personal MM, however we believe that Trade Guardian is the superior system and it'll cut down scamming overall on the site.

We can develop the system to include notifications and basics checks for buyers and sellers to help them along the way if we see the need for it or if members start to ask for it. We will also be analyzing the data long the way and making adjustments when needed to ensure the system provides the type of protection to both buyers and sellers that it was intended to provide.

 

[Mathis]

I'd really prefer MM services over the new system.

 

[Tatsukeechee]

Agree with Integrity. What happens if a situation come up live? Automated won't do anything for that while MM's can improvise.

 

[Sremke]

I support The Integrity. And why we can not keep both services? Can we make a poll at least?

 

[doomedtofail]

I have voiced some opinions provately, but:

1) having lack of middlemen will push users to use random members as middlemen. Leading to more issues.

2) sellers always want money immediately. So people looking for quick sales will not benefit from this system.

3) no buyer protection. Quite frankly any body wanting to scam would have already cashed out their credits so you would not have anything to freeze and return. Maybe the benefit you could dispute payments to scammers and return credits to buyer if scam is proven.

4) should add a system where you or your fellow admin review account information or delivery information for items or gold (requiring proof of delivery) or its at least saved somewhere.

 

[Zoefken]

I wil jump in here after reading everything.

12% is way to high. There is no reason epic can give to justify this percentage.

You can only pay threw paypal after beeing verified. This means you have the persons personal details - so if they do a chargeback you go to court.
If you are not verified you can only pay threw bitcoins - no chargeback possible!

So let hypotethicly speaking say that out of all the transactions with verified people 5% scam you are netting a big profit.

math for dummies (with guesses as i do not know exact numbers)

average transaction 50€
average % of verified trader (buyer) 50% (wil most likely be alot lower as most people don't wanne take the time)
100 transactions

5000€ spend
+ 600€ (12%)
------ 300€ ------- from verified members
- 125€ of verified members that might be charebacks
------ 175€ ------- from verified after chargebacks
------ 475€ ------- combined profit for 100 cheap trades (not talking about 1500+ accounts and such)

And then we don't talk about law suits against chargebacks that you wil win for 50% or more.

But with these numbers i would not even bother with legal actions.


But frankly if i keep track of scam threads and see who scams and the ammount if scams happening that get reported .... this price is way to high!

 

[The Integrity]

I wil jump in here after reading everything.

12% is way to high. There is no reason epic can give to justify this percentage.

You can only pay threw paypal after beeing verified. This means you have the persons personal details - so if they do a chargeback you go to court.
If you are not verified you can only pay threw bitcoins - no chargeback possible!

So let hypotethicly speaking say that out of all the transactions with verified people 5% scam you are netting a big profit.

math for dummies (with guesses as i do not know exact numbers)

average transaction 50€
average % of verified trader (buyer) 50% (wil most likely be alot lower as most people don't wanne take the time)
100 transactions

5000€ spend
+ 600€ (12%)
------ 300€ ------- from verified members
- 125€ of verified members that might be charebacks
------ 175€ ------- from verified after chargebacks
------ 475€ ------- combined profit for 100 cheap trades (not talking about 1500+ accounts and such)

And then we don't talk about law suits against chargebacks that you wil win for 50% or more.

But with these numbers i would not even bother with legal actions.


But frankly if i keep track of scam threads and see who scams and the ammount if scams happening that get reported .... this price is way to high!

The rate of chargebacks for normal users is 5-7%. The rate for verified would be less than 2%. It it accepted paypal from everyone, 12% would be more than fair. But for bitcoin it is too high, especially for higher value trades. They can't really take any legal action against a chargeback.

 

[Zoefken]

It is to high for anyone to be frank. 12% payment for no buyer protection! Once the trade is finalized and the seller reclaims the account your screwd. And the logic that they can stop any transaction from happening makes no sense. If i would scam accounts back i would make shure i have no money on here before i would do so.

 

[Fencek]

I'm going to just update here in case some folks have missed it. As a MM, you can still advertise here as a MM. There will still be no MM forums after 30 days, but it's not like you cannot still offer your services in your sigs/avatars/etc...

Mike can update this or elaborate more.

 

[EpicNPC]

Both the MM forum and MM badge will be removed in 30 days. Verified members can still add links to their sig if they want to offer MM services, but they will not be allowed to have a thread.

The link in the sig is meant for those that have their own website or have a MM Service thread on another site.

 

[CarterNPC]

Can we at least take another poll or something ? would having MM and trade guardian both be that much of a issue ?

 

[EpicNPC]

I'm sorry, but we will not be polling members. Most likely the results would be split or in favor of having both services. I would imagine most people would rather have two options instead of one.

I appreciate the feedback everyone has given, but this is a process that has to happen. We will be collecting data over the next 3-4 months to analyze if scam rates drop and by how much. If they do, as we hope, then this will be the information that guides our decision.

If instead we see no change and complaints from members asking for personal MM, then restoring the MM Service forum is a possibility.

 

[Hopsyn]

I am for both services.

 

[Zoefken]

I'm sorry, but we will not be polling members. Most likely the results would be split or in favor of having both services. I would imagine most people would rather have two options instead of one.

I appreciate the feedback everyone has given, but this is a process that has to happen. We will be collecting data over the next 3-4 months to analyze if scam rates drop and by how much. If they do, as we hope, then this will be the information that guides our decision.

If instead we see no change and complaints from members asking for personal MM, then restoring the MM Service forum is a possibility.

This is a strange logic. In normal situation you keep both and see if any significant diffrences jump out. If so you then take a stance and alter accordingly. Now you are changing things drasticly and cutting in peoples bussines for your own gain. If after that you see no diffrence, and people keep complaining you might bring it back?

I understand you run a bussines epic but even some of your sup mods are not understanding what you are douing ....

 

[Accountwarehouse.com]

Everything that is wrong with Playerauctions is being repeated here.

 

[The Integrity]

I would imagine most people would rather have two options instead of one.

So what's the problem then?

I appreciate the feedback everyone has given, but this is a process that has to happen.

It doesn't

If instead we see no change and complaints from members asking for personal MM, then restoring the MM Service forum is a possibility.

Ok, so basically we just have to wait 3-4 months

some of your sup mods are not understanding what you are douing ....

Who are the ones who do?

Also, forgot to mentioned another huge flaw:

what if someone wants to trade? account for account? or account trade + money?

 

[Logisticz]

Just want to add the following since I did not see this anywhere.

As an MM I have done the following in the past.

1. Members who contacted me to MM for them who just happened to google and found an account they wanted to buy from Epicnpc. I referred them to this site. Which Guardian won't do. I have brought over hundreds if not thousands of new members to this site and this is just because a person from epicnpc wanted me to mm but the person that they are trading with was from different forums I made the others sign up on epicnpc as well and most of them have been using this site since.

2. A lot of the members will start using mm service from other sites (you know what sites im' referring to) and guess what will happen those sites will be getting our new members and what not.

3. As Doom stated earlier that most members want quick cash and if they can't get it here through the system they will go else where.

4. A lot of the members that use this site and from different countries where Paypal laws and other methods are different and not usable so would that mean that they would be out of luck and have to go else where and we end up losing there business.

Overall I stated this in the past as well. I don't mind waiting and looking at 3 - 4 months of data by this method. If in fact it reduces scam threads and complaints then that be great BUT if it actually increases complaints and scams then you should definitely look into keeping Live MM service alive.


P.S. Mike I love my MiddleMan Badge Hopefully you'll replace it with something epic wish you all the luck

 

[Sakura]

I would estimate, though I've done almost zero MM'ing in the last year (365 days, not 2016) that more than 40% of my MM transactions caused someone to sign up for the site.

As stated in the other thread, I don't see how people trading accounts will use this system at all without having a ton of cash lying around.

 

[DuckySTORE]

Banned - Abuse/Fraud - Phone violation

I Support The Integrity and other MM's. both also good, but dont remove MM service from main forum

 

[Sremke]

Although the majority does not agree with that, it does not change anything...
So, i think that this thread does not make sense.