Scammer gets banned, why don't my mats/tip get returned?

[jvanstry 0]

Disclaimer: If this is the wrong forum for this issue, please let me know where I can properly post this. I will release the scammer's name sometime soon once it becomes 100% that I am being scammed and not some other issue that may be responsible for this apparent theft.

Cliffs Notes: I give possible scammer 325g of mats/tips to craft purple belt, some before AB pops in trade, some mailed after AB pops. I log off for IRL reasons but belt never gets sent to me as agreed upon. I open ticket and GM informs me there is enough evidence (can see I sent mats) to ban scammer's account pending appeal. Also informs me that because I have no screen shots of the agreement, my mats will NOT be returned unless scammer appeals temporary ban and agrees to craft me my belt. I am thoroughly confused why my mats cannot be returned given there is enough evidence for ban.

I was trying to buy a Belt of the Archmage earlier today and found someone who agreed to craft it with my mats as long as I tipped fairly. I went about buying that mats (roughly 300g worth) and had them all ready to trade with my tailor.

My AB popped after I traded him a few mats. I asked if he minded waiting while I took the queue. Maybe a silly decision but queues are so gosh darn long on the horde side of Elysium and I'm trying to rank up that I hate to ignore them. He said no problem and we agreed he would craft the bolts of Ruincloth and I would trade the rest of the mats after the BG. So far he seems like a nice guy and very accomodating

Fast-forward to a half hour later or so and we meet up again and once again I go about trading mats. This time before we finish his AB pops, I didn't see a problem with him taking it and we agreed I would send the rest of the mats over the mail and he would send Belt back after the BG since I had to log off for IRL reasons.

All the while, he was complaining about how little other people tip him for tailoring and he reiterated how good of service he provided by waiting around for me to finish AB. Again, seemed like a nice guy and didn't think a scammer would be so concerned about getting a few extra gold tip if he was about to steal 300g worth of mats. So I send along a generous tip of 25g with the rest of the mats after he took his AB.

Fast-forward again to a few hours ago (about 6 hours after I log off after sending mats) and theres nothing in my mailbox. I immediately open a ticket and a GM assists me rather quickly. The GM tells me he/she can see that I sent the mats over to my tailor but that no belt was sent in return and bans the account pending an appeal by the tailor and a crafting of the belt. If this appeal and coming to Jesus moment doesn't happen by my tailor, the GM tells me it will be impossible to get my mats back without screenshots.

Could anyone please provide me a reason why my mats would be held in limbo like this even though the GM has found enough evidence to lock the tailor's account? I always have taken people at their words because I assumed that scamming would be easily detected and rectified by the Elysium staff. I mean, sniffing out gold-sellers is clearly a huge priority. Something doesn't really add up here. And do we really play on a server where I need to take screenshots of every transaction I make in constant fear of being scammed?

[Indormi 2]

We encourage players to be mindful who they entrust things to.  You should ONLY give expensive materials for crafting (or anything that would require you to trade expensive items to another) to players you fully trust.  I recommend Guild Members or Personal friends.  You take a risk when you trade between players you are unfamiliar with.  As unfortunate as this is, the GM team is unable to restore items that are stolen as we would be not only be duplicating items and indirectly causing inflation, but we would be EXTREMELY overwhelmed with restoration of thefts and investigations of said thefts.  

Please only use those you trust... I do apologize, and wish you the best of luck!

[Adaren21 0]

On 6/12/2017 at 11:03 PM, Indormi said:

We encourage players to be mindful who they entrust things to.  You should ONLY give expensive materials for crafting (or anything that would require you to trade expensive items to another) to players you fully trust.  I recommend Guild Members or Personal friends.  You take a risk when you trade between players you are unfamiliar with.  As unfortunate as this is, the GM team is unable to restore items that are stolen as we would be not only be duplicating items and indirectly causing inflation, but we would be EXTREMELY overwhelmed with restoration of thefts and investigations of said thefts.  

Please only use those you trust... I do apologize, and wish you the best of luck!

So you're excuse is it would be to hard? All you have to do is remove the items from the ban player's character. it's not hard I've seen it done on other servers. That gets rid of the duplicating problem cause then they won't have it...and if they are banned for such a thing sorry no appeal that's dumb. they want to play they can start over. So all it actually comes down to is you being "overwhelmed" which is just kinda a flimsy excuse. You're already taking care of the ticket to investigate/ban the player its not that much more work to add in a minute or two more to get the item back to the person scammed. 

[Haestingas 30]

Take personal responsibility, you have to be an idiot to trade 300g+ of mats to a random. Only trade with people from reputable guilds, guildies, and friends. Consider it a tax on idiocy.

[Stodola 26]

We do not restore gold or items lost due to server issues, rollbacks, mis-clicks, mis-loots, scamming, hacked characters, or any other reason with the sole exceptions of:

1. Quest items that have been previously possessed by the character and can be verified. We do not fix selecting the wrong quest reward or changing your mind later. 

2. Raid items wherein loot is not dropped by a boss, cannot be looted, or for another reason where the entirety of the boss kill is recorded, unedited, and clearly shows the full raid group and the raid ID.