Update rulebook regarding scamming and server announcements

[BellamyJames]

1 minute ago, jowebb7 said:

So if there are no spots at high end, we can not legally sell a car? Is it actually illegal to sell a car without using high or low end?

In essence it's tax evasion, it's a crime that pretty much everyone ignores and i don't see anyone spending time to enforce it. But it is technically illegal on the server, but compared to the other shit, no one even looks twice int hat direction. But I'm just saying if we are nitpicking then doing that shouldn't be allowed in the NCZ period. 

[Yputi]

6 hours ago, BellamyJames said:

Going to play devil's advocate here... Selling Cars or Houses under the table is an illegal action itself. Doing so you forgo paying taxes on the item. So even if you didn't get scammed it's still an illegal transaction that you're making at the bank so it shouldn't be done in a NCZ anyways. 

Hey, did you read the post fully?

 

[Wizzidy]

10 hours ago, BellamyJames said:

Going to play devil's advocate here... Selling Cars or Houses under the table is an illegal action itself. Doing so you forgo paying taxes on the item. So even if you didn't get scammed it's still an illegal transaction that you're making at the bank so it shouldn't be done in a NCZ anyways. 

Selling cars hand to hand is in no way illegal in real life why is it here? If it IS considered illegal in Los Santos which is preposterous... they would need to open up more ways to sell your car through city means. Also there is a big difference in a minor tax infraction and yknow scamming someone for the literal equivalent of 20 hours of work and having it be condoned by admins. I am all for devil's advocate, look through my post history youll see I do it all the time, but this is just egregious. There is no reason this ever had to be allowed....


and for all the people who keep pointing to tax system.... that is a fault of the server and the government not the player, not sure why it is coming back on them. When you sell your car for 8 grand at the bank you don't pay tax, you pay the taxes at the end of the year when you file your income taxes... because they havent figured out how to do that other than taxing salary does not justify a ruling that allows what I see happening. I saw someone say they saw much better RP at because it allowed scamming... can you explain? I no longer see people writing contracts and making deals and negotiating.... I no longer see any of that RP, what I do see is people stealing IC money and then just logging off which should also be considered combat logging.

We strive for IRL comparisons but if you put 10000 dollars on a table and waited for someone to sign a title to a car in an area with active camera's, they would not be able to take the money and vanish into thin air... that is why those zones exist in the first place, but somehow somebody thought it was a good idea to remove that? 

Edited June 29, 2019 by Wizzidy

[Alverin]

7 hours ago, Wizzidy said:

Selling cars hand to hand is in no way illegal in real life why is it here? If it IS considered illegal in Los Santos which is preposterous... they would need to open up more ways to sell your car through city means. Also there is a big difference in a minor tax infraction and yknow scamming someone for the literal equivalent of 20 hours of work and having it be condoned by admins. I am all for devil's advocate, look through my post history youll see I do it all the time, but this is just egregious. There is no reason this ever had to be allowed....


and for all the people who keep pointing to tax system.... that is a fault of the server and the government not the player, not sure why it is coming back on them. When you sell your car for 8 grand at the bank you don't pay tax, you pay the taxes at the end of the year when you file your income taxes... because they havent figured out how to do that other than taxing salary does not justify a ruling that allows what I see happening. I saw someone say they saw much better RP at because it allowed scamming... can you explain? I no longer see people writing contracts and making deals and negotiating.... I no longer see any of that RP, what I do see is people stealing IC money and then just logging off which should also be considered combat logging.

We strive for IRL comparisons but if you put 10000 dollars on a table and waited for someone to sign a title to a car in an area with active camera's, they would not be able to take the money and vanish into thin air... that is why those zones exist in the first place, but somehow somebody thought it was a good idea to remove that? 

While it's true a simple rule change and enforcement needs to occur to prevent this, I've always felt that we need bigger "sinks" in the server. That is, time sinks, money sinks and risk/reward systems. I feel if we made dying in the game a little bit more of a pain in the ass to both the victim and the murderer, we might see less death, but when it does happen it'd be for a good reason. I think if these changes occurred it would also allow us to lax our DM rules a bit since DMing would essentially be self enforced (The more you kill the longer you stay in jail, you wanna run over 12 pedestrians? Prepare to spend the next 24 hours in a cell, you wanna run over 12 pedestrians again when you get out? Your previous conviction matters, enjoy your 48 hours of prison time, again? It stacks, enjoy your 96 hours in the can buddy.) So people can have a bit more of a defense against this sort of thing. If you get scammed you should be able to find that player and kill them, maybe twice or three times, that 100k isn't justified by a single kill unless the guy's got 100k worth of gear on him. So making it so that you can rack up a medical bill on this guy while simultaneously putting yourself at risk to be jailed for a while. This puts the people who should be in power (the people who can kill you) actually in power over your finances and it forces the people who scam to really live the life of a scammer, or face the consequences.

That being said, we need long term bans for people scamming and logging AND refunds. It's a really simple fix. I feel like the admins are hesitant to give refunds due to their perceived fragile economy but honestly it's not that fragile and secondly you could make it more robust by making more sinks. More sinks is always better as long as you have FUN ways to create money.

[CycloneDavid]

Completely agree with the comments above from @Copperhorse

Question though... Why can't we considering completely going IC with the idea of PD changing the way fraud is dealt with?

If you kill a cop and evade your character becomes marked. ANY cop that pulls up that player for anything even months after the fact can see that they are wanted and charge them from that point.

Why cant people being scammed be advised to RP the issue with PD as they normally would, and somehow since Government is still growing, the scammer be marked and should that person be found by police at any time then they are arrested and charged with the value dollar amount, no different than if police arrest people IRL and they are sent before the courts who are then ordered to pay that money back? At the end of the day criminals won't like it, but much like anything else - if your willing to commit the crime(s), then be prepared to be heavily fined for all the value of the crime if your EVER caught.

A wire transfer of funds would give the victim full details of who they are paying, so this info can be used to report the person.

[Angel Ceez]

+ 1  I agree with most here, scamming should be regulated in some form. TOO many people are making it a full time job scamming people and it just gets to be rediculous and not fun to be on the server. Scamming shouldn’t be banished as it’s great to establish a clean rep amongst players and develop a circle of trustworthy people but it should be looked at/somewhat regulated. You got people hounding High End Lot when it’s full to just try to scam people and also scamming new players who may not fully know the scam rules as these people lie to them about the rules, then they fill the high end lot with the shitty mid end vehicles they scammed leaving HE lot unusable for people trying to sell correctly and pay taxes.  I feel like something has to be done or reconsidered as far as the laws around scamming. And also for those who have been scammed, make sure who you are dealing with has a clean rep ask around about them and ask the right questions. Maybe a real estate faction and more lots to sell vehicles will help. 

[James_McNulty]

+1 , only people against this are the scummy scammers that try and sell " crates " to new players outside of the bank. Shame on yall. My roomate's character almost got fooled and scammed on that once. He asked IC'ly after one of these scammers rushed over to him at the bank after he parked.

Scammer:  "WANT A CRATE?!, ONLY 5K!. " 

Friend : " What's in the crate? " 

Scammer : " Could be anything! (EA Games Smile) "

Friend : " Anything of value ? "

Scammer : " You pay 5k for crate, and it could have up to 10k of items inside! "

Friend : " This sounds like a scam and or like " loot box " in some modern video game the kids play 

Scammer : " No, No!. No Scam!. There could be furniture, guns or some really good stuff inside! "

Friend : " Or there could be nothing...."

Scammer : *Silence*

Scammer : *Drops crates from hands and picks it back up and puts in inventory, walking off awkwardly realizing my roomate is not stupid enough to get scammed at NCZ*

 

 

Edited August 2, 2019 by James_McNulty

[GetSmoked]

+1 

 

I'll reluctantly admit I was scammed at the bank NCZ during the 2nd half of a transaction. Scumbag knew if he ripped me off for the 2nd half of my money in an NCZ and around his gang that I couldn't but a round through his face. 

 

Watch out at the high end lots, scammers wait there for the lot to be full so they can fleece you in a private sale. Watch out ESCPECIALLY for a male black with cornrows named Louie/Gio from the Zetas. Hes a scamming piece of trash that preys on new player tags and will scam you at the bank NCZ so you cant kill his coward ass. 

[Balastas]

20 minutes ago, GetSmoked said:

+1 

 

I'll reluctantly admit I was scammed at the bank NCZ during the 2nd half of a transaction. Scumbag knew if he ripped me off for the 2nd half of my money in an NCZ and around his gang that I couldn't but a round through his face. 

 

Watch out at the high end lots, scammers wait there for the lot to be full so they can fleece you in a private sale. Watch out ESCPECIALLY for a male black with cornrows named Louie/Gio from the Zetas. Hes a scamming piece of trash that preys on new player tags and will scam you at the bank NCZ so you cant kill his coward ass. 

If it was you i don't know the worst part that when we ic'ly investigated that it's a scam and made contract invalid person oocly and icly was still saying that he's not going to give vehicle back even if we made the contract invalid. his logic behind this was "contract was not legal since it was made behind bank, therefore i'm not giving him money but he sold me vehicle" LUL

[DGanja]

Scamming happens on a regular basis IRL however it would still be classed as illegal, and as such I think it should be against rules OOCly to scam in an NCZ. 

 

 

[Balastas]

8 minutes ago, DGanja said:

Scamming happens on a regular basis IRL however it would still be classed as illegal, and as such I think it should be against rules OOCly to scam in an NCZ. 

 

 

Not talking about against rules. I'm just saying as a police officer we investigate such case we make the deal invalid since it was fraud so therefore they should transfer car back oocly but they do not do that.

[ChuckM]

The reason why scamming is allowed in NCZs because it's not an obvious crime and you can't pin point when the actual crime occurred. Example: You can do a wire transfer or hand cash at the bank and then head towards to the house to transfer keys but suddenly the scammer drives off when approaching the house. Did the scam occur at the bank or when he decided to turn around and drive away? I don't personally agree with this interpretation but I have no problem enforcing it this way because it's incredibly easy to avoid being scammed: use the script!.

No one likes paying taxes but it's a small fee in order to ensure you won't be scammed. Scammers have tons of reasons and will convince you to sell/buy another way beyond the script and unfortunately there's plenty of players out here who fall victim and dont see all the red flags. 

Unless you 100% completely trust the other player to trade/sell outside of the script you will most likely be scammed. Live and learn. 

[ChuckM]

6 minutes ago, Copperhorse said:

Well the crime would've occurred in the NCZ since the deception occurred in the NCZ (Which is what the Fraud law states) when the scammer agreed to a deal which he knew he wouldn't fulfill. Or, if you want to make it allowed, allow Police to seize funds / vehicles / properties when a crime report with valid evidence is submitted to them regarding a scam.

I agree with you on that part. I would also love for law enforcement to be able to scriptly remove assets due to scams, unpaid loans, etc...

[Xoza]

45 minutes ago, ChuckM said:

I agree with you on that part. I would also love for law enforcement to be able to scriptly remove assets due to scams, unpaid loans, etc...

YES

I think scamming can be better defined however be allowed with the tools to police and investigators to be able to fully investigate, return or reverse activities.

Edited August 2, 2019 by Xoza

[Yputi]

1 hour ago, Balastas said:

Not talking about against rules. I'm just saying as a police officer we investigate such case we make the deal invalid since it was fraud so therefore they should transfer car back oocly but they do not do that.

This is indeed what I mean. Once the scam is done, you can't do anything back. You are in a NCZ, you can't force others to take money out of an ATM, where Police can't do anything. They can only fine them for scamming, which isn't even close most of the time to what they scammed.

Edited August 2, 2019 by Yputi

[Balastas]

15 minutes ago, Yputi said:

This is indeed what I mean. Once the scam is done, you can't do anything back. You are in a NCZ, you can't force others to take money out of an ATM, where Police can't do anything. They can only fine them for scamming, which isn't even close most of the time to what they scammed.

You can rply invalidate the contract. If person refuses to transfer back car since rply it was transfered by law you can go to admin and claim it. But person who powergames by not transfering car doesn't get punished for some kind of reason.

[James_McNulty]

1 minute ago, Balastas said:

You can rply invalidate the contract. If person refuses to transfer back car since rply it was transfered by law you can go to admin and claim it. But person who powergames by not transfering car doesn't get punished for some kind of reason.

Which is exactly why regardless of it being an IC' blue collar " scam " crime, within NCZ it should be against the rules to protect new players who can be abused. I understand that if someone is scamming under limit and RP'ly with some cool business roleplay it's one thing. But to just scam people all day at populated NCZ's with new players should be unacceptable. And there should be protections in place to prevent it. IC'ly I have legit stopped so many new players from getting scammed infront of the bank it's disgusting. At what point does it go from an IC roleplay form of minor criminal come up, to an OOC rule violation?. I think when your within an NCZ, over limit, or doing it to a new player should be that point.

[James_McNulty]

1 minute ago, Copperhorse said:

I don't think you can scam new players as that can be considered stealing.

Good I figured it would fall under the umbrella of theft, I wonder why these greasy crate people are at the bank 24/7 swooping over new players like hawks then. It drives me nuts!.

Edited August 2, 2019 by James_McNulty

[Cyrus Raven]

1 hour ago, ChuckM said:

The reason why scamming is allowed in NCZs because it's not an obvious crime and you can't pin point when the actual crime occurred. Example: You can do a wire transfer or hand cash at the bank and then head towards to the house to transfer keys but suddenly the scammer drives off when approaching the house. Did the scam occur at the bank or when he decided to turn around and drive away? I don't personally agree with this interpretation but I have no problem enforcing it this way because it's incredibly easy to avoid being scammed: use the script!.

No one likes paying taxes but it's a small fee in order to ensure you won't be scammed. Scammers have tons of reasons and will convince you to sell/buy another way beyond the script and unfortunately there's plenty of players out here who fall victim and dont see all the red flags. 

Unless you 100% completely trust the other player to trade/sell outside of the script you will most likely be scammed. Live and learn. 

I have a couple of questions as well as a few criticisms.

 

So scamming doesn't break NCZ because it might be ambiguous whether or not the scam was at the bank or somewhere else (Example: when the player decided to bail out of the NCZ). However, does this mean that players who scam others for cars at the bank (where the transfer of the money and vehicle is all done at the bank inside the NCZ) are breaking the No Crime Zone rules as the scam is undoubtedly done inside the NCZ? Why aren't there two separate rules? One covering situations that are ultimately done away from the bank and therefore don't break NCZ and another that covers scamming (in its entirety) inside the NCZ ?

 

Secondly, why hasn't this been added in the official rules? As of right now this directly contradicts the following rule:

8. No Crime Zones (NCZ)

• A no crime zone is an area where players may not commit any actions considered crimes.

 

Finally, I think one of the biggest issues that have given rise to the scamming of cars, in particular, is the lack of space at High-End. It isn't that players want to avoid tax (although I am sure some do), but rather the lack of space in the market. Why not add more space ? Why not allow players to complete a purchase from another player with the tax anywhere (i.e. there would be /transfer but also /sellvehicle where 5% of the money paid to the seller would go to the government) 

 

 

At the end of the day, it seems that a good amount of the scams happen because of the lack of slots in High-End which in itself is unrealistic. You want to sell your car or property in real life then you should be able to do it anywhere, with the proper documentation and taxes, etc... Having this restriction at high-end leads to people getting scammed. I doubt a lot of people would complain about the act of scamming knowing they got scammed because they were committing fraud, as opposed to getting scammed because a dealership is full and there is no other easy way to sell your vehicle legally. Add a way for people to legally sell their vehicle via a command (to avoid this ''you give me first and then I run away like a mad man'' mentality) and also add a script that allows Law Enforcement Agencies to reclaim vehicles after a contract has been broken (either from a purchase or failure to pay loan)

 

As for the suggestion overall +1, I have no idea why people are making major announcements and changes to the rule book without updating the official document, it makes it very hard to have all the knowledge of the rules if everything isn't in one succinct area.

 

 

[Angel Ceez]

Why not make a script that charges an item for x price and transfers the item/house/car upon completion of purchase and does not apply tax during purchase but applies tax left for the seller and buyer players as debt to be paid at City hall in a 50/50 split. Player would still have the original option to do it tax free but it’s risky as a scam is likely. Doing it with both players going into debt for the 50/50 split tax would seem much safer and reduce scams altogether 

Edited August 2, 2019 by Angel Ceez

[Yputi]

Here I found a great example.

 

[Wizzidy]

On 8/2/2019 at 1:15 PM, ChuckM said:

I agree with you on that part. I would also love for law enforcement to be able to scriptly remove assets due to scams, unpaid loans, etc...

Even cooler would be an asset repossession company. This would open a whole new job that is based around repossession, debt management, bail, etc...  but yes ultimately this is another case of what I consider flawed rulings. Some rulings are made on the fly case by case and then ratified without thinking about the larger consequence. When they made this rule it was probably somebody dodging house tax and they made a blanket rule, months down the line people are abusing limited vehicle sale space to PG stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. The ruling needed to be reviewed and added to the rulebook imo. Same with things like shouting out an open window at certain speeds, recently they clarified bikes and fear RP which is nice, but you see my point.

[Yputi]

So what I make up out of these comments:
 

On 8/2/2019 at 9:08 PM, Kyle White Raven said:

As for the suggestion overall +1, I have no idea why people are making major announcements and changes to the rule book without updating the official document, it makes it very hard to have all the knowledge of the rules if everything isn't in one succinct area.

- Rules should be updated more in the rule book in general instead of only announced in different channels (the new 48 hours report time is a good example aswell).
I honestly can't imagine how new players should be aware of this. Only after they have learned the hard way.

- It needs to be possible that assets can be taken if they got lost due to scams as the current "punishment" is not even doing anything against that.

Which in my opinion is 100% what I am looking for. I wasn't really looking to get scamming banned from NCZ's, but the fact that there is absolute nothing you can do after hurts.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Yputi

[Cyrus Raven]

1 minute ago, Yputi said:

So what I make up out of these comments:
 

- Rules should be updated more in the rule book in general instead of only announced in different channels (the new 48 hours report time is a good example aswell).
- It needs to be possible that assets can be taken if they got lost due to scams as the current "punishment" is not even doing anything against that.

Which in my opinion is 100% what I am looking for. I wasn't really looking to get scamming banned from NCZ's, but the fact that there is absolute nothing you can do after hurts.

Essentially, even if scamming is allowed, if you RP a contract or trading the money and keys for the vehicle almost immediately and someone doesn't follow through, we should be able to not only have an IC way to retrieve assets, but also an OOC way to punish the player and retrieve items. It wouldn't necessarily be a report for scamming, but one for Powergaming and ignoring RP.

[Yputi]

On 8/2/2019 at 6:57 PM, ChuckM said:

The reason why scamming is allowed in NCZs because it's not an obvious crime and you can't pin point when the actual crime occurred. Example: You can do a wire transfer or hand cash at the bank and then head towards to the house to transfer keys but suddenly the scammer drives off when approaching the house. Did the scam occur at the bank or when he decided to turn around and drive away? I don't personally agree with this interpretation but I have no problem enforcing it this way because it's incredibly easy to avoid being scammed: use the script!.

No one likes paying taxes but it's a small fee in order to ensure you won't be scammed. Scammers have tons of reasons and will convince you to sell/buy another way beyond the script and unfortunately there's plenty of players out here who fall victim and dont see all the red flags. 

Unless you 100% completely trust the other player to trade/sell outside of the script you will most likely be scammed. Live and learn. 

Quote

No one likes paying taxes but it's a small fee in order to ensure you won't be scammed. Scammers have tons of reasons and will convince you to sell/buy another way beyond the script and unfortunately there's plenty of players out here who fall victim and dont see all the red flags. 

I understand and I have indeed figured out it is allowed. However, that was actually the issue. I didn't see the red flags. I looked in the rule book, where it was stated actions considered crimes could not be commited in a NCZ. Since I wanted to be sure, I asked a staff member of Eclipse. That person also told me it is not allowed to scam in a NCZ. So instead of red flags I only got green flags.
Now in my previous comment I also clarified that having scamming removed from a NCZ is not what I am looking for. It would be awesome to have atleast SOME way to retrieve scammed assets.