So no action taken for gift event cheaters?

Dear Kabam,

Since the gift event rewards will be rolled out from 12pm PST today, can I assume no action taken for event cheaters?

I knew many many cheaters bought more than 20,000 cheap crystals with $1.5 per crystal and have more than 4 R4s now, do you think it is fair to the players who bought each crystal with $10?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Comments

Lemon_Man44

What do you think they've been doing the past few days?

GinjabredMonsta

I'm not even sure how to respond to this one

Cangaceiro

They’re taking longer for that reason, they have to filter out the cheaters. Not everything Kabam does is bad, you gotta give them a chance.

Riptide

How do you know “many cheaters bought cheap crystals”?

GroundedWisdom

Verification was the whole purpose of delaying them.

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Squirrelguy

How do you know “many cheaters bought cheap crystals”?
Compare their individual gifting score to their in game profile. Videos are floating around showing several dozen GGCs worth of points after the event ended but their profile shows 3000+ crystals worth of r4s. 100% fraud and botted.

Let's see if Kabam actually permabans them. They have to!

First off “they have to” assumes that Kabam can prove that cheating occurred. Sometimes they can’t. Also, you can totally always trust videos on the internet. Nobody could possibly lie. But really, I’m sure there are people who cheat, and I do hope that Kabam can punish them appropriately. Not all punishment should be a “permaban”. I think it’s much better for the game if they are refused rewards and instead their account is loaded with a massive negative unit amount so they have to whale out to actually use it again. Much more satisfying and potentially can help the game stay afloat. (Assuming I understand the negative unit workings correctly, I haven’t cheated so no personal experience).

pseudosane

How do you know “many cheaters bought cheap crystals”?
Compare their individual gifting score to their in game profile. Videos are floating around showing several dozen GGCs worth of points after the event ended but their profile shows 3000+ crystals worth of r4s. 100% fraud and botted.

Let's see if Kabam actually permabans them. They have to!

not that i dont trust you, i know there is a ton of cheating, but how do you know individual gifting scores?

Colinwhitworth69

This does not smell like proof of something, just possibilities of cheating.

Kabam Miike

To be clear about this, the first round of action is aimed at those in the Rank Rewards, but that doesn't mean that we won't take action against others that used 3rd Party Sellers, bots, etc.

To do that, we need more information from our Partners though and don't have access to that on demand. When they share that info with us, we will take action on both those that sold the Gifts, as well as those that bought them, as we have done in the past.

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Colinwhitworth69

I've noticed that many people today do not understand the concept of proof vs suspicion.

They believe that if something makes them jump to a conclusion, then it must be correct. If it confirms their predetermined narrative, then it is undeniable.

Critical thinking is a lost art.

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Shadowstrike

I've noticed that many people today do not understand the concept of proof vs suspicion.

They believe that if something makes them jump to a conclusion, then it must be correct. If it confirms their predetermined narrative, then it is undeniable.

Critical thinking is a lost art.
If an account goes through a bunch of owners and they're always in alliances that seem to cheat in everything including past gifting, war, and legends runs, and their score shows 300k points but have 10m+ points worth of GGCS, that should tell us something.

But how do you verify an account went to a bunch of owners? Are you admitting to intentionally following people's IP addresses and backtracking where they played on the globe and cross-referencing the individual dates and times?

Secondly, no one just starts with the alliance there with. Everyone starts off as a journeyman and you go from Team to team until you find the right fit. Now if you happen to be the only common denominator in which cheating has seen the pop up in multiple team, that is the red flag but again there has to be legit proof and not just baseless accusations and not just the claim that "they did better than me, so they're obviously cheating."

Whiskey_Poet

My solo gifting rank went from 16K+ to 15K plus right before reward brackets came out, so they banned around 1K cheaters. *shrug*

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Demonzfyre

I've noticed that many people today do not understand the concept of proof vs suspicion.

They believe that if something makes them jump to a conclusion, then it must be correct. If it confirms their predetermined narrative, then it is undeniable.

Critical thinking is a lost art.
If an account goes through a bunch of owners and they're always in alliances that seem to cheat in everything including past gifting, war, and legends runs, and their score shows 300k points but have 10m+ points worth of GGCS, that should tell us something.
But how do you verify an account went to a bunch of owners? Are you admitting to intentionally following people's IP addresses and backtracking where they played on the globe and cross-referencing the individual dates and times?

Secondly, no one just starts with the alliance there with. Everyone starts off as a journeyman and you go from Team to team until you find the right fit. Now if you happen to be the only common denominator in which cheating has seen the pop up in multiple team, that is the red flag but again there has to be legit proof and not just baseless accusations and not just the claim that "they did better than me, so they're obviously cheating."
For a long time super accounts get reabsorbed back into alliances trying to maintain AQ rankings and have different owners. That's standard stuff. Big accounts don't die off when someone stops playing, they usually get sold and passed around. A lot of the big teams have very questionable histories with accounts, piloting (arena, aw, legends runs), and gifting is the most competitive event with the most shenanigans.

But you still haven't provided any proof.... You're just saying it. We're you apart of what you just described? Did you run someone's account? Were you apart of one of those alliances you are talking about where you have first hand knowledge?

Shadowstrike

I've noticed that many people today do not understand the concept of proof vs suspicion.

They believe that if something makes them jump to a conclusion, then it must be correct. If it confirms their predetermined narrative, then it is undeniable.

Critical thinking is a lost art.
If an account goes through a bunch of owners and they're always in alliances that seem to cheat in everything including past gifting, war, and legends runs, and their score shows 300k points but have 10m+ points worth of GGCS, that should tell us something.
But how do you verify an account went to a bunch of owners? Are you admitting to intentionally following people's IP addresses and backtracking where they played on the globe and cross-referencing the individual dates and times?

Secondly, no one just starts with the alliance there with. Everyone starts off as a journeyman and you go from Team to team until you find the right fit. Now if you happen to be the only common denominator in which cheating has seen the pop up in multiple team, that is the red flag but again there has to be legit proof and not just baseless accusations and not just the claim that "they did better than me, so they're obviously cheating."
For a long time super accounts get reabsorbed back into alliances trying to maintain AQ rankings and have different owners. That's standard stuff. Big accounts don't die off when someone stops playing, they usually get sold and passed around. A lot of the big teams have very questionable histories with accounts, piloting (arena, aw, legends runs), and gifting is the most competitive event with the most shenanigans.
But you still haven't provided any proof.... You're just saying it. We're you apart of what you just described? Did you run someone's account? Were you apart of one of those alliances you are talking about where you have first hand knowledge?

That's the big question. Is the author of this thread saying they know this for a fact because of first-hand involvement? Cuz they're not acting like someone who was wronged by these people, this feels like you're trying to bargain for a plea deal.

ItsDamien

I've noticed that many people today do not understand the concept of proof vs suspicion.

They believe that if something makes them jump to a conclusion, then it must be correct. If it confirms their predetermined narrative, then it is undeniable.

Critical thinking is a lost art.
If an account goes through a bunch of owners and they're always in alliances that seem to cheat in everything including past gifting, war, and legends runs, and their score shows 300k points but have 10m+ points worth of GGCS, that should tell us something.
But how do you verify an account went to a bunch of owners? Are you admitting to intentionally following people's IP addresses and backtracking where they played on the globe and cross-referencing the individual dates and times?

Secondly, no one just starts with the alliance there with. Everyone starts off as a journeyman and you go from Team to team until you find the right fit. Now if you happen to be the only common denominator in which cheating has seen the pop up in multiple team, that is the red flag but again there has to be legit proof and not just baseless accusations and not just the claim that "they did better than me, so they're obviously cheating."
For a long time super accounts get reabsorbed back into alliances trying to maintain AQ rankings and have different owners. That's standard stuff. Big accounts don't die off when someone stops playing, they usually get sold and passed around. A lot of the big teams have very questionable histories with accounts, piloting (arena, aw, legends runs), and gifting is the most competitive event with the most shenanigans.
But you still haven't provided any proof.... You're just saying it. We're you apart of what you just described? Did you run someone's account? Were you apart of one of those alliances you are talking about where you have first hand knowledge?

I thought it was common knowledge that CoWhales account was sold off and passed around.

DNA3000

I've noticed that many people today do not understand the concept of proof vs suspicion.

They believe that if something makes them jump to a conclusion, then it must be correct. If it confirms their predetermined narrative, then it is undeniable.

Critical thinking is a lost art.
If an account goes through a bunch of owners and they're always in alliances that seem to cheat in everything including past gifting, war, and legends runs, and their score shows 300k points but have 10m+ points worth of GGCS, that should tell us something.
But how do you verify an account went to a bunch of owners? Are you admitting to intentionally following people's IP addresses and backtracking where they played on the globe and cross-referencing the individual dates and times?

Secondly, no one just starts with the alliance there with. Everyone starts off as a journeyman and you go from Team to team until you find the right fit. Now if you happen to be the only common denominator in which cheating has seen the pop up in multiple team, that is the red flag but again there has to be legit proof and not just baseless accusations and not just the claim that "they did better than me, so they're obviously cheating."
For a long time super accounts get reabsorbed back into alliances trying to maintain AQ rankings and have different owners. That's standard stuff. Big accounts don't die off when someone stops playing, they usually get sold and passed around. A lot of the big teams have very questionable histories with accounts, piloting (arena, aw, legends runs), and gifting is the most competitive event with the most shenanigans.
But you still haven't provided any proof.... You're just saying it. We're you apart of what you just described? Did you run someone's account? Were you apart of one of those alliances you are talking about where you have first hand knowledge?
I thought it was common knowledge that CoWhales account was sold off and passed around.

It is indeed common knowledge. However, no one to my knowledge has actually attempted to prove it publicly.

DNA3000

Dear Kabam,

Since the gift event rewards will be rolled out from 12pm PST today, can I assume no action taken for event cheaters?

I knew many many cheaters bought more than 20,000 cheap crystals with $1.5 per crystal and have more than 4 R4s now, do you think it is fair to the players who bought each crystal with $10?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

It is important for people to realize that Kabam has no direct way to know how anyone purchases units in the game. In-app transactions are executed by the App stores, in particular the Apple app store and the Google Play store. The app stores collect the revenue, inform the app developer (in this case Kabam) and Kabam in turn gives us the stuff. The app stores eventually send them their cut of the revenue collected.

If people are buying Google Play or Apple gift cards using weird currency exchange tricks, or by stealing them from unsuspecting people who had their SIM cards cloned, or whatever, there's literally no way for Kabam to investigate that directly. That would be like someone robbing a bank and using the proceeds to by Apple gift cards from a 7-11 and using those to buy Odins. Kabam has no way to know that happened. The money was real, the guy at the 7-11 had no reason to not sell the gift cards, Apple had no reason not to accept the gift cards, and Kabam had no reason to not credit the units to the account. Nothing about any of these transaction is in any way "fraudulent" in a way anyone could detect just by watching.

If someone performs fraud that is actually *caught*, this can propagate upstream eventually to Kabam. If someone performs credit card fraud to steal currency to buy Apple gift cards to then buy Odins for their customers for pennies on the dollar, if that credit card fraud is eventually detected then the credit card companies will inform the merchants that purchases were made to. Apple would get informed. Apple then has to inform Kabam. And *then* Kabam can in theory take action.

This often takes 30 - 60 days. Someone has to notice fraudulent charges. This often only happens when they review their bill. The merchant bank is informed, they pass that up to the credit card network (i.e. VISA), and then they conduct an investigation. It can take anywhere from a day to a week. The notifications go out, companies do their own investigation, and this takes time to propagate. I've been directly involved in many of these fraudulent back traces, and they all took weeks from the moment the fraudulent activity theoretically took place until all parties were notified.

Other kinds of fraud have their own investigation timelines, and unfortunately many go unreported. Unreported fraud is something Kabam has no power to detect or respond to.

SHAYU

GMT+8 here and it's been more than 6 hours n yet to receive my solo gifting rewards.. any update on the rest?

Treinin

These things may be difficult to prove, but some of the abuse is pretty flagrant, and makes a laughing stock of the game. When we can all see there is a player with a full team of rank 4 6*s, but neither them, nor their alliance is on the gifting leaderboards, it doesn't take much sleuthing to ~know~ this person has bought crystals from a third party seller (especially when people around the person know flat out they did). It takes more effort to prove it, of course. I hope that Kabam will put in the effort to prove it at least in these exceptional cases.

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