Fraud Prevention System (Probation)

pweadamanteus

Hello STO Players and Community.

On Thursday October 30, Star Trek Online enabled a new fraud prevention system. This system has been in place on another Cryptic game, Neverwinter, since July, where it has worked effectively. It has been enabled on STO due to increases in credit card fraud over the past several months.

What this new system does to protect all players is to temporarily change the way ZEN is treated by accounts that may be flagged for consideration in the new probation system. While we are introducing this system into STO, there is a chance that the rules may result in a false positive trigger but we have reduced the chance for that to the bare minimum. When purchasing ZEN, if an account is flagged, it puts the account into a temporary “probation” state for review by the system. New ZEN buyers and those with a limited purchase history may get temporarily flagged into the probation system. Once you have an established purchase history with us, the system is unlikely to trigger.

When on probation, Zen cannot be traded on the Dilithium Exchange to acquire Dilithium. Also, some purchases made in the C-Store may become bound-to-account instead of being tradable. You will get a warning dialog at the time of purchase letting you know that the purchase will be bound-to-account.

The bound-to-account status is “contagious”, so that if you open a Lock Box using a Master Key that has this status, everything from the Lock Box will also be bound-to-account in the same way. This contagious nature applies to anything you get from the C-Store that can be opened, and the purpose is to prevent fraudulent purchases from being traded off of the account.

The system is intended to have minimal impact on users who purchase for themselves. All purchases are bound-to-account, so you can still move the purchases between your own characters. This is only an inconvenience if you planned to purchase for later trading to other players.

If you receive the warning about a C-Store purchase being bound-to-account and do not wish to have bound items, cancel your purchase and try again the next day. The probation status is removed from your account once the financial transaction is confirmed, which can take up to 10 days. Any purchase you make after the probation status is cleared will not have the bound-to-account status added, and can be traded freely. Purchased items that become bound-to-account will permanently remain account bound, so you need to make this choice before purchasing.

Current and past users that have an established purchase history with us are less likely to have this ever trigger on their accounts so the majority of you should not see any difference when you purchase Zen and items.

Thank you for your continued support!

Aaron "Adamanteus" Biedma
Product Manager
Star Trek Online

questerius

Judging from recent posts I'd say you've been busy.
Additional security is a good although i cannot accurately judge how this will effect players.

khamseenair

I guess this explains all the posts I've seen about people not being able to trade Zen on the Dilithium exchange then. May have been a good idea to mention this before it went live :P

Thankfully (or maybe stupidly) I should be fine as I've bought a fair whack of Zen over the years.

organicmanfred

Hello new Dev! (yeah, another one to play with )

thanks for the post.

You maybe should post this in the C-Store subforum too, there are already players having problems with this since days and are waiting for a response.

Welcome to the X-Men, I hope you survive the experience :P

qjunior

Never used a credit card to buy anything, since I don't have one.

smokeybacon90

If it improves security and helps stop scammers then i'm all for it. Hopefully this false positive business won't be too widespread.

worffan101

This seems sensible, and not too much of a hassle.

Welcome to the forums, BTW. We're a little insane and sometimes rage-fueled, but otherwise not terrible.

ddesjardins

Thank you for the post

jerszon

After you taking me money I have to sit in probation? Are you effin kidding me? Don't get me wrong I know more security is good thing, BUT upon purchase this was not made evident to me nor was I made aware of this UNTIL now.

ungratefuldead88

Just a heads up, I had this new program trigger several days ago without affording any warning before purchasing the keys. I'm not sure if it was just implemented early, but thought you might want to know. I filed a bug report here at the time: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1283051 .

oniralas

I have spent over 250$ in the last month with Cryptic - 200$ of which was done Nov 1st for the LTS. I fully support IP's I enjoy...but this is ridiculous.

I bought 2 stacks of keys and they became account bound. This was *days* ago. I didn't even get the visual notification on one of the purchases, 2nd one I clicked too fast. Yet, they're all bound.

Your customer service reps gave a TRIBBLE poor auto-generated response about steam purchases (LOL...not even through Steam) and are completely unwilling to assist customers with this system you implemented before even telling anyone about it.

I am extremely dissatisfied by being treated like a criminal for supporting an IP I enjoy, and the prevention doing commerce like any other member of the STO community.

dareau

So to confirm this somewhat:

Until a "purchase history" is built up, I can buy and receive Zen "instantly", however, anything I buy will be "account bound" until the transaction clears. At that point, anything I buy after said clearance will be the usual tradable items...

However, if I elect to account-bind something, it stays account bound even after the transaction clears...

Is this per financial account, or per player account? Basically, is the history build up on a "per card" basis, or "per person"?

Just want to make sure that if I want to do "instant" zen transactions, I know whether I need to have the moneys in the bank (as I'm establishing a history with "my" debit card) and not my wife's (special business-ish account), or could I use her card at-will...

daveyny

Sometimes "Better Late Then Never" is a good thing..

This IS NOT one of those times.

Another fine example of PWE/Cryptic "Dropping the Ball"...

Adamanteus, now that you're here, I hope the Hell You 'Manage the Product' a lot better than we've seen recently.

:rolleyes:

somebob

Random word of warning to the players:

Over in Neverwinter, all Lockbox Keys were made account bound with ZERO warning (happened one patch day, and unlike STO, the patch notes don't show up until AFTER downtime has started).

Because there's such an economy based around them, hopefully this won't happen to STO (or CO)...but NW had one too, so...

janus1975

Thanks for the info... I've read about this problem and nobody knew what was going on!

Can I suggest that if someone seriously needs non-bound stuff (many people buy keys as a way to get the in-game currency Energy Credits or EC for short), can they have an amnesty period to get stuff unbound, such as 'those who bought X product before today"?

I'm not affected personally but it would be a nice gesture for those who didn't know or expect this to happen.

daveyny

janus1975 wrote: »

Thanks for the info... I've read about this problem and nobody knew what was going on!

Can I suggest that if someone seriously needs non-bound stuff (many people buy keys as a way to get the in-game currency Energy Credits or EC for short), can they have an amnesty period to get stuff unbound, such as 'those who bought X product before today"?

I'm not affected personally but it would be a nice gesture for those who didn't know or expect this to happen.

I'm not so sure They want the players using KEYS as a "currency"..., be careful what you wish for.

:cool:

ungratefuldead88

Why wouldn't they want the keys as currency? Every key has to be bought from them with real money (since even Zen on the exchange had to be purchased by somebody originally). Right now some people buy keys to open boxes and some people buy keys to sell for E.C., all making them bound would do is eliminate the second group and thus make the total pool of key-purchasing people smaller. I can't see what they'd possibly have to gain by that.

daveyny

ungratefuldead88 wrote: »

Why wouldn't they want the keys as currency? Every key has to be bought from them with real money (since even Zen on the exchange had to be purchased by somebody originally). Right now some people buy keys to open boxes and some people buy keys to sell for E.C., all making them bound would do is eliminate the second group and thus make the total pool of key-purchasing people smaller. I can't see what they'd possibly have to gain by that.

5...
4...
3...
2...
1...


See somebobs' post above.

<shrug>

vengefuldjinn

oniralas wrote: »

I have spent over 250$ in the last month with Cryptic - 200$ of which was done Nov 1st for the LTS. I fully support IP's I enjoy...but this is ridiculous.

I bought 2 stacks of keys and they became account bound. This was *days* ago. I didn't even get the visual notification on one of the purchases, 2nd one I clicked too fast. Yet, they're all bound.

Your customer service reps gave a TRIBBLE poor auto-generated response about steam purchases (LOL...not even through Steam) and are completely unwilling to assist customers with this system you implemented before even telling anyone about it.

I am extremely dissatisfied by being treated like a criminal for supporting an IP I enjoy, and the prevention doing commerce like any other member of the STO community.

What fresh Hell is this ?!

I applaud the dedication and implication to any security measure/s, but making lockbox key purchases account bound, or putting players other previously trade-able purchases on "probation" is just asking for trouble, especially with your track record at late. - Reputation rollback - !

I really hope you guys kick up your customer service, and that you handle these "false positives" decisively. But it doesn't look like you're off to a good start. :mad:

I make purchases with the intention of trading them often. I sincerely hope that I don't get caught up in this brouhaha.

If you make lockbox keys account bound, you're going to loose about half of my zen purchases.
It would be a very bad idea, but then again, maybe I spend too much money on this little obsession of mine as it is....

ejlucas

oniralas wrote: »

I have spent over 250$ in the last month with Cryptic - 200$ of which was done Nov 1st for the LTS. I fully support IP's I enjoy...but this is ridiculous.

I bought 2 stacks of keys and they became account bound. This was *days* ago. I didn't even get the visual notification on one of the purchases, 2nd one I clicked too fast. Yet, they're all bound.

Your customer service reps gave a TRIBBLE poor auto-generated response about steam purchases (LOL...not even through Steam) and are completely unwilling to assist customers with this system you implemented before even telling anyone about it.

I am extremely dissatisfied by being treated like a criminal for supporting an IP I enjoy, and the prevention doing commerce like any other member of the STO community.

I thought i would buy a lifetime subscription as it was on special offer as ive been playing on and off since beta, only to be given the run around like oniralas. While i do have a steam account i have never used steam to buy anything in sto but still got the stupid on probabtion for using steam automated response.

robeasom

I havent bought Zen for about a year only transferring dil to zen. security is always good but Cryptic has dropped the ball to many times for me to say this is a good idea as in my opinion making stuff account bound is a bad idea.

theanothername

This is good. And while I can relate to those cases which go on probation but are totally legit I do think it is good if it reduces fraud.

To the LTS users/considerers to buy above: You should have not a big problem. Since you buy it for your account it should not be a problem & I seriously doubt the 500z stipend will fall in the probation category.

But OP said its about credit cards. What about other options like paypal? Automatically excluded or false positive there too?

Also I don't have seen the OP ever post before or answer questions in this thread. Is he even real? Could he be a fraud? :eek:

djspleen

It would have been great to know about this ahead of time, before I got SCREWED. Thanks Cryptic. Chalk up one more to the large amount of people who refuse to give your company another dime....


http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1282281&page=3

breadandcircuses

Is there some way of seeing if you are on probation before making a purchase, since the warning does not seem to have been properly implemented (based on other posts around the forums)? It doesn't bother me as there is no way Gre'thor I'll be buying a Master Key from the C-Store (not worth the risk, not to mention the odds of getting what I want), but it sounds like something that will lead to a lot of dissatisfied customers. Does this only apply to purchases of Zen with credit cards, or does it apply to all Zen acquisitions? Is there a way of removing the BtA status once the probationary period has ended? Is the BtA "contagious" to other Master Keys in your Inventory? Is Customer Service authorized to do anything substantive related to the C-Store (such as reversing purchases if the item has not been used, cancelling Zen purchases, unbindng after the probationary period is passed, etc.), or at best are they simply there try and mollify aggravated players? Just what qualifies as an established purchase history?

If you aren't confident that someone is making a valid purchase... why load the Zen before completing the transaction? Waiting to give us what we pay for (the Zen) when the payment clears is reasonable, imposing restrictions because you can't be bothered to verify a transaction is not. This is very likely to cost you money, and possibly players. Please stop doing things that make it harder for players to enjoy the game... I'm free to play* and I need you to motivate players to spend money if I want to keep playing. :P

---

*I spend much of my time on the KDF end of things. Based on prior experience, I don't anticipate being provided with anything I want/need to spend actual money on. Ops Pack with a 5/2/2 breakdown... really? The total is even divisible by the number of factions the game has. I'm not opposed to spending money on the game, I'd actually like to, I just won't do so for a diminished development cycle and limited offerings.

johnsteward

1) how do i know if i've been placed under probation? How obvious/easy to miss is it?
2) you already had a system that just waits before it lets you access the zen. Why not keep that one instead of meddling with purchases.

So it may happen that ppl buy stuff thats unneccesarily acc bound and stays that way? Cant you make an accbound 2.0 and use that and thus remove it afterwards ?

mirrorchaos

pweadamanteus wrote: »

Hello STO Players and Community.

On Thursday October 30, Star Trek Online enabled a new fraud prevention system. This system has been in place on another Cryptic game, Neverwinter, since July, where it has worked effectively. It has been enabled on STO due to increases in credit card fraud over the past several months.

What this new system does to protect all players is to temporarily change the way ZEN is treated by accounts that may be flagged for consideration in the new probation system. While we are introducing this system into STO, there is a chance that the rules may result in a false positive trigger but we have reduced the chance for that to the bare minimum. When purchasing ZEN, if an account is flagged, it puts the account into a temporary “probation” state for review by the system. New ZEN buyers and those with a limited purchase history may get temporarily flagged into the probation system. Once you have an established purchase history with us, the system is unlikely to trigger.

When on probation, Zen cannot be traded on the Dilithium Exchange to acquire Dilithium. Also, some purchases made in the C-Store may become bound-to-account instead of being tradable. You will get a warning dialog at the time of purchase letting you know that the purchase will be bound-to-account.

The bound-to-account status is “contagious”, so that if you open a Lock Box using a Master Key that has this status, everything from the Lock Box will also be bound-to-account in the same way. This contagious nature applies to anything you get from the C-Store that can be opened, and the purpose is to prevent fraudulent purchases from being traded off of the account.

The system is intended to have minimal impact on users who purchase for themselves. All purchases are bound-to-account, so you can still move the purchases between your own characters. This is only an inconvenience if you planned to purchase for later trading to other players.

If you receive the warning about a C-Store purchase being bound-to-account and do not wish to have bound items, cancel your purchase and try again the next day. The probation status is removed from your account once the financial transaction is confirmed, which can take up to 10 days. Any purchase you make after the probation status is cleared will not have the bound-to-account status added, and can be traded freely. Purchased items that become bound-to-account will permanently remain account bound, so you need to make this choice before purchasing.

Current and past users that have an established purchase history with us are less likely to have this ever trigger on their accounts so the majority of you should not see any difference when you purchase Zen and items.

Thank you for your continued support!

Aaron "Adamanteus" Biedma
Product Manager
Star Trek Online

im very infrequent with my purchase of zen, sometimes years between the next need to buy some, was the system setup to detect that pattern? over long term or just short term?

chalupaoffury

I might have found an odd bug with this, I reported it to you guys but I'd rather not put it on the forums. I don't mean to press, but if y'all can check your mod mail? I'm pretty concerned that a small thing can get much larger, and that would kinda suck a bit. It's not a huge issue, as it's only hitting a few of us it seems. But, it seems to be hitting those it does effect pretty hard, and I'd rather not see it spread if possible.


Feel free to delete this when y'all pin it down, but I'm actually 100% sure at this point that this might be kinda important. I just wanted to make sure y'all caught what I tried to share, because it seems pretty major. I shared the conditions that seemed to cause it, @handles of people who can verify they've seen it happen, and I'm willing to try to recreate the bug. I even have another player (previously named in that mail) who's started to be effected by it. Might be able to replicate it with someone it's already started to happen to, because it doesn't look like it's happening to all of us.

Anything I can do to help, please let me know.

wilbor2

So as normal a change to somthing was mabe public knowledge ti after the fact. Well done great job:eek:

i dont no why im annoyed by this ive refused to buy zen for the past year.
Ohh i know its lack of communication again

overlapo

My experience with this new system in Neverwinter wasn't so good. All zen purchases through Steam flagged my account for 2-4 days. Direct purchases through Arc were never flagged. My extensive purchase history through steam was never taken into consideration. Just a FYI.

angrytarg

Does this system has any influence on dil to zen transactions? Like making all zen to dil transactions limited in some way unless you start buying zen via ARC or the website?

sunfrancks

I welcome new security, but why are we hearing about this after the event??

New PR team needed!

somebob wrote: »

Random word of warning to the players:

Over in Neverwinter, all Lockbox Keys were made account bound with ZERO warning (happened one patch day, and unlike STO, the patch notes don't show up until AFTER downtime has started).

Because there's such an economy based around them, hopefully this won't happen to STO (or CO)...but NW had one too, so...

Wow, seriously?

Could you imagine what would happen if they did this here!