What really happened regarding the GP dupe - 80B/HR

[2college]

Lol do people really think the chinese gold sellers have $5,000,000 to fling at half a dozen people to buy the GP of them? These are pure unsubstantiated rumours which are most likely a load of rubbish. Of course the banned people are going to make out they they made shit loads of money from it. They got busted and are trying to come accross as winners. When they do a Matt Immam and post a picture of all the cash they so called made then maybe I'll believe it.

 

They resell instantly so they have cash going in and out all the time and constantly have to restock to maintain a good profit. Also there's not just 1 bulk reseller on the planet, there are hundreds of companies or solo people who do this. It's easy to get rid of 50b in a night or 100b in a day and not even for a terrible price.

 

Oh, and I can't show off anything on these forums, it's against the rules. ^^

Edited August 8, 2012 by 2college
Removed offtopic banter.

[Syd]

I kind of think those who tried to sell their abused earnings might not have thought through how badly a criminal offense can [bleep] up your life.

 

This. Just waiting for the day they get caught for tax evasion or unrealistic traffic on bank accounts... After that to get Jagexed by lawsuit and yeah.. They're definitely set for life.

 

And whoever said anyone who wouldn't have abused this bug to sell the gold is liar, should think about it again. I can't believe how many people here would actually risk the rest of their lives in a chance for easy money. Even if Jagex has messed up in many things, one thing is certain: They are very fond of their money and will do everything to suck the last penny out of you..

[Riqualyn]

Tax evasion - only if they don't actually pay the taxes on it. If it had been US players they would have ~8 months before that would be an issue at all.

 

Fraud - Again if in the US a contract/sale requires a meeting of the minds. If they tried selling billions of gold pieces at $0.40 per million to some random person on the street, it could certainly be ruled as fraud if it wasn't expressly stated that it was virtual gold pieces and that the seller doesn't actually own any of it. Gold sellers, would be well aware of the fact that they would be purchasing virtual currency, and that technically Jagex owns said virtual currency, so there would be no fraud.

 

"Damages" to Jagex - Again, in for within the US, Jagex would have no cause to action as far as civil lawsuits went. They still maintain all of their virtual currency. It has not been taken to them in any way, shape, or form. Breaking the EULA, as much as they might not like it, is not grounds for civil lawsuits.

[Nopenope]

The taxes on lump sums the size of this would be around if not over 50%. Then take away the % the legal fees would be to fend off Jagex and any money laundering charges, you would be left with much less than what you started with, but still not a bad amount from a computer game.

[Wessan]

Would this have been legal? Certainly a grey area, morally unsound and against Jagex rules, but I would probably abuse this were it clean. $15k per hour is really attractive to me.

Regardless, Jagex really screwed up here. Checking how money pouch behaves when full is one of the things that should have been tested more thoroughly.

 

Well, there's always the technicality that they're committing fraud by selling something that doesn't belong to them (as technically everything in the game belongs to Jagex, not the players). Other than that... I dunno. But I do think that they'll get suckerpunched on tax evasion if they aren't very, very careful.

 

For the most part I agree. However, I remember reading an article somewhere about online property such as items in a game can have actual legal possession by the player. I don't think this is the case in RS because of the way Jagex sets up their rules, but there is legal precedence for players owning the items in online games. Definitely gray.

[pulli23]

But than again my organs are legally my own. Yet selling them is one of the largest criminal offenses I could commit, you are just not allowed to sell everything you own. On top of that selling goods without giving others equal rights to gather those goods is an economical violation.

 

But the question isn't about what's legal and what not: that also depends on a country & has no real space to be discussed in a forum made of several countries & no one with an international law background. It should be about it being immoral & disruptive for others.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

...But the question isn't about what's legal and what not: that also depends on a country & has no real space to be discussed in a forum made of several countries & no one with an international law background. It should be about it being immoral & disruptive for others.

 

Well, at that point, the argument's pretty much moot. People will do different things based on their views of morality, which has become evident in this thread alone. Also, it could be argued that since Jagex's morals have been a bit lax since SoF, players don't enjoy walking on "the straight and narrow" if the company that asks them to do it pulls a "do as I say, not as I do".

 

Speaking for myself, I wouldn't exploit this bug for raw profit. I already have a good job, and even with student loans and other bills, no matter how tempting that much money is, it wouldn't feel right to me. Even if I didn't have a job, I wouldn't do this. I'd much rather talk with Jagex about it and see if I could secure a decent paying gig fixing this sort of exploit.

 

You could say it's for profit at that point if I'm making a living by exploiting and fixing bugs, but since I wouldn't run afoul of the moral police, I would disagree.

[Tres]

Its easy to say selling that much gold for such price but how many of us actually know how to sell, where to sell etc...and especially fast and large amounts. where you find enough customers to get sold with that fast rate? how you avoid not getting chargebacks? how does transfer happens ingame? all those things are unknown area for normal player...

 

but it has higher possibility that those who were able to abuse bug with 2x max cash were already experienced in that area

[n64jive]

On the topic of being "set for life" from this glitch.

 

$5,000,000 million USD, invested properly (through a professional), should bring in on average 2% return per year. Which is $100,000 USD. Which is very easy and comfortable to live off. I'm not saying that these kids sold enough gp to make $5 million, but if they had they could be "set for life".

 

Oh and $5,000,000 USD would have taken a little over 312 hours to get.

99 Slayer (at an average of 40k exp/hr) takes 325 hours.

 

I don't think they sold that much.

 

E: If this were done as a full time job (40h/wk * 50 wk) your yearly wage would be $32,000,000 USD. more money than the CEO of Viacom, Target, AT&T, FedEx, Wal-Mart, Goldman Sachs, Ford, Coca-cola, Lockheed Martin, Apple, ExxonMobil, Boeing, Delta, and McDonalds. To name a few.

 

Source: http://www.forbes.co...on-12_rank.html

 

Not that it really matters, but if you have $5,000,000 and you are only getting a return of 2%, then you're a pretty poor investor. Hell, inflation averages 2-5%, with 2 being the low end.

 

Living off the interest is never really a good idea. For instance, you can get 2% on 5 million, and just live off that, making 100k per year, or you could get 6% (which is somewhat conservative) on 4 million, and use the other 1 million to live off of for the next 10 years.

 

Scenario A: You would have 5 million at the end of 10 years.

Scenario B: You would have over 7.1 million at the end of 10 years.

 

Keep in mind, over the last 100 years, the average 10 year return is about 12%, which would leave you with 12.4m. The lowest ever 10 year span ever recorded in the last 100 years was from 2000-2009, with an return of 1%. Although that is fairly recent, it should be noted that the return from 2002-2011 was 19%. The market happened to be at a peak in 2000 and at a low in 2009.

 

Also it should be noted, to someone who plays runescape, it should be pretty easy to live off 100k a year, unless you live in the higher cost of living portions of the US.

[stonewall337]

There will always be lots of rumour and myth about this now but I wonder how much gp was actually converted to real money. I'm pretty sure if I was a bank manager and suddenly thousands of pounds started appearing in one of my clients accounts from china that I'd be pretty suspicious of something dodgy going on like laundering. It would appear that it was faster to dupe the cash than to actually get rid of it.

Are you kidding? No one uses direct to bank. People use Paypal or Liberty (which can't be refunded). Also, a lot of golf buyers aren't Chinese. They are australians, americans, brits, etc.

 

I woulda done it tbh, anyone here who says they wouldn't is a liar. Think about that money

lol, actually thinking with myself: nope I wouldn't do it... Maybe I'd start with something like this, but after a minute or 5 I would grew tired and "say screw it, I'm going back to dg"..

You wouldn't do something that makes ~16k an hour? Liar.

 

And again @ mercifull. Just stop. You obviously have no clue what you are talking about. "Chinese" gold sellers and all...

 

Hell, within 2 minutes of looking, I found someone on a 3rd party website with a VERIFIED $1,000,000 TRADED. Granted, that's obviously no where near all profit (Its closer to 8-12% by the prices listed) but still it's not hard to believe. That thread alone has been there for over 2 years with over 2500 POSTS in his one thread alone.

 

I'll be honest, when I'm 100% done with RS, I'd consider selling my RS account. As I grow older, I have more and more expenses to pay off, including massive student loans+ eventually law school. Same for WOW. Sorry, but real life trumps game. As well, as I wrote in the TIF times (And as seen by certain legal precedent) I don't believe Jagex actually CAN own the accounts and the items on them. But that is a different story.

Edited August 9, 2012 by Kimberly
Merged double post :)

[Sir_Squab]

I hope you realize that not all players would take advantage of a glitch like that tho. A lot of it would be lack of knowledge combined with an unwillingness to seek that knowledge. (Assuming you can make that money and get away with it legally.)

 

Also, it raises the question of how the players here are running into that glitch. Say one works with 10m and doubles it. Does the person abuse this to max cash and beyond? That's what they'd need to do before they could start making a fortune off this dupe, and a lot of players wouldn't go that far for fear of being banned. (Or at all.)

 

Personally I have trouble believing the rs gold market is big enough to make 16k/h for a long time. Not that I've looked into it, so I'll have to give it the benefit of the doubt.

[Trey]

On the topic of being "set for life" from this glitch.

 

$5,000,000 million USD, invested properly (through a professional), should bring in on average 2% return per year. Which is $100,000 USD. Which is very easy and comfortable to live off. I'm not saying that these kids sold enough gp to make $5 million, but if they had they could be "set for life".

 

Oh and $5,000,000 USD would have taken a little over 312 hours to get.

99 Slayer (at an average of 40k exp/hr) takes 325 hours.

 

I don't think they sold that much.

 

E: If this were done as a full time job (40h/wk * 50 wk) your yearly wage would be $32,000,000 USD. more money than the CEO of Viacom, Target, AT&T, FedEx, Wal-Mart, Goldman Sachs, Ford, Coca-cola, Lockheed Martin, Apple, ExxonMobil, Boeing, Delta, and McDonalds. To name a few.

 

Source: http://www.forbes.co...on-12_rank.html

 

Not that it really matters, but if you have $5,000,000 and you are only getting a return of 2%, then you're a pretty poor investor. Hell, inflation averages 2-5%, with 2 being the low end.

 

Living off the interest is never really a good idea. For instance, you can get 2% on 5 million, and just live off that, making 100k per year, or you could get 6% (which is somewhat conservative) on 4 million, and use the other 1 million to live off of for the next 10 years.

 

Scenario A: You would have 5 million at the end of 10 years.

Scenario B: You would have over 7.1 million at the end of 10 years.

 

Keep in mind, over the last 100 years, the average 10 year return is about 12%, which would leave you with 12.4m. The lowest ever 10 year span ever recorded in the last 100 years was from 2000-2009, with an return of 1%. Although that is fairly recent, it should be noted that the return from 2002-2011 was 19%. The market happened to be at a peak in 2000 and at a low in 2009.

 

Also it should be noted, to someone who plays runescape, it should be pretty easy to live off 100k a year, unless you live in the higher cost of living portions of the US.

I used conservative rates on purpose. I was trying to avoid posts like this where we go off topic and talk about how much you can really make.

[Nopenope]

I hope you realize that not all players would take advantage of a glitch like that tho. A lot of it would be lack of knowledge combined with an unwillingness to seek that knowledge. (Assuming you can make that money and get away with it legally.)

 

Also, it raises the question of how the players here are running into that glitch. Say one works with 10m and doubles it. Does the person abuse this to max cash and beyond? That's what they'd need to do before they could start making a fortune off this dupe, and a lot of players wouldn't go that far for fear of being banned. (Or at all.)

 

Personally I have trouble believing the rs gold market is big enough to make 16k/h for a long time. Not that I've looked into it, so I'll have to give it the benefit of the doubt.

I agree with you there. I don't think the actual gold market can keep up with the kind of gp they were bringing in. If someone was actually able to sell lets say $500,000 worth of gold in a month, or even a few months, there would be WAY more people/companies/investors trying to dip their paws into the mix. Even if it was secluded to only a few gold selling sites. That kind of money doesn't just appear out of nowhere these days and go unrecognized to a few hacker's banks.

[pulli23]

I woulda done it tbh, anyone here who says they wouldn't is a liar. Think about that money

lol, actually thinking with myself: nope I wouldn't do it... Maybe I'd start with something like this, but after a minute or 5 I would grew tired and "say screw it, I'm going back to dg"..

You wouldn't do something that makes ~16k an hour? Liar.

 

And again @ mercifull. Just stop. You obviously have no clue what you are talking about. "Chinese" gold sellers and all...

 

Hell, within 2 minutes of looking, I found someone on a 3rd party website with a VERIFIED $1,000,000 TRADED. Granted, that's obviously no where near all profit (Its closer to 8-12% by the prices listed) but still it's not hard to believe. That thread alone has been there for over 2 years with over 2500 POSTS in his one thread alone.

 

I'll be honest, when I'm 100% done with RS, I'd consider selling my RS account. As I grow older, I have more and more expenses to pay off, including massive student loans+ eventually law school. Same for WOW. Sorry, but real life trumps game. As well, as I wrote in the TIF times (And as seen by certain legal precedent) I don't believe Jagex actually CAN own the accounts and the items on them. But that is a different story.

 

 

Ah calling names already? Until this thread I didn't even think about the possiblity that people would actually sell the ingame currency for gold. That simply isn't going on in my head. Call me a liar all you want, but I'd suggest you first learn people before you place your personal stamp on them. Some simply don't wish to get involved with money as much as you do (I consider it unhealthy to be frank the things some people here do get a "quick buck", from suing others to cheating). As long as I can pay my rents/student stuff, money is only secondary to me.

 

How I would see is: "hey this bug is fun, let's try out".. "woooow much money to be gained"... "wooow, gotta tell others about it lol, this is really something". "...." "..... now what?" "meh I'll come back tomorrow again" *bored*.

[Riptide Mage]

Ah calling names already? Until this thread I didn't even think about the possiblity that people would actually sell the ingame currency for gold. That simply isn't going on in my head. Call me a liar all you want

 

I will, because unless you haven't visited any major cities in Runescape for the past year then you have seen bots advertizing gold selling sites. And if you had your private on you got PMs from gold selling sites.

[2college]

Its easy to say selling that much gold for such price but how many of us actually know how to sell, where to sell etc...and especially fast and large amounts. where you find enough customers to get sold with that fast rate? how you avoid not getting chargebacks? how does transfer happens ingame? all those things are unknown area for normal player...

 

but it has higher possibility that those who were able to abuse bug with 2x max cash were already experienced in that area

 

You're right, the people who say they wouldn't abuse it probably haven't sold before and they're not experienced in that area at all.

 

If you know how to sell safely and fast you wouldn't pass up on taking advantage of this glitch, regardless of what they say now.

[Logdotzip]

pm me your profits on yt 2college, im really jealous

 

assuming you dont mind telling people

[Mercifull]

You can tell me to stop all you like but there is actual academic research into gold farming and their sources quote the average chinese mass gold seller at having a turnover of about $100,000 a year. That's turnover not profit. Now even if you bulk sold to several different sites (most of them are owned by the same people) can you see why I am saying that they don't have that kinda cash to buy in the quantities claimed? If you have evidence to the contrary then post it. All this BS about "ooh I cant say because its secret squirrels stuff" is bollocks. Post it public let Jagex know, get the methods shut down or you are just as bad as the people doing it. Some of the people are claiming to have sold via player auctions but this is time consuming as most people probably only buy in low quantities. This was a bug allegedly netting billions every hour, you can't sell that off to private players quick enough.

 

When they post a picture of the money I'll believe it

 

Source: Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on "Gold Farming": Real-World Production in Developing Countries for the Virtual Economies of Online Games

Author: RICHARD HEEKS, Manchester University

[pulli23]

Ah calling names already? Until this thread I didn't even think about the possiblity that people would actually sell the ingame currency for gold. That simply isn't going on in my head. Call me a liar all you want

 

I will, because unless you haven't visited any major cities in Runescape for the past year then you have seen bots advertizing gold selling sites. And if you had your private on you got PMs from gold selling sites.

 

I constantly get emails about viagra & cheap taiwan/russian "brides". Yet when I'm at holiday in Taiwan I didn't think about sex.

[rudes7]

Its easy to say selling that much gold for such price but how many of us actually know how to sell, where to sell etc...and especially fast and large amounts. where you find enough customers to get sold with that fast rate? how you avoid not getting chargebacks? how does transfer happens ingame? all those things are unknown area for normal player...

 

but it has higher possibility that those who were able to abuse bug with 2x max cash were already experienced in that area

 

Good point, but the guys abusing the glitch certainly have private bulk buyers they sell to

[Ultimus Mox]

Those who say that everyone would take advantage of the glitch and then sell the gold are pretty much wrong, there are lots of people who did not want to risk their accounts to gain some fast cash, because it was simply not worth it, in their opinion. I didn't know of the bug when it happened, and sure perhaps I would of been a little tempted to get myself a few hundred millions to get a third age melee set i wanted so long, but whatever.

 

Point is that some of you are seriously underestimating other's morality.

[Kimberly]

When they post a picture of the money I'll believe it

 

I already told you they did.

[Mercifull]

When they post a picture of the money I'll believe it

 

I already told you they did.

I don't mean a screenshot of ingame GP I mean an actual photo of actual money a la Matt Immam/Funnyjunk

[Kimberly]

When they post a picture of the money I'll believe it

 

I already told you they did.

I don't mean a screenshot of ingame GP I mean an actual photo of actual money a la Matt Immam/Funnyjunk

 

...And I already told you. They posted pictures of cash stacks elsewhere. You can easily see it via their yt channels. I can see how you made the mistake, though.

[Sir_Squab]

Its easy to say selling that much gold for such price but how many of us actually know how to sell, where to sell etc...and especially fast and large amounts. where you find enough customers to get sold with that fast rate? how you avoid not getting chargebacks? how does transfer happens ingame? all those things are unknown area for normal player...

 

but it has higher possibility that those who were able to abuse bug with 2x max cash were already experienced in that area

 

You're right, the people who say they wouldn't abuse it probably haven't sold before and they're not experienced in that area at all.

 

If you know how to sell safely and fast you wouldn't pass up on taking advantage of this glitch, regardless of what they say now.

 

Well... duh? That's because the only people who know how to sell safely and fast are the type of people who sell rsgp in the first place. Or at least seriously considering it.

 

Ah calling names already? Until this thread I didn't even think about the possiblity that people would actually sell the ingame currency for gold. That simply isn't going on in my head. Call me a liar all you want

 

I will, because unless you haven't visited any major cities in Runescape for the past year then you have seen bots advertizing gold selling sites. And if you had your private on you got PMs from gold selling sites.

 

I constantly get emails about viagra & cheap taiwan/russian "brides". Yet when I'm at holiday in Taiwan I didn't think about sex.

 

I agree with you man. Who the hell sells ingame currency for gold? What, do people just show up at the dude's house with a briefcase of gold bars, and gives it to him once rsgp has been handed over? Currency man. Use actual currency. It's a lot easier to pay someone through the internet via paypal or a form of online banking them getting them actual gold. Plus, I really doubt many RS players or RWT shops just have a stack of gold bars ready to give to people for rs gold.