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PSA: The Dangers of Private Party Purchases
Hello folks,
If I were to ask you the most important difference between buying a TV the Best Buy versus buying a TV from Craigslist, what would you say? One is brick and mortar as opposed to internet-based? One sells new while the other sells new? Blue shirts VS no shirts? If you asked me that question, I'd make a simple observation: one comes from a reputable source and the other comes from a private party.
What if the question were between buying a Premium rank from our MCGamer webstore versus buying one off of your Skype friend? What if the question was between buying a Minecraft account from Mojang versus buying one from your SG friend? In both of those cases, I'd say the exact same thing: one is from a reputable source and the other comes from a private party.
Why is this important? Because private parties can scam you.
And that's what we're here to prevent.
We acknowledge that Private Parties can be reputable law-abiding, and that Private Party Purchases can occur in a fair and legal manner. Sites such as Craigslist and eBay wouldn't exist if a good proportion of people are stand-up, honest private merchants. I personally have bought and sold things privately, and I'm sure a good portion of this community has without complaint or issue. But for the sake of this PSA, we will be focusing solely on the bad purchases and the scams.
What is a Private Party Purchase?
In the context of this discussion, a Private Party is to be considered an individual with no professional associations or mercantile responsibilities whom wishes to engage in a business transaction; they are usually individuals who are not running a professional business selling items, but they have an item they'd like to sell. The Private Parties in the above examples would be Craigslist, your Skype friend, and your SG friend.
This contrasts with businesses and merchants, whose profession requires that they sell things in a reputable, legitimate, and legal manner. In the above examples, the merchants would be Best Buy, the MCGamer webstore, and Mojang.
So then what is a Private Party Purchase (PPP)? It is a purchase made from a Private Party, buying something from an individual who does not run an official store. This would be buying the TV from Craigslist, buying the Premium rank from your Skype friend, and buying the MC account from your SG friend.
What's the Risk in a PPP?
Simple, really: you could get scammed. You could pay for something and get nothing in return. I think that's a situation every single one of us wants to avoid.
The thing about Private Parties is that they are totally dependent on the character and whims of the individuals participating in the deal. There is little legal requirement to uphold a deal, no authority who'll enforce a private purchase, and no absolute requirement that the agreement be conducted under fear of penalty. Add in the anonymity, distance, and legal confusion inherent to the internet, and an already-shady PPP can become even shadier. And the unfortunate part is that some people of lacking moral fiber will exploit this in order to scam others for their own gain.
This is an example that was brought to my attention. This happened on our system, and I've modified a few of the details to protect the identities of all involved:
This is just one example that someone had brought to my attention. However, the staff and Support Team have heard a large number of stories like this one.
Isn't there something MCGamer can do?
Simply put, no.
If you bought a Samsung TV off of Craigslist after all, only to discover the TV was broken from the start, would you go to Samsung and demand that they send you a new TV, or that they punish the person you bought the TV from? No, that's just not how things work.
These purchases are made off the books using private parties, and by definition we are never involved in any agreement being made. We are not involved with the purchase's creation, the terms of the agreement, or its enforcement; we are often never aware of their occurrence until something goes wrong and someone demands justice. Because we are not an involved party at the start of this agreement, we are not expected to become an involved party afterwards either.
We may give the ranks and perks on our servers, but the extent of our service extends to creating and maintaining the rank on our server for the benefit of the user who purchased it (and even that that comes with an extensive and legally-binding Terms and Conditions agreement with each and every purchase made on our webstore). In a sense, we only sell you a service/finished product for you, the buyer, to use. How you use it, and whether you mis-use it, is your personal decision. If you use it properly, you can keep the rank; if you misuse it, you get your rank revoked as detailed in the TaC. But nowhere are we obligated to enforce deals where our items are being used as tender. Just because we make the rank doesn't mean we will oblige by some random hardly-legal agreement two dudes make involving one of our items.
Funny story, actually: I was once asked to act as a loanshark on behalf of another player. A user comes to me, asking for me to ban a friend of his. He explains that he had bought a Gold rank for his friend because his friend doesn't have a credit card, and in exchange his friend would pay him $25 in cash. But now it's a week later, and the friend still hasn't paid up. So the user comes up to me and asks me to ban his friend with the reason, "Pay your friend ____ his $25". He wanted me to punish his friend until he paid him what was due. I pointed out how the agreement he made was a PPP, and thus had no bearing on whether he could be punished by a system that was barely involved in this agreement; if a mod had done that, that would qualify as abuse of power and subject to immediate demotion. After I explained the situation the user understood and retreated from his initial request, but I will never forget being asked to enforce an outstanding loan like some mafioso.
Regarding Gifts and Rank Ownership
When dealing with Private Party Purchases, it's important to realize who actually owns the rank in the eyes of the community. The MCGamer Network adheres to a, "One Player, One Account" policy, and by extension believes in, "One Account, One Premium Rank". As such, the owner of the rank is the person who owns the account that has the rank; even if someone else purchases the rank for them, whoever owns the account with the rank owns the rank.
This is an important distinction to make when ranks are gifted (such as in the second example above). In the eyes of our policies, whoever owns the account owns the rank. No matter if it was a birthday present or part of a Private Party Purchase, people who purchase a rank for another person cannot influence that rank. Even if you paid a full $100 for a Platinum rank for another person, you still cannot demand that the rank be refunded, transferred, or removed because that rank is no longer yours; only that person will be able to request those actions. So as such, be aware that the moment you purchase a rank for another person, you give up all ability to influence that rank.
It's just like giving your friend a birthday gift in real life: you can't barge into his house and take back the gifts you've given him the moment you two aren't friends anymore.
Are There Rules against PPPs?
Yes, but not directly.
General Rules, #17 states:
We acknowledge that we can never truly stop PPPs so long as one person has something another person wants to buy. However, we can remove any notion that MCGamer associates with and supports PPPs by disallowing advertisements and direct sales on any of our platforms. We don't endorse, condone, encourage, or even want the selling or trade of items via private party on any MCGamer platforms, thus showing that we are in no way involved in any PPPs, good or bad.
General rule of thumb for us is, "it's not our problem". I know it might be a cruel position to take from the perspective of someone who just got scammed, but please refer to the broken Samsung TV example. We didn't make the agreement, so we have no say in enforcing it.
What about the Art section?
The Art section is a unique case, but not quite an exception either. The Art section has been around since nearly the start of MCSG/MCGamer, and it hasn't given us many issues like PPPs have. Keeping it around seems to be beneficial without starting any serious disagreements between buyers, sellers, or the staff. Furthermore, the artists themselves behave quite reputably and legitimately as if they were businesses, removing much of the risk associated with PPPs whilst still technically being private parties.
Secondly, the Art section makes a clear distinction that the artists are operating as free agents, and are not operating under MCGamer's authority. We don't ask for any cut of their earnings nor demand any commissions, and they don't make any demands of us. They are simply utilizing a space on our platform that we created for them to use.
Furthermore, the legal and financial dynamic is different. Art isn't like a Premium rank or a Minecraft account, which are dependent upon another company (MCGamer and Mojang respectively) to uphold and maintain whilst the user uses it. Instead, art is a wholly finished product which does not require another company to maintain its existence. Buy an avatar, download it to your computer, and it's yours to use forever regardless of how you use it.
So What Can You Do?
Here are a few guidelines to follow in order to avoid risk and potentially prevent getting scammed:
- Avoid buying from private parties and individuals of unknown or questionable reputation if possible.
- In general, please don't make any PPPs for MCGamer items or Minecraft accounts. Whether you're buying or selling, just not doing it saves everyone a lot of headache.
- Only buy directly from reputable merchants.
- Only buy ranks and MCGamer items from our webstore. Only buy Minecraft accounts from Mojang.
- If you must make a PPP,
- Ensure that the other person is worthy of being trusted. It's not a question of whether you trust them; it's a question of whether they deserve to be trusted with your valuables. Reputation, experience, and history are crucial in this.
- be as thorough and detail-oriented as you can be. Contracts are important for a reason because they outline in definitive writing what needs to occur and is generally seen as the agreement itself. Get names, value information, timelines, signatures, and agreements as necessary.
- Make a record of everything that occurs. Save it, keep it safe, and make sure it is shared with both parties.
But Sometimes, Scam Happens.
Sometimes even following those guidelines and being as careful as you can isn't enough to prevent a bad outcome. Some people of utterly rotten moral fiber make their livings off of conning one honest people, and thus they are willing to work hard to do so. It's inevitable that we're going to be on the losing end of a scam at least once in our life time, and it's never going to be easy to take.
The important thing to remember is that sometimes bad things happen, and that's just part of life. Once it occurs, pick yourself up from the dirt, dust yourself off, and keep walking forwards. Don't wallow in some supposed failure, but learn from the experience in order to prevent being scammed again in the future. Don't retreat into a shell out of fear of being betrayed again, but understand the importance of having the company of people whom you can trust. Don't treat it like a defeat, but as a most minor of potholes in the road of life.
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