Real Money Trading

hi, i think you may have misunderstood me! a warning is not the same as a grace period. a warning would be to say, for example, "hey, just so you know, starting on [date] we're going to be banning rmt completely, so finish up anything involving that before then." a grace period is saying "since we introduced this so soon without warning, we're giving you a bit of time to adjust, but on [date] we'll be banning it entirely, so be sure you're finished by then." in addition to that, i wasn't at all suggesting staff give us a warning about this without explanation! i was suggesting they might have told us something along the lines of "hey users, just a warning that due to legal issues involving gambling, taxes, etc (apologies as i don't quite know all the reasons here), we'll be banning rmt for good on [date]. please have any rmt transactions completed by then."

They had to ban it as soon as they determined there was legal culpability. If they knew it was illegal and still allowed people time to continue after the announcement (whether you call it a warning or not really doesn't matter) they would be legally responsible for the illegal activity thhat follows.

I understand what you're saying. The point is that as soon as staff have come to the conclusion that RMT may be/are illegal, they have a legal responsibility to ban it immediately. If they were to issue a warning, as you said, "RMT will be banned starting mm/dd/yyyy, due to legal issues, so wrap everything up before then", that is a legal admittance (a "confession", if you will) that they are aware of the illegal nature of the activities as of the date of the announcement, but will knowingly allow them to continue until the stated ban date. I totally get the desire for a warning but there just isn't any way for that to have happened without the staff publicly endorsing (potentially) illegal activities for a set period of time.

i do think arbor has understood you. if a cop goes up to you and tells you to stop doing something illegal, you must stop it immediately, you cannot say "5 more minutes sir !". i wish we couldve had a warning, but it could get pfq in serious legal trouble. in this case, a grace period and warning are nearly the same thing

yes, i understand that part. i'm still confused as to how they didn't find out sooner that this would be an issue (before rmt became such a big thing, maybe?) again, a warning doesn't mean "keep doing illegal stuff guys lol," it's a way of informing users of future site changes, which frankly is extremely important. (also because new posts were made) generally cops do give you warnings if i'm not mistaken? i was under the impression that rmt was through some loophole, not directly illegal (like staff was saying "this might not be entirely allowed so just in case we're stopping it completely") EDIT: i also want to make it super clear i'm not confused as to why they're banning it, just why they weren't aware of this sooner and why they didn't warn us beforehand. and thanks for keeping it civil everyone/genuine

Functionally, this announcement IS the warning. They aren't jumping straight to a ban. I'm sorry if I'm not explaining well.

I'm going to chime in briefly on something that I've noticed a lot of people seem to misconstrue. RMT itself is not illegal. RMT done incorrectly, whether on accident or intentionally, results in other illegal activities such as tax fraud. PFQ has no ability to enforce that its users do RMT correctly and thus avoid such illegal activities, which left us in a precarious position while acting as a participant (as the producer of the digital goods being sold). I'll also add a little more detail regarding Eltafez's earlier response about our two staff members. One staff member posted an RMT trade thread and was immediately required to take it down. No trades were begun or completed. The other staff member made a purchase using RMT, not a sale (edit: and without the understanding that a decision was being made about RMT). We're providing this additional information because it seems that without it, the default assumption of many users is that said staff members profited at the expense of the userbase and were not immediately dismissed for it. @wobbegong: Normally you would be correct in that a warning and a grace period are not the same thing. In this specific case, however, whether it was called a warning or a grace period, the result of the warning would have been an upsurge in the activity that needed to cease.

.. I don't understand why people are getting upset about this. PokeFarm isn't supposed to be for getting money, it's just a fun clicking game with more features. I often saw people selling Pokemon for real money, but I could never buy it. I though it was unfair to those who were unable to give money to you. I understood why art could be sold by real money, art is made by the person selling it. If anything, this new rule is an improvement. Also, if it is banned because of legal reasons, then that's totally acceptable! They can't control the law.

@methos thank you for explaining! this is what i've been saying though: has pfq actively seen users doing rmt incorrectly? because i understand that banning it immediately is a precaution, but when done correctly (which is mostly what i've come actoss on the forums), it should be totally fine. this is why i wish we could have had a warning/grace period/whatever; so that users could wrap things up. if users hadn't been doing rmt incorrectly, the upsurge shouldn't have been a problem (since 0 times anything is still 0)

Without naming names, beyond the announcement made about account breaches? Yes. In several different ways.