I am so glad I have not done the merchant thing (lack of r/l time) in 8 months or more... Just been loggin in for a few mins here and there, not even going to town half the time... (no time sucks but I am so happy) ...
I would have been banned playing the way I normally do so goes to show no one is safe if they make a living buying and selling like some of us do.
I could not have picked a better year not to play this wonderful game... I just count my blessing (lack there of) .. haha... no real life time... no game time... saved my uo account. Harsh but true.
This entire thing is being pulled out of proportion.
Me and several other
hundred traders have not been banned. While I cannot comment on some of the more tragic bans, I do know that if you use common sense you are 99% safe. When I noticed valorite hammers were showing up in suspicious frequencies I just stopped buying and selling them. Some guy offered me 100 barbed kits at 800k each. I told him no thank you. As I think EVERYONE should have done. If someone did buy those 100 barbed kits (do you really think someone did ten thousands of bods only to sell them at a sub-market price? Get the heck outta here!) I hope he or she got banned. Along with the guy selling them.
It's not like EA is banning all traders. UO has a very active economy, so there are goods being exchanged all day long. Just always consider 'is the guy I'm dealing with legitimate?'. Talk with him a little. How did he get the stuff? I'm by no means a small trader, so it's definitely possible. A quick profit might in the end kill you. If you sell TVs in a store and some guy offers you 20 high end Sony TVs worth $3000 for $500 each, would you buy them? Duh, of course not.
If you don't trust a vendor, just don't buy the items!
Some people here on Stratics love the drama and act like the world is on fire. That's just not true. EA banned some people that deserved to get banned a long time ago for the most part. Sure some people appear to be legitimate, but EA will never give their side of the story (and as a lawyer irl I surely hope they won't either).
Oh and don't get me wrong, personally I think Lucy and Zofinur did nothing wrong, and I do hope EA will investigate their case again. Even if just to clear their names.