Scammers Killed my Friend

[Writer before God]

i think your friend over reacted.. and had deeper issues was he christian?

 

[heron]

How can I put this nicely--everyone is so quick to jump on this friend's personality. People commit suicide for any number of reasons, some of them simply the medication their doctor has put them on. When you are in this situation of either desperation, or losing a friend unexpectedly, think back on your answers. This is not a game.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

If he blames Guild Wars for the death of his friend, society itself will collapse. No one wants to give the responsiblity anymore for the people that deserve it. Same with Ozzy Osborne. His song "Suicide Solution" supposedly had backward messages that told people to kill themselves. If a person isn't man enough to not kill themselves but then not man enough to even take the blame for it, then they are unsaveable. They aren't thinking clearly enough for any emotional help to save them.

 

[heron]

I agree that frustration with the game competitors was not his only reason for suicide. I think that anyone would agree. My point is, HolyJames just lost his friend, has evidence relating to his friend's death, and is trying to figure out what to do with it. He
needs to weigh who to show this to, and how to act on what he knows.

Have you lost a close friend before? Would you want strangers to randomly rip him apart just after he died?

Reasons for suicide don't always make sense. I have run into several people contemplating it, had similar "I'll kill myself" threats directed at me, and have been to enough funerals to admit that it doesn't always make sense. People just feel trapped, or have given up hope, or are curious, or their brain's chemical balance goes haywire, or they face a situation where they are not perfect, or their friends dare them...lots of things happen.

But in retrospect, what do you do?

 

[Dazed and Confused]

I've known a few people that killed themselves and died suddenly.

The fact is this evidence will do nothing but prove his instablilty. Showing it to his parents would bring up more hurt feelings and pain that they probably wouldn't need right now. Filing charges against ArenaNet would add more fuel to the already building censorship fire that the gaming industry is under already. Numerous games are getting recalled because they have Mature content unlocked due to mods and this would just help that movement. Also, what would doing anything really prove? It will not bring his friend back and if anything just hurt people who weren't aware. ArenaNet hosts thousands of gamers and they can't be aware of every person's mental stability.

It's a terrible situation, but showing everyone evidence won't help much.

 

[heron]

Okay, that's fair.

 

[gaweatherford]

I am outraged against Arena Net and their game which is called "Guild Wars". Guild Wars is an ok game but the evil behind it is apaulling. My friend killed himself over it. He was scammed out of the in-game currency by a few scammers. He trusted them and I guess he got taken advantage of. I believe the names of the scammers that lead to his suicide of sleeping pills were named "Be Easy", "High Chuntaya" and "Diomedes Thegod".

I looked at his computer a few days ago and found out why. There were images on the computer that he took as evidence to try to get the scammers banned. He told the scammer that he would end his life if he didnt get his stuff that was scammed from him back. They just ignored him or laughed.

I went to hotmail.com and checked if he had an account there and thankfully to the cookies there he was not logged out. I read the emails and saw that he tried reporting it to the developers of ANET and they did nothing to ban or punish the scammers.

I am outraged by the game. They did nothing to stop his death and the scammers are not punished at all.

There would'nt ever be anything a law suit could press against anyone and win. The internet is the "Wild, Wild west". A person's actions are always ultimately responsible to themselves and no other. Knowing this, If I were you, and you wanted to somehow vindicate the "unfairness" done; I'd do what ever I could to get these guys (via E-mail, PM or internet link) a copy of your friends obituary. At least then you'd know that they have to live with it.......which only seems fair.....since they're the one's who caused the unfairness. Taking your own life over this definitely is not reasonable; so never expect any responsibility from them; but, those who were involved will still have to answer to their own conscientious......and some good may eventually come out of it if they Knew what happened. They should know.

God Bless.

 

[HolyJames]

Well I dont play MMO RPGs much and I have played GW only a few times to explore. I know that he did scam my friend from the images and email that was recovered from the hard drive and outlook, but I feel in part they are responsible. They scammed my friend of gold or items but in life they have a value. I feel that they cheated him out of his life and game items or the gold. And people may say that the game items dont have value but I checked ebay and found that game and item are worth money. Dont know how much real money was scammed probablly not a lot but the scammers did scam and the take in game money/items really equivilent to cash. I think the company that makes the game should reveal the personal information for the scammers so charges may be pressed.

BTW he was younger than me cause i tutored him from time to time thats how I knew him. He was in high school.

 

[HolyJames]

i think your friend over reacted.. and had deeper issues was he christian?

I think he was not religious.

 

[HolyJames]

Here is another image leading up the the scam.

 

[HolyJames]

Here is another.

 

[HolyJames]

Here is the evidence of another scammer that scammed him and told him to kill himself. I think Diomedes Thegod was the most responsible. He was the biggest scammer and the one who scammed him last.

 

[heron]

The value does add some significance to the helplessness and frustration, but doesn't seem to matter much now. People have lost so much more.

I think that people don't threaten to kill themselves out of the blue--they've thought about it from time to time and maybe are testing out how it sounds, whether people will miss them or respect them more, regret their actions. This is common in cases where girls break up with a guy, and the guy threatens to kill himself "If I must live without her." The guy doesn't get the girl in the end, either way.

It's important to report people who are manipulating the system and cheating others, so I would continue to report them until you get a response. Otherwise, they build on what they've done and train others to do it.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Actually with Guild Wars it warns you of all trades and to do so at your own risk.

What appears to have happened was, was he gave them some money, and he expected them to give him an item afterwards. Unless they hacked the game and scammed, they can't be banned.

Like I was saying, this is going to bring more people hurt and will not really bring back your friend.

 

[TheAlmightyChimp]

Suing the makers of the game is WRONG!

The real victims in this is you, his family, the scammer and his other friends.


By suing your only adding more victims yes its sad that things turned out the way they did but the last thing you should be doing is trying to make a quick buck out of it.

~Dan

 

[Fallen62]

First off, I would like to say sorry for the loss of your friend. I am an admin for a GuildWars fansite, and I can honestly say this is the first time I have seen this in GW. What it looks like happened is Diomedes promissed to pay him 700,000 gold for a Fellblade (Fell as Dio called it). The only problem with that is that GW characters can only hold 100,000 gold at a time, meaning they would have to make multiple trades. Unfortunately, it seems as though your friend put up the Fellblade right away and expected to get paid the other 600,000, and Dio just left.

As for Tigrou, Im not exactly sure what happened, but I would guess that your friend used that 100k (100,000) gold he got from Dio to trade for something from Tigrou, and Tigrou did a "bait and switch" which means that he put up the actual item, said he couldnt carry the gold, then put up a new item and your friend didnt notice.

Thats what I think happened, and it is very unfortunate that this did indeed happen. The reason that ANet may not have responded is because this could be (Im not saying it is) a forgery, and they have to proceed cautiously and look back to see what actually happened. They have logs of everything that goes on in the game, but to look through them is an enormous task. They are very tough in their stance against scamming/scammers, as well as hacking and stuff like that, and I bet that they are looking into this unfortunate event.

Remember, ANet cant just go on the words of 1 person, they have to investigate and see what actually happened before they can make any decisions.

Again, sorry for your loss, but there really wasnt anything ANet could do.

 

[Ska4u]

The reason that ANet may not have responded is because this could be (Im not saying it is) a forgery, and they have to proceed cautiously and look back to see what actually happened. They have logs of everything that goes on in the game, but to look through them is an enormous task. They are very tough in their stance against scamming/scammers, as well as hacking and stuff like that, and I bet that they are looking into this unfortunate event.

Remember, ANet cant just go on the words of 1 person, they have to investigate and see what actually happened before they can make any decisions.

Again, sorry for your loss, but there really wasnt anything ANet could do.

Like you said, they have logs. This is logs of EVERY chat that went on. If you have a date/time when this happened then they can check to see EXACTLY what happened, what was said between them what was traded etc. When people send in reports they forget the date/time or don't include the name/e-mail they're playing under. Now to go through weeks and weeks of the game log is treamendous task! One that would take hundreds of people days to go through.

One thing I noticed in the SS's is a lack of character name for the person you say committed suicide. If I was ANET, I would discard those claims also. To use SS's as evidence, they need un-doctored JPG file that is converted from the original .gif. If they need to they will ask for the original one also. The SS's should be of as much of the chat log as possible and shouldhave all the display information that is normally found on the UI.

But if you provide them enough information, then the scammers should be banned. ANET tries their hardest to cater to the needs of the legit players out there.

 

[Harlan Norris]

I think that these games are taken more seriously by some than is reasonable. We can get lost in cyber space, and forget about reality. Terrible thing, your friends suicide, over a game. Life, cannot be lived in front of a computer. Are you a gamer? Believe me the world contains much more than any game can offer.

 

[Fallen62]

One that would take hundreds of people days to go through.

I dont even think ANet has 100 employees ATM, and most of them are developers or programmers...

One thing I noticed in the SS's is a lack of character name for the person you say committed suicide. If I was ANET, I would discard those claims also. To use SS's as evidence, they need un-doctored JPG file that is converted from the original .gif. If they need to they will ask for the original one also. The SS's should be of as much of the chat log as possible and shouldhave all the display information that is normally found on the UI.[/'quote]

Its the way the whispering system works, unfortunately. You dont see your name, only the person sending the whispers to you and the name of the person you are sending them to.

As for the screenies, I agree. It would be quite a big leap to take those screenies just as they are. They would prolly have to have the original screenies, so that they could use them and make their own conclusions. It would also be nice so that they can see what town and what district the trade(s) happened in, and if they knew the approximate time, it would work a lot better and to the OP's advantage.

Have you gotten any response back yet?

 

[Mechwar]

I'm thinking holding Areanet responsible for someone's indescretions is assinine at best. You cannot hold a firm responsible when the root of the problem was someones reasoning when their reality was within a fictional based game! Offering all sorts of woeful sorries won't get over the fact that this person most likely had mental problems of a sort to begin with, and delved into the game to try to create a new reality for himself! Don't fudge the issue at hand here by trying to make yourselves feel better by blaming it on a game, when the problem was most likely at home and from someone who needed counceling to begin with. Don't wrap this game up in religion and real life when it's just a fictional game, like many others out there.