The SWTOR Community Manager Eric Musco posted new information and details regarding the ongoing (and neverending) battle with the dreaded Credit Sellers and Farmers.
► Credit Sellers and Account Security | 03.23.2017, 01:50 PM
Working to substantially reduce credit selling spam is a constant battle. We all know it’s impossible to eliminate all of it, but making it difficult or expensive to these spammers is an on-going effort most of our players never truly realize. It’s one of the key reasons we make regular changes and occasionally let you know we did so. Sometimes, those changes simply don’t work for very long and we have to try new tactics without disrupting your normal game play.
We made some behind the scenes changes in Game Update 5.1.3 (after the chat restrictions in 5.1.2 failed to slow them down) and since then we have seen a dramatic drop in the amount of accounts spamming credit sales, and the amount of messages they are sending overall. Depending on the time of day and what server you play on, you may have already noticed the drop.
What we are seeing now is actual player accounts being compromised and used to spam Credit Seller messages. In all cases, the player’s password has become known to the Credit Selling company resulting in that account being banned. The reason we are telling you this is a reminder that your account security is vitally important, and you should take care to never share your password, use the same password as your email (or other accounts), and to update it regularly. You should also consider adding a free Mobile Security Key to your account (we offer 100 cartel coins every month to each account using one!).
If you can’t or don’t want to, always try to be aware of strange login attempts on your account and notify Customer Service immediately if you spot them. We also know players visit these sites and purchase credits which quite honestly is a violation of our Terms of Service agreement and places your account at risk of being banned permanently.
Lastly, since we have taken the amount of accounts participating in spam down, reporting them is more important than ever. With less accounts to deal with, player reports are exponentially more valuable in not only squelching those accounts from spamming, but also allowing us to track them down even faster.
We want to thank all of you for every time you press that report button. Battling against credit seller spam is a war that will go on, but with your continued help we can keep it to an absolute minimum.
