Beware of the Tax, and the false Black Angel S.A.S.

[____________Ranger75]

recently i started an org called the "Black Angel S.A.S." (i am Skullstacker btw on RK2) not a few hours later a character called Schizoprear(sp) started his own called "Black Angels S.A.S."(notice the 's') he(and i believe a few of his buddies) start up orgs and recruit peeps, then raise the tax to 90000000 or whatever and then kick em out and get all their money. First off, the real Black Angel S.A.S. has no part of this, and i really want to avoid the besmirching of our name ( but im sure that will happen to some degree), and second beware of new orgs! mine is not the first to be rooked and i have a feeling it wont be the last. I have talked to a Gm and the word is; "oh well, thats just part ofthe game". Well, its wrong and i would appreciate any help in dealing with these lowlifes. and if you are one of em-the i have one word-ARENA. there is no honor in your actions, so maybe i can teach you honor in dying. thanx

[______________Barron]

I agree..it's really lame to pull junk like that.

We all knew something like this would happen when the /org tax thing went live, but we hoped it would be on a small scale or even perhaps take longer to rear its ugly head.

And to pull a stunt like this posing as a legit org and try to besmirch their name is just reprehensible.

To you wankers who're pulling this crap...get a clue and a life, eh?

[____________Bagheera]

In a break between final exams I finally got to play AO last night. This is the first thing I heard about when I logged on. A friend of mine had lost every last penny to this scam, and others were screaming about it as well.

Why is there an org tax anyway? Couldn't it be done as a donation? Could limits be set as to how much of an org tax can be charged? What happens now to those people that were screwed by this scam?

[____________Ranger75]

Well, its not considered greifing by the ArK's or GM's, i can tell you that as a matter of fact, as i have petitioned this personally. In essence we were told to "handle" it ourselves ingame. So, since my last post the false Black Angels have been disbanded (i hope I played some part in the deconstruction) and the real Black Angels can move on. I recommend in the future to all people ISO a guild, find out whats goin on with em, who is their leader, etc. Just verify that they have a good reputation. Dont join any fly-by-night orgs unless ya like gettin screwed over. Thanx for your time.

[FireC]

Maybe if people were a bit more careful about what organizations they join in things like this would not happen. I'm not saying doing something like that is ok, it definitely is something FC should do something about - at least give the players doing that a warning and ban them if the repeat the scam.

Do your own research about the org you are joining in, get to know a few people in it first and don't say yes to random invitations.

[tool]

org taxes are meant for guild leaders to buy stat points and such for the whole guild. The problem is that this doesnt even work yet. So why have the org taxes in the game yet?

Why have them at all! Have a way to donate credits to the org funds, but dont have a tax. As you can see it is just being used to exploit.

[______________Barron]

Well..the /org tax command goes hand in hand with all the other /org bank commands, including /org bank deposit [amount], so yes, there IS a way to manually make donations to the guild bank..but those donations are over and above any tax the org leader sets.

Yes, the /org tax does seem designed to help orgs keep cash in it's coffers for things (as yet unimplemented) like building rent, org upkeep, etc.

As it stands, the tax is a flat tax..so the amount that is taken out is not a percentage, but rather a straight credit deduction. Perhaps it would be better to have it as a percentage, based on a persons current level..that way the lower level players arent smacked quite as hard, and the higher level players (who usually have millions of creds to burn) pay a higher tax.

I think for those of you who are not in organizations yet, a little research is needed before you actually join. Talk to current members, find out if an org tax is in use, and if so, how much it is. Most legit orgs either will not use the tax yet, or if they do, it's set to a reasonable amount that is fairly easily recoverable with some missioning/hunting.

And just to clarify, the tax is deducted once per day (24 hours of actual logged in time), roughly 1 hour after you log in. So offline time does NOT accumulate and count "against" you for the tax.

[FireC]

Originally posted by Barron
And just to clarify, the tax is deducted once per day (24 hours of actual logged in time), roughly 1 hour after you log in. So offline time does NOT accumulate and count "against" you for the tax.

Doesn't the /org help say it's taken off everyone's account every 2 hours of logged in time? Can't check right now but I just read it all yesterday.

[______________Barron]

If it does, the help is wrong. We tested it a little while after it went in and had it on for several hours with only 1 deduction happening per person while we had it on...since then though we havent tested it out again.

[FireC]

Originally posted by Barron
If it does, the help is wrong. We tested it a little while after it went in and had it on for several hours with only 1 deduction happening per person while we had it on...since then though we havent tested it out again.

Yes it says every 2 hours of played time. Will have to test that one day just to see how it works, we so don't need any kind of tax in our clan yet.

[______________Barron]

We tested it out over like a 4-5 hour time period a couple of months ago...we set the tax for something reasonable (but noticable...3000 creds), and told folks to just kinda sit around and chat while we were testing and to note their cred balances...

In all that time, just 1 deduction came out of anyone's account..

[Xeni]

Tax wasnt working officially and properly before 14.0

Im told that if you play more than two hours one day, tax is deducted.

I think you should post the names of the ppl that exploits the current flaws of the tax system.

[____________Ranger75]

The name of the one guy who pulled this was "Schizopreak" but that toon has since been erased, so watch out for a new one. Obviously an alt is being created for the sole pupose of ripping people off to line the pockets of his/her main character. Very shady indeed. I can only recommend being very careful about joining an org at this point unless it is of good stature as it is impossible to know who the next perpetrator will be.Thanx

[______________Remiel]

A possible explanation of the frequency of being taxed may be that the tax is collected once every "game day" - approximately two'ish hours in the real world, non? Would also be good reason for only having a single tax hit in a four'ish hour duration.. freak chance that the tax was set to go off just at the turn of a new day, so had a bit of leeway before the next tax cycle took effect?

Is the only thing I could come up with, barring actually sitting down and testing the org tax over the span of six or eight hours of online time.

Cheers!

[______________Barron]

Nope..we thought that as well at first..but after a complete game day, still only 1 deduction...which lead us to believe (and remember, our testing wasnt for that terribly long either) that it was once every real time 24 hours..

However, this was before 14.0..I think the org bank stuff went in in one of the last 13.x patches or something..so perhaps that had something to do with it...we havent tested it since that initial time.

[____________Fpockets]

I had no idea that this could even be done, thanks for the warning.
that explains some of the flash in the pan guilds i have joined recently.
I have not noticed a big drop in credits but then agian i wasnt really paying attention to it considering i didnt think someone could tamper with my credits without my knowledge.

I smell major exploit here. GM said it wasnt grieving? hell i would be grieving over lost credits. GMs need to get a clue

[______________Samain]

They need to make it where min tax is 0% max is 12% and where the taxes are collected every time you loot. Like if you loot 100cr at 12% 12cr would go to your guild and 88cr to your your bank. That way peoples entire banks cant be emptied by lamers. I know org im in now collects a small tax that pays for guild uniforms, items and such. With the tax like this members that feel they wana donate more would be able to without having thier money stolen from them.

[caramster]

How about a window that pop-ups when the leader change the tax rate? Like the window when you are deleting a mission? So that the player gets a warning. The window should display what the tax rate is and calculate how much it would take of your current funds.

The window should also have those 'Yes' and 'No' buttos. Yes for approvment and No for denying transfer of your funds. If you choose 'No', a mess should be transmitted to the leader. Something like 'BobaFett refuses to pay tax'. That would prevent theese scams imho.

[Fistgoddess]

Well from the sounds of it, I will be leaving the new guilds I just joined. I just joined for the heck of it, but I will not be subject to something that I have no say on. IF it was a guild vote to instate and raise the tax rather than the President's sayso, I would'nt feel so hostile towards it. Just my 2 creds worth.

[Lordbonez]

I think its possible for any member of a guild to check the current status of the org tax by typing /org tax (haven't tested this yet, but i'm pretty sure) so if there is a high tax requirement you should be able to find out in advance.

That said, its a sad reality that this is happening, human nature i suppose. I run a very small guild myself and don't see any reason for a guild tax (other than saving up for future additions like guild houses), but with no ETA on them, there is no urgency to do so.