Adding debit & credit cards with the future money update

[Smilesville]

Yes, let's simultaneously remove robbery limits and give criminals easy access to a character's bank account.

 

Because I can't see that going wrong in any way.

 

Fear not - poorly portrayed robberies would still happen even if the cash limit were $0 because they're actually going after that sweet, sweet PF firearm. The robbery limit is not realistic, but it's an attempt to address a problem that's existed with GTAW since its inception.

 

Throwing in the ability for a robbery to steal the entirety of someone's liquid assets without regards to fraud protection methods would absolutely be the death knell of the entire server - you can quote me on that. All you're going to do with something like this is encourage kidnappings, with Robber #1 holding a victim at gunpoint, on the phone with Robber #2 who sits at the ATM ready to withdraw the entirety of someone's account. Victim didn't give you the right code? "See you on the forums, reported for lack of fear RP."

 

I earnestly hope we don't take one step forward, only to fall down the entire flight of stairs.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Smilesville

[Alyssa McCarthy]

19 minutes ago, Peruvian Flake said:

Buying a car with a credit card, what?

There's many other ways to use credit and debit cards apart from going to the bank and cash out. I support this as it creates a lot of RP around fraud and it is something I believe that should be looked up. We're in 2021 this is what people do right now. It's not as complex as you would think. I think you can spend up to $100 IRL with Paypass. 

 

I only agree on what you're saying if the roleplay is mainly about stealing the card and trying to cash out at an ATM which I believe is kind of poor RP.

MasterCard’s Zero Liability protection means cardholders are covered from the costs of unauthorized transactions. (This includes Paypass (contactless) payments).

 

Meaning, like I said, there is zero risk of loss of money to the person that suffers the card loss (they are reimbursed by Mastercard), and that assumes you can actually buy anything in the few minutes it takes the victim to report the card as stolen.

 

You then need a way for all costs to be reimbursed seamlessly and without admin involvement because they're going to be too busy handling all the issues of players OOCly handing each other there credit cards so they can scam the server for endless amounts of free money because of some OOC exploits that are fairly obvious to see existing in such an implementation.

 

 

Edited March 23, 2021 by Alyssa McCarthy

[Peruvian Flake]

I was saying, if you do that with a credit card. The player shouldn't really suffer from a lost, it's credit. I get your point. I  think it's still do-able. 

[Ink]

1 hour ago, Alyssa McCarthy said:

but you can't expect to rob someone of their card and expect to use it - that's just entirely unrealistic because the minute someone reports their card as stolen, which would happen in minutes, the card is rendered useless.

 

Oh, how fun! I already see the emerging low-effort criminal meta. You steal someone's card, then either have one person stay with the victim while the other person goes and uses the card. OR. Strip the victim naked and abandon them all the way in bumfuck nowhere--if you're extra monstrous then beat them badly so they're left in the injured state so they can't get up and get to a phone quickly. OR JUST KILL THEM, haha! Can't cancel the credit card if you're PKed, bitch! 😂

 

I'm interested to see ways that credit cards can be used by criminals in the server, but I'm not able to think of anything exciting off of the top of my head. Most real life crime around credit cards wouldn't work well in-game because it'd just be spawning large amounts of money into the server on a daily basis--in real life, the banks (and thus the US population through taxes, bail-outs, and other incentives the banks depend on) eat the cost of most cyber-crime because the biggest value add they offer people is security in their assets. If every single person could just get held up at gunpoint and robbed of the liquid money they hold in a bank because they've got a credit card on them, then hardly anyone would use a credit card. We'd be using checkbooks. On this server, fraud protection would likely mean some NPC organization spawning money into the economy consistently to fund criminal players doing robbery... which... maaaaybe isn't even a bad idea if balanced correctly? But it probably is a bad idea.

 

In real life, the "robbing meta" works because the severity of the consequences rises sharply with each additional step required to effectively steal from a person's digital holdings. Snatching someone's card, a waitress copying down someone's card number, all of that is enough to get one or two low-cost online purchase done before the card gets cancelled for fraud. The owner is reimbursed their money, the transactions are cancelled (if possible), and the purchases can be investigated (cameras in the store if made in person, addresses the goods were sent to if made online). Kidnapping people, holding them at gunpoint, forcing them to give up their passwords, severing fingers for fingerprint access, and more require a more psychotically depraved criminal, and harbor much larger police resources and consequences such that there are easier ways to steal money. 

 

In GTA:W, this doesn't apply because criminal characters are often willing to do whatever it takes to defeat the meta and get their prize. Consequences are low, the likelihood of investigation is low, and even if caught and convicted the punishments are low. Has the meta shifted that "/me runs pockets /b do /showitems stop stalling" is no longer viable? Fine, now criminals will try to kidnap a person and strip them naked so they get every single item the character has on them. Whatever "protection" will be put on bank cards, we can safely expect a lot of criminal RPers will adapt their roleplay around that new meta, even if it means boosting their robbery charge into kidnapping, torture, murder, or more.

 

And as mentioned, if this server was to implement fraud protections, that would just open the door for lots of OOC and IC scumming to generate large amounts of e-maniez off the server. This would create tons of extra investigative work for admins, and the burden on this would either be on people reporting it, or on admins getting more spam of notifications. Not fun.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Ink

[mj2002]

I think we should evaluate and play for a while with the soon-to-be-introduced new system before considering these kinds of suggestions. There are too many unknowns at this stage.

[Jennie]

I would only support this if:
- I can cancel the card instantly. (I don't even need to call my bank for this, I can do this using their APP)

- I can adjust the money limit to extract that I want, if I want to put 100 I put 100, and not what the script says, that's not how it works irl.

- Able to change debit card number, when it's stolen it automatically changes.

 

Among many things that I don't remember rn, I don't have the need to support an asset grabber telling me to give the pin of the credit card or "reported for non fear rp."

 

In addition, debit/credit cards are more an inconvenience than cash, because they are canceled in one minute and reported as stolen, and if you buy with them, the most likely thing is that you get caught.

 

Edited March 23, 2021 by Jennie

[EffPee]

1 hour ago, Smilesville said:

Yes, let's simultaneously remove robbery limits and give criminals easy access to a character's bank account.

 

Because I can't see that going wrong in any way.

 

Fear not - poorly portrayed robberies would still happen even if the cash limit were $0 because they're actually going after that sweet, sweet PF firearm. The robbery limit is not realistic, but it's an attempt to address a problem that's existed with GTAW since its inception.

 

Throwing in the ability for a robbery to steal the entirety of someone's liquid assets without regards to fraud protection methods would absolutely be the death knell of the entire server - you can quote me on that. All you're going to do with something like this is encourage kidnappings, with Robber #1 holding a victim at gunpoint, on the phone with Robber #2 who sits at the ATM ready to withdraw the entirety of someone's account. Victim didn't give you the right code? "See you on the forums, reported for lack of fear RP."

 

I earnestly hope we don't take one step forward, only to fall down the entire flight of stairs.

Thought I might see you here eventually.
 

All I’m going to say to you is withdrawal limits, and don’t focus too much on the robbery side of adding debit/credit cards.

 

This suggestion wasnt made with just robberies in mind, it was made with the idea that since we’re making our money more complex, why not allow that to bring more RP opportunities that aren’t just “hey this guy took 100k out let’s go get a warrant for his arrest”.

 

Bank loans, repossessions, a credit score system, freezing assets, the list goes on. 
 

As a character who DOES robberies, I had to mention that side of things because that’s the part that affects me, I’m sure you’d understand.

[EffPee]

15 minutes ago, mj2002 said:

I think we should evaluate and play for a while with the soon-to-be-introduced new system before considering these kinds of suggestions. There are too many unknowns at this stage.

This is fair enough, like I said in a few of my replies I don’t think this is a simple update and I would never expect it to come out just as soon as this new one.

 

Once we see the deep-dive thread then there may be some issues arising that could be solved by this system, who knows?

 

I actually agree with a lot of the counter points being made here and I by no means mean to drive an even bigger wedge between the robbers and their victims. However, I don’t really see the point in this new money update if it does end up just being a way for PD/SD to investigate financial crime, at least with a traceable debit card system there’s RP being made to track these robbers. 

[DasFroggy]

18 minutes ago, EffPee said:

Thought I might see you here eventually.

He brings up good points that ultimately reveal why this system is unlikely to work, namely the biggest flaw - crimegrinders. There is still an evident lack of self-control in the criminal community, in which crimegrinders are left unpunished by their peers for aiming purely for meta as opposed to roleplay. 

 

18 minutes ago, EffPee said:

All I’m going to say to you is withdrawal limits

So we are back to implementing the 5k robbery limit already? If so, that is fair. Anything more however....

20 minutes ago, EffPee said:

Once we see the deep-dive thread then there may be some issues arising that could be solved by this system, who knows?

The problems already seen to be explained quite well here, and the proposed solutions would be easier to achieve by simply reinstating the 5k limit, as that is what you yourself are proposing in a more convoluted form, in such a way that will either be refused by the criminal community (if the limit applies to only theft) or by both communities (if it is a hard transaction limit, this defeating the purpose of having a card for "safe" transactions).

 

1 hour ago, Smilesville said:

All you're going to do with something like this is encourage kidnappings, with Robber #1 holding a victim at gunpoint, on the phone with Robber #2 who sits at the ATM ready to withdraw the entirety of someone's account. Victim didn't give you the right code? "See you on the forums, reported for lack of fear RP."

Assuming they do not use it as an excuse to gun you down for non-compliance then and there. This is a massive wrench in the works of the proposal, as there can be no fair means of introducing a debit card system if theft is possible, without crippling the use of a debit card. Meta driven crimegrinders will always find a way around, and as evident now with the 5k limit being gone, they will always complain until a restriction is lifted to allow them more access to the gains of others.

 

And here is why...

 

37 minutes ago, EffPee said:

withdrawal limits

 

For criminals only? 

- Crimegrinders will deem it the 5k limit renewed, and we will be back here on the forums arguing why the 5k limit is again needing to be removed, quite possibly with the animosity of said crimegrinders now accusing the administration of pulling a fast one.

 

For both sides?

- Unless there is some location where civilians can withdraw more than the limit, you have now restricted everyone's daily expenses to just that limit. Once it is exceeded, the card is declined, and they cannot pay for a tow truck or hospital fees, leaving them stranded.

 

If there IS a location where they can withdraw more, not only is the debit card system again made meaningless by the need for cash, crimegrinders now need only to repeat the above scenario where one keeps the victim hostage, while the other withdraws everything from the victim's account. 

 

"But what if that one place is the bank, which would stop the withdrawal?" Refer to the above section "For criminals only?"

 

Already we are looking at a missing wing on this flight model of a proposition, and a cumbersome load of additional new rules needed to be considered. That is not good for a proposal. When you can come back with a more conclusive proposal that cannot be outpaced and outdone by visiting the updates list with the backspace button, please do. 

[Heyste]

49 minutes ago, EffPee said:

Bank loans, repossessions, a credit score system, freezing assets, the list goes on. 

Loans and repos can exist already, without the need of a credit/debit card.  The reason they don't get much activity is because of the exorbitant interest rates (not that that isn't realistic, because it totally is), and the simple fact that most players want their assets bought outright.

 

I dont think I've seen many, if any, car dealerships or real estate moguls offering payment plans for customers.

 

And please, for the love of all that is holy, don't make my have to balance my irl credit score *and* a video game one.  I love this server for the most part, but I just can't even.

 

The idea as a whole might could work, and I may be inclined to support something later down the line.  I think it'd be best to see how the new money system works.  

 

There's just so many points(stated above) that would need more rules and stipulations and systems added.