FreeNatureArts wrote:That's really nice of you Tess, in other pet sites members are banned upon a single suspicion. So seeing you accepting of their explanation is very admirable. I've been curious about the same situation with some of my friends who like to help other members out.. Though it's just slightly off topic.. What does it mean for the person giving the free pets?
I always see members on the site with wishlist pets that I have high numbers of, so I send them away stating why and wish them the best and ask for nothing in return..
Are people like myself making others at risk? And if so is there any way we can notify you for those common situations in which we just feel good doing charity =3?
There are a lot of genuine cases of friends and family helping each other out on CS with gifts of pets and items, so we don't view every case as a cheating problem. However, it is against the rules for an account to exist just to benefit another player, even if it genuinely is owned and controlled by a separate person, so you should never encourage or accept a friend signing up purely to adopt and send things to yourself as gifts.
We also view unfairly weighted trades as suspicious, so for example many people try and hide their cheating by trading a bunch of 2nd gens, very common pets, rats etc, for a bunch of more desirable/valuable pets from their multiple accounts. We're not stupid, we can see through this strategy.
However, we aren't out to discourage generosity and gifts among friends and family on CS, and it's fine to give each other things for free or for very little in return AS LONG AS both accounts are clearly very active players and aren't just out to benefit another person. For example, if someone is running an adoption center they are giving free pets to a lot of players, but it's fine because they're obviously not created just to benefit any one person, and they usually maintain their own collection and show a genuine interest in playing for themselves.
Basically our ruling is that everyone should be a real player of the game if they wish to participate in trades etc, and an account which only adopts pets in order to send them to another person is not really 'playing', and therefore viewed as just an extra account for the person benefiting, even if they're not logging on from the same IP.
As a general rule of thumb: avoid unfair or one-sided trades with people you sometimes share a computer with, as it is harder for us to tell if the accounts are separate people or not in some cases. With random users you meet on the site, you shouldn't worry as much about receiving free pets, although you must ensure the account isn't just there to benefit you.
A common concern is that simply having more than 1 account logging on from the same computer is enough to get someone banned - definitely not true, the accounts have to be involved in shady trading activity to be noticed. If for example you had a sister join CS, if you never trade with her then we'll never even notice you share an IP. If you always trade fairly, the system won't really pick it up as suspicious other than the shared IP
And it is also not wise to trade with anyone if you know or suspect they are a cheater, particularly if you've ever shared a computer with that person, as occasionally innocent siblings of cheaters get caught in the crossfire when a bunch of multiple accounts are banned
