TOPIC: Counterfeit Token Concerns

MasterED wrote: If this was ever considered remove l,Z,O,B,I,Q,S from the letter possibilities to avoid confusion with numbers (1,2,0,3,1,0,5).

Ed

Nah, no need for that. Choose a better stylized font. Make the difference between "1" and "L" and "1" and "I" more obvious. Pretty easy to do.

Cranston wrote:

Kaledor wrote:

Cranston wrote: I totally agree this is a relatively small problem, although expensive to someone when it happens. Of all the suggestions, it would seem more cost effective for Jeff just to replace counterfeits when he comes across them. As long as the person can show proof of purchase from anyone, just replace it and destroy the fake.

How would he handle the ones that were traded for... or the cash purchases?

Just let the person use them?

Just trade them. It would be good to get the name on the other end of the trade, so if the same name keeps coming up, but otherwise just trade the fake for actual. What are we talking 10-20 tokens per year, maybe?

It should be even easier. If someone turns up with a fake token and tries to use it or turn it in and it is identified as such for whatever reason, the user is either the culprit or they are going to know who they got it from. We got all of our high value tokens from TD only, and for those that do buy, sell or trade them, they are going to know who they exchanged a high value token with. The culprit can be traced with minimal difficulty I believe.

But what's to stop the next five ne'er do wells who want to make a quick buck?

Disbeeleaf wrote:

Cranston wrote:

Kaledor wrote:

Cranston wrote: I totally agree this is a relatively small problem, although expensive to someone when it happens. Of all the suggestions, it would seem more cost effective for Jeff just to replace counterfeits when he comes across them. As long as the person can show proof of purchase from anyone, just replace it and destroy the fake.

How would he handle the ones that were traded for... or the cash purchases?

Just let the person use them?

Just trade them. It would be good to get the name on the other end of the trade, so if the same name keeps coming up, but otherwise just trade the fake for actual. What are we talking 10-20 tokens per year, maybe?

It should be even easier. If someone turns up with a fake token and tries to use it or turn it in and it is identified as such for whatever reason, the user is either the culprit or they are going to know who they got it from. We got all of our high value tokens from TD only, and for those that do buy, sell or trade them, they are going to know who they exchanged a high value token with. The culprit can be traced with minimal difficulty I believe.

If
You are doing 5-6 trades then sure it's easy. I must have traded with over 100 people at gencon.
Do I keep track of everyone. No.
Do I make fake tokens..no
If I sold a fake would I refund it ...yes and I have.

This is also going to come down to. Oh crap I have a fake ring of awesomeness.
Hmmm. Who selling one...oh look Kirk is. So I buy that. Then claim I got the fake one from him.
So it is still flawed.

This is obviously about a small number of people and a small number of tokens.

Even if the fake tokens pass through large token sellers, the tokens have got to be the high value ones, and even trading 100 times at GenCon, you should be able to remember to or from whom you traded a charm of avarice.

If the charms of avarice were numbered like the ROSP, tracing one would be even easier.

The other obvious solution would be to change the color of all of the high value plastic tokens themselves, such as the green supreme ring, and the orange legendaries. The counterfeit is easier when the low value tokens have the same plastic color as the high value token. The process would be much harder if all of the high value tokens had different colored backings than the others.

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote:

Disbeeleaf wrote:

Cranston wrote:

Kaledor wrote:

Cranston wrote: I totally agree this is a relatively small problem, although expensive to someone when it happens. Of all the suggestions, it would seem more cost effective for Jeff just to replace counterfeits when he comes across them. As long as the person can show proof of purchase from anyone, just replace it and destroy the fake.

How would he handle the ones that were traded for... or the cash purchases?

Just let the person use them?

Just trade them. It would be good to get the name on the other end of the trade, so if the same name keeps coming up, but otherwise just trade the fake for actual. What are we talking 10-20 tokens per year, maybe?

It should be even easier. If someone turns up with a fake token and tries to use it or turn it in and it is identified as such for whatever reason, the user is either the culprit or they are going to know who they got it from. We got all of our high value tokens from TD only, and for those that do buy, sell or trade them, they are going to know who they exchanged a high value token with. The culprit can be traced with minimal difficulty I believe.

If
You are doing 5-6 trades then sure it's easy. I must have traded with over 100 people at gencon.
Do I keep track of everyone. No.
Do I make fake tokens..no
If I sold a fake would I refund it ...yes and I have.

This is also going to come down to. Oh crap I have a fake ring of awesomeness.
Hmmm. Who selling one...oh look Kirk is. So I buy that. Then claim I got the fake one from him.
So it is still flawed.

Flawed system of findimg the coin counterfeiter based on this method. This could give a good lead. I traded with at least 20+ different people at GENCON. I did not keep track of names. Fake tokena are out there aND have been out there since I started playing TD.

Just because you traded with Bob who had a fake CoA does not mean he did made the fake. If Bob trade with Tom to get the CoA... does not mean Tom made the fake. Very flawed method. But it is a good way to srart.just can be time cosuming. We do this everyday where I work at and have found many of the leads are dead ends. Tracing the person would be extremely hard.

And buying out college tons could end up with fakes... so many different ways to end up getting fakes.

Just let people trade in fakes, use a numbering system and call it a day. Give a verification process and let the people trade in and get new numbered tokens.

I am thinking about this whole thing from the perspective of a coach. What will the coaches role be in verifying tokens? If we are the gatekeepers what is our mechanism for dealing with suspicious tokens? How will this effect our limited supply of time?

These questions may be premature, but I think they need to be consideration in system design.

Honestly, I think the coaches should be out of the loop on this. If it were just a matter of players faking tokens to have an advantage in the game, I think the concern would be much less on Jeff's part. There are multiple ways of scamming the system of TD game play. If people want to short (or augment their experience depending on how you look at it) with fake tokens, it really only effects them and their runs so it is not really a huge deal.

The issue is that someone (or multiples) is creating counterfeit tokens and presumibly using them in trades or sales that mean real world monitary profit and loss. So detecting that and doing something about that falls more on Jeff (and me I guess). Doing something about it also falls on TD, but I do not see having the coaches be responsible for policing that.

Now, if you notice the same person or parties coming in with a bunch of fakes, mentioning it to Jeff might add evidence in the search, but the coaches should not be pressed into police mode.

I know Jeff is talking with the manufacturer to see what can be done. We will have to wait and see what he comes up with.

Dave

You know if Jeff only allowed each person to transmute one of each transmutable item there would be less of a market for transmuted items as people would covet them and trading them would be suspicious.

Thoughts on solutions:
Numbering higher end tokens could help us to detect multiples in the system, helping us to keep track of numbers in circulation, but by iteself would not prevent some scale of counterfeits.

Ultimately what makes the business of counterfeit tokens profitable (preseumibly) is the fact that for many of the tokens, defacing a gold blank flint and steel and making it into a charm means a huge monitary gain and thus is worth the effort.

It is not likely that you will see many willing to sacrifice a legendary orange token to make a different one, the profit margin does not seem to be there, similarly doing the same with a ring of the elements to make a rod is also a fairly slim margin, so I do not think it likely those would be counterfeited on any profitable scale.

So the easiest solution would be to change some of the colors on the backs of some of the tokens to make the cost of counterfeiting by sacrificing one token to make another, too high.

It is a pain, because it means a effort to swap out stuff in circulation, but we will see what happens, I guess. Sounds like a busy HoosierCon is in the future...

Dave

dbradical wrote: Thoughts on solutions:
Numbering higher end tokens could help us to detect multiples in the system, helping us to keep track of numbers in circulation, but by iteself would not prevent some scale of counterfeits.

Ultimately what makes the business of counterfeit tokens profitable (preseumibly) is the fact that for many of the tokens, defacing a gold blank flint and steel and making it into a charm means a huge monitary gain and thus is worth the effort.

It is not likely that you will see many willing to sacrifice a legendary orange token to make a different one, the profit margin does not seem to be there, similarly doing the same with a ring of the elements to make a rod is also a fairly slim margin, so I do not think it likely those would be counterfeited on any profitable scale.

So the easiest solution would be to change some of the colors on the backs of some of the tokens to make the cost of counterfeiting by sacrificing one token to make another, too high.

It is a pain, because it means a effort to swap out stuff in circulation, but we will see what happens, I guess. Sounds like a busy HoosierCon is in the future...

Dave

Thank you for keeping coaches out of the loop on this.

I'm still unclear what numbering will do unless there is a check point somewhere before they can be used.

I think that changing to a different color for high value tokens is a clear winner. No one is going to munch many oranges for another orange.

Well except maybe the bracers.

Harlax wrote:

dbradical wrote: Thoughts on solutions:
Numbering higher end tokens could help us to detect multiples in the system, helping us to keep track of numbers in circulation, but by iteself would not prevent some scale of counterfeits.

Ultimately what makes the business of counterfeit tokens profitable (preseumibly) is the fact that for many of the tokens, defacing a gold blank flint and steel and making it into a charm means a huge monitary gain and thus is worth the effort.

It is not likely that you will see many willing to sacrifice a legendary orange token to make a different one, the profit margin does not seem to be there, similarly doing the same with a ring of the elements to make a rod is also a fairly slim margin, so I do not think it likely those would be counterfeited on any profitable scale.

So the easiest solution would be to change some of the colors on the backs of some of the tokens to make the cost of counterfeiting by sacrificing one token to make another, too high.

It is a pain, because it means a effort to swap out stuff in circulation, but we will see what happens, I guess. Sounds like a busy HoosierCon is in the future...

Dave

Thank you for keeping coaches out of the loop on this.

I'm still unclear what numbering will do unless there is a check point somewhere before they can be used.

I think that changing to a different color for high value tokens is a clear winner. No one is going to munch many oranges for another orange.

Well except maybe the bracers.

i think (we)the coaches should examine the treasure enhancing tokens a little close