Gaia Problems: (Gaia Toolbar update workaround 08-01-08)

[Kava]

Archived Scam Section

When to PM a mod!

PMing an Online Mod
Dedicated Gaia Moderators handle forum moderation, Art Arena approvals/disapprovals, Link List moderation, Gaia Guild Network moderation, and more. Send signature removal requests, Terms of Service questions, and other general forum questions to these moderators.
Global Gaia Moderators handle abuse and harassment reports, as well as oversee moderation throughout the site.
Omnimoderators handle account issues, including hacking and scamming reports. Talk to these moderators about problems you may have with your account, items, and inventories.

When in doubt, PM an online purple mod! You can find a list of online moderators at the top of each forum ("View Forum Moderators" wink .

For Terms of Service violations, hacking/scamming reports, and abuse/harassment reports, please use the appropriate report form. Check the Reporting System explanation for how-to information.

1. From : Lanzer At gaiaonline <[e-mail]>
   Subject : GaiaOnlineWarning
   
   Our monitors have detected that you have posted yet again some
   sexual or offensive content, or attempted to hack, scam, cheat
   or tried to find somebody else's password out. We have be informed
   you own a second account. Your account will be taken away in 3
   days if you do not reply to this warning declaring that you will
   not use this language again, or declining with a reasonable
   explanation. Please include:
   1) Your user name
   2) Your password
   
   3)
   Your apology/decline of offensive content If you are not responsible
   for this accusation, then we honestly apologize for any trouble that
   we may have caused.
   4) log out.
   Gaia is not a dating service.
   
   The Gaia Team
   
   
   
2. March 23

Never.... ever.... EVER give out your password. If this was really VO, we'd put him in the stocks for this... it's a hacker trying to get your password, not VO

(18:04:1 cool VOonGaia: Our monitors have detected that you have posted yet again some sexual or offensive content,attempted to hack,or scam.We have also been informed that you own a second account. Your account will not receive another warning this is your last one.We do however, require some information so we can enter you into the G.S.D. Please include: 1) Your user name 2) Your password 3) Your apology/decline of offensive content If you are not responsible for this accusation, then we honestly apologize for any trouble that we may have caused you.For best results please log out for 24 hours to avoid the possibility that your account may get banned.If you decline to provide the required innformation then you will recieve an IP address ban which will disable you from visiting gaia again.

Edit:Might also go by the screenname of: LANZERonGAIA

Also:

Yet another obvious scam

AlphaCreatorLanz (9:32:55 PM): Hey! My program has told me that you have inserted an AIM screen name, Gaian Newbie. I'm Lanzer, creator of Gaia. I'd like to enter you in a newbie donation program that helps you get more rare events, I just need: (1) Username (2) Gaia Password (3) Male or Female. Once I put this information into the database, you should get more rares.

March 20

Bad naughty evil people who just want your account

<[e-mail]>

Dear gaian,

Due to previous hacking problems displaying your e-mail adrress is no longer recommended on gaia. Because of said hacking problems I am afraid it is required of you to fill in the information below for account confirmation, please send these details back VIA e-mail and thank you for participating in keeping gaia safe from hackers and identity theft specialists.

Username:

Birthday:

Password:

Confirm password:

Friends (if any):

Failure to return this information VIA e-mail will result in either the freezing or banning of said account until this information is confirmed, sorry for any inconvinience and thank you for making gaia a safer place as a site and a community.

March 19

DO NOT RESPOND - the admins never ask for your password

From : Lanzer At gaiaonline <[e-mail]>
Subject : GaiaOnline Warning

| | | Inbox


Our monitors have detected that you have posted yet again some
sexual or offensive content, or attempted to hack, scam, cheat
or tried to find somebody else's password out. We have be informed
you own a second account. Your account will be taken away in 3
days if you do not reply to this warning declaring that you will
not use this language again, or declining with a reasonable
explanation. Please include: 1) Your user name 2) Your password 3)
Your apology/decline of offensive content If you are not responsible
for this accusation, then we honestly apologize for any trouble that
we may have caused. 4) log out.
Gaia is not a dating service.

The Gaia Team

March 6-19

DO NOT RESPOND - the admins never ask for your password

The email address was [e-mail].
March 19: Another email adress used with same content: [e-mail]

Dear Gaia User,

It has come to our attention that you have shown your e-mail address
on Gaia. You might not know of this, but a new rule has been passed down the
Gaia site. Because of the recent increase in hackers and scammers on the
site it is not allowed to give out any personal information( including your
e-mail address) to anyone else on the site. For safety issues and to make
sure this account on Gaia is yours, we will need you to fill out the
following information below and send it back to us as soon as possible.

Gaia Username-

Gaia Password-

Names of Friends on Gaia(if any)-

We will need the above information to verify if the account is yours.If this
information is not sent back to us via
e-mail, we will be forced to shut down or ban your Gaiaonline account for
safety. Sorry for the inconvinence.

Sincerely,
The Gaia Online Staff

February 20

DO NOT CLICK ON THE URL THIS USER GIVES YOU! If you fill out the form, you will have given them the username and pass to your account and they will steal it!!

Quote:

LifeSeeker66: Hey if you go here [LINK REMOVED] and fill that out you get 1,000,000 gold on gaia.

January 8

DO NOT BELIEVE THIS! They will steal your password then steal your account!!!!!

Dear GaiaUser,

For the past two days, Gaia has been experiencing problems with our network equipment due to the addition of fishing. We sincerely apologize for the lost items due to the equipment failures. We understand that it is fustrating to have service interruptions and bugs and we are doing all that we can to debug all the existing problems that were reported.

Please note that most of the instability issues were caused by the addition of new features. Some of the problems were caused by the implementation or changes of a new Gaia network that will allow us to serve more users (30.000 to be exact) without a decrease in quality of service.

Though there were bugs during these system changes and migration, almost all the bugs and quirks had been worked out at this point. Without these changes, Gaia will not be able to grow, and the critical errors will only get worse. Now with the new system in place. Once the database has been optimized, site expansion will be smooth and connection errors will be kept to a minimum, if not, an issue of the past.

We thank you for your patience during all the changes and migration.The end of the alpha testing phase should come within a few weeks, right before we introduce the housing system.

Therefore, we selected a few people to test out the new beta. Please help us by testing out the new beta, if you come around problems and/or new suggestions we would be pleased if you fill in the feedbackform .

Yours, The GaiaOnline Team

January 7

Quote:

gaiastaffmembers (1/7/2005 8:18:28 PM): GAIA: attention all gaia members we are having a problem with the net work, we lost every ones passwords, in two days we are going to delete all gaia members we don't have a password, for so we ask you to send it to this address,we are emailing/aiming all yahoo users sorry if you don't go on gaia have a nice day.iam online now if you have any questions

January 2
Another scam with someone pretending to be Gaia Staff.
Link

December 31
Dear Gaia User,
Due to the recent incline of "Hackers" and "Scammers", a new rule has
been passed which clearly states that no Gaia user is to post their
E-Mail address anywhere on the Gaia site. We understand that many
Gaia users are new to this rule and may not know the seriousness of the
situation. We appologize, but if you wish to keep your current Gaia
Account running, you will need send us the following information by PM
so we can verify that this account is yours.
Your GaiaUsername:
Your Password:
If you have any Trades:
Sadly, if we do not get a response within 5 hours, we will need to freeze and close down your Gaia Account. Thank you for understanding, and we hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
The Gaia Admins

"Gaia bot"
There is someone going around on AIM, asking members if they want the down load to a "Gaia bot". Do not accept this! Reminder that Botting is not allowed on Gaia - all accounts that are botting will be banned.
For more information on this scam, please see this thread:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4779558

The Gaia Nitemare Guild
"Eeeeeeep!" Guess what!?
-> You've just been invited by the official Gaia Nitemare Guild blaugh
Everybody is free to join us by replying our thread and of course! Bumpers are allowed also ^_^
PM ME OR ONE OF THE OTHER STAFF FOR MORE INFORMATION! BEFORE POSTING MAKE SURE YOU'VE READ THE FIRST POST!
Peace...
<< The NM Guild >>

There is no such thing as 'Gaia Sushi Clan'...
The Gaia Sushi Clan
Hi there!
Congratulations, you have just been chosen to participate our brand new gaia clan called the Gaia Sushi Clan. No, this name's not boring. It's just the name of our best server, we're wanting to invite more people to make this clan one of Gaia's elite teams. Once you're chosen you have the right to take part of important discussions of gaia's new features, rules and announcements. We're introducing some random people with a nice and unique avatar to take part of this.
How to continue?
Well, it's quite simple. We've given the chosen members access to our sub security website The Gaia Sushi Clan. All you have to do is login with your Gaia username and password. Then fill in the form you see at the next page, then you're done. It will take five minutes to activate your membership. Note that our site isn't finished yet, so there are some issues you have to deal with. We're working on the source so sooner or later we will announce this new system on the Gaia forum.
GO TO THE GAIA SUSHI CLAN
We're also looking for some people who want to help us with new features. For more information, reply to this message.
- The Gaia Staff

SCAMMER TRYING TO TAKE YOUR PASSWORD
Dear Gaia User,
You have been chosen to test our new Gaia Fishing system. We will need your password to send you a link to the test system and a fishing pole due to problems with the trade system. Congratulations!
Thank you,
Admin

NOT GAIA STAFF!!!
From : javi were
Sent : Friday, October 15, 2004 4:39 AM
To : <your e-mail>
Subject : gaiaonline problem with your account
hello this is one of the gaia online staff members and i axedently did
something with your account and in a week it will be deleted unlesss
you give me your password for that i can fix it emediatly.
thank you,
gaiaonline staff.

THIS IS A SCAM!!
Our monitors have detected that you have posted yet again some
sexual or offensive content, or attempted to hack, scam, cheat
or tried to find somebody else's password out. We have be informed
you own a second account. Your account will be taken away in 3
days if you do not reply to this warning declaring that you will
not use this language again, or declining with a reasonable
explanation. Please include: 1) Your user name 2) Your password 3)
Your apology/decline of offensive content If you are not responsible
for this accusation, then we honestly apologize for any trouble that
we may have caused. 4) log out.
Gaia is not a dating service.
The Gaia Team
From [e-mail]

From PM:
Hey!
i Found an awsome glitch that doubles all your items and gold wana try it?all i need is your pass and you can change it right after so i dont know it any more so i cant get anything off of it or anything.
P.S. Don't Worrie you can trust me i don't scam

FAKE E-MAIL
[e-mail]
Saying you have won "Gaia's Weekly Prize"
Screenshot of the e-mail
Click for screencap

FAKE E-MAIL!!!
From : Gaia Online <[e-mail]> <~~ NOT GAIA
Sent : Sunday,August 22, 2004 2:27 PM
Subject : Gaia Warning
Our monitors have detected that you have posted yet again some sexual or offensive content, or attempted to hack, scam, cheat or tried to find somebody else's password out. We have be informed you own a second account. Your account will be taken away in 3 days if you do not reply to this warning declaring that you will not use this language again, or declining with a reasonable explanation. Please include: 1) Your user name 2) Your password 3) Your apology/decline of offensive content If you are not responsible for this accusation, then we honestly apologize for any trouble that we may have caused. Gaia is not a dating service. The Gaia Team
NEVER give your PASSWORD to ANYONE.

[e-mail]
Dear GaiaUser,
We want you to point on the new Beta that just have been released.
Currently we're in the beta test phase.
If you got questions and or suggestions about this email or the Beta version please send an email to [e-mail]
Yours Lanzer,
The url: <url removed>

Fake Charity
There is a new scam going around, if you are linked to a site called the "Angels Charity" do not enter any information into it. It is a scam and harvests passwords and user info.

Gaia staff will not contact you over messengers (AIM, MSN, YIM, ICQ or IRC) about becoming staff.

Reminder: NEVER give your password to anyone!!!

REAL Gaia Staff will never ask for your password. They don't need it for ANY reason.

If someone claims to be a moderator, you can check! Moderators' names will be listed in the appropriate color: purple, teal, or green (or orange in the case of administrators). If they don't have a colored name, they aren't staff; report them to an online moderator immediately!


Hacking
Hacking is when you go into someone elses account and take their gold or items.

90% of hackings are not truly a hacking, but a friend using another friend's account to do things without permission.

If a friend does this to you, your friend will not be unbanned.

Gaia e-mail address is [e-mail]
People have created e-mail accounts with other sites, pretending to be Gaia staff. Examples of fake e-mails:

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

If you recieve an e-mail from an address other than [e-mail], report it immedately to any Online Moderator!

Important Links

The Gaia Worst-Case Scenario Handbook (Scams/Hacks/Bans)
Hackings & Recieving Emails from Gaia Staff-FRAUD-UPDATE

[Kava]

Recent Updates from the temp thread:

Kava

Kava

11. Password Scams!

Never give your password to someone on AIM claiming to be a moderator. They are lying. Real Gaia moderators will not ask for your password, even off-site. Remember that simply because someone says via IM that they are an administrator or moderator does not make it true. And if it were, you should report them, not give them your password.

And NO! IsolatedLemon is NOT me, nor are any of the other recent AIM names claiming to be moderators and asking for passwords actually moderators.

NEVER GIVE OUT YOUR PASSWORD. If it WAS a moderator, they should be reported for it.

Kava

• "woops!You already have a game in progress." July 1st
  Many users are experiencing difficulties in entering multiplayer fishing or slots, getting the error message telling them they are already in a game when they are not. There are no workarounds at this time.
  
  
• Multi-position items that don't display all equip options July 1st
  Many users are noticing issues with having several multi-position items in their inventory and the options to equip in various positions only showing up on one of them. Workarounds have been found, and are listed in this thread: DONATION ITEM POSES AND INFO/GLITCH WORKAROUNDS

Kava

House icon not displayed
Since the forum update, the icons at the bottom of users posts and in their profiles to link to Gaia homes do not display. To view a users home, if they have one, first view their profile and take the number at the end.
Example: 563097]http://www.gaiaonline.com/profile/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=563097
Use that number at the end of the following url: http://www.gaiaonline.com/games/housing/?mode=viewer&u=
This works for viewing anyone's home.

Fishing Buckets are not always saved (D bait?)
Users are reporting that when fishing with D bait, although the scores are recorded, the fish are not being saved to their inventory. There are no known workarounds for this at the moment.

Quote:

Unable to confirm creation of Guild
Some users report that they are not able to confirm creation of new guilds, despite having the 20k required to create one. There are no known fixes at this time.


Avatar preview shows as red X / "Error adding save request to the queue. Please wait a moment and save your avatar again."
Many users are reporting getting these errors. There are workarounds listed here: Avatar Customization Workaround 2.0! Updates--second post

Beware

Known scammer IM screennames
IsolatedLemon - pretending to be various Gaia moderators
Azu of Interpol - pretending to be dev or admin
Gaia MOD. - pretending to be dev or admin
LDelgado1986 - pretending to be a Gaia moderator

Alert\

Marketplace Error - Buy failed.
Some users have reported recently that when attempting to buy something in the marketplace, their gold was taken, but the bid or buy failed and did not go through. This seems to result in their gold disappearing while the item remains up for sale and the seller does not receive the gold. Use the marketplace at your own risk at the moment. If this happens to you, you will likely not get your gold back.

New or updated

My posts were timewarped! June 19th
After implementation of the new forum code, posts in many threads that had been edited were reverted to former versions of the posts. It is unknown at this time whether or not these 'timewarped' posts will eventually be restored to the most recent versions as of the time of the forum code going live.

Fishing Buckets are not always saved (D bait?)
Users are reporting that when fishing with D bait, although the scores are recorded, the fish are not being saved to their inventory. There have been a few reports that indicate it may not only be D bait as well. There are no known workarounds for this at the moment.

OMG Event with no eek bubble and no link
Many users have reported getting rare events with either no bubble by their avatar to indicate the event, or no 'if you can't find your event, click here' link at the bottom of the page, or sometimes both. If this happens to you, use the link below to collect your event:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/index.php?event=

Kava

New

Scammer screenname:
Gaia Manager - pretending to be Gaia administrator

Gaia Manager: [AUTOMATED MESSAGE] Doing so will enable us to prevent hackers from abusing your account.

<s/n removed>: Who knows, maybe you're pretending to be a Gaia Manager to try to take my account.

<s/n removed>: I've had this happen before.

Gaia Manager: [AUTOMATED MESSAGE] We, at Gaia, assure you that we will do our best to protect you from any kind of hacking.

<s/n removed>: Dead chance of me giving you my info.

Gaia Manager: [AUTOMATED MESSAGE] We greatly appreciate your membership with Gaia. Your account may be at risk.

<s/n removed>: Leave me alone already.

Gaia Manager: [AUTOMATED MESSAGE] There will be penalties for not cooperating.

<s/n removed>: What kind of penalties? o.O

Gaia Manager: [AUTOMATED MESSAGE] You're account may be terminated.

<s/n removed>: Terminated as in no more?

Gaia Manager: [AUTOMATED MESSAGE] By terminating your account you will no longer be able to take part in Gaia Online.

Gaia Manager: [AUTOMATED MESSAGE] You have 24 hours beginning at 9:56 PM Eastern Time.
Gaia Manager: signed off at 7:00:16 PM.

Kava's notes

First and foremost, you know it's a scam because any Gaia staff member who asked for your password would be fired as soon as it was discovered they were doing so. However, it's a bit amusing to also note the following:

• You have 24 hours beginning at 9:56 PM Eastern Time.
  Hmm. They're going by eastern time... but Gaia is based in pacific time? How odd. ;p
  
  
• You're account may be terminated.
  Oh my. I'd think the admins know when to use 'your' instead of "you're".
  
  
• [AUTOMATED MESSAGE]
  Oh yeah.. it's an automated message that has AI and tailors its responses to the questions you're asking it. Suuuurrrre. xp

Updated Lists

Known scammer e-mail addresses
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

Known scammer IM screennames
IsolatedLemon - pretending to be various Gaia moderators
Azu of Interpol - pretending to be dev or admin
Gaia MOD. - pretending to be dev or admin
LDelgado1986 - pretending to be a Gaia moderator
Gaia Manager - pretending to be Gaia administrator
Forumavi - password scammer

Moonblossom

PayPal Donation Issues.

There currently appears to be a problem with PayPal and multiple letter donations. Rather than giving a letter for each increment of $2.50, it seems to be granting a letter for each donation transaction, no matter the amount. The admins are aware of the situation.

For now, please do not attempt to donate large amounts. If you have already donated, the situation will be corrected in the near future, so please be patient.

[Kava]

Updated!

Updated Problems Sticky July 9th
The original sticky was finally fixed, so we now have it back, with the updated information. This thread: Gaia Problems (Temp) 6/21: SCAMs/Viruses/Bank Errors/Invntry as well as this thread: New Forum Code Issues (Updated 6/19 6:00pm) have all been consolidated into this updated thread. All still current issues should be listed here now.

[Kava]

New Scammer

Known scammer IM screennames
IsolatedLemon - pretending to be various Gaia moderators
Azu of Interpol - pretending to be dev or admin
Gaia MOD. - pretending to be dev or admin
LDelgado1986 - pretending to be a Gaia moderator
Gaia Manager - pretending to be Gaia administrator
Forumavi - password scammer
Gaias on Lanzer - password scammer pretending to be Lanzer
Mod Chooser - claiming to be a staff member named "Frederick Whiteman"

[Kava]

Fixed!

Unable to receive PM's: Feb 02
Update July 11: This should be fixed now.
Some users are able to send PM's but not receive them. This issue is known and being worked on. If you're experiencing this difficulty, please report it here: PM error report thread

[Kava]

New & Updated

• PayPal Donation Issues.
  Update: Ling has made an Announcement regarding this issue. The problem has been solved, but those of you still awaiting letters should be getting them within the week. Thanks for your patience
  
  There currently appears to be a problem with PayPal and multiple letter donations. Rather than giving a letter for each increment of $2.50, it seems to be granting a letter for each donation transaction, no matter the amount. The admins are aware of the situation.

• It IS possible to spoof e-mail addresses. There have been a couple of instances where someone spoofed an e-mail address from anihq.com or gaiaonline.com This is why, despite the list of e-mail addresses below, you need to keep in mind always the main point. Gaia staff will NEVER ask you for your password. If they do, report them the same as you would anyone else.

example:

[Kava]

New

Arranger Won't Save July 15th
When attempting to save changes with the inventory arranger, users are getting an error message that reads: "ALERT Your inventory has changed since you loaded the inventory arranger. Please reload and begin again." Reloading doesn't seem to help, so no saves can be done at the moment.

[Moonblossom]

New Scam

Quote:

Subj: Congratulations
Date: Monday, July 18, 2005 9:37 AM
From: [e-mail]
----------------------------------------------------------------
Congratulations (Username)
Every year gaiaonline staff chooses 5 random members to get a total of 800,000 gold each and Nitemare scarf(x2),angelic scarf(x2) and 1 angelic sash and you have been the fourth chosen this is rare moment that will come to you again make sure to grasp it while you can thank you..To receive your gold we will need your name and password from your accounts it dosnt not matter which one but i will have to be a password that you use

[Kava]

New

Known scammer IM screennames
Lanzer the 3rd - pretending to be Lanzer, password scamming

[Kava]

New and Updated

Items disappearing during trades July 19
Many users have reported items vanishing from the trade window and their inventory when attempting to either start or confirm a trade at the bank. It seems to be a random ocurrance. Use the bank at your own risk.

Post Deactivated Notice July 19
"Deactivated post" error happens when you are trying to look at "deleted entries" in your journal. Don't worry, your journal has not been deactivated, just add a new entry so the error is not displayed. If after trying this nothing happens, contact an online dedicated moderator to see if your journal has been deactivated.


Marketplace Error - Buy failed.
Some users have reported recently that when attempting to buy something in the marketplace, their gold was taken, but the bid or buy failed and did not go through. This seems to result in their gold disappearing while the item remains up for sale and the seller does not receive the gold. If you experience this, you should get the item within about 24 hours.

[Moonblossom]

New

New Bank Error - Trouble completing trades

Some people are reporting trouble confirming trades. They are receiving an Trade confirmation failed for trade number #### because trade already started error. The situation is being worked on. At the moment, there is no surefire workaround. In certain cases, adding 1 gold to the trade may cause it to go through, but this method is not guaranteed and is Use At Your Own Risk. It is safer to simply wait until the problem is solved.

[terradi]

New

Known scammer IM screennames
dcdaddysgirl16 (YIM) - pretending to be a moderator, threatening to hack
YummyGumTummy - pretending to be a moderator, threatening to hack

Known to be impersonating myself, may be impersonating other moderators as well.

[Kava]

New

RedX Avatars in Profile Customization Aug 7
Many users are having problems customizing their avatars in their profiles. The avatar image in the customization window appears as a redX or a broken image. There is a workaround thread here: http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8581350 which has some suggestions for what to try.

[Kava]

New

You cannot post a new message this soon Aug 9
Many users are reporting that they seem to be stuck getting this message continually and are therefore unable to post to the forums. There are no workarounds at this time. The issue is being looked into. This thread: http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9407801 in the Bug Reports and Technical Support forum can be posted in by friends/mules if they want to let us know who is experiencing this problem.

[l Aravilar l]

New

Known scammer IM screennames
Solardemon (AIM) - password scammer, linking to a free donation item scam page requiring a username and password from Gaia

Please, please remember to never give out your password to ANYONE, and if you're really concerned with password security, make it (at least) a combination of capital and lowercase letters, and more than five characters long.