Frozen Mist
In the past gaia has always said that using mules to get free grants is fine, and there was never any mention of any limitation on it either. The more accounts you use the more effort it requires to gather stuff, and it's something that's available to everyone -if they're willing to put the effort- so it makes sense that it would be considered within the rules, since there is no unfair advantage.
The person mentioned that their mules got banned, but not their main account.... I would suspect that they were throwaway mules with gibberish names, like "asgihdiogh93" and "78956u4nsjcn" etcetc, which would trigger autobans on suspiscion of botting - NOT because of anything related to the free grants. Heck, for all we know maybe the person even used a program to do the collecting for them.
It would be nice for a staff member to clarify though, since clearly lots of people have mentioned using mules in this thread and it was staff themselves who gave the ok in the past. If they don't clarify this could cause a lot of fearmongering.
I never said you can't collect grants on mule accounts, as long as those accounts weren't created specifically to abuse the system. Gaia has had rules against funneling for a long time. Otherwise, people will make hundreds of accounts to work the system because; no, clicking a random link for a free grant doesn't take much energy.
Straight from the TOS
Quote:
Gaia may halt, suspend, discontinue, or reverse any Gold transaction (whether proposed, pending or past) in cases of actual or suspected fraud, violations of these Terms or other laws or regulations, to conform with revisions to these Terms, or deliberate disruptions to or interference with Gaia Online,
such as creating multiple secondary accounts strictly to accumulate Gold by using site features and then funneling it to a singular account.
By the users own admission they were doing this. They made four accounts at once when they saw the first day grant, so they could collect more.