People putting UFTs from others on click exchange sites without permission.

siberian • 30 October 2015 at 9:57 PM

Hi everyone,

not sure if here's the correct place to post, but I hope I can get some help.

I and a friend (@banzini) are having this problem since 5 days ago.

I know it's said in my profile that's fine if you feed all, and I understand clicks/views/feeds occur naturally, but even on the Halloween event month I don't reach 10 clicks/feeds/views a day for each creature. There are a few receiving over 400~500 clicks/views a day, evolving twice a day. And that's only happening with the UFTs.

The cause cannot be the event with people feeding everything, because my friend is having exactly the same problem. In his profile is clearly stated for people to avoid clicks or feeds in all creatures, and his important UFTs are being raised from egg to adult everyday just the same way it's happening here, only one or two a day receiving hundreds of clicks/views.

That way is easy to compare who is feeding our UFTs - the same persons - that's why we're sure the links are in exchange sites or something, and we're asking these persons where they're finding our links.

Once the creature is fully evolved, it stops gaining more hundreds of stats.

We have no condition to freeze everything, and they're creatures from years ago (2009/2010 the oldest ones), that we kept as egg/child until now just for trades, without having to freeze them, just for one unhappy person screw it up on a single day. My friend lost about two important trades because of that.

He has already sent a ticket about that, we're hoping for a positive answer.
We really needed our creatures in their previous stages.

Whoever find any links from here (@siberian) or from @banzini on any click exchange sites/similar, or if you're having the same problem, Please let me know. The only exception is if you find my creatures on Yarold's under my username Siberian.

Thank you all and I hope the person who's doing that stops causing trouble and go live their life in happiness.

****
Edit - creatures being affected (not putting all direct links to avoid more stats):

- Oct 30th Drakomo egg, ID 1666259 - Over 420 clicks only in that day. Only on him. (Traded him away on Nov 1st)/ Prath 1st - stopped gaining hundreds of stats at 1025 clicks and evolves at 1000. I received only ONE feed back that day, before his evolution.

Banzini:
- Oct 25, Schnee - evolved from 1st to 3rd stage (adult) between 8:01pm~9:03pm. Needed him for an important trade.
- Oct 26 to 27, Gingerlion - evolved from egg to 2nd stage (adult).
- Oct 27 to 29, Eeriek - evolved from egg to 2nd stage (adult). That means more than 622 clicks while others received none. Needed him for an important trade.
- Oct 30, Luciales - evolved from egg to 2nd stage (adult) between 6:02pm~6:45pm.
- Among some others who he couldn't keep exact track.
Both of his Gidehs are earning plenty stats too, during the last days.
No other creatures besides those were being affected with that many stats for a while.

*

Oct 31st - No more problems until now. I'm tracking the links of other UFTs to discover the source and possibly the IP.

banzini • 30 October 2015 at 10:17 PM

@Siberian thanks for the ping and for this post. Nothing to say, you explained everything. I'm hopeless.
People, if you find anything, you can let me know too. I don't know if it has something to do but we live near each other and we are real life friends, although almost no one here know about that. I don't think anyone here don't like us to do this on purpose, so more people may be having the same issue.

raccoon • 30 October 2015 at 10:41 PM

@siberian @banzini

Wow, I can't even imagine WHY someone would do something like this other than out of spite. I'm so sorry someone is doing this to you guys. :C

newlife • 30 October 2015 at 11:54 PM

@siberian
I've seen this happen before, and honestly, there is no way to stop it, sadly. If they have the links for your creatures, then what they do is totally up to them.

If the person is found, they will probably be banned.

It's probably out of spite, and it's mostly from people that you've talked to before that a trade has not worked out before with, since, they figure, if they can't have it, no one can.

Probably what's happening here.

wanderlust • 31 October 2015 at 12:09 AM

@siberian @banzini I am experiencing the same thing and I'm annoyed because most of the creatures is not for myself or trying to gain profit. I'm trying to keep them in the egg stage so that it could help someone. If the staff could help us in any way, that would be great.

@newlife @raccoon I agree and I think so too. I'm not that active and I think I might have an idea who I have pissed off before for not trading/saying do not feed but I do not wish to make assumptions.

siberian • 31 October 2015 at 2:19 AM

@newlife
Yeah that happened. Once. But I don't understand because the problem happened to Banzini before, in the 25th, and to me only on 30th. I believe the person found our creatures in the TC to start doing that.
I just hope we can find the person with help from people and staff, and that the appropriate punishment be given.
Thank you.

@wanderlust
I'm sorry that's happening to you too, but that's good to know, so we can unite and try to help each other. If I find anything about your creatures I'll let you now too. Feel free to PM me if you wish.
I hope the staff can help us too.
Thank you.

****

I'll be making an edit in the first post to keep track of creatures who are being affected. Banzini will keep me updated about his ones so I'll be putting them too to keep at the 1st post.

wanderlust • 31 October 2015 at 5:54 PM

@siberian For sure, I will tell you more details in a PM in case whoever did this sees this. It's alright. It doesn't affect me but in the end who I give those creatures to and they may not get it at the stage they would like.

Edit: @ian @orderedchaos @mastergemma @jazzyleia Would the staff be able to help with this?

Orderedchaos • 31 October 2015 at 6:14 PM

Unfortunately because all of this is taking place off site there is nothing we can do to stop it. There is no way for us to figure out what sites your creatures have been placed on, who did it, or remove your creatures from these sites. We have no power to stop things like this that happen off-site. I wish there was something we could do to help you out but sadly we are unable to.

siberian • 31 October 2015 at 6:19 PM

@Orderedchaos
Alright. I put some tracking in the links of the UFTs that haven't been yet affected. I'll probably take the IP from the person doing that if they start doing crazy clicks again in any of them (and it's easy to distinguish who is just clicking once or twice from who is clicking hundreds as we see some doing around here).
Is that of any help for the staff to identify the person?

@wanderlust
Thank you very much.

Orderedchaos • 31 October 2015 at 6:31 PM

@siberian
If someone has put your creature in an off-site click exchange your not going to get clicks from just one IP address, but hundreds, almost all from people who don't play Egg Cave. A bunch of IPs that don't connect to an Egg Cave account is not all that useful. If you are able to find out what sites your creatures have been placed in you can try to contact the admins of that site and see if they can remove the links for you.

siberian • 31 October 2015 at 6:51 PM

@Orderedchaos

I see. Well sad thing we lost UFTs in important stages because of a person who enjoys being not nice. I just hoped a proper punishment to be done to them (if they're from EggCave and I believe they are..) but they're protected and can still do whatever they want.

I still don't believe the creatures can evolve that fast in about an hour because I'm a user of click exchange sites and a single creature usually takes even months to fully evolve. I know that's not the point, just explaining - because I know there are people here that alone manage to view/click/feed the same creature hundreds of times in a few minutes - I can't figure out what their method because as far as I know, we can give stats to creatures just once per day/per IP, not multiple (in example, the recent problem with the EggCave exchange and the lack of creatures because people using this "method").

Still, I'll keep searching, as the track doesn't show only the IP but also the source of the links. Discovering who is wouldn't be difficult if they're from here.

I'd like to propose a way we could hide certain creatures from - at least - people who are guests on EggCave and don't play it, instead of making us have to freeze everything (while many haven't conditions to do that due to their country money currencies, including myself), because only blocking someone isn't any efficient, as anyone can access any link from out of EggCave.

Thank you anyway Orderedchaos, for seeing this and the quick answers.

firedawn • 31 October 2015 at 9:51 PM

@siberian
A few players on EggCave have been experiencing the same problems. This problem has been only happening recently, though, and I do not know who is doing it. You might want to check your messages, to see if anything seems suspicious or so. A few recent trades in the TC are creatures who suddenly bounced from 1st stage to last, and it was from a PM buyer.

siberian • 31 October 2015 at 9:57 PM

@firedawn
Yea exactly... precisely. I've been observing the exact thing you're saying.
Yes I do have a suspect but I can't say anything yet. The problem is what I said in my last post, blocking the person is useless for this case, unfortunately. And the staff can't do anything about that, what is worse for everyone.
People from outside EggCave cannot see recent trades, or can they?
Thank you for posting.

Ian • 3 November 2015 at 4:41 PM

@siberian @banzini

Ugh, I'm really sorry to hear that this is all happening. It's really disheartening. And stupid that somebody has the time to do something like this.

If you do happen across any IPs involved in the clicking surge, please submit them via tickets to me and I can cross reference them in our systems to see if we have a match.

Do you have any idea of what click site the traffic might be originating from? At the moment, we currently do not track this data for inbound clicks.

siberian • 3 November 2015 at 5:44 PM

@Ian
So glad you're aware about this!!! Thank you so much!

I don't have any idea of what click site they may be coming from, I searched a lot throughout the internet and I personally use one click exchange site, but I wasn't able to find anything useful. And also because I noticed the creatures stopped earning hundreds of clicks as soon as they evolved to their adult stages (except by the Drakomo) so their links wouldn't be around the internet anymore, other than in the EggCave. Anyway, I wasn't online in the time they were being evolved. I just received the evolve notification when I logged in - @banzini told me that the same thing happened to him.
Then I asked a lot of people that were in the "recently fed by" part in my UFTs and in Banzini UFTs (most of them were the same persons, that's why we believe the links were in click exchange sites) to let us know if they find any of our creatures anywhere else - except my ones under my same username in the site I use; but nothing until now. We even put bold red messages in our UFT creature profiles.
If I managed to find any links I'd have asked to the site admins to take proper providences, afterall I know EggCave can't do anything off the site, I can totally understand that.

But be sure I'll send you any useful informations if I get them. I couldn't find because I only started going after the IP/sources after all those problems (also, banzini gave me his permission to look after his creature links). The good part is that this childish action haven't happened anymore, then I only find the sources from people who are clicking normally, so I don't even keep this information.

*

Sharing the good news:
@banzini @wanderlust @firedawn @newlife @raccoon

banzini • 3 November 2015 at 7:10 PM

Yes!!!
Thank you again Ian!
@Ian I never used any click exchange sites, I'm here more for fun and to help than to grow up creatures. No one feed here, I don't feed around, I enjoy doing trades to help my friend and some people even think we are the same person. I'm like that for years and I was happy in the game that way.
It was just like siberian said, about seeing the creatures fully evolved only after some time offline, and I needed to stay offline about 4 days due to a very busy college week. When I was back, I saw what happened and immediately told siberian, giving her all the information I could like the days and time of evolution and etc we're close friends and yes I gave her all the permission.
After reading what other users said in this topic I can say the only similarity I saw among we and people who had these problems is that we recently created lots in TC, just like firedawn said in the end of her post.
Also please consider siberian's suggestion!

Ian • 4 November 2015 at 10:45 AM

@siberian @banzini

We've begun tracking incoming click URLs more closely and should have some data in the coming days. If there are any creatures of yours that are experiencing stats abuse, please submit them to us immediately via tickets so we can begin to track them individually.

Are you noticing the most significant stat increases for VIEW stats for these creatures or CLICK stats or BOTH? This is very important for us to know.

siberian • 4 November 2015 at 1:52 PM

@Ian
For sure: Both clicks and views.

That's VERY GOOD to know, a big thank you!!!
We are keeping an eye in our creatures. If that happens again, we will let you know asap.

madscienced • 4 November 2015 at 2:49 PM

@Ian I've paid someone to immortalize for me before, but twice I've had the same thing happen to me when i wasn't paying anyone to immortalize. I'd put a critter in the tc, show up in a hour or two and they jumped from egg stage to last. It's also happened to one of my friends (who want's to be anon) but they didn't say anything hoping that whoever it was would eventually leave them alone. Thanks for keeping a closer eye on it. I didn't really put two and two together that this could be what happened to me until i read this. now i understand how they could jump stages so fast. i'll send in a ticket if it happens again and encourage my friend to do that same. Oddly though, i didn't get any offers until after that happened to the critters in the tc, like the person did it specifically to lower the price before they offered. since i'm saving cc to buy critters for my giveaway next month, i was really upset to get less than i was hoping for.

Ian • 4 November 2015 at 2:54 PM

@siberian

If it was both clicks and views, then I'd have reason to believe people are abusing clickthrough links, which we are now monitoring. Right now, I see about ~25 Yarold's referrals to your creatures in the last couple of hours. Does that sound normal to you, or do you not have any of your creatures in any click exchanges?

@madscienced

Ah, that's very interesting and strange. Now that we're tracking clickthrough links, send in a ticket immediately if you ever suspect abuse.

siberian • 4 November 2015 at 3:04 PM

@Ian
That seems normal Ian, I do have some creatures and my own profile up at this moment in Yarold's click exchange with my same username (only on there).
Still they do not earn hundreds of clicks a day, I need months to evolve one from egg to adult even putting them on there.

If that's useful for you to know, Banzini does not use any click exchanges, so if you find referrals of his creatures so there's something wrong.


@madscienced
Thank you for the mail and your post here!
I noticed that too, I haven't received offers for my recent lots. For the creatures that have been raised, some were in TC in that recent lots but some haven't been put in there since months ago, but they were the UFT ones.

madscienced • 4 November 2015 at 3:06 PM

@siberian Yeah, i don't have a uft tab, so i suppose that's why it's only happened to those i put in the tc. They had no idea if the others were for trade or not i guess.

siberian • 4 November 2015 at 3:16 PM

@madscienced
Makes sense. About the UFT tab you said. All the sense, for real.

madscienced • 4 November 2015 at 3:19 PM

@siberian Yeah. Maybe they know it's for trade, but maybe they wanted to trade for it? Because i don't know why someone would do it out of spite for me, i try my best to be extra nice to everyone and the only person i fought with i made up with long before this happened.

Ian • 4 November 2015 at 3:50 PM

@siberian I see. And yep, no referrals from click exchanges for @Banzini thus far.

siberian • 4 November 2015 at 11:16 PM

@Ian
Sent you a ticket. Nothing about seeing the problem happening again, but I got some new information that might be useful.

@madscienced
Happened with creatures that were in UFT tab, some that were in TC; and ones not at TC that people didn't ask for them, too.
All the possibilities happened x.x But only with the UFTs.

Ian • 5 November 2015 at 4:48 PM

@siberian

Based on your tip in the tickets area, my guess is a lot of the strange view boosts are from auto surfers and click boosts are from link exchanges.

siberian • 5 November 2015 at 5:09 PM

@Ian
Only a guess but I believe they put the link with /click/* as the click link takes to the /egg/* link.

Edit: Both in click exchanges and auto surfers I meant 😋

Ian • 5 November 2015 at 10:37 PM

@siberian precisely!