I’ve Had It With “Miss I Want Money”!

As you might imagine, it is against Pogo’s Terms of Service for anyone to solicit others for money. She is, in effect, advertising, which is a direct violation of our TOS, as stated here:

You may violate the Terms of Service if, as determined by EA in its sole discretion, you…

– Post messages for any purpose other than personal communication, including advertising or promotional messaging, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or other commercial activities.

It’s truly unfortunate that someone was taken in by her story. Not only is he out $100, but she now believes this works, and has been encouraged to continue to solicit for money.

We don’t know her real story – maybe she does need money, but even if that’s the case, she would be wiser to either (as you suggested by your choice of signature) get a job, or turn to a social service or local charity.

The bottom line is that not only is it incredibly impolite to ask players for money, it’s clearly a violation. You can – and – should report her for solicitation.

I’m so sorry that you were treated so poorly. While it is true, from your perspective, that you were only trying to perform a kindness, the fact of the matter is that the players perceived it as you butting your nose into their business. They then proceeded to berate you and give you a hard time.

I don’t have the benefit of a chat log, so I cannot be 100% sure that any Terms of Service violation occurred. However, it does sound likely, and when in doubt, you can always make the report and let the Customer Support staff make that call.

Talking to anyone – on Pogo or not – about questionable behavior is always a risk. Many people take it as a slight and often get defensive or nasty – often both. So, while your heart was in the right place, they didn’t see your true wish, and thus behaved even more inappropriately.

In the future, if you’d like to avoid the possibility of confrontation, then I encourage you to engage the “mute” function.

Interesting question! Coming right off the heels of the previous letter, you run the risk of putting your friend on the defensive by telling her. But, if nobody tells her, she may not ever realize that forwarding these sorts of e-mails are not only annoying to the recipients, but they are actually a violation of the Terms of Service, so you may be doing her a favor.

I don’t the extent of your relationship with her, or if she’s particularly sensitive to criticism. If you think that she is, and you value the relationship and don’t want to rock the boat in any way, then you may just want to hope that someone else less attached talks to her about it.

However, if you think your friendship can withstand a little boat rocking you might say “Thanks for that letter – I’m glad you’re looking out for me, but did you read Ms. Netiquette’s column about ‘Pogo Lies’? This sounds like it may belong on that list!” That should, hopefully, open up the topic for conversation in a non-threatening way. She can take a look at that column and then you could further the conversation with something like “I’ve found that most of those types of messages are not valid.” Perhaps that will be a wake up call. Or perhaps it will go right over her head, but at least you will have tried!

As for my teas of choice – I generally drink black teas in the early parts of the day (I like a strong black tea with a bit of milk or cream), and then move on to milder teas in the afternoon. I have also recently discovered that I love green tea and jasmine tea. I like Earl Grey on occasion, but only with sugar cookies. And since I have to watch my sugar intake, I don’t drink too much of it.

And on that note – it’s tea time!