Redemption Declined - irregular behavior during the content

[Bjoern_3D]

Hi everyone,

I need some advice please. From what I’ve read, a few of you have been in similar situations before. The sale is on and I wanted to redeem some points for a few (six to be precise) EUR 40 gift cards. I also have two contest wins for which the cards give a 404 Page Cannot Be Found error, but that’s a separate issue.

So, clicked the button… goes into review. Fair enough, it’s been a couple of months since the last card. First couple I’ve ever had went into review and the third one finally I got immediately. If they need to review now for the fourth card again, I have no problem with that of course. Today, I receive this message from @MakerWorld though…

We regret to inform you that your product redemption request has been declined due to anomalies detected in your points acquisition data. Consequently, the points used for this redemption will not be refunded to you. According to our risk control system, and following manual review, your account has exhibited irregular behavior during the content download process, in violation of our Community Guidelines and Terms of Use. To uphold the fairness of the platform’s points system and protect the rights of all users, we are compelled to take action on this matter.

First of all, I’m not impressed by their “risk control system”… my store is set to Europe, my system language is set to English…

We strongly advise you to thoroughly review: 1. The relevant clauses pertaining to the Rewards Programs in our User Agreement (使用协议 - MakerWorld) 2. The sections on Violations and General Guidelines in our Community Guidelines (社区守则 - MakerWorld).

…however, the system tries to send me to Chinese pages. Be that as it may, what in the world is “irregular behavior during the content download process”?!? I am not doing any “if you download mine, I’ll download yours” stuff nor do I have multiple accounts to download my own designs. Besides, I can count on one hand the number of models that have more than 100 (not 1,000, not 10,000, but 100) downloads.

The only thing I can imagine is that it is, more or less, always the same people downloading my designs. That’s a bit of a given though, because two months ago, I started uploading Rococo/Baroque designs that work similar to Lego pieces, so if you want to add more to whatever DIY project to have to make your furniture or whatever look nice, you’ll probably stop by again and download some more of my designs.

I created a separate collection for these models (link) and uploaded about 40 models over the last couple of months. The collection has 60+ followers. At the same time, my followers went up by 200+ from 39 followers on May 1 to 265 followers as of today. I find nothing irregular here, and I am in fact very happy that I seem to have found my niche in a way. You can understand that this little message is ruining my day a bit. Maybe at @MalcTheOracle can share some wisdom, because I feel like my uploads page starts to look a bit like his. By which I mean “found your niche” models instead of random model this, followed by random model that, etc. but no cohesive whole.

I also don’t see how anything has been resolved. I just submitted for the next EUR 40 card. Am I just gonna receive the same message until I run out of points to redeem? Frankly, I cannot influence the download behavior of THEIR users!!! So I have no idea what I’m supposed to do now. I see no irregularities in downloads on my end when looking into the “Creator Center” stats… goes up a bit sure, but like I said, followers are up by 200+ as well.

Funny thing is, I only seriously started uploading after @MakerWorld put one of my models (link) into their featured collection for Physics Education (link). Then I win two contests (not top 3 though) and under the model (link) submitted for the first win, I receive this message from @MakerWorld

…so naturally, I think that @MakerWorld and I are on good terms. Next contest win, goes into the Music Box Collection (link) …great, getting some exposure. Both models are still today #3 and #4 under “Trending” on their respective contest pages. My Coffee Goes Places is #18 “Trending” on the contest page.

Of course all I know, is that it’s “Browse” traffic when looking at the Creator Center Stats. At least that’s what I’d classify it under. These are the stats for my Music Box Model (link)

…4,000 views, 61 downloads… looks hardly like gaming the system to me. It has the detailed description they ask for… the BOL… there’s a nice picture of a make in the comments section. The thing has 8 boosts for crying out loud… what in the world is irregular about any of this?!?

The only thing I find irregular is that the two gift cards for the contests I’ve won give me a “404 page not found” error when I click on them!!! But you got two of my models featured in your collections, give me two contests wins… and somehow I’m supposed to know what’s irregular about my traffic??? I don’t even have stats detailed enough to check which contest page of featured collection page my traffic comes from!!!

Do me a favor, tell me WHO is stopping by my page so irregularly and I’ll put a disclaimer on my models, telling that person (or plural) not to download my models… so that I can IN FACT receive actual gift cards for the points I have.

I’ll stop writing now, thanks for listening everyone. Dunno, probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that’s just because I’m really not sure what I’m fighting here. Zero detail given… like a judge telling you, you broke the law according to the law book. Ok, which one…? The law, in general. Guess you guys know what I mean…

Okay, one more… comments section for this model (link). User asks for an “ocean themed” design… a few days later I release a sea horse and a koi design and let them know about it in the comments… how is that not exactly the kind of interaction they ask for of us designers… didn’t have to do that… thought it was a nice idea though and did them a favor.

I mean, honestly…

…do I sound like a bot, would you like me to click on all the pictures that look like a “motorcycle”…??? Am I point farming??? What in the world, did I do wrong???

ps: full disclosure the "what in the world"s above are euphemisms for the F-word of course. Was certainly not good for my blood pressure that little message today!

[hottr]

That sucks. I hope this gets resolved and you get the gift cards you earned or Bamhu will provide you with detailed explanation of whatvthey think you did wrong.

[Bjoern_3D]

Thanks.

@hottr

he gift cards you earned or Bamhu will provide you with detailed explanation

Exactly, I’d be happy not to receive the gift cards but receive an actually explanation instead. Then we can talk if I can even influence any of the download(era) behavior and then they can give me the cards.

So, open a ticket then?

[hottr]

I’ve never been in this situation but if I were, I would open a ticket. I don’t think opening a ticket asking for an insight into the matter would hurt your chances of resolving this.

[TheBreadman]

I’m in same situation right now. Waiting for support to reply.

I believe my issue is I received +10 points model upload which deleted. (i transferred from printables a year ago and it and ended up with two models. )

Second I had model private 0 downloads with 10+ points for upload but not good image. I intended to return to it. but never did.

[J.lifer]

Just looked around, Nice work. And NOPE, I don’t see nuttin that would be a cause of concern to Bambu. But Hey, it happens. I would say that when you earn enough points for a coupon, redeem it. I had a model that was taken down due to an infraction of IP (lego) was in the description. I’d been redeeming all along and I’m working through a -4K points deduction. I might be at zero by year’s end. But such is life.

[Cypherous]

@Bjoern_3D

…however, the system tries to send me to Chinese pages.

Because those are the links in the template, just open a bug report and they can update it, someone probably just borked a copy and paste somewhere

@Bjoern_3D

I am not doing any “if you download mine, I’ll download yours” stuff nor do I have multiple accounts to download my own designs. Besides, I can count on one hand the number of models that have more than 100 (not 1,000, not 10,000, but 100) downloads.

Sure, but they will look where those downloads originate, what sort of timeframe those downloads happened, what sort of historical data exists for your other models etc

So if for example they see that 95% of the interactions with a model all come in a very short amount of time and it basically got no engagement after that, it would look suspicious

@Bjoern_3D

The only thing I can imagine is that it is, more or less, always the same people downloading my designs.

That would also seem a little suspicious to any automated checks

You do not mention if you have opened an actual support ticket or not

[Crow_ck]

@Bjoern_3D

The collection has 60+ followers.

And I’m one of them. Just wanted to say that these models are great and I will definitely use them for some bigger project in the future.
I’m sorry about your situation, if I were you I would open a ticket. I hope it will be resolved quickly (and successfully of course).

[Bjoern_3D]

@Cypherous

@Bjoern_3D

…however, the system tries to send me to Chinese pages.

Because those are the links in the template, just open a bug report and they can update it, someone probably just borked a copy and paste somewhere

Sure is, but I’m not their Quality Assurance department. I’ve reported to them before that it should be phrased “a winner in the contest” rather than “you won the contest” and they haven’t changed that notification yet either, even though they said they’d take care of it. Nevertheless, I am familiar with their terms and I know where to find them… so let’s have a quick look

Terms of use…

We have objective grounds to reasonably believe that you have taken fraudulent activity includes any action that is deceptive or an attempt to gain points not in accordance with these Terms of Use and includes but is not limited to, circumventing, disabling, or fraudulently receiving points through any means or interfering with any part of the Services (or attempting to do so);

We have reasonable grounds to believe that you have obtained points repeatedly or unfairly through means such as repeatedly uploading models, exploiting system vulnerabilities, tampering with the process or the operation of a program and so on;

We have reasonable grounds to believe that you have caused or encouraged inaccurate measurements of genuine user engagement with the Services, such as by paying people or providing incentives to increase a user content’s views, likes, ratings, or to increase subscribers, downloads, otherwise manipulate metrics in any manner;

Community Guidelines

The following rules apply to all content on MakerWorld, including models, print profiles, community posts, comments, ratings, etc. Violations of these rules will result in the removal of the relevant content.

1. Spam & deceptive practices such as:

• Fake engagement
• Impersonation
• Duplicate content
• Spam, deceptive practices and scams

as mentioned… not doing any boost for boost or download for download, nor am I providing any other incentive to people. So, unless they think that these designs are duplicate uploads because whoever reviewed it doesn’t know what these appliqués are and just thinks “oh, another Versailles ornament thing… looks like all the others to me, must be a duplicate.”

Can’t be the latter though because that’s grounds for model takedown. So basically what I said about the number of followers in general and the followers for the collection. Plus, what you said

@Cypherous

if for example they see that 95% of the interactions with a model all come in a very short amount of time and it basically got no engagement after that, it would look suspicious

Well, we got this little “Community post” button right there on the upload page and that gets posted straight away. Then you go onto whatever social media telling people you have a new upload… obviously, just that and not in a download for download fashion and all the other things they mention above. On top of that, in the models it says… you can go to this collection (sic) to find other matching pieces that you can combine this one with.

@Cypherous

That would also seem a little suspicious to any automated checks

…and I fully agree, to any automated check; however, they write

@Bjoern_3D

According to our risk control system, and following manual review, your account has exhibited irregular behavior during the content download process

so it’s one thing if an automated check gets triggered, but if that “following manual review” then also finds issues… they need to be a bit more precise than “your account has exhibited irregular behavior during the content download process, in violation of our Community Guidelines and Terms of Use”

…which part of the Community Guidelines and Terms of Use have I so indecently violated? That’d be helpful information. Also, will my next gift card also be rejected now or has the problem been resolved? They didn’t take all the points I have on whatever models violated whatever, so this seems like a job half done to me… specially since they went through the trouble a manual review.

But, no model takedowns, no point deduction… just keeping the points for this transaction without issuing a gift card for the most vague reason ever.

@Cypherous

You do not mention if you have opened an actual support ticket or not

Not yet, I’m submitting the two for my contest wins first because the link in their email goes to a 404 page not found. I doubt that in the meantime they’ve decided that I was only imagining that I’ve won those two, so that’ll be a quicker way of getting a couple of gift cards (that I already had) and buy at least something during the sale.