Rachel K, Jaimes and all the rest of the awesome staff, thank you for all your hard work! I know I speak for the majority of the community in saying you guys rock and always do your best to make this site the best there is.

I must say that three hours ago when I read this thread, I felt much like P'Gell and others in that I figured my days of adding toys to my assignment orders was at an end. I tend to wait for assignments so that I can get a toy or two and save on shipping. Like so many others in the world, money is tight so I save it when I can.

The beginning of this thread had a tone of finality to it, in no way did I hear "temporary" anywhere.

I am sooo glad to hear that is in fact temporary. I love the idea of points being used strait to the checkout, to be honest, I always felt it was a pain to go back and forth and make GC.

Thanks again. less

I agree with this a whole lot. I really think it should be a lot harder to become advanced. I really think that people are getting voted in without their reviews even being read. How many times is someone not voted in? Every time I go by the community corner, it's like whoever was up for an upgrade has been voted in, even if their reviews could have used a lot of work. The mentoring process helps out everyone.

But that's not really relevant here. less

Hey, gang!

We wanted to give the community the heads up that a change has been implemented on our site. This change directly involves the gift cards.

So, most gift cards on our site are made with EdenPoints. It’s a great way to get what you want, and all you really have to do is browse the site, read some community posts, and just generally enjoy yourself at link.

However, more often than not, this system has been abused. There has been EdenPoint farming that has resulted in multiple gift cards being applied to solitary orders. Where we do love the idea of rewarding you points to generate a gift card to help with your purchase, we are generally not in favor of some users using the EdenPoints system to farm multiple cards to pay off orders that are, oh, say, $1400 dollars.

This all being said, abuse is not always the case, so we do not want to take away the points system or its ability to generate a gift card. EdenPoints are still active, and the ability to make gift cards are still active, but all orders are limited to one gift card per order. Multiple gift cards will no longer stack in orders. less

Unfortunately, the 'more often than not phrase' is pretty accurate. Rachel and I processed 3 orders totaling somewhere over $5000 in gift card points just last week. We aren't at the end of an era, we're just moving into a smarter way to make everyone happy, and to be able to truly support our supporters without having to take it in the rear from our abusers. So this option is our temporary means of getting there. Temporary being the operative word. less

Hey, gang!

We wanted to give the community the heads up that a change has been implemented on our site. This change directly involves the gift cards.

So, most gift cards on our site are made with EdenPoints. It’s a great way to get what you want, and all you really have to do is browse the site, read some community posts, and just generally enjoy yourself at link.

However, more often than not, this system has been abused. There has been EdenPoint farming that has resulted in multiple gift cards being applied to solitary orders. Where we do love the idea of rewarding you points to generate a gift card to help with your purchase, we are generally not in favor of some users using the EdenPoints system to farm multiple cards to pay off orders that are, oh, say, $1400 dollars.

This all being said, abuse is not always the case, so we do not want to take away the points system or its ability to generate a gift card. EdenPoints are still active, and the ability to make gift cards are still active, but all orders are limited to one gift card per order. Multiple gift cards will no longer stack in orders. less

So just to give you guys a taste of what to expect, we will be doing away with converting points to gift cards. Points will be linked to the account that earned them, and then those points will be available to spend towards your order. As soon as this is in place, gift cards return to normal. less

I agree with this a whole lot. I really think it should be a lot harder to become advanced. I really think that people are getting voted in without their reviews even being read. How many times is someone not voted in? Every time I go by the community corner, it's like whoever was up for an upgrade has been voted in, even if their reviews could have used a lot of work. The mentoring process helps out everyone.

But that's not really relevant here. less

Yeah, that's totally true!

I've seen some pretty bad abuses too.

To P'Gell and the rest of the community: Don't sweat this too much. The points program, from my point of view, is all icing on the cake. Reviewers still get their free monthly reviews and buy-out assignments. But seeing $1,000 - $5,000 orders being placed from Brazil and other parts of the world was just too much to ignore or make a special case for.

Take a breath...breathe...
This too shall pass

In the meantime, just bank your points until you're ready to place an order. less

And who knows if those toys aren't going to be resold - I mean they were technically free for the farmers. Oh and as for me, I get about 10$ in points per month in average, and I can't imagine the level of farming it required for this. (Time is money, my friends.)

I completely agree that a measure was necessary for the time being. Nice catch, guys. less

Like they said, it's temporary, and Edenfantasys does not usually take forever about making decisions. I do not often get GC myself and most of my purchases are from my affiliate money, but there were a few times when I stacked a few GC to get a new expensive toy (my dear Siri for instance).

I know it can be frustrating, but I'd be surprised if that temporary measure lasts more than a month. But then, I'm not working here, and it's just an impression. EF wants to spoil the honest and valuable contributors, but you gotta admit that 5000$ of toy value going away in smoke must be pissing off a few people here.

If I can make a suggestion myself for now: there could be a Gift Card trade-in system. You send a ticket with your gift card codes and ask for a total. The older codes would be longer working and you'd get a single more valuable card. And the employees can have an idea of where those codes are from. less

OK. (pant pant pant)

Jeez, $5,000.00 orders from out of the country? Who is doing this? (OK, I KNOW you can't tell us, it's just a frustration question.)

I have seen a number of something fairly new. A new poster with mainly mediocre scores on their reviews EXCEPT for one person, who always votes their reviews EU and ONLY votes on their reviews. I've reported them in the past, and a few of them are still reviewing. OBVIOUSLY these people have multiple accounts.

I also think making the Advanced Reviewer Program a little more difficult to get into, AND restrict voting on Advanced Review Applicants to no more than 2 or 3 a month would help a LOT!

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"I also think making the Advanced Reviewer Program a little more difficult to get into...would help a LOT!"

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Good Lord, there seems to be an entire screen of new reviewers each week. When I log in in the morning before work there are always one or two reviews up for advancement and by lunchtime they are already voted in.

I think it might help if you limited points to those who earn Advanced Reviewer status. I don't know I think it is silly to give points to everyone just for surfing your site and not putting anything into the community. less

That is exactly the idea. People are sitting on their asses, clicking on buttons, adding things to their wish lists, adding friends, commenting things like "lol" or simply "nice review" and getting rewarded for it.

I think people, like the ones talking actively in this forum post, are fine. We post reviews regularly, we participate in live discussion, WE HELP THE COMMUNITY. But there's people just here to get the benefits of a free toy each month and practically rape the site of points for doing nothing.

Maybe there could be a limit of how many reviews someone has to do to be advanced. And I would put that up high... like maybe 20 or 30. Or maybe they have to be a mentor to be advanced reviewer. less

We're going 100mph, Kindred, no joke! Haha

Yeah, it's like Eddie Izzard says: "There's always a back door!"

We do believe it is multiple accounts, linked to multiple emails, in the midst of using multiple IP addresses so they can get around a lot of the IP safeguards.

Of course, we are still investigating, but that's something we've considered, too. less

I have to agree with the others. I blog, and when I do blog about Eden, I get a GC for that. Theres also several blogs that have giveaways for EF GC. And I don't want to win, and not be able to use them all.

I understand there is a problem with farming gift cards for $1400 worth of merch, but maybe place a limit as to how much you can spend using gift cards/points in a single transaction... Maybe $200? I do like the idea of inputting the gift card info into the points account, and just saying you want to pay for your purchase in points. This would be a great idea. I think it would be great if instead of turning in the points to get a gift card code, why not just have the system at check out say you have X amount of points, how many points do you want to use towards this purchase? And have it have a calculator like you have when we trade points for GC codes... Does that make sense??? God I hope so.



But about the $1400 order... If the points just appeared out of no where, and it seems like its been a sudden rush of increase in points, then maybe its been farmed. But if the person is a regular user, and regularly visits the site, and earned those points honestly, what would be so wrong with having a purchase that big? I mean, I get, $1400 is A LOT of stuff, but hey, if it was earned honestly, I don't see a problem.... But, hey. thats just me IF it was farmed/scammed the system, then its not fair to anyone. less

Unfortunately, the 'more often than not phrase' is pretty accurate. Rachel and I processed 3 orders totaling somewhere over $5000 in gift card points just last week. We aren't at the end of an era, we're just moving into a smarter way to make everyone happy, and to be able to truly support our supporters without having to take it in the rear from our abusers. So this option is our temporary means of getting there. Temporary being the operative word. less