Pound Reserves

[karmaleafbarer]

I've discussed this with a few people and gotten a pretty solidified opinion about it. There are a lot of people who complain about losing a pet when trying to transfer it to another user.

I was thinking: Why not make it so that when you place a pet in the pound, you can use a "reserve" feature which will generate a confirmation code and make a pound pet inaccessible for 60 minutes?

Like, you want to move big beefy battlepet level 50 fire lupe over to another account but you're afraid that your pet is going to be taken away from you in doing so. For an extra 200 neopoints, you can put a reserve on your pet for an hour. You will recieve a pin number which you will need to pick your pet up from the pound.

Users who click on your pet in the pound will recieve a message that reads "This pet has been placed on reserve for 60 minutes. If you'd like to claim this pet, please enter its confirmation code below to take it home with you." and thereby it would protect it from other people until you can get onto your other account, to claim it and pay the adoption fee.

Now, this, of course, is not a flawless system...here are the drawbacks I've thought of:

1. People who will pointlessly put an abandoned pet on reserve and gum up the database in doing so.

2. If the site goes down in the middle of a "reserve period", people's 60 minutes may expire and their pet will go to someone else against their will.

3. It would make it that much easier for scammers to run off with pets residing in scammed accounts.

4. People would use them as scam fodder "I'll trade my confirmation code on a level 55 fire kougra for your lot" kind of crap.

5. Lost or forgotten confirmation codes.

But overall, I think it would make pound transfers a much more painless procedure for people who just want to shuffle their pet lineup or who are part of an adoption guild who want to send their fostered pets to specific new homes. Any thoughts?

[shaylir]

I really like this idea...but I think the biggest problem with it would certainly be what you mentioned...scammers. I can already see people posting messages on the boards saying that they'll sell confirmation codes for high amounts of money...and...oh gosh...That would be bad. ^^;; I think a way to kind of fix that would be saying who reserved the pet...That way people couldn't look through the pound, see the pet, and claim it to be theres then sell a fake confirmation code.

But, overall it would make life a LOT easier for people with multiple accounts and such...especially for those who have slow computers. Hmm, It wouldn't be bad idea to mail Neopets about.

[starhamster]

That sounds like a good idea - I can still remember how upset I was when I lost my Nimmo in the Pound a few months after I'd first started Neopets. The first person was nice enough to put her back into the Pound, but before I could refresh, she was gone again.

Yes, there is a problem with scammers, but no more than usual - if scammers put your pet in the Pound, so be it, you can't stop them anyways. Also, those confirmation codes wouldn't work unless your pet was in the Pound, right? So why sell them? And maybe Neopets could have an option to neomail you a confirmation code so you wouldn't forget it. I'm all for it! You should try mailing Neopets about that!

[Tdyans]

The main problem I see with it-- and at least part of the reason, I think, that Neopets hasn't made it possible to transfer pets "safely" without use of the pound like people have been suggesting for ages-- is that it would encourage even more of those people who sell and/or claim to sell pets, which is, of course, agains the rules of the site. Still, the system's not perfect now either, and I'd never heard this solution before; it's worth consideration at least.

[Gelquie]

Now thats what I call a good idea! I wasn't thinking of confirmation codes, but its still a good idea! But how can scammers run off with reserved pets easier if they don't know the confirmation code? Mabye it could be reserved for a certain person and no one else can interfer, even if they have the code!

[peachifruit]

gentle_lil_queen said:

...But how can scammers run off with reserved pets easier if they don't know the confirmation code?

If someone hacks into your account, and then puts your pet on the reserved adoption period, they'll know the confirmation code.

It is a good idea, though. I wish Neopia was scam-free. Really.

[Oily]

Scammers would sell fake codes for pets they claimed they put up for reservation.

I think someone asked about safely transferring pets but Neopets said it would take too much space on the database.

A better system would be, as you reserved the pet, to specify the username you intend it for. (And an edit feature in case you make a typo) Then they could say underneath the pet, reserved for so-and-so, which would make it harder for scammers as they couldn't sell fake codes.

[310bigsis104]

I like this idea. Good thinking about saying, "Reserved for so-and-so." But I don't see the point in transferring pets anyway. I mean, why would you want to do that? Now, I'm not saying that's a bad idea, I'm saying who would transfer pets? I mean, you should only be allowed to have one account.

Also, I think we should be allowed to have six pets, not four. I mean, there are so many to choose from!!!

[Tdyans]

"...you should only be allowed to have one account."

You're allowed to have up to five accounts as long as you don't use any of them to cheat the system, and one of the main reasons for that allowance is so that people can have extra pets. This doesn't mean that I advice transferring pets between accounts. If you do, take every precaution-- put a note in the pet's userlookup saying who it's supposed to go to, arrange for a friend to help you and time it as well as you possibly can. But in the end it's best just not to take the risk at all if you can help it.

[soggydude]

I seriously think they need to put a feature that blocks anyone who doesn't have parental permission from adopting a pet. This way, if a pet is taken, you know you can Neomail them. And a 'previous owner(s)' list on the pets would be good, which should be undeletable. If someone picks up a pet by mistake, they can see the person neomailing them was their owner.

[moonstars89]

That system would work, except for the sad fact that Neopets doesn't want anyone transferring pets. There's so many ways to abuse transferring pets: Scammers hacking and taking pets, people selling pets, people raising pets only to sell them . . . For Neopets, these are just all more things they have to sort out.
And not letting kids under 13 adopt would be cruel. There are plenty of pets in the pound just waiting for an owner, and an account without parental permission would be just as willing to adopt as one that can recieve Neomail - although it can be a bummer when you're trying to get a pet back.
We've seen in the past that the Neopets Staff is much more worried about keeping scammers down than making life easier for the average Neopian (taking out the dubloons in games, treasure maps, etc.). I just don't think they'll go for it, although it would be great if they did.

[lupe]

Yeah, thats cool, but it does have its pros and cons...

[wingoffire]

Sounds like a great idea. I need to transfer alot cause I have a labray, and when it gets really good(like a Faerie color) then I wanna transfer it. I found 2 ways to do so.
1. Do it over a phone with a friend. One of you abandons, one of you adopts, of coarse, you have to really trust them, because that means giving them your password(phone can be substituted with MSN, AOL, etc. instant messengers)
2. Another good way is if you have 2 different types of internet browers. It won't work if you have 2 of the same kind open tho, for example, internet explorer and netscape navigator. Open one to abandon, one to adopt. You can also use if you have 2 computers.

[Princess Ember Mononoke]

It's a great idea, but can you IMAGINE the load it would put on the servers? I mean, you aren't even allowed to do a pound search for a specific species of pet because it supposedly puts too much of a load on the servers.
But if anything I would think it would REDUCE scamming, or at the very least allow you to apprehend the scammers, since you'll know it wasn't just a mistake.

[Patjade]

I think the server argument isn't as valid as it used to be. They have added several servers since then, and you can see that in the way they have expanded Neopia's worlds, and added stuff like the Stamp database, etc.

I suggested to them that they add a weapons locker for the Battledome, because it was hard looking through 1200+ items in my SDB to find certain weapons. A weapons locker would make it easy to store and find stuff like muffins, snowballs, and my favorite weapons. It would be no harder than having one for stamps, collectible cards, neohome, etc.

I ended up using my shop as a type of weapons locker for the "war". Meh!