The American government wants to protect you against Robux scams
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a US government agency charged with protecting consumers from unfair and deceptive practices by banks and financial institutions, on Friday proposed a new measure that would protect Roblox users from scams and hacks. The agency is also asking players who spend virtual currencies for feedback to better understand the challenges they’ve faced, including how a company responded when they reported a scam.
The proposed measure is not a new law; it would reinterpret the already existing regulation, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. Originally passed in 1978 by the late President Jimmy Carter, the EVA was created to protect consumers from unwanted debit transactions when people started using ATMs. The CFPB wants to expand the EVA rule to apply to certain video game platforms, such as Roblox.
“The way these gaming currencies and accounts work is rapidly evolving, including increasingly functioning as banking and payment systems,” according to a blog post from the agency.
“As this evolution has taken place, gamers – or in some cases their parents and guardians – have reported issues such as difficulty converting dollars to in-game currency, unauthorized transactions, account hacks and takeovers, theft, scams and loss of assets. They also described receiving limited to no assistance from gaming companies and the banks or digital wallets involved. Refunds are often denied, people find their gaming accounts suspended by the video game company after a player tries to get a refund from their financial institution, or people find themselves in a doom loop with AI-powered customer service agents while they’re just trying to get straight answers to get.”
The law would not apply to every game with in-game currencies and transactions, but focuses on games with a virtual marketplace shared between users, such as Roblox. The language from the bill lists three features as criteria: “paying for goods or services from multiple merchants, the ability to withdraw money or obtain cash, or making person-to-person transfers.”
On Roblox, users can purchase currency called Robux. Individual users often use that money to purchase in-game benefits and cosmetics from other users. In turn, Roblox developers earn a portion of Robux that they spend on items and games they create, and can exchange Robux for US dollars through the Developer Exchange Program. The rule may not affect a game like Fortnitewhere users cannot resell cosmetic items or transfer V-bucks between each other and exchange services.