Arkat wrote on Jun 11
th, 2011 at 3:56am:
My guess is there must some sort of flag if someone trades a high amount of plat. What's the most you can trade? 2 Mill at one time? I'll bet that's the threshold. Once a flag's raised, I'll bet a DM can look at the tranaction closely and if they see nothing or nothing of substantial value was traded back in return, they conclude you're buying plat.
In my case, I was trading many items I was farming on various characters with a guy who was known as a plat farmer. Except, in my naivety on the subject, I was clueless. I was trading things I'd pull in quests on my toons for stuff I was having trouble pulling. Or just selling items for plat at the time and buying things from the AH that I wanted.
I got a warning the first time, and when I responded a conversation ensued with a senior GM. I walked away from the conversation more confused than anything but knowing to avoid 'plat farmers' Was trading with I think 5 different people at that time. Cut ties with them all because I could not figure out who the person might have been.
Second time I was infracted, I was given a two week vacation from the game. About 6 months had passed, and I had a slew of people I was trading with for shroud mats to get my toons equipped faster. I learned who the person was by way of Turbines responses to my inquiries. Their responses included timestamps and party chat snippets that accompanied my trades with one person.
I'm still bitter about that as I haven't bought things from plat farmers with cash I really don't have. I am guilty apparently of enabling the plat farming problem by trading with that guy at all. At the time, I was livid. Now I am just bitter. And I only trade now with guildies or people I've come to know over time in the game.
To better address the original question however; timestamps and snippets appeared to me to suggest that it's flagged by plat amount trades. However, once you enter that zone... you stay there. I believe that any trades I do are looked at to some degree by at least an automated system on my main account.
My advice would be to be mindful of who you trade 'high end pixels' with. You never know whom is watching and what they might be thinking.