Neopets updated Terms and Conditions/FAQ

[Cranberry]

I like the new Terms and Conditions and FAQ -- for the most part, they're really straightforward and make sense. But there's one thing I'm unsure about.

One of these accounts, your main account, can do everything on Neopets. The other four accounts (except if one is a guild account as explained below) can adopt Neopets and maintain a gallery but cannot have a store, play games or any other activity that earns Neopoints or participate in any voting activities. You may freely transfer items among your accounts but they should be on the same e-mail address as your main account.

If we can't have a store on our other accounts, how can we sell any items we receive through random events? Also, if we want to put our other account's pets in the neolodge (which is what I do, to keep them full and happy), where are we supposed to get the neopoints to do that? And what if our alternate account already has a store and is on a different e-mail address, because we created it a long time ago?

I am really glad they added this:

Q. My friends and I have been purchasing all the Dr. Sloth Costumes and then jacking up the price. Is that okay?
A. No, you cannot conspire with others to corner the market in an item and then artificially raise the price. This is called price fixing which violates Neopets' Terms and Conditions. If we detect this, we will either freeze all the players involved in the conspiracy or delete all the items they are hoarding. However, in anticipation of a war or other event, you can, by yourself, purchase unlimited quantities of an item in the expectation the price will rise. This is called price speculation, which is fine.

We all knew that, but it's nice to have it up there so we can point artificial inflators to it.

Q. A friend taught me to put a heavy item on my "refresh" key overnight to get random events. Is this considered cheating?
A. Yes. You cannot have your computer play the site without you.

Nice to have this spelled out, too.

Q. I was unjustly frozen. Do you think your freezing programs might be imperfect?
A. Contrary to urban myth, we do not use automated programs to freeze users. Though we have numerous programs that monitor the site and the game play, live monitors make the final decision as to what punishment, if any, is appropriate.

Maybe they don't have freeze bots now, but I think they used to -- when I was unjustly frozen for "cheating" at Volcano Run a couple years ago (I was just good at it... stupid buggy game), I believe it happened late at night when no one was in the office. Took me three months to get my account back, too. And it worries me that I've been frozen in the past, because look at this...

BEWARE: If you do any of the above we may suspend you from using your account for up to 72 hours or freeze your account permanently. Please note that depending on your account history and the type of infraction, you may be frozen or suspended for breaking the rules and that you WILL be frozen for multiple infractions. Also, you will not necessarily be warned prior to being frozen. This is your warning.

It looks like they keep a record of any and all warnings and freezings we get, so they may be less "lenient" if we get in trouble again. This is... well, good in some ways (those who really do cheat shouldn't have free rein to do it over and over), but bad when people honestly were frozen unfairly.

For the most part, though, these new rules are great.