<![CDATA[How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did]]>I got hit with a 3-year suspension for "marketplace manipulation/stub transferring" tied to a single item ("Hurry up batter!") that spiked on 8/19. I've never transferred stubs to or from another account, not once. I've played this game since 2006 and logged over 1,300 hours this year alone. Support did a "full review" and wouldn't tell me what was actually looked at, just a form denial.

Based on the pattern in my case and others posting the same story, here's what I think is actually happening on their end, and why it's catching people who did nothing wrong.

What they appear to be doing:

  • Detecting a card with an abnormal price spike and a burst of transaction volume in a short window (this part is clearly working, my ban traces to one specific item and date).
  • Pulling every account that transacted on that card during the spike.
  • Banning the whole group, with no visible distinction between one-off participants and repeat trading pairs.

What a more precise system should be doing instead:

  • Same event detection, flag the spike.
  • Build the actual transaction graph for that window: who bought from whom, how many times, at what price relative to the going rate at that moment.
  • This is the part that matters: the real signature of stub transferring isn't "moved a lot of stubs during the event," it's the same two accounts buying back and forth with each other, fast and consistently enough that they're clearly not just competing in the open market. The point of the scheme is controlling where the stubs land, so once regular players start piling onto the same margin, the transfer pair can't guarantee their own linked account wins the trade anymore, and that activity typically drops off. A legitimate flipper does the opposite: they keep competing right alongside everyone else chasing the same margin, since they don't care who they trade with, just that they get a good price.
  • Flag and investigate the accounts showing that repeated, off-market pairing. Leave everyone else alone, they're not part of a relationship, they're just reacting to a public price signal like the game intends.
  • Account age/history as a secondary signal, not the primary trigger.

If they're just clustering "everyone who touched this card during the window" without looking at pairing behavior, they're going to keep sweeping up regular players along with actual transferrers, and no amount of appealing to support seems to fix it once you're in that bucket.

If you've been banned under this same "stub transferring" language for a card that just had a normal price spike, and you've never had a repeat trading relationship with another account, it might be worth comparing notes here. A pattern across multiple wrongly-banned accounts is a much stronger argument than any one of us appealing alone.

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/topic/84603/how-they-should-ve-done-the-transferring-stub-ban-vs-what-they-actually-didRSS for NodeSun, 30 Aug 2026 08:29:02 GMTThu, 27 Aug 2026 02:35:51 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Fri, 28 Aug 2026 02:29:14 GMT]]>

@x-814-x-MAFIA-x_PSN said:

But if youre really worried about it, just do what YFK did, and make another account.

IP BAN THAT JACK@SS!

I know there ways around that but it's extremely difficult to do. It'll slow him down quite a bit.

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/778061https://forums.theshow.com/post/778061Fri, 28 Aug 2026 02:29:14 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Fri, 28 Aug 2026 02:24:07 GMT]]>

@SupermansCousin_PSN said:

@x-814-x-MAFIA-x_PSN that doesn't seem right. I have to assume they banned my account from any of their servers or when 27 gets spun up my ID will be in a ban log that would prevent me from playing. If that's not true I'd want that in writing cause the last thing I wanna do is go waste money and buy the game and can't even play it.

They cant ban you for a game that hasnt been released yet.

But if youre really worried about it, just do what YFK did, and make another account.

Evidently that's ok. Because he's streaming the game now.

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/778059https://forums.theshow.com/post/778059Fri, 28 Aug 2026 02:24:07 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Thu, 27 Aug 2026 13:06:37 GMT]]>A very intriguing OP. The details are rather stark. For me though, it further validates my point that the entire community market is as phony as a three dollar bill and should be shut down entirely. Nothing in the OP has anything at all to do with baseball. This is supposed to be a baseball game. It is not supposed to be New York Stock Exchange the Show!

If people earn vouchers for any card published by winning challenges or completing any game mode requirements, then the market does not need to exist. It exists to allow people to exchange what they earned that they don't want with something they do want. That's the exchange part of this.

What the market has been turned into is a shady avenue for a handful of people with computer programs to manipulate stub prices. With all this phony stub "loot" who knows what benefit it brings, but it occurs to me that this could be the source of the third party stub markets, that charge real money in exchange for stubs, bypassing the extremely shady SDS practice of selling stubs outright. That's of course called pay-for-play, and it stinks.

The only difference is legal. SDS has the legal right to do it, third party sites do not. Though, the shaky morality of the whole scheme is what motivates people to create the third party sites in the first place, thinking if greed is going to motivate SDS, then why should they be the exclusive practitioners?

Frankly, the way things are going, a three year ban on buying MLB The Show might be a reward, not a punishment.

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/777975https://forums.theshow.com/post/777975Thu, 27 Aug 2026 13:06:37 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Thu, 27 Aug 2026 13:01:33 GMT]]>@x-814-x-MAFIA-x_PSN that doesn't seem right. I have to assume they banned my account from any of their servers or when 27 gets spun up my ID will be in a ban log that would prevent me from playing. If that's not true I'd want that in writing cause the last thing I wanna do is go waste money and buy the game and can't even play it.

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/777974https://forums.theshow.com/post/777974Thu, 27 Aug 2026 13:01:33 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Thu, 27 Aug 2026 06:40:30 GMT]]>

@SupermansCousin_PSN said:

Oh they do look sketchy and they have for years. However you'd have to be aware that there are sites out there doing this which I was not until I got banned. Comparatively to the rest of the community I'm an old man who started playing this game long ago. I don't look for others who play it or other websites about it. I just play. And maybe it's my false trust in sds thinking if something like this was going on they would've prevented it well before it made it to the market where I could get caught in the crossfire. Thus one of my biggest points here is to have an actual appeal process so I can talk to someone about it. I've given them my phone number and asked for a zoom meeting to clear all this up but it just falls on deaf ears. But yes had I known I would stayed clear. But it's all moot now as I can't buy the game until 2029 now when my 3 year ban is up. Should this not get lifted

You do know your "3 Year Ban" is only for MLB The Show 26?

You can still play 27 next year. You just cant play 26 for 3yrs.

27 will be on different servers. Can't ban you for that game if the servers aren't even up and running yet.

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/777951https://forums.theshow.com/post/777951Thu, 27 Aug 2026 06:40:30 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:41:57 GMT]]>@Dolenz_PSN well you're at least in touch with what's going on which is more than I could say for myself. It wasn't until I got banned that I started to figure what all was going on.

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/777950https://forums.theshow.com/post/777950Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:41:57 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:40:20 GMT]]>I do agree that they should have better control of it. The website sell history only went back to the 20th so I could not see just how many transactions there were in the 19th but even on the 20th close to 70 orders, a full one third of all of them, were for over 9000.

My guess is that the 19th was really bad.

And when it comes to being old I probably have you beat.

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/777949https://forums.theshow.com/post/777949Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:40:20 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:24:00 GMT]]>Oh they do look sketchy and they have for years. However you'd have to be aware that there are sites out there doing this which I was not until I got banned. Comparatively to the rest of the community I'm an old man who started playing this game long ago. I don't look for others who play it or other websites about it. I just play. And maybe it's my false trust in sds thinking if something like this was going on they would've prevented it well before it made it to the market where I could get caught in the crossfire. Thus one of my biggest points here is to have an actual appeal process so I can talk to someone about it. I've given them my phone number and asked for a zoom meeting to clear all this up but it just falls on deaf ears. But yes had I known I would stayed clear. But it's all moot now as I can't buy the game until 2029 now when my 3 year ban is up. Should this not get lifted

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/777948https://forums.theshow.com/post/777948Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:24:00 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:14:59 GMT]]>Well, I am sorry you got banned.

I guess my only advice is to think twice in the future versions about jumping on a deal that seems a little too good to be true. My guess is that at 5 transactions you could have made 30k-40k in profit. 30K is the smallest amount of stubs you can buy from that site.

I guess my only other question would be is this the only time you have jumped on a deal like this for a piece of equipment or audio? I assume there is probably a different item inflated almost daily.

For example, I just went to the website and looked and here is another audio unlockable

WHAT THE CARD IS GOING FOR RIGHT NOW

alt text

THE HISTORY OF PRICES FOR THAT CARD

alt text

THE MOST RECENT SELL PRICES
(Tell me that don't look sketchy)

alt text

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/777947https://forums.theshow.com/post/777947Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:14:59 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:52:48 GMT]]>@Dolenz_PSN additionally to your question it would only be fair I believe for SDS to give details about what it was they believe I did or provide me something other than I flipped a card on a day so I'm banned. With those details I could answer your question more accurately

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/777945https://forums.theshow.com/post/777945Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:52:48 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:50:15 GMT]]>@Dolenz_PSN I don't know cause I've been banned and can't check my transaction history. Probably somewhere between 3-7 over a five minute span. But still that's a drop on the bucket when you see the transactions showing 30+ a minute. And that again is my point if you look at the two accounts that were doing the majority of those transactions and not the little guy who put himself in the middle to make a few stubs by just working the market not knowing who's on the other side you can accurately ban the right people instead of clumping and guessing.

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/777944https://forums.theshow.com/post/777944Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:50:15 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:44:51 GMT]]>So, I notice you did not answer the question. How many copies did you buy and sell?

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/777943https://forums.theshow.com/post/777943Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:44:51 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:31:51 GMT]]>So that's kinda the point of matching the pair. Because I would have to assume I interacted with the buyer at least a few times but that would still be much much fewer than the intended target which I believe should be pretty obvious if they actually did their research

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/777941https://forums.theshow.com/post/777941Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:31:51 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to How they should've done the transferring stub ban vs what they actually did on Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:28:59 GMT]]>I'm just curious how many times you flipped that card that day?

If it was multiple times then how do you know that you did not have repeated transactions with the same buyer? I assume the only person buying an audio unlockable at the 9,000+ stub price was the actual Stub Seller. I can't think of a single reason a normal player would pay that much for that card.

So if you did it more than once then chances are you were interacting with the same buyer

]]>https://forums.theshow.com/post/777939https://forums.theshow.com/post/777939Thu, 27 Aug 2026 03:28:59 GMT