Crystal` Feathers
Recently I was in the Q & A Forums and I noticed alot of Threads from users claiming that they were Perma- Banned because of having / receiving Bot Gold. Alot of these users had no idea what Botted Gold was until other users explained it to them. :/
Many of those claims are false. They just want their account unbanned, and they're trying all different means -- including lying -- to get their stuff back.
I don't think you need to worry about getting banned if you own a shop. Receiving botted gold is suspicious when you receive it and don't give anything in return (because it looks like you're helping the botter do the money laundry). But with shops, it's pretty obvious that you're selling them, not money washing.
Here are some precautions you can take, though:
--check the user's post history. If they're making like 700+ posts per day, you can pretty much assume that they're botting. Decline their purchase based on that reason.
--if the user has joined Gaia only a couple of days ago, and he tries to hand you a large amount of money, that's suspicious too. Ask a mod in that case.
Also, when people do get banned for botting, instead of filling out the contact form, they can PM a mod directly. That usually speeds things up.