5 times the fun, 5 times the pain.. scam warning re:Winged Guardian

[riffraff]

I didn't know really if I should post this or not as it's somewhat embarrassing. I fell victim to a scam in game which cost me 71k gold.

I just recently (about 10 days ago) returned to the game and noticed the Winged Guardian was available. This mount to me looks a lot better than the lame celestial steed that first came out so I was interested. I could not afford to pay $125 for 5 of them so I didn't really think much of it at first. However, last week I had seen someone selling them for in-game gold at 15k each and thought it would be a good investment as I'd be able to use them on all of my characters.

I was sceptical, thinking a scam was involved. He said that he would give me the code first and I could pay him afterwards. This seemed like a pretty safe play so I decided to try it out on my first guy. It wasn't until I re-logged, grabbed the mount from my mailbox and was flying it above the bank steps that I gave him the gold. I went ahead and bought 4 more with no problems at a price of 14k each. Soon afterwards I was soaring around SW with my glowy-winged-lions.

The next day I logged in and saw 2 of them had disappeared. The mount was gone, the spot on my action bars was empty. I figured there was some elaborate scam that he was able to pull off because he was the "purchaser" of the item from the store and had called Blizzard to complain that his codes did not work or some crap. I filed a ticked immediately and it said the wait time was 1 day, 15 hrs! I decided to call billing to find out what's up.

This is what's up. Apparently the way the blizzard store works is this: You can use a non-working credit card to buy an item. They give you the code immediately, and it will work. When they get around to actually processing the payment the next day or whatever, if it fails then they have a system in place where they just take it back, completely automated I'd assume. I explained to the representative that I purchased these from the guy with gold and that he had scammed me using the behavior of the blizzard store commerce and I was told there was "little they could do" and that they "did not support in-game transactions for blizzard store items" from a noreply@blizzard.com email shortly afterwards. I called again the next day to plead with a new rep to get this escalated... surely the GM's had tools to review chat logs, gold-transfer logs, etc. They did file an escalated ticket but again I was given the cold shoulder.

I had given them all the details, including the time of the transaction, amount of gold, and person I interacted with, all within 24 hours of it happening. Apparently their limited resources did not consider this worthy to fix. I guess if someone takes someone's 100g worth of enchanting mats and logs off they can be bothered to reverse that scam, but a 71k gold scam that uses a shortcoming in their website's commerce to help fool the victim is not something they want to deal with.

I'm not posting this to whine as much as to warn other people here who might be fooled as well. I'll recover but it definitely was a punch in the gut after coming back after 5 months off, especially since I felt like had been fairly cautious.

[Silence]

This is awkward...

they return me a gem when someone scams me for 100g and this is "un-supported" ?

I would point them on their own non-scam policy... this is rather painful.

[Svpernova09]

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=44499

It's against the TOS to buy this mount with in game currency.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/178783/timecards-and-winged-guardian


Posted by Poondehgah (http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/178783/2592854506?page=1#1)Is it against ToS for me to purchase a time card or winged guardian and then sell it for in-game currency?
Simply, yes.

You may want to review the current sticky on virtual items.

[Toned]

Pony up the cash, or get scammed. Anyone who buys anything outside of an in game item for in game gold is asking for trouble.
(The mount requires a code and credit card transaction even though the result is an ingame item. If the winged guardian was BOE and you bought it that way it would be different.)

[riffraff]

Yet these guys and the gold sellers spam trade 24/7. Susan says "Hi" again..

I'm not sure it should fall on every player to have to comb the forums for recently posted sticky's regarding this kinda thing but meh. Yeah I got this a link to the sticky from one of the emails they sent after-the-fact which was posted 7 days before I got scammed. A lot of good it did.

[Svpernova09]

Yet these guys and the gold sellers spam trade 24/7. Susan says "Hi" again..

I'm not sure it should fall on every player to have to comb the forums for recently posted sticky's regarding this kinda thing but meh. Yeah I got this a link to the sticky from one of the emails they sent after-the-fact which was posted 7 days before I got scammed. A lot of good it did.


I agree with you on that, how is the average noob supposed to know it's a scam when blizzard can't keep up with the spammers on every realm.

However,

We're not the average noobs. we should be (and often are) held to a higher standard. Sucks you got scammed, but when something is too good to be true...

[Ashley]

Isn't real world trading illegal in pretty much every game?

[Daeri]

The way Blizzard store works is counter-intuitive at least. I'm pretty sure if you buy a book or a figure, Blizzard will double-check they get the money before sending it to you, they won't wait a day or two.This is the only store I know that doesn't secure all transactions in real time via a bank or whatever. Scammers use every breach they can find in the system :(

[Bollwerk]

I don't mean to sound rude, but I don't see how any regular DB forum reader would think it's within the TOS/EULA to trade in-game gold for an "outside-game" code. I honestly thought people here were smarter than that. =(

[riffraff]

I don't mean to sound rude, but I don't see how any regular DB forum reader would think it's within the TOS/EULA to trade in-game gold for an "outside-game" code. I honestly thought people here were smarter than that. =(

Since this game came out you can go to ebay and buy any number of mounts or special pets outside of game. Yes these were given away in SWAG bags or whatever but it's been quite legit to buy these types of items. The fact that the battle.net site happily applies the code for this mount makes it confusing to the player that it's any different.


when something is too good to be true...

I have to agree with this.

[riffraff]

Isn't real world trading illegal in pretty much every game?

RMT in Ultima Online was completely allowed. Houses, characters, items, gold, whatever could be sold/traded for RL money.

EvE Online allows one way "legal" RMT. You can buy game time from CCP and sell it for in-game currency, but it's not legal to sell ISK for money as CCP would not get the money.

Most other games probably followed the EQ model of no RMT at all since Sony somehow pressured Ebay to remove all such categories even when UO gold trading was still quite popular.

[Tonuss]

Yet these guys and the gold sellers spam trade 24/7. Susan says "Hi" again..

I'm not sure it should fall on every player to have to comb the forums for recently posted sticky's regarding this kinda thing but meh. Yeah I got this a link to the sticky from one of the emails they sent after-the-fact which was posted 7 days before I got scammed. A lot of good it did.
Yeah, the way it works leaves a lot of people out of luck when they get scammed. I think Blizzard did it to avoid the hassle of trying to investigate problems that occur at least partly outside of the game, and which are therefore difficult to track. Even in the case of what happened to you (where it would be pretty easy to figure out that you got scammed and track the offender) they will fall back on policy... "the rules say" blah blah blah. It sucks, and that is why I never seek to buy/pay for items where the transaction is half in/half out of the game. If you get scammed, Blizzard will just shrug its shoulders.

[Sam DeathWalker]

It didnt occur to me at the time, before I researched it that you could not buy in game items with in game gold.

It seems that the opposite is true that you cannot buy in game items with rl monies.

If you can't buy in game items with rl monies then what can you buy in game items with? Gold.

I know that this item is from the store and was entered in on battle net but it didnt occur to me that it would be different, the item is visible in game thus seems to me its and in game item.


Anyway big deal, Ill have that 100K or whatever back in a week, I didn't even bother to contact blizz about it, knowing I wasn't going to get anything back anyways.

The lesson is don't buy from a level one ......

[Apps]

eh. Tuna smells.

So, "Gold Farmer" has a credit card, with no balance or maxed out. Purchases the in game $25. Credit card fails. $35 NSF charge per use. 5 Times = $175 in fees. for 71K gold...

There is no way this is profitable. Even at a rate of $18/10K gold, its still a $50 loss.

(No, im not suggesting anyone go purchase gold, I just used google.)

Did Blizz also take away the additional mount count towards your 100 mount achievement?

[thefunk]

eh. Tuna smells.

So, "Gold Farmer" has a credit card, with no balance or maxed out. Purchases the in game $25. Credit card fails. $35 NSF charge per use. 5 Times = $175 in fees. for 71K gold...

There is no way this is profitable. Even at a rate of $18/10K gold, its still a $50 loss.

(No, im not suggesting anyone go purchase gold, I just used google.)

Did Blizz also take away the additional mount count towards your 100 mount achievement?

that's a really good call, so how do they do it?

[ElectronDF]

Gold farmer has legit card, buys 12 keys, sells 12 of them for gold, goes to credit card company and disputes charges. Credit card cancels transactions. Blizzard gets screwed out of 12 purchases, but they then mark items as not valid. Normal person looses item and gold won't get refunded. But gold farmer ended up with gold and no charges.

[Alemi]

eh. Tuna smells.

So, "Gold Farmer" has a credit card, with no balance or maxed out. Purchases the in game $25. Credit card fails. $35 NSF charge per use. 5 Times = $175 in fees. for 71K gold...

There is no way this is profitable. Even at a rate of $18/10K gold, its still a $50 loss.

(No, im not suggesting anyone go purchase gold, I just used google.)

Did Blizz also take away the additional mount count towards your 100 mount achievement?

You're making one fatal assumption.

You're assuming they're using their own credit cards.

When my accounts were compromised a few years back, they were frozen/cancelled/inactive 4 months previous. The person who got my information used a stolen credit card to reactive the accounts to wipe them out and then the owner of said credit card disputed the charges.

[Apps]

Credit Card disputes are generally a 30 day or 60 day investigation mandated by the FCBA. Lost or reported stolen cards can be 24 hrs to 3 days. However, further charges done during that period are not the responsibility of the card holder until the card is locked. Yet, in this case, the majority of credit card companies will require a min payment of $50 to help cover the administration costs to restore all the alledged "fradulent" charges.

So, I guess it would be possible for someone to obtain a credit card, spend over $50 worth of charges in a 24 hr period, report the card stolen, and pay the $50 fine.

Back to the math here:

71K gold at sell back rate is ~ $9.99/10000 is ~$71.00
Minus the $50 Max credit card user liability

$21

Basically, buying 5 or more mounts, scamming the player, would yield you a profit barely insufficent to purchase one legit.
6 and you get yourself a mount... Free.



@ Alemi. Yes, indeed that would be the assumption. I was attempting to determine if indeed it was a profitable scam, worth the time and money to do. Of course, the other assumption would be, the CC's are stolen... then you just got away with in game gold. and sold it for $9.99/10000.

[riffraff]

You can go to the supermarket and get a "pre-paid" visa, stick $5 on it and, from what I understand, bliz doesn't do the processing immediately so.. Blizzard just made this too easy.

Also, they could just use a legit credit card with no balance. The laws changed on how banks can charge you an overdraft fee (they can't unless you opt-in to it) so the purchase never gets approved, but blizzard's half-assed commerce on their website doesn't catch it.

[Bollwerk]

Since this game came out you can go to ebay and buy any number of mounts or special pets outside of game. Yes these were given away in SWAG bags or whatever but it's been quite legit to buy these types of items. The fact that the battle.net site happily applies the code for this mount makes it confusing to the player that it's any different.
Yes, but those cases you mention (ebay, etc), people are paying RL money for a RL item (such as the Blizzcon pet card with the code on it). This has always been fine.

What you and Sam did was trade IN GAME gold to a random person for the code (which is bought with RL money). The code is not an item you can put in the trade window, which is why this is a NO NO.

Again, I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but people on these forums should really know better. =)
Maybe it's confusing to all the millions of n00bs who play, but the people here are/should be smarter than the average player. =)

To sum up, you can buy RL things (Blizzcon pet cards or cards from the trading card game - BEFORE the code is revealed) with RL money, OR you can trade IN GAME gold/items for other IN GAME gold/items (i.e. anything you can put in a trade window or the auction house). The only "exception" I can think of is where you buy a pet code from the Blizzard store and give it to a friend. I think that is OK.

I'm not trying to berate you and I apologize if this comes across that way. I'm mainly trying to clear up any possible confusion for the readers of the boards here.

[MiRai]

The only "exception" I can think of is where you buy a pet code from the Blizzard store and give it to a friend. I think that is OK.
Definitely, you just click "Gift it!" after you've made the purchase and then the next screen asks for the
person's e-mail address you would like to send it to.

[F9thRet]

Well guys, That does suck, But I'm here to tell ya, I have a deal for you.

My Team recently became the proud owners of a construction site in Felwood, and for the low low price of 10k Gold a share, I would be able to double your money on the new Bridge I am building with nothing less, than Dirty claws.

Now stocks in my company are going fast, But just think how much you will see as a return, as people cross said Bridge, to Felwoods Brilliant Ocean Front Property that I am also building. So buy now, and Buy fast. I promise, I'm on the up and up.

Stephen

[Drizhal]

The pre-paid visa is definitely the way of it besides stolen CC's

But also remember http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam

The Chinese government is even in on it.

[Silence]

If you engage in trades of any kind there's chance to get screwed.

Guildies of mine used to buy game cards with ingame gold all the time, I even sold em 1 or 2 back in the days. In Romania students have so little money that he couldn't afford to pay for WoW. So while scamming is an option it's never the default of any transaction made.

Is it allowed officially? Nope... but people will find ways to play and get things they want.

This case just seems like poor management of the payment process on Blizzard's end. Just finish the transaction before sending the pet... people can wait a day.

[Apps]

The pre-paid visa is definitely the way of it besides stolen CC's

But also remember http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam

The Chinese government is even in on it.

I've read that before. From another source webpage though.

the thing is, for some reason, people really want to believe every word in those articles as the gospel.
Inmates playing an online game? One they have access to the outside world? How many times have players in game, come across another player whining about being a chineese inmate who is being physically harmed if they dont mine that ore node right NAO!?

Having actually been to China many times for business and personal, knowing the economy.. I simply can not agree that "the chineese government is in on it" Frankly, I would be stunned if anyone in the known corrupt government actually gives two shits about this.

Not saying its not plausable to some extent of the article, and not saying that this individual (whos name was changed @@), didn't give a "story"... but, honestly, how would anyone validate the story?

Theres just too much BS on the internet for me to simply accept this article is 100% accurate.

[MiRai]

How many times have players in game, come across another player whining about being a chineese inmate who is being physically harmed if they dont mine that ore node right NAO!?
Maybe if I spoke Chinese I could have a conversation with those underground tunneling miners...

[Zub]

Theres just too much BS on the internet for me to simply accept this article is 100% accurate.
WHAT! blasphemy!
if it's on Internet, i has obviously been checked by Internet Pty. Ltd and it's obviously true!

[Apps]

Maybe if I spoke Chinese I could have a conversation with those underground tunneling miners...


HA! There was a time a couple years ago, when botting, and farmers were running rampid, that if I found a bot, or a farmer, I would follow them shouting "Ni HAO!!" I never got a response from a farmer, but I did occasionally get a bot person to whisper me something like "why are you bothering me?" or "dude ive been here the whole time"


WHAT! blasphemy!
if it's on Internet, i has obviously been checked by Internet Pty. Ltd and it's obviously true!

Point well taken.