Accounts with Different Owners

[elo]

So, poking through the site over the past few days I came across an issue I hadn't previously considered. I'm 5 boxing, but only 3 of the accounts are in my personal name. The 4th is in my wife's (had NO idea this would be an issue otherwise I would have put it in my name, sheesh) and then (gasp!) a buddy's account who quit playing.

Now, the buddie's account, no question I'm going to cease and desist using. I don't want to waste my time, and I don't want to get his 70 banned in case he ever wants to play again.

Now my wife's account, same last name of course, but different first name. We MAY be able to remember her secret question...

The question is, does anyone have any experience with weither my wife's account will be a problem? Will they even have issue with me multiboxing with it? If so, do you think I'll be able to make it through the transfer gamut if I purchase a 2nd account? See my idea is that I'll get another account, then immediately transfer the 70 and my 26 shammy from my wife's account to the new account, then just ditch the wife's account.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. I'm just afraid that I'll try to transfer my wife's 70 to my new account, they get wise, and ban both, then I'm out $65 and a level 70 (although with crappy gear so 'meh').

Thanks!

[Eteocles]

I think if they last name matches you should be fine; that's the criteria they use when transferring chars between accounts, as long as the last name matches. Moreso if you're in the same house, if they get suspicious tell 'em what's technically the truth; it's your wife's account and you play in the same househould and therefore on the same connection, so of course the IPs'll be the same and possibly be on at the same time :p

[sorrowharvester]

You know, I just ran into this same thing.

I'm not going to use my buddy's account (he quit playing).
I had to reroll one of my shaman, but, he's only lvl 10 atm so not a big deal.
I just went and bought a battlechest and rerolled him.

I had another account that I stupidly set the first name to Sorrow and last name Harvester. I must have been drunk, don't know why I did that.
However, customer support is sending me a way to change this name sense it is non-sensical and I've been the only one to pay on the account. Lucked out on that one.

My 3 others are good to go. Just bought them all BC upgrades.

EDIT: Your wife's account should be fine since you live in the same house. If a GM bugs you, just say it's your wife playing her account. No way they could prove she isn't...

You surely want to remember that secret question though. Best thing to do is go to the account management page and when it asks for your Login/Pass, click on the "Forgot Password" link. It'll ask you the secret question and such and you can see if you remember it. It'll send you a new password, but, then you can just reset it to the old one once you log in again.

[marvein]

I think if they last name matches you should be fine; that's the criteria they use when transferring chars between accounts, as long as the last name matches. Moreso if you're in the same house, if they get suspicious tell 'em what's technically the truth; it's your wife's account and you play in the same househould and therefore on the same connection, so of course the IPs'll be the same and possibly be on at the same time

No actually. there have been numerous whine fests regarding this. no matter the names, who pays for it, where the bills are sent or who you are related to blizzard says if more than one person plays the same account then you are violating the ToS. Now you are less likely to get in trouble in cases mentioned above (such as my brother and I, we play each other's accounts quite often depending on teh 70s we need) and we have yet to have any issues with it. Same goes for his roomates actually. we have about 5-6 accounts that everyone logs in to just for class balance and we personally dont care but Blizzard would. The flipside to this is as mentioned in another similar thread and that is multiboxing draws a lot of attention to you, both from the players and the GMs and there was even a direct quote from a GM that said "We have no problem with multiboxers but we do not automatically dismiss reports of ToS violation because of it, in fact to start with we look at the owner of the accounts in question to see if it really is all one person"

So the moment you get reported on those you will probably get burned for it. You may just get a 72hour ban to start with or something if you have n other dings on your record but that means any progress you have made so far will be lost (ie you got to start a new toon on a new account if you want to continue or you might get one or all of your accounts suspsended permanently)

So the gist of it is, if you cant afford to or dont want to get new accounts for however many boxers you want to do, then dont do it.

*edit* the exception to the rule is a parent and child who is under the age of acceptance (like 13 i think?) for the ToS where the child simply cant own the account themselves.

[Vyndree]

The ONLY way I think you could get away with this (and I'm not condoning for you to lie about your situation, but just sharing information) is if you were a dependent child multi-boxing from your parents' accounts. That's the only time where account sharing is acceptable.

It would be a tricky situation to prove, as Blizzard tends to "ban first, ask later" and their only communication line post-ban is the account administation e-mail address. The typical process of getting a legal account un-banned (I like to hang out on the customer service forums) is a lengthy fax of a multitude of legal personal identification, and it may take weeks or months to get your accounts back.

[elo]

Thanks for all of the responses and thoughts. I took the suggestion of trying to pw reset and the secret question was one I happened to know. So I think I'm going to go ahead and try to do the transfer to a new account and fly under the technical radar. If I can just get the 70 to the new account that is clearly in my name, then I should be set. The other toons I'll just abandon. This should put me in a safe spot with 5 accounts in my name, cost ~ $75 ($50/ea battlechest - $30 free months + $25 transfer fee), and the only time I will have lost is leveling 2 toons to 26. Heh, I've deleted a dozen mid twenties toons

[elo]

The side benefit of biting the bullet on this is that down the road if I get tired of boxing but don't want to quit altogether, I can transfer all of the toons I want down to one account and save ~$55/month.

[Suribusi]

You can play your wifes and your friend who quit playing no problem. Just pay him in advance and let him reactivate it. If he isn't willing to do this then don't use it. Although different billing vs account information won't get you noticed automatically, if you were to ever get reported on the accuont they could end up looking at the information. When that happens, the worst case is they lock the account and require him to send in his valid photo ID.

Bottom line;
Have him pay for it, pay him in advance (or whatever you want to do) and play away. You won't have any problems, as long as you both don't log into the account from locations that are far away.

-S

[torelorm]

You can play your wifes and your friend who quit playing no problem. Just pay him in advance and let him reactivate it. If he isn't willing to do this then don't use it. Although different billing vs account information won't get you noticed automatically, if you were to ever get reported on the accuont they could end up looking at the information. When that happens, the worst case is they lock the account and require him to send in his valid photo ID.

Bottom line;
Have him pay for it, pay him in advance (or whatever you want to do) and play away. You won't have any problems, as long as you both don't log into the account from locations that are far away.

-S

While you would probably get away with this, it is technically against the TOU and clearly stated as such.

And the worst case is you get one or more accounts banned.

[Xzin]

In the US, in most all cases, you need be 18 to legally contract with another party. Last name should be fine. If it REALLY worries you, transfer that character to an account in your name.