You have the right of it, Leilleath. I wish I could share those numbers with you - but I cannot. Suffice it to say, for every bot you may think you see in the world a MASSIVE number no longer are. This is a war we’ve waged nearly since day one. Sadly, as long as people keep putting themselves at risk by dealing with these cockroaches, they have a vested interest in continuing.
Gold buying is NOT a ‘victimless’ crime. In fact, most purchases are traced directly from pilfered accounts. Often, multiple pilfered accounts - and it sets up the ‘buyer’ to be the next on the hit list if they can.
These cretins also often indulge in financial and identity fraud. They are thieves and scammers, no matter how slick or ‘professional’ they try to make themselves look. Losing a WoW account can easily be the least of your concerns after you give billing information to a ring of thieves.
The Blizzard Rep didn’t give an official course of action. He just recommended what he would personally do.
“I would suggest deleting or returning it personally.”
Maybe the Blizzard Rep could have actually handled the issue and removed it if it was tainted AND/OR provided an official course of action.
No, instead, he says what he would personally do and then he sinisterly waits to see if I decide to clear out my mailbox, whereupon, “HO HO! You’re a gold buyer! Eat this suspension, 15 year customer with a clean record!”
Yep, I guess that’s all on me. This is why the appeal process is bogus. You can’t see the forest from the trees, at least not in my particular case.
You completely missed that there are two different departments here. You’ve got the GM whom you were speaking with. Then there was a WHOLE OTHER department that did the investigation and sanction. There was no grand conspiracy here as you’re suggesting.
I don’t have their data, and I don’t know what you did or didn’t do. But I have seen even after something was definitely resolved, that even then, they worked behind the scenes and rulings overturned. So I have no say on your particular case, only the cases I’ve seen played out here on the forum. And I can say that I’ve seen far more cases overturned than those who screamed down that they were innocent and rulings upheld.
Did YOU buy gold - honestly don’t know, Charax - I’m perfectly willing to give you the benefit of the doubt given you did open a ticket.
Did YOU knowingly ignore good advice and proceed to benefit from a goldseller’s mistake - oh yes.
Had you hit return, this wouldn’t have popped up to bite you. Taking it out of the mail and demonstrating a willingness to ignore not only a GMs recommendation - but your own gut feeling is exactly what happened.
Leilleath, it honestly doesn’t matter to me which group does what behind the scenes. I just cared about the end result.
The statement of facts with Blizzard isn’t disputed. I escalated a suspicious mail, and it wasn’t satisfactorily handled. It left me still questioning what I was allowed to do.
Two issues with this:
I would expect clear resolution when I initially escalated this.
I would expect, on appeal, a reasonable person would see that I was pro-actively trying to manage this and be transparent.
I just find this troubling that there is no dispute n the facts but I had to eat a suspension. It was unjust.
Charax, did you spend that gold? Because it sounds like you “benefited from the goldseller’s mistake,” which likely means you spent it…
And if you spent it despite knowing it was suspicious, that was the wrong thing to do. It’s like if you received a large amount of money in the mail IRL that a reasonable person would deem suspicious, and then proceed to spend it despite receiving advice otherwise, yes, you’d get in trouble.
It seems half the community would have kept it; half would have contacted the sender. I did the rare thing and went to Blizzard. I suppose I should go update the thread and see what the community thinks if this was properly handled.
Thanks for your feedback. I guess we just have a complete difference of opinion on this.
No, I didn’t spend it or send it elsewhere. It just sat unused for a couple of days and then I got suspended.
I had put the sender as a friend’s contact to ask him about it but the person didn’t log on. As this was sent to my AH toon, I like using “open all” to collect everything (which collected the stranger’s gold).
And when you contacted a GM, they recommended that you delete it or return it. You instead kept illicit gold that was either botted or stolen from other player’s accounts. When you chose to keep it or spend it, you became a part of the illicit trade.
I don’t care what haf of the community on the forums would do or claim what they’d do. It doesn’t matter at all.
I get where you are coming from, Charax - believe me - I wish you hadn’t removed it from the mail to have this fall on you.
The community may give you their opinion - which is fine - also doesn’t have a thing to do with doing the right thing. Which you indeed did do - to a point. Contacting about this is rare - but even rarer is not taking the advice given when you ask.
Just for the record. If a GM - or a Blue here states “I’d personally” - that’s shorthand for - I can’t officially give you a directive, but I know enough to give you a recommendation that is in your best interests.
You do need to understand the division of labor though.
GMs don’t have access to the investigations the Hacks department is doing. They can’t see what that gold was from. The GM gave you the best advice they could given their own lack of information.
The Hacks department does the investigations - they are the ones who suspended you.
GMs don’t have the info Hacks does - which is what you wanted. You asked a GM for advice. They urged caution and not to take it. That is because IF the Hacks team found it was illicit you would be dinged. They could not say for sure what the Hacks team would find because it is not the same team.
To be blunt, it doesn’t matter what some random person say on some given area on the internet - it’s your actions in the end that matter and the things that comes with it. If you have to get some weird justification by some random folks just basically show you know what you did was wrong and just try to get some leg to stand on.
See, I clearly did not interpret it this way. I took it as personal advice on what he would do. I think he could have added that if the gold did come from a bad actor, then I could be suspended. That would be full transparency and I could then make a fully informed decision on the matter.
Just my advice on how the communication can be approved and thanks for the parlay. I think I needed to vent a bit about this situation.
To be clear, polling what the community would do certainly does not provide justification either way. It was merely interesting to see how they would react to the situation I found myself in.
I think I did a reasonable effort at doing the right thing (contacted Blizzard, attempted to contact the sender) but ah well.
I will give them this bit, as I’m guilty of the same. I’d be very screwed if someone did the same thing to me because on my AH toon, I collect and go about my business.
OP here… I have put the person on my friend’s list but he hasn’t come on.
I feel that he has kept my mailbox hostage as I do “open all” on occasion, like I did this morning and the gold just poured in.
I am puzzled at Blizzard’s response to return or delete it. Why would I delete it? That doesn’t benefit me or the sender.
I am curious to see who the sender was, at any rate, to see if he’s a normal player… which may influence what I do with it. Perhaps he is just appreciative that my AH toon provides good value to the community and thus the “ty” in the subject line. Perhaps that is the interpretation I should go with.
Honestly, I wasn’t done my due diligence on the matter. Perhaps it wasn’t a mistake on the sender’s part.