So someone posted they would make an item for me and proceeded to take all my items and put me on ignore and logs out. I am trying to submit a ticket but everytime I try to submit a ticket under trade scam, no tickets appear under my ticket, can I please get an assistance with this and will I be able to recover my stolen materials?
Unfortunately, there are no GMs on the forums. In instances of scams, Blizzard will take action against the offending player (if a scam is verified) but materials will not be returned.
You should be able to submit a ticket here.
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Awesome, so basically, those items are as good as gone since they can just hand off the items to an alt account. wasn’t even a level 1 character either.
Correct but if the player has a history of scams they an suffer penalties.
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Not necessarily so. Considering how they can track gold trails, even if the scammer hands the things off to an alt account, it can usually be traced.
Just…please be mindful of not calling out a scammer in public chats. I know a lot of people knee-jerk react when things like this goes south, or if they do it with the good intentions of not wanting someone else to be scammed like they were. Taking that route opens you up to sanction for harassment, as there isn’t context for harassment claims or chat abuse.
Reporting the scammer brings them to the attention of the GMs. They will act as the history of the player allows them to, but most especialy they’ll remove the items from the player’s inventory so that they cannot profit from shady business.
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Materials are returned when the transaction is supported one. This through the trade window is a supported transaction.
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Game Masters cannot return lost gold or items once a trade has been completed by both parties and the confirmation window has been accepted. It is not possible to retroactively undo a trade with another player.
A scam is the act of acquiring items or any other possession from another player through misinformation, confusion, or fraud. Confirmed scammers risk account suspension or closure. Take appropriate measures to protect yourself, as we do not restore items or gold in these situations.
Please read the support articles. Restoration is not garentee’d if the account is hacked. There is no restoration of any items or gold with trade scams or accidently trading with the player.
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Hmmm a policy change huh.
But they do take actions against such scammers @OP. It’s unfortunate they no longer restore if it goes through a trade window with an agreement to craft. I guess it is because of Personal Craft order windows nowadays.
No, not really. I don’t remember them ever restoring gold or items.
Well just as Vorsol said here, I did remember them saying something about a supported transaction before but that restoration wasn’t guaranteed. And the Trade Scams support article has been edited 6 days ago.
https://web.archive.org/web/20181116121753/https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/2563
(Old citation, no longer applies today)
Take appropriate measures to protect yourself, as restoration is not guaranteed.
If we can verify a scam took place, we will take action where possible—this may not result in the restoration of lost currency or property.
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I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. I’ve been in playing for 20 years, and a regular on the CS forum for ~15 years, and I don’t recall ever hearing of items or gold being returned. If it does happen, it’s exceedingly rare and likely highly dependent on specific factors and circumstances.
Same except I’ve seen cases before on the EU forum though restoration counts are a handful and only if they made a very specific agreement beforehand. This was before Work Orders though.
I do remember people getting mats back when scammed though trade deals. Might be different now in retail with the crafting system. If this is classic or a version with out the crafting system , then trading mats to have a crafter make you item was the only way you could go.
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They did if it was a trade window scam. It has never been guaranteed, but usually they were able to take the stolen trade mats off the scammer and return them. I have seen that quite a few times before. The way it reads now, is that they won’t even try to do that.
The no restorations at all thing was for unsupported transactions which is anything outside the trade window or AH.
You know, I really wish they would TELL US when policies change. That is a pretty major change.
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I’m having a look at the wayback machine of the support article, I think the major change might of taken place sometime before dragonflight.
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Huh… then it would make sense it is work order related seeing as that prevents lost of mats through trade scams. Still.
I long long ago wished that we had a way to see change logs for Support articles or get notifications for them. Like an opt-in thing. I don’t even care if it is a spreadsheet. I just want to know what changes were made so I can be aware of them.
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Earliest I got was Jan 27, 2022, 10 months prior to the release of Dragonflight where it says they can not restore items or gold through trade scams. Can’t view any dates in 2021, but the earliest date in 2018 says not guaranteed to restore items.
I wonder if the change took place around the start of Shadowlands?
EDIT: The change must of taken place sometime during Shadowlands.
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Methinks they won’t do it because then some disgruntled player would dig it up and say “but it says here that I got dibs!!!” when in the small footnote it says “outdated article/previous version” and stuff.
Sometimes I have discussions on GD about certain Blizz decisions and players dig up Blizzard posts as old as 15 years when they recently spoke something about it 
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Totally depends on circumstances. I could be wrong about this, but I seem to remember that it had to be trade window, but also, only ONE trade window. If you had to trade enough mats that it needed a second trade window, then it became unsupported.
To my mind, that could’ve been a reason for the change. It doesn’t make sense that a second trade window would make it unsupported, but then they couldn’t guarantee they would see all trade windows used. (It makes sense in my head, though I think it should’ve been done a lot differently.)
Agreed, but I suspect that the crafting order system changed things here. Once they have that system in place, any other crafting trades became unsupported, because it’s not using the built-in system designed to stop these kinds of scams.
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I remember back some expansions ago seeing some posts specify that the person wanting the crafting had to be specific. IE, they needed to say, “I’m trading you X, Y, and Z mats (amounts specified) plus gold tip and you will craft ABC item for me.” That way, your tail was covered because you spelled out exactly what needed to happen and if the person made off with the mats without crafting, then they were in breech of “contract” so to speak.
I wish I could remember when this was spelled out, but it really was a while back. Maybe Wrath or Cata?
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