For the record, they do at least ban the gold buyers
they get a 2 week bonk and blizz takes the gold, does actually nothing to stop anyone from buying gold. people touch grass for 2 weeks, then wise up and get an alt account to run purchases through and go on their merry way
i know a dude personally who spend 20k on gold in og vanilla… he got banned on his main account one time, after that he got an alt to wash his purchases through and never had a problem again besides the alt occasionally getting nailed for a week or two.
wanna stop gold buying? perma buyers on the first offense. it isnt a problem on pservers for the most part because they WILL perma you for a first offense, so nobody risks it