Adventuring in Azeroth gives a player many opportunities to choose how they want to spend their time. You can go questing, or perhaps run dungeons or a raid. You may enjoy honing your skill in the PvP arena, gather materials and develop your trade skills, earn achievements or collect pets and mounts.
No matter your activity of choice, you may, on occasion, find you need help from other players. That could be in the form of crafted materials, such as potions, armor and weapons, or items gathered from dungeons and raids. Or, you may need help completing an objective, such as a dungeon or achievement. During this times your fellow players may lend a hand, by selling an item you need or offering you their time.
There are a lot of good honest folk inhabiting Azeroth, just waiting to help. Likewise, there are also a number of people who try take advantage of a trusting nature. This Spotlight is intended to cover some of the more common scams and how best to protect yourself.
Supported and Unsupported Transactions
Trades tend to fall into two different categories - Supported and Unsupported.
A supported transaction is one where we have a system in place to help facilitate it. Such as using the Trade window, Auction House, C.O.D. Mail, etc… These systems are in place to allow players to protect themselves from getting scammed by being able to set conditions on their actions. e.g - In order to trade an item, both parties must agree to the transactions and click accept.
For the most part, our Support Staff would have no need to become involved as there is little chance of a scam. Any mistakes made are often user errors and not something we can usually help with, outside of urging caution going forward.
An unsupported transaction is one in which there is no system in place that is designed to help with the trade. Examples of these are often Dungeon or Raid runs, where a person or guild accepts gold to help a person complete a dungeon or achievement or assists with helping a player climb the ranks in PvP. These “services for gold” are always unsupported, and though not against policy, are entirely done at your own risk. If anything goes wrong, we will be unable to help recover any losses.
That doesn’t mean such behavior is condoned or tolerated. If reported, we will investigate for a possible scam. If a scam is verified, we will apply the appropriate penalties against those found scamming, including the removal of any ill-gotten gains.
Note: Any trade for real-world currency is always against policy and may result in the suspension or closure of the involved accounts.
Virtual Items
Virtual items include those that may have been purchased through the Blizzard Shop, such as pets, mounts, cosmetic helms, but can also include things like Game Time Cards/Codes or Recruit a Friend promotional benefits.
These items are purchased out of game for real-world currency and, as such, may not be traded for gold. Attempting to do so may have negative repercussions, the least of which could be that the other person scams you and you will lose whatever gold you traded as well as the item.