WoW Insider Show Episode 93: Avoiding the scam
by Mike Schramm 
Jun 8th 2009 at 2:30PM
Our podcast was so much fun last Saturday that we went even longer than usual -- this week instead of the usual hour, you get nearly an hour and ten minutes for your download (and all for the same low, low price of free!). Robin Torres and Lesley Smith joined Turpster and me to talk about what I did at E3 last week (meeting Michele Boyd was definitely a highlight), the new Druid forms and how they look, what's new in the game with 3.1.3, and some recent player achievements, including Ensidia's big win, and the no-deaths character. Plus, we talked with Robin about her recent scam experience, and how you can avoid having something like that happen to you in the future. One quick note: during the show, we guessed that Blizzard would never ask you for your Authenticator passcode, but that's not true: they do require you to give it to them when you sign in on their site. But our other tips are valid: if you make sure that you're the one typing the URL in to "blizzard.com" or "WorldofWarcraft.com," then you'll never have to worry about any sneaky sites grabbing your name and password.And of course we answered your emails as usual -- if you have any movie posters to send in to us this week, you can send them along to theshow@wow.com. Enjoy the show, we'll see you next weekend.
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Filed under: Podcasts, Podcasting, WoW Insider Show, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blood Elves
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
yokumgang Jun 8th 2009 2:51PM
Turpster has a child?
What hath hell wrought....
Boydboyd Jun 8th 2009 2:53PM
Bwahahaha! That pic is WIN!
Btw Turp, my mom asked about you. You should totally return one of her calls. (Nevermind that it costs money to dial her 900 number.)
Superthrust Jun 8th 2009 3:16PM
You really are TRYING to make it harder for people to scam others...It isn't working. People will always end up being stupid, regardless of whatever you type or give news about. What your trying to do is admirable. But pointless. Never underestimate human stupidity.
Laynne Jun 8th 2009 3:17PM
Am I the only one who finds that picture disturbing? I'm not even sure why, but I do...
lorangriel Jun 8th 2009 3:44PM
"Turpster and me..." You wouldn't say: "Robin and Leslie joined I..." would you? Why should adding Turpster into the mix change things?
/sigh
Angrycelt Jun 8th 2009 4:09PM
One of my guild's members was hit by a scammer this week as well. No spectral tiger mount or anything, just somehow convinced him that to active the /dnd command, he needed to enter his username and password. Guy immediately pm'ed him, got the account info, logged him out of his own character, changed the password, and proceeded to sell off all the purples and gear of a lvl 80 ranked #11 overall and #2 warrior on the server.
While this was going on, our guild was making a frantic withdrawal frenzy from the bank while the GM logged in to kick him and all his alts out of the game.
Worst part, the guy is actually still running around with his characters, pretending to be the actual account owner, and destroying his rep as well as the guild's.
PeeWee Jun 8th 2009 5:29PM
Being that stupid, he really did deserve to have his account stolen.
Maybe the game's accessibility needs to be toned down, for some people's own good.
Artificial Jun 9th 2009 2:27AM
You were making frantic withdrawals from the gbank? And he's still running around ruining *the guild's* rep?
Why wasn't he simply kicked?
BWJ Jun 9th 2009 5:19AM
If this is true, why wasn't the compromise reported, the account locked down, and the restoration process started? Instead of letting the guy run around on the account, why not get it back? Blizzard will restore all of the items, and they can get the discussion from chat and permaban the guy who stole it.
Angrycelt Jun 9th 2009 5:22AM
Apparently nobody there could kick him out of the guild until we finally got an officer on. He's since been kicked. Unfortunately, the jackhole that got the character has been mouthing off about the guild and telling anyone who'll listen that he was kicked out for no reason.
He was a fairly prominent name on the server, and closely associated with our guild, so people know just enough to cause problems.
schm0 Jun 8th 2009 4:10PM
Schramm: You're wrong about the authenticator code on Blizzard websites.
You will be prompted for your code if you are logging in to your Battle.net or Warcraft.com accounts and there is an active authenticator associated with it. You may have been confusing the fact that Blizzard will never ask you for your password/authenticator code in the form of in-game communication or email correspondence.
Hoxnr Jun 8th 2009 5:11PM
Guessing you didnt read the entire post? :P
jon Jun 8th 2009 5:41PM
Mike, if you're reading this, the only reason it took ensidia 7 weeks was that there was a bug with algalon... If you go and read their blog, you will see that their Kill of mimiron hardmode was around 2 weeks earlier than any other guild, and they could've downed algalon the next week if it wasnt for that bug (which involves a problem where after every wipe they stayed in combat and algalon was in the middle, unable to be attacked, and every time this happened they had to have a hunter disengage to get to algalon and the rest of the raid had to go aggro yoggy...) so basically they could've goten it after 4-5 weeks instead of 7... oh and also, you dont have to kill ALL hardmodes to access him, just IC, and the watchers.. you dont need FL, you dont need XT, dont need vejax or yogg, just watchers and iron council...
just a heads up..
if your interested in exactly what the bug was, just go here :
http://www.ensidia.com/community/blogs/road-algalon.html
jon Jun 8th 2009 5:41PM
oh and another thing, they did ask blizzard to fix the bug shortly after they first saw that it was there, since they were (for around 2 weeks i think) the first guild and only guild to get to algalon... blizzard was surely watching over the encounter as they worked on it but didnt hotfix the bug until the week they killed him.
Fimlys Jun 8th 2009 8:19PM
Just wanted to give a link to more information about the Twisted Nether/Blog Azeroth Blizzcon Meetup. It's open to anyone. We'll be hanging out and having fun!
http://www.twistednether.net/blizzcon-2009/
We'd love to see you there
Angrycelt Jun 8th 2009 8:50PM
It was more naive than stupid, but yeah, none of us feel particularly bad about his losses, but the pillaging of the bank kinda sucked.
Cytordieudie Jun 19th 2009 6:31PM
Hi Mike,
Listened to the show and was wondering if you were still having issues with getting your battle bot.
You said you converted your account to battle.net.
It is a two part process, if you are logging into wow with something other then your email address, you havent added your wow account to the battle.net account yet.
In order to receive the items you have to log in with your battle.net email address after you have added the game to it.
Let me know if you have any questions
Cytordieudie
Whisperwind-US
tulliz Nov 7th 2009 5:31AM
Great podcast. Also remember to visit http://youraccounterseller.com if you want to start avoiding WoW scams today!