Posts with tag account-buying

According to The Associated Press, 23 year old Christopher H. Bouffard accepted $760 in 2008 from at least two people in exchange for WoW accounts. Bouffard then failed to turn over the agreed upon accounts, leading to a police investigation. He has now been charged with two counts of grand theft and one count of scheming to defraud. Bouffard is currently being held in jail until he is able to post a $20,000 bail.

While defrauding people and taking their money isn't anything new, getting busted over it while selling WoW accounts is. From what we understand, the arrest is not for the actual trading and selling of accounts, but for the fraud that went on in the process. The fraud in this case is a criminal matter with very real implications for Mr. Bouffard, whereas the buying and selling of WoW accounts is against the agreed upon Terms of Service, but not against any criminal code.

We've been hearing a lot about misbehaving WoWers lately, from the cougar who ran off with a fifteen year old boy, to Blizzard helping international authorities track fugitives online. This appears to be just the latest in a string of cases for Jack "Hang 'em High" McCoy to lay some law and order down on.

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

I enjoy the process of leveling as much as anyone else. I like the feeling of accomplishment in leveling, and the gradual growth of power that comes with it. Blizzard has given us a variety of tools to speed up the leveling process, including heirloom items and the Recruit-a-Friend service. Even so, I can understand why some players just want to skip to the endgame. To some people, questing on a low-level character is a lot less interesting than raiding or PvPing at the level cap.

In order to skip the leveling process, your options are both limited and dangerous. You could pay a leveling service. However, some of these services are actually scam artists who will use your account info to sell everything you have and take all your stuff. You could ask a friend to log in and level for you. However, sharing your account information can get your account banned. Finally, you could just buy an account. Let's see how that turned out for one particular guild leader.

Hello Scott,

My guild is going through an incredibly rough time right now. Our situation is this: We are one of the best guilds on our server. We have cleared Ulduar in both 10 and 25 man, working on hard modes right now. Our team is rock solid. We have about 35 dedicated, geared, and skilled raiders. We all get along great and have an awesome time raiding. But recently a problem has come up that will undoubtedly destroy our guild and send some of the best players on our server without a home. Our GM had unknowingly violated Blizzard's ToS/ToU and now his account has been banned.