Routinely (like every time I’m in a major city, and like 4 in the time it took to write this post), I see a message in trade, today’s being:
WTS All Types of boosts. Get gears by 30% cheaper. The Eternal Palace Heroic, Azshara Kill (Ahead of the Curve). Mythic~ Keystones, Operation Mechagon . /w for info
Initially I just assumed, its in chat, so they must be selling the boost for gold, but it is possible that it is for real money - esp as the player profile in question is so new that it doesn’t have an online stat page yet.
The messages are pretty similar to each other, so why do I keep seeing them, as I’d expect blizzard to have automated tools to detect it? And if it’s a new profile every time, then I can’t just report/block/ignore to escape them, and I can’t block the trade channel as I actually use it for in-game trading.
Real-Money trading is bad. If you have proof someone is doing this, open a ticket, include the proof and Blizzard will handle it. Selling boosts for gold on the other hand, is totally fine
They don’t handle it. I reported a group on facebook doing this which I kept seeing adds for Blizz said they would handle it and a year later they are still there
Just checked the group finder, just like yesterday, there’s a raid group, with its “voice chat” link being a boosting website and another raid group states that it has over 1000 reviews at trustpilot for its boosting (I very much doubt someone selling boosts for gold would).
This seems like stuff it should be possible to detect and block automatically, or at the very least remove by a GM just checking a few times a day.
There were a few that did it for gold, and they stated the gold up-front - I’m not fussed about those - as getting boosted for gold/paying gold for gear seem like the same thing.
I’m not disputing that some dubious characters will accept money or are from boosting websites but the bulk of boosting services that spam trade are just boosters for gold. Many of them belong to boosting organisations who run very organised boosting services with discords, customer feedback etc.
This is why I dont understand why someone would suddenly jump to the conclusion that boosting services being advertised would mean they are not just regular legit boosters.
These trade their gold to a “banker” character and then magic happens.
They don’t make these elaborate discords just to get the the store pets. Obv it’s all hard to deal with and track but let’s not be naive that all that boosting doesn’t end up as hard currency in people’s wallets in the end.
It depends on how many people report it to Blizzard. They don’t have the time to check every report someone makes about something outside of WoW. You could try bringing it to reddit so more people see it and potentially report it to Blizzard.
Turning gold into bnet currency is not against the Terms of Service. Many boosters pay their subs, buy lots of expensive in game items, spend on BMAH, convert to balance, buy store items, buy expansions, buy other blizzard games.
That wasn’t what I was worried about in the first place. I know that is acceptable (even if people don’t always like it), I’m concerned about direct monetary payments to boosters. I’m not sure why you’re continuing to point out the acceptable ways to pay other players and the acceptable ways they can use those payments - I wasn’t concerned about that!
As some of the stuff I saw in chat and LFG appeared fishy I posted here about it.
I just went and double-checked - one of the LFGs linked directly to a website that advertised “secure paypal payments; money back guarantee”
The vast majority of them will be plain, everyday boosters grinding hard and long to bring home the legitimate piles of in-game gold. It’s a big industry now, and entirely legit. You might end up in a dispute with your boost group because one of their people didn’t show, or they failed the timer or whatever, but those are the normal risks you take.
When you see an ad inviting you to a Discord or an external website to discuss payment, that’s when you’ve found the Real Money crowd.
Your first post is about suspecting advertisments in trade not being for gold.
This is not the same as what you are saying now.
That is very different from your first post.
You can report those selling for out of game currencies. It’s not permitted.
There are plenty of legitimate boosters should you wish to buy a boost though. Some will direct you to a discord but most will just deal with you in game. I would advise checking out any booster before engaging their services.
I’m going to disagree on the Discord front. Many boosters will offer to talk to their clients. Many have big hubs on Discords where boosters can see current prices for gold and offers they are running.
They can see feedback from others. They can talk to their boosters before engaging their services and some will talk through boosts like those in higher mythic plus.
Many big successful guilds do boosting as do boosting communities and they all have accompanying discords. And they only take gold as payment.
But I do agree if they wont give you a price when you whisper them then it’s dodgy and avoid.
We’re not actually disagreeing here. There are indeed perfectly respectable guilds and other boosting orgs that have Discords, and there is the neutral WoW Market Discord - all well-run Discords that can be used to communicate.
People can be invited to them, as you say, to see recommendations and feedback. Sure. Mostly, they are not needed for casual boosts, though.
But when people won’t discuss the gold price in-game, you should be suspicious.
