How i got scammed for 2 million gold and learned that Blizzard really doesn't care

Community General Discussion
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TLDR: A player scammed me for 2 million gold through Blizzard-created Services channel and GMs have confirmed the scam, but are refusing to refund the gold. This was someone who is very active in the boosting community so as dumb as i was, i didn’t jump in blind. In cases like this, Blizzard has all the evidence and the tools to do the right thing, but they just don’t care. They are passively hostile to their players by not only not protecting them, but by creating an avenue for the scammers in the first place.

Long story:
A player i know advertised Fyrakk mythic kill with mount for 2 million gold. I traded him the gold and he just went offline, blocked me and stopped responding to messages.

After contacting the GMs, they have confirmed i was scammed but are refusing to return my gold.

Blizzard has created the Services channel that is constantly spammed by M+ carries, mythic/heroic kills, level boosts, etc. They are obviously aware of what it is used for, but they do nothing to stop it (yet they claim they don’t condone it).

Why have they created this channel and are not banning this kind of activity if they consider it “unsupported”? The answer is simple - money. They even feed this system with FOMO rewards and have expanded it by mythic Fyrakk mount locking the druid form and hunter pet.

With this in place, more people will play the game, more people will buy tokens due to FOMO rewards, Blizzard will pocket the money. People will get scammed, report scammers, they will get banned and buy new accounts, Blizzard will pocket the money.

I was scammed for an equivalent of 100 euros. Even if Blizzard bans the one account that scammed me, the scammer can still buy 4 more accounts (thanks to Blizzard’s current promotion for example) so Blizzard gets the money, scammer gets the money. Meanwhile, the player gets screwed.

If i get scammed online, my bank will confirm it and refund the money.

I am not a whale, AH scalper or gold buyer. I have grinded the whole expansion to get enough gold so i can buy the end boss mount since i’m not at the position where i can raid mythic. Losing almost all of my gold just before the next expansion is devastating.

Blizzard can easily do the right thing but they are refusing to. And after playing this game for almost 20 years, it feels like crap.

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I know it’s not very satisfactory but Blizzard have only ever taken action against scammers and do not return the gold that is scammed.

The channel is there to filter out the spam from the rest of the channels, not as an endorsement for the activity itself. This was pretty much in response to players requesting that the Trade channel be made more useable. Although trade is just now profession spam instead.

I actually trust no one in game and it was worse in the old days when all professions required you to trade mats and gold with the person and then they’d craft. You need someone with a solid reputation and even then you could be caught out. Guilds would usually kick any scammers but the damage is already done by then. Same with reporting. You’ve lost the gold and/or materials at that point, even if they punish the perpetrator.

I would remove the last word from your post as it’s circumventing the language filter. I realise you are angry and want to vent your frustrations.

It would be lovely if the gold was returned but as far as I’m aware Blizzard’s approach is that these are not supported transactions. :frowning_face:

I’m sorry you got scammed, it really sucks.

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They created that channel to protect the rest of us from the incessant spam, and as far as I know GMs enforcing contracts between players has always been a grey area with a lot of asterisks involved.

Personally, my problem is this:

Customer support cannot restore any of your losses, but will take action against confirmed scammers whenever possible so they won’t scam other players.

I doubt they take any action against the scammers, because if they’ve truly gone through all the trouble to verify that the service was not provided, there’s no reason not to reimburse the victim.
Sounds like a PR lie to deter future scammers.

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Imagine this situation: you and your friend make an agreeement : setting up an scam where he get temporarely banned, if blizzard refund you, you have “duplicated” the same amount of Golds. That’s why blizzard cannot do this, cause people would exploit this thing , doing their scam actions , but against blizzard itself

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You should get back gold imo no matter what coz you got scammed!

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They allow players sell boosting services for gold but do not return any gold in case someone doesnt get what they wanted from the transaction from boost sales. Like said on the link provided in the thread related boosting.

Boosting services are not supported by Blizzard. Customer support cannot restore any of your losses, but will take action against confirmed scammers whenever possible so they won’t scam other players.

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Call me crazy but if I was Blizz I would also delete the stolen amount from the scammer.
Just seems logical.

If they’re confident enough to suspend the scammer it kind of goes without saying that they are confident that the scammer did scam someone and therefore they should be confident enough to return the scammed gold because they know he stole it because they’re punishing him for stealing it ^^

They’re punishing the perpetrator and the victim.
Funky way to go about it.

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I agree with that decision, honestly.

However, I do think that the scammer in question should be banned.
Scamming should be punishable (and it is, I think?). But Blizzard are not responsible for returning your gold because you did something dumb with it. Imo anyway.

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They cannot , cause they Need to enter in that account and this it’s an violation of privacy.

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I find it hard to garner sympathy.

Tired of the whole “FOMO” excuse. It’s like the world has learnt a new word and is hiding behind it as an excuse to absolve them of responsibility for making decisions. There have always been end of mythic raid mounts and most people in history look and go “Meh, I don’t raid mythic so I’m not gettin it”.

Now suddenly evil Blizz is “fomo-trapping” people who have lost the ability to think for themselves and will just throw their expansions earnings at a mount that amounts to a “+1” in the collections tab - or an epeen that they didn’t earn in the manner intended.

Earn it how it was intended or accept that you shouldn’t have it.

I do hope they ban the scammer, what happened to you sucks but imo what you tried to do sucks (buying stuff you didn’t earn in the manner intended) so meh.

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Either it wasn’t the player you thought it was, or you didn’t know them as well as you thought. Either way, if you don’t double check who you’re giving your gold to, expect to lose the gold. Reputable booster won’t scam you.

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they just do not care. That gold is already traded to safe accounts, while that one will be “banned”. So they lost 13 EUR for sub and gained 87 EUR. Profit. Blizzard just does not care.

They even created a separate channel for boosting services for gold and in real life currency (which is “illegal”) but actively working . These are known facts and the truth.

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Basically this.

If people can “launder” gold and make it untraceable for blizz then banning scammers is futile. And if blizz could track and remove it they’d give the victim back their stuff, because it wouldn’t be duplicate gold anymore.

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Question is where u got 2 milion gold? Answer about scams… You never buy carry from some Andy from trade chat. You buy from top 10 mythic guilds on server.

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I mean its not illegal, its against the Game TOS but you cant be arrested for it.

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And you with all facts decide to give someone 2 milion gold instead of playng game ( speaking hypothetical )

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I farmed herbs/ores/leather on my main for the whole of Dragonflight. If you read my post you’d know.

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So you did not play game u want to say that. Can u now see how is that wrong. Not just you but all people who do this pay boost. U collecting herbs entire expansion and pay someone to play game for you.

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Well …you are asking for a boost and pay a large amount of money…

People should have the basic knowledge about what to do or not do…
Before doing something …you must do a research … It’s $ common sense…
Would you give real money to someone unknown on the street that it’s selling Lambo or something …Nowadays the same apply to everything either Internet-gaming-working …anything .

There are literally tens of same posts over the years from people that had the same results and action like you. Just now on search there are 833 post at least that people got scammed before boosting …loosing their money .

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Method Echo selling boosts aswell and then you see someone like this pay ShadyAndy in trade chat what was even more funny 2milion+ mount kek There is no way you can get that for that price xD