wow 100 Million Gold Bank Alt Account for Sell Runs Banned for Advertising

[Evilida 0]

I recently got banned for the same.

Some friends of mine told me that people would buy torghast boost if you were a tank (pre-nerf) so i tried it out and wrote in trade chat a few times for a day or 2.

Got a 3 day ban without warning on my 14 year old (warning and banning free) account.

over my many years of game time, I've seen many boosters and I've always been under the impression that boosting for gold was ok, boosting for irl money was not.

I guess times change. 

[Padawin 0]

Thank you Blizzard!

[Unholyknight 9]

Are all 50 toons on his WOw3 Boomkins? 😂

[Shiftty 14]

5 hours ago, Allseye said:

performing in-game services including, without limitation, account boosting or power-leveling, in exchange for payment; ...

This right here....you have no recourse....

Edited January 5, 2021 by Wombshifter

[solitha 84]

2 hours ago, SidonisAntares said:

This right here has been in the ToS/EULA from day one. You may not like the ban, you may not agree with the ban, you may not think interpretation of the rest of the ToS/EULA fits this situation, but none of that matters because of these two paragraphs that have ALWAYS been there.

Yes, those have always been there.

Let's say that tomorrow, people start getting banned en masse. We find out that GMs are telling players that they used some version of "pwn" which is no longer allowed. Then the next day, it's anyone who loots an herb node. The next day, anyone who uses a certain mount. Yes, by those paragraphs that have always been there, they could.

It is part of their responsibility as a company to communicate as clearly as possible what the rules are and when rules change. It would be extremely bad to become known as a game that takes your money, bans you, and cites a secret rule to justify it.

[solitha 84]

3 minutes ago, Wombshifter said:

This right here....you have no recourse....

By "payment" and "commercial" it means IRL money/business. That has been made clear repeatedly throughout WoW's history. Trading gold for in-game goods and services is fine.

[Guest]

WOW, what a crazy story.

[SidonisAntares 290]

32 minutes ago, solitha said:

Yes, those have always been there.

Let's say that tomorrow, people start getting banned en masse. We find out that GMs are telling players that they used some version of "pwn" which is no longer allowed. Then the next day, it's anyone who loots an herb node. The next day, anyone who uses a certain mount. Yes, by those paragraphs that have always been there, they could.

It is part of their responsibility as a company to communicate as clearly as possible what the rules are and when rules change. It would be extremely bad to become known as a game that takes your money, bans you, and cites a secret rule to justify it.

You're taking it to some pretty far fetched extremes to justify anger at a gray area that comes on the heels of the Gallywix RMT debacle, as well as following a crackdown on advertising in the LFG tool. I got a 72 hour ban during Vanilla for making an undead priest named Popejohnpaul the week he died, even though all I did was create an insensitively named character that wasn't outright vulgar.

Don't like it? Quit. Suspend your subscription. Cut off the money flow to Blizzard. They pay attention to that. It's a business model, if they mess it up, then show them financially. The majority of this thread is Internet lawyers who don't know spit about contract law, let alone the body of existing legal decisions regarding video game ToS/EULA.

[Calorat 78]

Players need to remember, you do not own your account, you do not own your characters.  Blizzard owns your account and your toons and just lets you use them for a monthly fee.  Blizzard reserves the right to ban you for any reason and at any time.  Sucks for that guy but like always we are only hearing one side of the story and there is probably more to it.  And anything that lessens the run selling spam in trade is a good thing IMO.

[Zinnober 2]

Well I dont like the sell runs and they are stupid, since SL is out the chat is full of this goddam bs. I hope more follows.

[jamesw71 1]

9 hours ago, Wildwitch said:

Good - stop spamming your runs for gold!!! People block these spammers because of the SPAM and the SPAMMERS keep making new accounts and new names!!! STOP SPAMMING!!!! (Who the HELL needs 100 million gold in this game?)

Thank you Blizzard.

End of story.

you obviously read none of the article or Ghormers responses.  Your illogical response shows that to be very apparent.  He doesn't need 100 million gold.  That gold belongs to all the players who play with him and do the mythic+, Torghast and raid runs.  The gold is collected on a single account and then is sent to the participants who do the runs and get paid in gold for doing the runs.  Gold runs are perfectly legal, the Terms of Service, whether you like it or not, specifically tell them they are allowed to advertise in trade channels, just not LFG.  Spam is another thing, there is a spam blocker already setup in the system which prevents them from doing walls of text or repeatedly spamming the same message over and over...there are limits built into the system and he has broken no rules.  He is being treated unfairly because other gold runners have been given warnings for the unpublished new rule of not using an alt account for the sole purpose of advertising.

[jamesw71 1]

3 hours ago, SidonisAntares said:

This right here has been in the ToS/EULA from day one. You may not like the ban, you may not agree with the ban, you may not think interpretation of the rest of the ToS/EULA fits this situation, but none of that matters because of these two paragraphs that have ALWAYS been there.

but other gold runners are receiving warnings....and the GM references unpublished rules.  Maybe as a fanboi you don't care, but this is a failed response to an issue that has existed for years.  Either ban all gold runs, or FAIRLY enforce the current rules amongst all gold runners.

[jamesw71 1]

5 minutes ago, Calorat said:

Players need to remember, you do not own your account, you do not own your characters.  Blizzard owns your account and your toons and just lets you use them for a monthly fee.  Blizzard reserves the right to ban you for any reason and at any time.  Sucks for that guy but like always we are only hearing one side of the story and there is probably more to it.  And anything that lessens the run selling spam in trade is a good thing IMO.

many states have laws against these types of unenforceable actions..but since it is a game, gamers rarely take the billion dollar corporations to court...and when they do they are usually settled out of court by the billion dollar corporations because they don't want anymore court actions against them telling them how to do business.

[jamesw71 1]

49 minutes ago, Wombshifter said:

This right here....you have no recourse....

actually running dungeons for gold has been legal for a long time, it is only the advertising which is addressed.  Your statement is invalidated in the simple fact the Terms of Service clearly state you are only allowed to advertise said "legal" runs in trade and not in LFG.  You are the weakest link...goodbye.

[Wildwitch 108]

1 hour ago, Unholyknight said:

Are all 50 toons on his WOw3 Boomkins? 😂

*COMMENT OF THE YEAR*

Probably! I love running around and reporting these bots. It's wonderful when you open your email and see that Blizz has responded to your reports. Weed them out and they will go away!

[Hypersonic 119]

Got what he deserved. Blizzard should ban way more people for this kind of stuffs. 

[Eiayaie 2]

Blizzard's ToU and EULA -  If the site is buggy, report that to Blizzard and (rightly) state that you cannot be held responsible for any accidental/possible infringement of rules you cannot read during the period when those rules cannot be read (which likely will mean nothing to Blizzard).  Or just don't play it.  Activision Blizzard is a corporation and they own all the properties.  You just pay a little bit of rent for the part you're engaged in; but they still own all of it.  They can shut down any part of it as they please if they don't like what you're doing with it.  Not a good or a bad thing; it just is.  Having spent years keeping abreast of the rules to the degree the OP says he has only means he knows he's doing something that pushes the envelope and agrees to accept the risks that come with one day perhaps pushing too far.  Even American Dad loses an occasional gamble.  

[lolblizzard 38]

he got what he deserved, this boosting scams are annoying as *filtered* . wish blizz would be stricter and ban more of those guys.. crying that he cant pay other people its  a game not work.. get a life man. enjoy playing it and stop annoy others.

[solitha 84]

2 hours ago, SidonisAntares said:

You're taking it to some pretty far fetched extremes to justify anger at a gray area that comes on the heels of the Gallywix RMT debacle, as well as following a crackdown on advertising in the LFG tool. I got a 72 hour ban during Vanilla for making an undead priest named Popejohnpaul the week he died, even though all I did was create an insensitively named character that wasn't outright vulgar.

Don't like it? Quit. Suspend your subscription. Cut off the money flow to Blizzard. They pay attention to that. It's a business model, if they mess it up, then show them financially. The majority of this thread is Internet lawyers who don't know spit about contract law, let alone the body of existing legal decisions regarding video game ToS/EULA.

What gray area? RMT is, and has always been, clearly not allowed. In-game services for gold have always been clearly and explicitly allowed. There are now clearly published rules on exactly how you may go about advertising those services. And this guy was banned under a rule that does not, to the playerbase, exist. If one rule can be made up and enforced like that, any rule can.

Back in Vanilla the naming policy was fairly precise, and I can think of a bunch of clear rules your priest's name would have violated... including famous person, religious figure, and use of a title in the name. And the point there is, those rules were clearly laid out, and you violated them. You could have avoided that by reading the published rules.

When someone actually does read all the rules, follows them, and is banned anyway, that's a problem. And yes, if that's what happened here, and Blizzard continues to do so, I may indeed cancel my sub and I will lay out precisely why.

I won't do so over a single one-sided story, though.

Edited January 5, 2021 by solitha

[Ragingwolf 310]

5 hours ago, Evilida said:

I recently got banned for the same.

Some friends of mine told me that people would buy torghast boost if you were a tank (pre-nerf) so i tried it out and wrote in trade chat a few times for a day or 2.

Got a 3 day ban without warning on my 14 year old (warning and banning free) account.

over my many years of game time, I've seen many boosters and I've always been under the impression that boosting for gold was ok, boosting for irl money was not.

I guess times change. 

That was my impression as well but still if it's a first time offense then the account holder should of been issued a warning not an instant 3 days ban.  Specially if the account has been in good standing for quite some time imo.   Sorry that you got banned though 😕

[SidonisAntares 290]

24 minutes ago, solitha said:

What gray area? RMT is, and has always been, clearly not allowed. In-game services for gold have always been clearly and explicitly allowed. There are now clearly published rules on exactly how you may go about advertising those services. And this guy was banned under a rule that does not, to the playerbase, exist. If one rule can be made up and enforced like that, any rule can.

Back in Vanilla the naming policy was fairly precise, and I can think of a bunch of clear rules your priest's name would have violated... including famous person, religious figure, and use of a title in the name. And the point there is, those rules were clearly laid out, and you violated them. You could have avoided that by reading the published rules.

When someone actually does read all the rules, follows them, and is banned anyway, that's a problem. And yes, if that's what happened here, and Blizzard continues to do so, I may indeed cancel my sub and I will lay out precisely why.

I won't do so over a single one-sided story, though.

The gray area is how they perceive selling boosts, apologies that I wasn't that clear about it. To me it's clear that their stance has been evolving ever since the Gallywix incident, because it was an RMT scam hidden behind what was probably for the most part legit in game gold for services rendered. Should they announce it? Yes. The overall point is though, unequal application of company policy is not a violation of any legality, due to those two paragraphs I originally pointed out. That's a pretty solid CYA for them to do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want, to your account(s). It's a customer service complaint, not grounds for a lawsuit as some of the idiots in this thread portray it.

[Ahtopsy 0]

Good...about time...now do something about the boomkin bots!

 

[Antonar 0]

7 hours ago, Vedney said:

It was to pay the boosters.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=320189/complexity-limit-spent-331-million-gold-during-race-to-world-first-castle-nathri#:~:text=Complexity Limit Spent 331 Million Gold During Race to World First Castle Nathria,-posted 8 days  this is also another reason someone could need that kind of gold.

[Shenk 2]

Is this really worth of publicity? Just another spaming booster got banned for TOS violation. PS. he should read it again

 

[djcleveland 0]

13 hours ago, plukkie070 said:

Let's see what we have here, the reason why Blizzard banned your 3rd wow account is for a different reason what you think it's for.

-

" Recently, one of my accounts was silenced. This happens from time-to-time, because people report low level toons for advertising (suspecting its RMT). As I usually do, I opened a ticket to appeal the silence. "

 

This means that people reported you numerous times, this isn't the first time or an occasional silence, this happens a lot or your words from "time-to-time".

Blizzard has to review every appeal, so imagine seeing you for X timed asking to lift the same thing over and over.

-

3 wow accounts and over 100Mil in gold.

The gold cap as it is now according to Google is

10 million Meanwhile each character can have a gold cap of 10 million + gbanks

 

So this means that all the gold stored on your account is spread over your numerous amounts of "alts" and perhaps guild banks, the gold needed to be stored somewhere.

This could be a clear red flag why Blizzard is thinks that you made those accounts "solely" for advertising.

Even if you advertise only with a few, the amounts of characters you have over all those accounts tells otherwise.

-

You compare this with someone else who got a "warning".

Well i have no idea about this other person, but i,m willing to bet that he only got 1 account, hence why the GM told him to "delete the other low lvl chars".

Actually it,s a different case with a different outcome, perhaps this person has only 1 account and doing this on such a small case (also means he earns less gold).

But still got a warning, so Blizzard is saying that... it's okay with what you do but till a certain extend.

-

You have build up your Boosting service over the years, 2 years you said?

Here's the thing, at the start you started out small and you "we're under the radar", perhaps you didn't got that many reports from Trade chat and what not.

But you have been growing over those 2 years, hence why you had 3 wow accounts, or room for 150 characters.

 

3 wow accounts, not many people have that, unless you like to Multibox, Bot, or Boost (for X currency), you fall into this category.

-

Blizzard doesn't state in how many accounts you can have, i mean we all can have multiple accounts if we want to, but if you use an account for X activity, maybe you should watch out in not growing to big.

So this is what i understand from blizzards side, they see 3 accounts... bunch of characters, and perhaps they saw the amount of gold you have as well.

The reason why you got reported chimes into this, so they know you would be doing this kind of activity.

And maybe you should see this as a warning from Blizzard, like till here and no further.

-

You are spamming the trade chat with your constant cancer boost service, people are getting tired of you and this is what kicks in the silence for you because you open your mouth to much in Trade.

You should be glad that Blizzard only banned your 3rd wow account and not 2 of them, i would have banned you completely with a IP and Hardware ban, because the game doesn't need any cancerous people like you.

 

I understand you wanted to follow the rules and for the most part you do.

But you gave Blizzard reason to ban you with you growing your Boosting empire to much.

 

I bet if you didn't appeal with the silence, nothing would have happened.

I bet if you stayed small (let's say 1 account), which also means your gold income would be a lot smaller, nothing would have happened instead you would got the same warning as the case you are comparing your case.

 

Then there's one important thing, you don't own anything... your account is Blizzards property, they can feel fit whatever they want and if they see that what you do to your account they can ban it without any reason.

Except the rule he was "breaking" doesn't exist or is hidden from us. that's his point. You should be worried about that.