wow Another Gold Booster Gets Banned for Advertising, Losing 12 Million Gold

[Starym 3,800]

 

Here we are again on everyone's (least) favorite topic, boosting! Another gold booster has received a permanent suspension for having an account only used for advertising, although this time it was a much smaller boosting operation, consisting of only the one player doing the boosts.

We talked about a very similar situation a while ago, as another gold booster lost over 100 million gold, except GhormorASC was working with others and facilitating boost activity. Eventually Ghomor actually got his ban lifted, having it replaced with a 14 day suspension and receiving all his gold back.

TbepEU, inspired by Ghomor's story, went to reddit to plead their case after repeatedly being told by Blizzard support that the ban is indeed permanent. Presumably Ghomor's ban reversal was due to the policy change not being noted properly, but that was over a month ago now, so we're not sure the same logic can be used here. TbepEU also argued the account was used for more than just advertising, including checking the AH, buying pets and, mostly, having gold across different servers as the main boosting account couldn't fit all those additional characters. In total, the account has around 12 million gold from the solo-boosting services.

Here's the initial interaction announcing the ban, following a similar pattern to Ghomor's, with the account first being silenced and then the permanent suspension coming in:

TbepEU didn't give up, however, posting several more tickets and appeals, but Blizzard remained very adamant:

Boosting in general is an extremely controversial topic in the WoW community, and you're not likely to find many fans of it, despite gold boosting being entirely WoW-legal (as opposed to the real money version). While the practice itself is contentious, and there are many arguments on why it hurts the game, those are just that - arguments. But what can't be denied, and what all players are subjected to all the time is the advertising, from the spam in the chat channels (which is completely legal) to the not-legal but also not really being addressed properly Group Finder spam.

Now, whether this particular instance was the correct decision or not we can't really speculate on, but it is nice to see that Blizzard is taking action and trying to do something about the advertisement spam in general. What do you think the right decision here is?

And finally, here's the full post where TbepEU explains everything, with even more details and interactions with Blizzard:

[Bobbis 208]

First dude people could sympathise with as it was an undocumented change, made out of the blue. Even those who despise this system, had to admit it was a shitty thing to do on Blizz's part, and should have been reversed. 

 

This time however, it's been a month, it's known that having an acc solely for boosting is against ToS and permabannable, dumbass move by Tbep and no sympathy given to him, thankfully only affects him and not other boosters.

[Kholdjin 10]

Sucks to be him...  /cry (NOT!)  /haha (Oh yeah!)

[Shirushi 7]

Looks me reporting all those advertisers in LFG is paying off.

[SidonisAntares 290]

I report the LFG advertising of any kind of service, whether for in game gold or for boosting their streaming viewership (looking at you, FatBossTV), because it creates spam in the listings that make it a pain in the *filtered* to filter out without an addon, and while I have memory to spare on my PC, it doesn't actually address the problem, it just hides it from view.

[Nostrodomos 1]

Explains why a lot of key selling communities have taken to paying players to advertise for them as a way to get around these rules. I know of people making 1mill a week just for connecting buyers with sellers. He doesn't even run the keys. 

[Wildwitch 108]

Keep it up everyone! I am finally noticing less spam advertising and less bot farming! Starting to actually enjoy the game again and able to level my herbalism & mining as I level!

[Amr0 7]

"That virtual currency is rightfully mine"

Nope it's not. That belongs to Blizzard. The amount of people who think they own the stuff on their account is baffling. All you own is your copy of the game. Everything else is basically a rental. Which is why, if Blizzard don't like how you obtained something, they can either take it away from you, or just ban you.

[Shiftty 14]

"Keep it up everyone! I am finally noticing less spam advertising and less bot farming! Starting to actually enjoy the game again and able to level my herbalism & mining as I level!"

 

How is this effecting the hebalism or mining?...the nodes pop every minute or so after picked.

 

[Toky 37]

God I hate boosters. Just make it against TOS ffs. 

[Halock 156]

44 minutes ago, Amr0 said:

 Everything else is basically a rental. Which is why, if Blizzard don't like how you obtained something, they can either take it away from you, or just ban you.

Or for no reason whatsoever, technically. 

Which I think can bring you full circle. They can, technically, ban you for anything. But they don't. They ban you for a reason. And he has no recourse except to tell them 'your reason sucks, please change'. And of course, quite often that works. 

if I was going to do that, though, I'm not sure assigning it monetary value would be the first thing I'd do, though... 

[ResoWho 68]

"The account was not used solely for advertising purposes. Yes, I agree, it was used to advertise, but it was also used to monitor the Auction House, to buy cheap Level 25 battle pets, to collect and store gold on multiple different realms (this was not possible on my main account due to the 50 character limit), and to keep in touch with friends and customers."

i giggled a little

Edited February 8, 2021 by ResoWho

[Shillien 2]

good, now they should keep him banned. What pisses me off hard is those fking boost spammers keep changing their names in weird combos so even my xxx filters i use cant keep all of them out, and without spam filters trade chat is totally unusable since all u can see is boosters filling 10 pages per second...

[Arcling 898]

Weird argumentation on his part, since all those activities were related to advertising and trading as a result of those advertisements. Feels like step in a right direction, although there are still way too many advertisers like this guy.

[durdyenglish 298]

I used to not care much but now I get mail from them.

Enough is enough, no mercy.

[Smokalogy 1]

Would be nice if they ban more and more quicker overtime.

Now, people buying Boosts wether its for Mythic plus or Raiding, shouldnt be allowed.
Let them play the game themselves, i dont see why someone would play a game and buy a bunch of boosts, whats the point of even playing the game then?

i thought that these kind of things is what we had guilds for nowadays, do it with guildies/friends but doesnt seem to be the case?

 

[Calin 50]

All this "hah! sucks to be him!" needs to stop though.
There's no reason to act like that.

On topic however. He states that "other people that have done the same as me, have received suspensions or mutes", so he just admitted to being in the wrong.
At this point he'd already lost his case.

[rowaasr13 17]

3 hours ago, durdyenglish said:

I used to not care much but now I get mail from them.

Which server? I'm doing an anti-spam addon (it even got mentioned here in news few days ago, thanks IV!) and would like to see something like this firsthand to see if I can do something about it or not.

[durdyenglish 298]

1 hour ago, rowaasr13 said:

Which server? I'm doing an anti-spam addon (it even got mentioned here in news few days ago, thanks IV!) and would like to see something like this firsthand to see if I can do something about it or not.

I play on Dalaran.

[Halock 156]

9 hours ago, ResoWho said:

"The account was not used solely for advertising purposes. Yes, I agree, it was used to advertise, but it was also used to monitor the Auction House, to buy cheap Level 25 battle pets, to collect and store gold on multiple different realms (this was not possible on my main account due to the 50 character limit), and to keep in touch with friends and customers."

i giggled a little

I, too, keep a second account open to communicate with friends.

… And customers.

[solitha 84]

13 hours ago, rowaasr13 said:

Which server? I'm doing an anti-spam addon (it even got mentioned here in news few days ago, thanks IV!) and would like to see something like this firsthand to see if I can do something about it or not.

I'm on [A]Silvermoon, if that helps. I may have some on [H]Earthen Ring as well. The reporting system is kind of crap. You click the "report spam" button and the mail disappears. Then the next day, it's back again. If you run multiple characters, it gets confusing as to whether you've already reported it or not.

Edited February 9, 2021 by solitha

[Kholdjin 10]

19 hours ago, Shiftty said:

"Keep it up everyone! I am finally noticing less spam advertising and less bot farming! Starting to actually enjoy the game again and able to level my herbalism & mining as I level!"

 

How is this effecting the hebalism or mining?...the nodes pop every minute or so after picked.

 

How would you like it if a squad of bots came down and ganked a node getting 5 times the amount you would have with your single toon?  Then they turn around and sell it for a jacked up price in the AH to make G.

[Shiftty 14]

ummm...still not seeing where that's stopping you from leveling your herbalism or mining

[Starym 3,800]

10 hours ago, Shiftty said:

ummm...still not seeing where that's stopping you from leveling your herbalism or mining

I'd guess the lack of nodes? I also herb around randomly while doing Wqs and I've maybe gotten 2 spawns per session without at least 2-3 druids waltzing by and grabbing them. I still mostly manage to get those nodes too but maybe they didn't? Can't say for sure.

[Shiftty 14]

I guess if you sit in one area all day...however there are other zones to level your herbalism....just sayin....makes it sound like theres bots or players at every node you come across...I personally get 5-600 herbs a day just running around...there aint that many bots