Unfair account closure Follow

Alright so here is my case.

My world of warcraft prepaid game time card ended around four weeks ago- therefore I can not play the game.
Two days ago I got an email saying that my account has been closed- closed because I have violated the game environment.

Here is what the beginning of the Blizzard email to me looks like:
"***Notice of Account Closure***

Account Name: WOW1

Reason for Closure: Terms of Use Violation -- Exploitative Activity: Abuse of the Economy

This account was closed because one or more characters were identified exchanging, or contributing to the exchange of, in-game property (items or gold) for "real-world" currency. This exchange process negatively impacts the World of Warcraft game environment by detracting from the value of the in-game economy."


Riiiiight Blizzard- because I could do all this while I couldn't even play the game. Also here are the following reasons for which your account could be closed:
-Abuse of the Economy
-Unauthorized Cheat Programs ("Hacks")
-Unauthorized Automation Programs ("Bots"):

Although the email seemed to stick to the accusation that I in my absence managed to 'abuse the economy'. Let me spell this out:

I have not violated ANY of the user agreements and this is an extremely unfair turn of events. Reasons to doubt the accusation are as follows:
-Subscription ended over 28 days ago and I have not bought any game time since therefore I would not even have the mere CHANCE of violating any rules
-I use my parents credit card to buy anything online (referring to the fact that Blizzard seems to deem me guilty of buying currency) and they would never EVER allow me to do this
-This one is easy to doubt as you'll have to trust my word on it but I know NOTHING of hacks and all the other crap people use- I don't even have ADDONS.
- I regularly change both my email password and my wow account password so its unlikely that someone would hack me and if they did I would get a password notification which I DID NOT- I repeat DID NOT receive. Also I tried logging into my battle.net account and I was successful.

All in all I am confused as hell and I hope this will be soon resolved so-

Please help me.

Yeah it was most likely a phishing e-mail that was an attempt to steal your acccount. If you clicked any of the links in the e-mail you should do what Idiggory said and run your anti-virus program and contact Blizzard. If you are ever curious about the status of your account it is always a good idea to go straight to battle.net and log in to your account and check the status there.

Yes but when i attempt to log onto he game it does not state that my subscription has ended like it should- in fact it says that the account has been disabled or something along those lines.

The account was probably disabled by Blizzard after the people who stole the account used it in a way to get it suspended. If you post the entire e-mail we could give you a clearer answer.

Pretty much what Pigtails said. None of us can solve this problem, only Blizzard can. Yes, talking to them on the phone can be a bit difficult but keep trying. Eventually you will get through and they will help sort things out. Also clean your computer system before logging back in. You more than likely were a victim of a keylogger so unless you get rid of that crap you will just get your password stolen again.

Another question I have to ask. Do you click links in your emails regardless of the sender? How about the ones that claim to be from Blizzard? Do you go to questionable sites while your parents are asleep? All three of those can easily compromise your computer and I would recommend avoiding said "activities" from now on.

Blizzard makes the rules. Other people cannot profit off of their work unless the parent company says they can do so. Until then, it is their rules or GTFO.

Unless you changed your account name from what it really is to "WOW1" then that's a pretty big give away to me. I think a huge majority of accounts are WOW1 under battle.net.

I would try and check them but it appears bnet is down right now.

Yeah, people getting beaten in a prison gold farm is no big deal. As Poldaran said, GFY.

Dear Chained,

Ni hao! I am happy to be receiving of your complaint and sprightly to resolve this will endeavor. For order of resolution please provide credit card mima and verifying account name here directly. Or besmear yourself clue musk with and dance mating dance of clue in order same to get. Further help for please the honored advice below cited to consult. Also, thanking you for use of account! We are supporting you for choice of not using authenticator and look forward to doing business to you again!

Account Scavenger, Buzzard Intertainment

Seriously, just call Blizz. If you don't want to, then I don't really care. But there's no other advice we can give you.

That's all fine and dandy except one massive thing you're missing in your argument: where the gold comes from. If you think that the majority of gold comes from happy little chinese people getting paid to run dailies so you don't have to you're sadly mistaken.

The fact is: most gold comes from hacked accounts. That's right. Why do you think they sell all of their victims items and leave them void of anything resembling gold? For kicks and giggles? No, its because its way easier for them to exploit someone's account than it is to pay someone to spend "hours upon hours of play time".

Gold that HASN'T come from hacked accounts generally comes from gold obtained via cracks and bots. People/companies using illegal programs to exploit the game in a way the designers didn't intended it to be used to farm massive amounts of materials which screws over the market for all of us who spent the "hours upon hours" to farm it legitimately.


Yes, Blizzard wants to promote an industry that makes its profit off of exploiting people's accounts, exploiting the game, and in some cases, exploiting real people. That makes so much sense.

Never follow the links you find in a business-related e-mail. It's always safer to just type in the address in the address bar of your browser of choice, or bookmark sites you go to frequently. It's really easy to make it look like an e-mail is coming from an official source and takes you to an official site, when it's really just a phishing scam.

Yes, everyone should use a Battlenet Authenticator. They also have it free for the IPhone, Android, and now Windows Phone 7. If all that doesn't work for you, there is also a phone in authenticator, where you give it your phone number. They will ask you to make a toll free call from that phone, if something is suspicious.

I have our guild ranks set up so that nobody gets withdrawal from the guild bank without an Authenticator.