Report suspect account hackers/gold farmers?

#0 - April 11, 2009, 3:26 p.m.

Yesterday I recruited a new guild member and they began showing signs of being a gold/account farmer by the way they started to ask for help. Its seems almost routine the process they go though in a pattern that leads to either plain attempt to farm gold, or get account information. Once I had proof this person was a gold/account farmer I was at a bit of a loss. I looked at the help section, but didn't see any links that fit my situation. When the person attempted to contact me after I knew it seemed my only option was to use Report Spam. Even though I know this wouldn't do anything. The problem with contacting a GM at this point is that it's done in a way where its only suspected. I did get whispers from my guild mates letting me know that the person had asked them for their account information in a whisper.

Common sense tells me and my guild mates to open a ticket stating "named person" asked for their account info. Is this the only thing we can do? Since most of us just click ignore player, report spam. I feel this is becoming an epidemic since my guild mates and I have to handle these attempts many times daily. It doesn't seem practical to open a ticket that often. I hope I'm missing something and someone could give me something to do and tell my guild mates to do when this happens. Sadly I feel it will continue since not many of us want to open tickets this often for this.

Personally I've been running guilds to help lower level players level their toons for over two years and I feel I've become good and noticing the routine of someone who is guild hopping to gold farm/scam accounts or rob guild banks. (prejudice, stereotyping, paranoia aside). I'm doing my best to look for practical ways to protect my guild mates security.

Syndri

#3 - April 11, 2009, 4:20 p.m.

Contacting the Game Master department by way of an in-game petition is indeed your most efficient and direct means of pursuing this matter, Dreamofwar. We value the integrity of our game and those accounts playing within it; should there exist behavior which works to contradict either, we most definitely would like to learn of it. :)

Within your petition, be direct. Include the player's name and realm, as well as a brief description of your concern. What behavior struck you as odd? How long has it been it occurring and when it did it first begin? I would encourage you to file your report under "Talk to a GM," as well, so that you may be given the proper chance to speak with one of our in-game representatives vis-a-vis (in a manner, at least).

With that said, please note that the simple reception of a petition is not due cause to immediately penalize a player for actions reported within; rather, we will use the information you provide to look carefully into the matter further. Should our following investigation yield sufficient evidence of malicious activity, we'll respond both swiftly and appropriately. This form of investigation may take some time, though; it thus may be in your and your guild mates' best interest to remove this player and his/her characters from your Guild—or at least their Vault privileges—and place each on ignore in the meanwhile.

Thank you so much for your diligence!