Are these bannable offenses?

#0 - March 23, 2007, midnight

1) Cross faction smuggling ? For example one faction selling a faction pet on the neutral auction house for 1c so another opposite faction account can immediately buy it and then resell on their own faction's auction house.

2) Cross faction money laundering ? For example one faction sells an expensive item on the neutral auction house for 1c so another opposite faction account can immediately buy it and then resell on their own faction's auction house for the true value and therefore obtain gold.

3) Auction House market manipulation ? For example buying up all the prismatic shards, relisting them for 10 times the price (which can be done because there is no listing fee for enchanting mats) but sending a few shards to a mule who will resell a few at an inflated price from the purchase price, but less than the 10x inflated price so it looks like, to the naive purchaser they are getting a good deal on the "cheaper" item that is not actually cheaper.

Reason I ask is that in two seperate places involving two seperate people who claim their accounts to have been banned for "exploiting the game economy".

I suspect such a ban is linked to the purchase of ingame gold or items from resellers for real money but I would like clarification on whether any of the above examples represent "exploiting the game economy" and therefore a bannable offense.

Vrakthris

#4 - March 23, 2007, 12:53 a.m.

A player driven economy is just that: Player driven. If certain players wish to smuggle exotic pets from one faction to another through the use of their neutral contacts they may. If they wish to buy low and sell high they are perfectly within their right.

Using the Auction House in such a manner is not against our policies, I must present a warning though: Many players browse the Auction House looking for deals, it is entirely possible that any item that is placed on the Auction House with an intentionally lowered price for such a purpose can be bought out by anyone. Game Masters will be unable to assist in such cases.

Q u o t e:
Reason I ask is that in two seperate places involving two seperate people who claim their accounts to have been banned for "exploiting the game economy".

An account is not closed because the player understands the concept of Supply and Demand, as long as that understanding applies to in-game auctions and sales and not sales of in-game virtual property for real world money they should not have any issues.