Buying gold in World of Warcraft is forbidden. But you can also get banned if entirely different players buy the gold.
The sale of gold is only allowed in World of Warcraft under strict conditions – namely in the form of the WoW token, which is officially issued by Blizzard. Here, players can exchange their earned gold for game time, while Blizzard profits from it.
Other types of gold purchases, such as through third parties, who are sometimes also referred to as “China farmers,” are strictly forbidden. If you get caught, you can even lose your account entirely in the worst-case scenario.
Gold is even so important that Blizzard has now restricted the sale of loot for gold in the season of discoveries.
But what happens if someone accidentally receives illegal gold and reports it immediately? Even then, a penalty awaits, as one incident shows.
What happened? The streamer LS, who some may know from League of Legends or Starcraft, was chatting on Twitter/X with Blizzard’s customer service. He wanted to know whether it’s possible to receive a penalty if another player buys illegal gold and sends it to him.
The Blizzard employee denied it – only to shortly thereafter receive evidence from LS that exactly that had happened.
While LS was streaming, he got banned. He often receives gold from viewers so he doesn’t have to earn it himself – for the viewers, it’s simply more interesting to watch the streamer engage in other content than gold farming.
LS suspected that one of the viewers had bought his gold illegally and that he thus came into possession of the illegal gold, which he immediately mentioned in a ticket.
I am very confused as to why the gold was not simply removed from my account, as I have the impression that one of my viewers maliciously turned me in and there is nothing I can do about it. […]
The history of my account shows that I have never actually spent gold or purchased anything expensive, so why on earth should I be suspected of being a gold buyer? It doesn’t make sense.
How did Blizzard react? After the incident gained attention on the subreddit and Twitter – and after multiple automated responses – the ban was eventually lifted.
It was stated on Twitter: “Since you did exactly the right thing, did not spend the gold and informed us about it, this decision was easily reversed. Check your emails.”
However, it is ignored that LS had described the situation multiple times and always received only the response “This sanction was made in accordance with our policies.”
Player is punished despite reporting immediately
The whole situation is particularly frustrating because LS was immediately transparent about the incident. Right after he received the gold, he wrote a ticket explaining the situation. He informed customer service that the gold likely comes from illegal means and that he has no intention of spending it.
Also under criticism is the fact that it took “public attention” on Twitter/X and Reddit for the account penalty to be lifted. Many point out that for every case of a well-known personality, there are probably hundreds of players who do not have this reach and thus remain stuck with their unjustified bans.
The underlying problem – at least a large part of the community agrees – is the automation that has now gotten out of hand in many processes. While Blizzard has claimed in the past that sanctions are always ultimately made by an employee, the cases in recent months cast doubt on that.
In the community (via Reddit/r/wow), there is a somewhat cynical comment:
- “Now you can be banned just for having a WoW account and no one can help you lift the ban.” – Shadowfel_Archivist
Followed by:
- “Unless you create a big fuss on Twitter (and actually get noticed by people, instead of just being labeled a cheater/botter/NPC or exploiter)” – Skill-issue-69420
The system urgently needs a revision. It can be easily exploited, and malicious players can ensure that targeted individuals are banned. This was also the case in the case of the “Elemental Rifts Cartel”, where cheap crafters were silenced in order for the sellers of expensive goods to be the only ones to receive attention in the trade channel.
