Legal Advice - Virtual Game Account?

Hello, I have been playing a video game called World of Warcraft for three years now. I鈥檝e gone through a few accounts and I recently wanted to sell my latest one and perhaps buy another.


I found a buyer and spoke to them through AOL instant messenger. It was obvious they spoke broken English when they responded ';yes'; to my question ';how much do you pay per account?';


After a quick conversation we decided on a paypal payment of 320 USD (United States dollars). They sent me 195 which I sent back because it was too low, which you can clearly see in the payment history. They then sent me the correct payment of 320 USD.


I gave them all of the account information and said I wanted to talk to them via phone to verify my personal information on the account. When I called a woman picked up the phone and had an Asian accent.


I asked her if she lived in the U.S. because if the IP difference is detected by the game creator (Blizzard Entertainment) the account will get banned. She saidLegal Advice - Virtual Game Account?
First off, the disclaimer does NOT do you any good. The beginning portion is from the auction site trying to absolve themselves from any action from Blizzard. The whole ';This auction is not for the ownership of their intellectual property but rather for the time spent working on these characters and acquiring items.'; is an attempt at semantics made to justify breaking the Terms of Service. The only part that matters is the Section 3B from the EULA, and it does not sound like you transferred CDROM, Manuals and removed the game from your system. You just tried to sell the account.








The account is NOT yours to sell, therefore, she did NOT steal anything from you. The character and the gear he possessed does not exist, therefore there is nothing to steal.





Blizzard, probably prohibited the sale of in-game goods for this very reason. Giving these items a real-world value and allowing these kinds of transactions would open up a world of headaches that they might be held responsible for.








So you might just want to consider this an inexpensive lesson. You lost your character trying to break the rules. It could have been worse, you could have PAID $320 and got an account that was banned or such and you have no way to get your money back.Legal Advice - Virtual Game Account?
Yeah well, when you try to sell something through 3rd party channels, when the channel itself tells you it is not approved by the official channel, then you are on what they call the ';black market';.





And in the black market, rules don't apply, it is buyer and seller beware.





You should not have transferred the account until you had cash in hand if you want to play in the black market. It is not like you don't already have ample warning of a scam from every direction, you just chose to ignore it out of greed. Keep that greed under control next time.





As for the terms of service of WoW, I read that as to say that you can transfer the account, but not necessarily the value items in it.
I don't understand, you said you got the 320, then you said that you didn't and she still has it.