#1 - April 8, 2011, 10:06 a.m.
Is it safe to buy gold?
#74 - April 8, 2011, 4:05 p.m.
Now, with that said, I request that those of you who are interested in our stance on Gold Buying and Power-Leveling to read the following Knowledge Base Article, "Gold Buying and Power-Leveling" located here: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/25455
Gold Buying
What many people don't realize when buying gold is the large impact it has on the game economy, and also how the companies selling gold obtain it. Our developers, in-game support, and anti-hack teams work diligently to stop the exploits these companies use and help players who have become victims of their services. We regularly track the source of the gold these companies sell, and find that an alarmingly high amount comes from hacked accounts. These are the friends, relatives, and guildmates you may know who have gone through the experience of having characters, gold, and items stripped from them after visiting a website or opening a file containing a trojan virus. Our teams work to educate players and assist them in avoiding account compromise, but the fact remains that the players themselves are often these companies' largest target as a source for gold, which the companies then turn around and sell to other players.
Negative Effects on the Community
The negative effects these companies create depend directly on people using their services. Without them, the companies have no way to continue their unethical actions. Furthermore, it's important to keep in mind that players are responsible for what happens with the account they play on. Selling gold for real money and having characters power-leveled are violations of our Terms of Use and End User License Agreement, and we regularly take corrective action when we find that these services have been used. We hope the information presented here is helpful to anyone considering buying gold or using a power-leveling service; these are just a few reasons that those services can negatively impact World of Warcraft and other games, and we strongly encourage players not to support the companies that offer them.