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Bank declines Blizzard charges
It seems that keyloggers and phishers are not the only fraudsters infiltrating World of Warcraft. Halifax, a bank in the United Kingdom has ceased processing most transactions with Blizzard Entertainment. This measure was taken in response to increasing numbers of reports fraudulent transactions for WoW services. I had a similar issue with another bank based in the United States. That institution saw my recurring Blizzard charge as suspicious. Once I contacted them to verify my subscriptions my credit card was quickly returned to an active status. In this case, the only fault on Blizzard's is making an astoundingly popular, subscription-based RPG. Do be on the lookout for unexpected transactions from Blizzard Entertainment and be sure to report them to your bank as soon as possible. Representatives from Blizzard Entertainment declined interviews with the Register, which investigated this phenomenon. Do not be surprised if the transaction for your WoW subscription is refused in the near future. Halifax customers can use their credit cards to pay for their WoW subscriptions by making special arrangements with their account services department. If you would like to continue to use your Halifx Visa or Master card, be sure to contact customer support for authentication.
There is no Wrath beta
This is a public service announcement from all of us here at WoW Insider: there is currently no beta running for Wrath of the Lich King. This means that if you receive an invitation that claims to be for a Wrath beta, it's definitely a scam and you should under no circumstances click the links therein. If there were an actual Wrath beta, you would surely hear about it here and/or on the official website. If you have signed up for any alleged beta test, it would be a good idea to change your account password as soon as possible; you can't be too safe these days.Oh, and while we're on the subject of misinformation about Wrath, release dates on retailers' web pages mean nothing. They have to make a date up in order to enter the product into their system most of the time, but unless they're Blizzard, they're just guessing, and your guess is probably as good as theirs. Now have a nice weekend, and don't sign up for any dodgy beta tests.
Beware of video scams
I'm sure you've read before about watching out for all sorts of scams -- after all, your World of Warcraft account information is valuable stuff, and plenty of thieves out there would be happy to get their hands on it. The latest technique of account theft that I've noticed is all over YouTube, in many videos offering to teach you how to hack World of Warcraft accounts for fun and profit. All of these videos suggest that Blizzard has some sort of account retrieval service that can be accessed by e-mailing a random address (often at Gmail or Hotmail) with your account name and password as well as the name of the account you wish to access. Then, the videos claim, all you have to do is wait for Blizzard to mail you the password of the target account!Of course, the entire thing is a scam. The people posting these videos just want to take your password and run. So be warned, everyone -- don't fall pray to greed, and don't give your password out to anyone, regardless of what they might promise you in return.
Avoiding gold-selling scams
Tobold has an interesting post up on getting scammed by businesses claiming to sell in-game gold or items. While, yes, it's easy enough for them to take your money and hand you some in-game cash, it's easier still for them to take your money and then not bother doing anything else. (And try to explain that to your credit card company when you dispute the charges...) And once you've lost real money to such a scammer, what's your next recourse? Well, a lot of people will call customer service and complain -- Sony cited frequent customer service calls as one of the reasons they legitimized the trading business with their Station Exchange. But Blizzard's not going to be able to do anything but snicker when you call and complain that a gold-seller took your money and ran, so, really, buying gold could just leave you with a hole in your real and virtual pocket. The only way to be 100% sure you get what you pay for is obvious: don't buy gold in the first place.
Beware of scam e-mails!
I've heard of plenty of reports of scammers trying to get your account information with e-mails claiming to be from Blizzard, but after having one land in my Around Azeroth mailbox, I thought I'd share it with you. And while we're at it, we can talk about how you can tell that an e-mail came from Blizzard or not.First off -- this didn't come to my primary e-mail address. Blizzard doesn't know me as "aroundazeroth@gmail.com" so any mail going there has to be bogus. And secondly, it's coming from Blizzard Europe, while I don't have a European account. However, if this had landed in my primary mailbox, and substituted US contact information for EU contact information, I'd have to take it seriously -- after all, it appears to have been sent from blizzard.com and it sounds awfully ominous. They suspect me of trying to sell my account and they're going to suspend it unless I verify it! Yikes!However, here's the big catch: after going through all of their ominous threats, they tell me to give them my account name and password. Nope, sorry. A Blizzard representative will never ask for your account name and password -- so don't give it out to anyone claiming to be with Blizzard, because that's all the information they need to take over your account. And if you get a mail like this that you're just not sure about -- don't give them any information, but confirm its authenticity with Blizzard, first. Get in touch with their billing support team by phone or e-mail!For those of you curious as to what one of these scams looks like, the full text of the e-mail is after the jump.
Instance griefing not against the ToS?
Unless you've experienced it first hand, you may not realize what the term "instance griefing" refers to. In this particular case, it refers to any player or players who are maliciously stealing your guild's raid IDs in order to grief you during raid time. (For non raiders in the audience, high-end raid dungeons have specific reset timers on them, preventing you from constantly farming the dungeon. At some point after zoning into a dungeon -- usually after a boss kill -- you're "saved" to the specific instance and assigned an instance ID that is the same for you and all of your group. Anyone saved with that specific ID will zone into your instance rather than a fresh instance -- at least until the dungeon resets.) Poster Trindade offers some advice on how random players might wind up getting your Karazhan instance ID:Bob is a member of your raid and has your instance ID. Jim is a scumbag griefer in shattrath wanting to steal your ID. Ted is a scumbag griefer outside Karazhan waiting to steal your ID. Jim is in a group with Ted. They have made their group a raid. Jim whispers Bob "Hey Bob, wanna run Shattered Halls?" Bob whispers Jim "sure". Jim invites Bob to join his group. Bob joins the raid group. Bob is now the group leader. Ted enters Karazhan. So what happens next? Read on for the whole story.
PayPal to offer security key fobs for additional account protection
For every stupendous scam that crafty / immoral individuals pull off on eBay, there's at least a couple phishing scams out there trying to jack your precious eBay or PayPal password and access your hard-earned dollars. PayPal is readying a VeriSign security key that will resemble the RSA SecureID we corporate workers are all too familiar with with, and will sport a monochrome LCD screen that rotates a six-digit password every 30 seconds. Clients who opt to use this device will be able to enter it along with their usual username / password credentials when logging in, which would prevent scammers from accessing their account without the key fob in hand. The firm has been testing the device with employees for "several months," and plans to start trialing it with customers "within a month or so." Personal account owners in America, Germany, and Australia will eventually have the option of picking one up for a one-time fee of $5, while business accounts will receive the unit gratis, but if you're not savvy enough to pass on by those tempting scams, five bucks could be a small price to pay to keep your cash out of strangers' hands.[Via jkOnTheRun]
