1. #1

    Serious RMAH question

    Couldn't you use the RMAH for money laundering? I feel like there are so many ways this system could be abused in a very illegal way.

  2. #2
    Without doing any research on the matter and only using what's in my head: I imagine it could be used for money laundering just as much as anything else. Anything that involves money has the potential to be used to launder it, from taking out fraudulent insurance policies to buying a chocolate bar at your local shop.

    What matters is the checks and rules Blizzard has in place to prevent it from occuring (or rather, prevent it occuring often: criminals are a nasty lot that tend to be one step ahead of the game). I trust Blizzard to have a robust system in place to prevent laundering from occuring 99% of the time.

  3. #3
    Deleted
    while possible there is no real reason for anyone to launder money through it.

    how would you prefer to launder your money, through an off-shore bank with lose banking regulations and high privacy that happily accepts your $300k or little by little in the RMAH?

  4. #4
    Laundering $2, sure. But the concern would likely be with amounts in the thousands, which would be unusual for a video game economy and therefore stand out (not what launderers want). Also, Blizzards record keeping is probably more thorough than what a launderer would like to have their money go through.

    So yes, but there are far better options.

  5. #5
    Seem like none of you are aware of one tiny little detail..

    You can never withdraw the money directly from your BNet account. NEVER.

    That alone renders most of your worries obsolete. The only way to actually get the money is to chose the "Send to the credit card account connected with my BNet account" when the sale of the item gets through. So if you effectively want to laundry some dirty money, you will have to play RMAH alot I may be wrong, but i can't really picture gangsters sitting around the computer arguing with each other what price should they stick on that Messerschmidt's Reaver to have a quick sale without losing too much money on it.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fichek View Post
    Seem like none of you are aware of one tiny little detail..

    You can never withdraw the money directly from your BNet account. NEVER.

    That alone renders most of your worries obsolete. The only way to actually get the money is to chose the "Send to the credit card account connected with my BNet account" when the sale of the item gets through. So if you effectively want to laundry some dirty money, you will have to play RMAH alot I may be wrong, but i can't really picture gangsters sitting around the computer arguing with each other what price should they stick on that Messerschmidt's Reaver to have a quick sale without losing too much money on it.
    can you show me a link on this?

    i am curoius on how you send money to a CREDIT card
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  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by slozon View Post
    can you show me a link on this?

    i am curoius on how you send money to a CREDIT card
    http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/services/...nctionality#q8

    There are quite a few videos on youtube as to how rmah works in practice. In the last patch when rmah was enabled for testing, every beta tester was given 50BetaBucks (fictional money for the purpose of testing) and many of them made a video showcasing rmah. It works as following:
    Whenever a sale comes through, when collecting the proceedings you will be given a choice of depositing the proceedings on to your Bnet account or "Cashing out" which effectively transfers the proceedings to a third-party payment service account. And this is the only way to get the money from your sales. Every time a sale comes through you need to cash out. The money from sales that you chose to deposit on your Bnet account, together with the real money that you deposited to your Bnet account will not be accessible. It will only be usable for rmah buying and for buying ingame vanity items and what not.

  8. #8
    The Unstoppable Force Orange Joe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fichek View Post
    http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/services/...nctionality#q8

    There are quite a few videos on youtube as to how rmah works in practice. In the last patch when rmah was enabled for testing, every beta tester was given 50BetaBucks (fictional money for the purpose of testing) and many of them made a video showcasing rmah. It works as following:
    Whenever a sale comes through, when collecting the proceedings you will be given a choice of depositing the proceedings on to your Bnet account or "Cashing out" which effectively transfers the proceedings to a third-party payment service account. And this is the only way to get the money from your sales. Every time a sale comes through you need to cash out. The money from sales that you chose to deposit on your Bnet account, together with the real money that you deposited to your Bnet account will not be accessible. It will only be usable for rmah buying and for buying ingame vanity items and what not.
    How do I cash out from the currency-based auction house?

    As an advanced feature, players will have the option of attaching an account with an approved third-party payment service to their Battle.net account. Once this has been completed, proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house can be deposited into their third-party payment service account. "Cashing out" would then be handled through the third-party payment service. Note that this process will be subject to applicable fees charged by Blizzard and the third-party payment service. Also, any proceeds from the sale of items in the currency-based auction house that have been deposited into the Battle.net account will not be transferrable to the third-party payment service account. Not all regions will support this advanced feature at launch. Region-specific details, as well as details regarding which third-party payment services will be supported and the fee that Blizzard will charge for the cash-out process, will all be provided at a later date.
    No where in there does it say "credit card only". IT does say "attaching an account with an approved third-party payment service to their Battle.net account." which could be anything from paypal to a checking account.
    MMO-Champ the place where calling out trolls get you into more trouble than trolling.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    You know, just seeing the new Blizzard post about this, I couldn't help but just stop at this quote:

    "In certain regions, Diablo III players who wish to "cash out" the proceeds from the sale of an item from the their currency-based auction house earnings instead of storing it in a Battle.net Balance will be able to do so via PayPal for an additional fee"

    which made me wonder... first, why only PayPal? and second, how big would this cash out fee would be, would it be concerning what you cash out or a static fee? In the end, all those people thinking they might use the money to buy another game(not Blizzard) might not even manage to do that...

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