RBG rating services for $$ advertised withing game with name and surname!!!!

[Darsithis]

I don't know if you remember what happened with that WOTLK private server that charged a premium for access to its servers. Blizzard sued them and managed to close them them down, even though they have let all other "free" private servers operate normally.

That's different. That's stealing Blizzard's intellectual property to make money off of it.

[Wildtree]

Guys..... A lot of truth, a lot of misinterpretations in here...
Here is, what it really is all about:

1. Possibility: It's an outright scam, money gets transferred and no service delivered.
Then it is flat out a crime, a felony. No if's, no but's...

2. Possibility: It's not a "scam". Money gets transferred, and the service gets delivered.

It is up to Blizzard to decide whether the transactions are against, and are defined as such within their TOU.
If this is the case, Blizzard needs to contact PayPal's legal dept.
Because, it may then very well be against PayPal's User Agreement. PayPal is actually very cooperative with Businesses, and numerous transactions through PayPal are definitely prohibited by their policies. It very likely that PayPal would then refuse the transactions through it's service.
https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?c...Agreement_full

Anyhow..... assuming the transactions are "legal", and no credit card fraud is in place (which seems unlikely, since the customer who buy are active players), the income is subject to taxes. There is possibly still some legally defined crime involved. I believe the people who offer that service are the same, that are also offering a service which includes the delivery of all rare (incl. all no longer obtainable) mounts. I don't think that obtaining the black AQ mount today can be done without any kind of form of a system hack. That really smells like something is going on that's in fact violating existing laws, beyond simple user agreement breach.

---------- Post added 2013-01-02 at 09:09 AM ----------

So, selling services for an online game through paypal, which are expressly forbidden by the TOS, is not fraud?

No, it's not fraud. But it would be also forbidden by PayPals policies and they need then just be notified.
Likely the sellers account gets frozen, and the money likely returned to the buyers. Legal actions will come into the picture only if buyers reclaim their money and it isn't recoverable.

It is also not tax evasion, unless the seller doesn't claim the money as income source at their yearly tax return.
That isn't easy to do, because by PayPal policy any account that has transactions above $1000 for consecutive 3 month in a row, has to provide a business license. The times where PayPal was a super easy way to evade income, or even launder money are long over.

One more thing... A funny one......
One could actually scam the scammer.... go through the entire procedure... Have everything done and delivered, and then bam....
File a complaint with PayPal (you must have a PP account as well though) through the buyer satisfactory program. All you have to do is provide PP with the evidence that the services you received are against Blizzards TOU and you've learned about that fact afterwards..
PayPal will refund you the money, taking it from the seller.... bam..... you "scammed" the scammer...

[loki504]

dunno if they changed the ToS. but last time i checked blizzard stated in there own ToS that blizzard will only give your info when police/ Law Enforcement ask for it. and can show you did serious crime. aka murder or rape. but not a singel robery or someting small.
and how are you so sure he don't pay tax? and since when is that blizzards problem?

---------- Post added 2013-01-02 at 04:19 PM ----------

That's different. That's stealing Blizzard's intellectual property to make money off of it.

there was a time you could legaly use codec from someone else aslong as you didn't charge money for it. thats why they asked for donation. and give rewards for it if you donated.

---------- Post added 2013-01-02 at 04:24 PM ----------

Guys..... A lot of truth, a lot of misinterpretations in here...
Here is, what it really is all about:

1. Possibility: It's an outright scam, money gets transferred and no service delivered.
Then it is flat out a crime, a felony. No if's, no but's...

2. Possibility: It's not a "scam". Money gets transferred, and the service gets delivered.

It is up to Blizzard to decide whether the transactions are against, and are defined as such within their TOU.
If this is the case, Blizzard needs to contact PayPal's legal dept.
Because, it may then very well be against PayPal's User Agreement. PayPal is actually very cooperative with Businesses, and numerous transactions through PayPal are definitely prohibited by their policies. It very likely that PayPal would then refuse the transactions through it's service.
https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?c...Agreement_full

Anyhow..... assuming the transactions are "legal", and no credit card fraud is in place (which seems unlikely, since the customer who buy are active players), the income is subject to taxes. There is possibly still some legally defined crime involved. I believe the people who offer that service are the same, that are also offering a service which includes the delivery of all rare (incl. all no longer obtainable) mounts. I don't think that obtaining the black AQ mount today can be done without any kind of form of a system hack. That really smells like something is going on that's in fact violating existing laws, beyond simple user agreement breach.

---------- Post added 2013-01-02 at 09:09 AM ----------

No, it's not fraud. But it would be also forbidden by PayPals policies and they need then just be notified.
Likely the sellers account gets frozen, and the money likely returned to the buyers. Legal actions will come into the picture only if buyers reclaim their money and it isn't recoverable.

It is also not tax evasion, unless the seller doesn't claim the money as income source at their yearly tax return.
That isn't easy to do, because by PayPal policy any account that has transactions above $1000 for consecutive 3 month in a row, has to provide a business license. The times where PayPal was a super easy way to evade income, or even launder money are long over.

One more thing... A funny one......
One could actually scam the scammer.... go through the entire procedure... Have everything done and delivered, and then bam....
File a complaint with PayPal (you must have a PP account as well though) through the buyer satisfactory program. All you have to do is provide PP with the evidence that the services you received are against Blizzards TOU and you've learned about that fact afterwards..
PayPal will refund you the money, taking it from the seller.... bam..... you "scammed" the scammer...

the selling mounts/title/achiev is not a hack. its blizzard own fault on the account shared mounts. noting they did is against either there own Tos or LaW. unless making a new account. connect it to a battle.net account. and then unconnect it is against the rules.

[Wildtree]

there was a time you could legaly use codec from someone else aslong as you didn't charge money for it. thats why they asked for donation. and give rewards for it if you donated.

Those times still exist, and the laws have never changed in that matter. It's called public domain/open source.
Any code that's protected by patent, copyright and trademark cannot be used in any way shape or form. Microsoft is famous for that, in example.
parts of MS code cannot be touched, cannot be used and communicated with through third party programs. Other parts - the ones MS allowed - are.
You don't want to be caught by cloning any MS product. Running a private server is just that, a clone.