What happens to the real-life money in D3?

[Brett Skullcrack]

Joke's on them, they wouldn't be able to withdraw money, since they'd be 'hacking' a diablo character, not my personal bank account.

Eh? The point was they'll do exactly what they're doing in WoW right now, except it's easier to convert the stolen loots to money with the RMAH.

[Deleted]

Eh? The point was they'll do exactly what they're doing in WoW right now, except it's easier to convert the stolen loots to money with the RMAH.

How do you steal loot unless your account is compromised?

[Herecius]

Eh? The point was they'll do exactly what they're doing in WoW right now, except it's easier to convert the stolen loots to money with the RMAH.

I suppose that's a possibility. They hack an account, send the items from my character to their mule, then sell those on the RMAH.

Here's the problem though; Blizzard would be able to shut that down easily, and fast. Selling something for actual cashmoneys won't be as easy or fast as selling a stack of stolen Truegolds, or handful of Essence of Destruction, and then they'd have to withdraw through paypal on top of all that, and that money could be EASILY blocked.

I have a feeling it won't be worth the effort to hackers.

[Brett Skullcrack]

Here's the problem though; Blizzard would be able to shut that down easily, and fast. Selling something for actual cashmoneys won't be as easy or fast as selling a stack of stolen Truegolds, or handful of Essence of Destruction, and then they'd have to withdraw through paypal on top of all that, and that money could be EASILY blocked.

They can just launder the money through a bunch of AH transactions, both cash and non-cash. They'll figure out a way. More fundamentally, how are they going to reverse the trades? If I steal your Sword of Awesome and sell it to random person X for real money, are they going to give you another sword (with real money value) while letting person X keep his? Are they going to take away person X's weapon and refund him (while I have already cashed out the money)?

I have a feeling it won't be worth the effort to hackers.

I have a feeling it will be the jackpot for hackers, unless Blizzard does the responsible thing and includes an authenticator in every purchase.

[Deleted]

I suppose that's a possibility. They hack an account, send the items from my character to their mule, then sell those on the RMAH.

Here's the problem though; Blizzard would be able to shut that down easily, and fast. Selling something for actual cashmoneys won't be as easy or fast as selling a stack of stolen Truegolds, or handful of Essence of Destruction, and then they'd have to withdraw through paypal on top of all that, and that money could be EASILY blocked.

I have a feeling it won't be worth the effort to hackers.

Well, although stuff you would spend real-money on might not sell as fast it's still going to sell. I think a good way to avoid that would be, for example, having the money transferred to PayPal with a delay of several days. That way you get hacked and your items get stolen, sold on the AH they'll have a chance to react. That, however, is a problem in and out of itself.

When person A gets hacked by person B and person B proceeds to sell said stolen items on RMAH and person Y buys them they'll have to take the items back and refund their money which is just proper bollox if you ask me. I imagine that will leave a heckuva lot of unhappy players.