Pre-paid cards vs. RAF gold trading

[Anegus]

I have no reason to lie and neither do you. I am speaking from my personal experience and you are speaking from yours.

They obviously differ so at this point the only option is to let people try it for themselves and find out the truth. Perhaps I just got lucky because it certainly worked for me.

 

[4thdimension]

i bought 1 mntsh gametiem from pr3ciuos. mmm is thi sperson legit as i feel very bad if this person used stolen credit cards does anyone know or can vouch for this person,

 

[Anegus]

Pr3cious and Kiyumi have a long history of good transactions over several years. I would count them as reputable.

 

[greaterdeath]

Yes you can! When you send the RAF invite it sends a link that allows the person to create a free starter edition account. They then can simply add a full vanilla key to their account that will enable their account to be a full account, and that will therefore give the free month to the referring account. You do that for 12 seperate accounts and boom you have 12 months of free RAF time that looks very much like this:

I'm not denying that you have made many RAF chains, but I GUARANTEE you that you CAN subscribe the referred account with a vanilla key to make it a non-starter account and therefore gives the free month to the referrer.

Give it a try I'm sure you have more than enough use for the account. If its no longer working then perhaps Blizzard changed it at some point, but as of a 3 weeks ago it was working just fine.

Deny it all you want, maybe EU is different but having personally done it MANY times.

That's all fine, except the part that was left out which is the issue: one additional month must be PURCHASED in order for the 1 month of RAF time to be available. 2 additional months must be PURCHASED to get the rocket. I have raf'ed on US; you don't get 1 month playtime just for them upgrading to a vanilla account. You don't get the rocket for adding 2 months of raf gametime.

 

[Proceed]

The refered account must buy Gametime - then you get the 1 month referal award.

Pr3cious is okay, once though the bought gametime was the reason for a ban - i bought gametime from him, 3 days later it said "your game time has expired", they removed the referal award without an email, then i bought gametime for 13 €, but 5 days later the account was banned - the remove of the Gametime is the reason why i suspect that they did not just get me because of botting, but because of buying gametime.

 

[evilme73]

I have no reason to lie and neither do you. I am speaking from my personal experience and you are speaking from yours.

They obviously differ so at this point the only option is to let people try it for themselves and find out the truth. Perhaps I just got lucky because it certainly worked for me.

I don't think you are lying... you are simply wrong.

The referred account must not only upgrade to a retail copy ($5 at the absolute cheapest, and not always available)... but must also subscribe and purchase 1 month of gametime ($13), in order for the referrer to get their free month. The free month supplied in the battlechest does NOT count towards this.

So, for the cost of $18, the seller gets:
$4-6 payment from you
1 tbc account with 2 months gametime

So -
IF the seller can consistently buy battlechests for $5, and
IF the seller can then sell that account for $13-$15 to their goldseller buddies, then
yes it is possible that it is done without credit card fraud.

They are two FUCKING HUGE IF's though. Battlechests are rarely available that cheap, and when they are they are always limited. The christmas sale was an exception, however that was only recently, and this has been going for years. Secondly... why would the goldsellers buy these passed down accounts for $15, when they rarely need more than a month's gametime anyway, and they could just use the same $5 battlechests that our sellers are using? It doesn't add up.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me a viable business strategy from these sellers, as what we've explained above, simply isn't logical.

Pr3cious is okay... but

So you say he's okay, except the gametime was removed? WTF are you smoking?

 

[Smix]

Funny how those trying to deny its fraud never mention some obv things.
In real world you:
1) pay 6k gold for a month of gametime from the sellers that also buy that gold for $0.3/k at best.
2) get some mysterious "unfreeze" code, that magically disappears in a hour. David Blaine in action.
3) recruit the same person 12x times, and than 20 other raf gametime buyers recruit the very same after you as well.

Some more points:
What is unfreeze code? It is 30 day gametime code. The only source of those codes afaik is blizzard.com, and of course you can buy it there using CC.
Here it is. Blizzard Store
This code can be used to add a month of gametime to your account (cpt.Obv) so your client gets his RAF gametime if ur raf seller.
Thing is since this is frauded sh!t - this code gets revoked pretty soon. Another reason can be chargeback. And it does. However RAF-gametime does not gets revoked.
Notice there are 3 options 30 days 90 and 180. For some reason RAF gametime sellers like to sell their gametime using exactly same numbers. Because its easier for them this way.
Same with vanilla battle chest.

For me there is only one question - is it pure fraud or "smart" abuse of CC's habit called chargeback. Last option is legal somewhat, you chargeback, you lose ur key, fair.
It is Blizzard problem they cant automatically track and revoke RAF'ed gametime that was granted to someone while that account was still active

 

[lathrodectus]

http://www.thebuddyforum.com/general-discussion-forum/40730-why-raf-gametime-wow-so-much-cheaper-than-normal-pre-paid-cards.html
This thing has been discussed on this thread. I also supplied links to blue posts about removed gametimes and ineligability for annual pass on the mentioned thread.

You can see the requirements for a free month on this link;
Recruit-A-Friend Rewards FAQ - Support - Battle.net Support
here is a TLDR Quote from the above blue post:

For each friend or family member you refer who upgrades to a retail version of World of Warcraft and purchases 30 days of game time via a subscription or game card, you will receive a credit for 30 days of free game play.

"Accounts in Good Standing" blizz uses this term, we cant and dont know for sure which actions flag an account suspicious but there is an evaluation in progress.
I cant believe how you can deny this fraud and claim otherwise depending on a single experience on your own account. I also see that you still have 9 months to go, at least 8 to finish the annual pass hope that works ok for you till the end but that proves nothing until these months pass and you get your diablo copy imho.

Counting credit card scammers as reputable while denying what bossland is telling made me laugh for good
Please search about what you are talking before blindly defending on a single account.

 

[greaterdeath]

For me there is only one question - is it pure fraud or "smart" abuse of CC's habit called chargeback. Last option is legal somewhat, you chargeback, you lose ur key, fair.

Chargeback would imply contacting the CC company directly; they have their own fraud detection so I doubt it could be done more than a couple times per account without raising their internal flags.

 

[lathrodectus]

it is pure fraud, they are selling hundreds of rafs everyday most of the time they r super busy. I think that is a great way to launder CC money.

 

[Anegus]

I'm not at all saying that using a stolen CC to buy game time is not Fraud. I'm saying that selling RAF gametime CAN be profitable without fraud...pretty clear distinction.

As I said my experience has been different and neither of us has any reason to lie. I don't really care if you guys think that its all fraud, there are a lot of people out there that think ALL gold selling is fraud, but we both know that's not true. So believe what you want, spend more than is necessary if you want, all the months of RAF I've bought over the years and NONE, not a single one, has been reversed, banned, suspended, or anything else nefarious. So if all those were purchased with stolen CC's there are a lot of people out there that don't care about losing money. As for not worth it, it takes a 5-10 minute call to your bank now to reverse the charges.

 

[bossland]

. I'm saying that selling RAF gametime CAN be profitable without fraud...pretty clear distinction​

Such thing does not exist, you have seen the facts.


Since when does anyone think that gold selling is fraud ? I thought the gold buying is fraud...


I know for sure that this is a big kind of a fraud, and you are supporting that guys that steal creditcards, possibly accounts and whatnot.

There is the same fraud going on with the 55 EUR for a 1 year subscribtion & diablo 3. All based on RAF, which is then based on stolen credit cards.

And no it does not take you 5 Minutes to recall a fraud payment. There is no way to get your money back, i already had such an expirience. Believe it ot not but some stores like Sony save sensible information as clear text, and they recently lost a few million such.

 

[Anegus]

Then German banks suck, because US banks will reverse the charges almost instantly without question.

Well if you want to believe its all fraud then believe its all fraud. As for the gold buyer/seller technically both are against the "law" of blizzard which controls their game environment. So in their eyes its against the rules.

So you're saying its not possible to get cheap enough prices buying wholesale game time/vanilla accounts and turn around and sell the gold/accounts + money you receive to turn a profit. So again how to do you explain that out of the years of game time that I've bought via RAF I've never had a single one overturned? You're telling me that all those transactions have gone completely unnoticed and unreversed? That seems just as unlikely.

As I said I have no doubt in my mind that some, maybe even a majority, are fraud, but I think its just as irresponsible to say all are as much as it is to say all are not fraud. Its not black and white as everything in our market is.

Guess each person should make their own choice.

 

[Angelus]

Such thing does not exist, you have seen the facts.


Since when does anyone think that gold selling is fraud ? I thought the gold buying is fraud...


I know for sure that this is a big kind of a fraud, and you are supporting that guys that steal creditcards, possibly accounts and whatnot.

There is the same fraud going on with the 55 EUR for a 1 year subscribtion & diablo 3. All based on RAF, which is then based on stolen credit cards.

And no it does not take you 5 Minutes to recall a fraud payment. There is no way to get your money back, i already had such an expirience. Believe it ot not but some stores like Sony save sensible information as clear text, and they recently lost a few million such.

Thanks for the enlightment, me myself thought that they only had to buy a vanilla key. Knowing that they also need to buy 30 days extra makes this kind of operation non profitable against these prices. Thanks for the information, no raf time for me anymore whilw it hurts other people.

 

[bossland]

how to do you explain that out of the years of game time that I've bought via RAF I've never had a single one overturned? ​

Simply, blizzard did not add automated mechanisms to take back your time once a CB / fraud was detected, or after 5 months it was probably too late at all. And as your account was not involved, it was also not blocked, as you still pay, at least they believe it, but you just use fraud payments. For that you can be sued in Germany.

So every German reading here, do not do it at all, it can get you into trouble with the police, as its obvious that there is NO way to get gametime cards that cheap, NO WAY!

to get cheap enough prices buying wholesale game time/vanilla account​

Fairytales, each country has an set up company of blizzard. In germany the year 2009 - Activision Blizzard Deutschland GmbH made 11.3 million EUR profit just reselling WOW and other games from the main company in the US.

Even if i wanted to buy 1.000 Keys bulk, i will get a better price on Amazon than on Blizzard. Just because you think that it is possible to get free time out of upgrading an starter to an wow account, does not make it right. Because it never was and never will be possible.

Blizzard EULA / TOS has nothing to do with illegal or law, this is stupidity you try to prove. We are talking here about real damage done on people, because their CCs got stolen.

 

[reddewman]

So I'm trying to understand how this is done because me and my friends do RAF and I have game time that I'd like to sell but not sure on how to retrieve the earned game time through RAF.

 

[bossland]

Gametime earned by RAF applies only on the account that recruited the new friends. It is not tradeable.

 

[Proceed]

So you say he's okay, except the gametime was removed? WTF are you smoking?

I bought at least over 50 months of gametime overall and only one time it was removed, also this actually happened to a frozen account we used a GC code for to unfreeze , so it probably was because of some strange sort if GC because the first month was "payed" by GC ...

maybe i should have added that ^^


Also:

This is one of the biggest misconceptions we have, and I genuinely wish we could permanently clear it up. I'll provide a few hypothetical situations (mind you, these numbers are ENTIRELY made up).

Let's say 90% of botters were compromised accounts. This means that 90% of these botters aren't paying accounts; they're stolen accounts, which are generally fueled by stolen credit cards. These payments usually get disputed and taken back, which actually costs us money. If we're looking to make a purely fiscal observation, it makes no financial sense to let these continue (aside from the fact that we don't like compromised accounts to begin with - we want our players to be playing their own accounts safely and enjoyably).

You can find the whole post here

 

[evilme73]

I'm not at all saying that using a stolen CC to buy game time is not Fraud. I'm saying that selling RAF gametime CAN be profitable without fraud...pretty clear distinction.

Except that you still havn't provided a simple example of HOW this could be LOGICALLY possible... even with the $5 accounts, it is not viable, without making a stupid assumption taht some third party (gold seller in most previous examples), would be willing to buy that used $5 + 1month account, for $20+, which is absolute nonsense, when they could simply set up the same account themselves, for the same price you did.

all the months of RAF I've bought over the years and NONE, not a single one, has been reversed, banned, suspended, or anything else nefarious.

Irrelevent, as Bossland has stated.

So if all those were purchased with stolen CC's there are a lot of people out there that don't care about losing money. As for not worth it, it takes a 5-10 minute call to your bank now to reverse the charges.

No, the people with stolen CC's will *generally* (not always) get their money back. Blizzard will remove the gametime purchased on the RAF account due to the chargeback... but they simply don't have the mechanism in place to automatically remove the RaF time. Essentially this is only 'stealing' from Blizzard (except in the hopefully-rare case of the unlucky stolen cc owner not getting their money back), as you're generating gametime without blizzard netting any money. Personally, since the Activision merger, I have very little sympathy for Blizzard missing out on $... but the facts remain:
Depending on the laws of your country, you may or may not be liable for participation in this fraud... but either way, Blizzard have been known to flag these accounts. The punitive actions they've taken to date have been few and far between... however as the problem grows, so will the punishments, no doubt.

 

[HBfanboy1980]

The funny thing is, the only people handling any real volume bought those Vanilla/battlechests with stolen credit cards anyways. There is no mistaking that they are all chinese pretending to be young asian hotties so we trust them even more....... seriously. We all peruse o****core and e***npc let's not be gullible.