Scammed, does it look like I have a case?

[Deimien]

Hello, I sold information about my World of Warcraft account, like the password and user name, and Yes that does breach the Terms of Service, but it is not against the law

I sold it to a person who inquired about it on Craig's List, they seemed like a decent person, and they payed through pay pal, what I noticed when they were paying is that their email account used to contact me, and their email on the pay pal account were different, and also the phone numbers used, I checked out the phone number on 411.com and it said they were from the state they said they were, Iowa.

So I just figured that it was an old phone number, they also gave me an adress in Iowa that was slightly different from the one on the paypal account. But again I just figured it was an old address. After I sold it to him, and noticed that the money was in my pay pal account, I gave him the info and changed the email on the account to his.

Shortly afterwords, he disputed the payment, saying he had no knowledge of it. As usual Paypal sides with him, and refunds his whole payment. I can recover the account by calling Blizzard Billing and accounting. But what I'm really wondering is, I have chat logs via MSN about our whole conversation, and I still have the email where I changed my email on the account to his.

Does it look like I would have a case against him if I sued him for scamming me out of my account? Or should I just drop the whole notion and consider myself lucky that I can recover the account?

Thanks in advance.

[BrainDance]

"like the password and user name, and Yes that does breach the Terms of Service, but it is not against the law"

keyword 'breach'. you don't have a case you broke your end of the agreement and contract.
Not surprised paypal sided with them, paypal sucks.

[darrenolander]

Just recover your WoW account, sounds like the best you can do.

[buckz55]

paypal blows when it comes to buyer protection .... it is very hard to prove anything when your selling an intangible item like that online .... im no expert , but who knows maybe you'll get lucky

[actionplanbiz]

I wouldnt Contact Blizzard about You selling YOur Account, but maybe getting it Back. If they find out you tried to sell it they will delete it anyway.

You May want to Write Down all the Facts and Call a Lawyer and Get their Opinion.

But 1st i would get your account back, so he dont strip your character bare.

Hope It works Out For You.

[ltdraper]

You may as well try to contact Blizzard and get your account back. The worst case is that they'll delete the account and the guy that scammed you won't be ahead.

[MeCanX]

I would just say never give them what they want till it's paid for...In my DJ business people like to try to write me bad checks all the time...

Now I require the whole balance be paid for in full 2 weeks before the actual event...It makes it to where I get my money before and also I don't have to chase anyone after...This makes sure that the money is in my account before I do the service.

I got a great reputation around here and elsewhere so it's not a big deal for me to do that...

I would chalk this one up to lesson learned as it's going to cost you more time and money to get it back than it's worth...not unless it's a huge amount of money lost...

How much did you sell it for?

[Andy Crofford]

Originally Posted by buckz55

paypal blows when it comes to buyer protection .... it is very hard to prove anything when your selling an intangible item like that online .... im no expert , but who knows maybe you'll get lucky

In my experience their buyer protection is good and their seller protection not so much.

Also, the scammer is probably anticipating you calling Blizzard to get your account back so they have probably took all your valuable loot and sent it to another one of their characters. Blizzard won't do anything about this.

[Deimien]

Originally Posted by MeCanX

How much did you sell it for?

I was supposed to sell it for $550. But it does seem like a lot of wasted time, being that his "address" was in Iowa, and mine's all the way in Oregon.

[sbucciarel]

Not much of a case since you violated TOS to start with. I would either try to get the account back or have it deliberately deleted to get even with the guy. It's also possible someone hacked into this guy's Paypal acct, to scam you. That just happened to me. Someone hacked into someone's Paypal acct to buy sites from me. They got two before the real owner of the site issued a dispute saying unauthorized payment. I immediately banned the ip of the buyer in my DLGuard program and glad I did, because they attempted to buy more sites from the same Paypal address. So the Paypal dispute may be legit, but you'd still be wasting your time trying to pursue anything but getting the WoW acct back or deleting to screw him.

[kindsvater]

Originally Posted by DannyGillen

Chatlogs are worthless in court.

I disagree. Chat logs can be admitted into evidence - I've done it - just as an email thread can be admitted.

[FaJeeb]

Originally Posted by Deimien

Hello, I sold information about my World of Warcraft account, like the password and user name, and Yes that does breach the Terms of Service, but it is not against the law

I sold it to a person who inquired about it on Craig's List, they seemed like a decent person, and they payed through pay pal, what I noticed when they were paying is that their email account used to contact me, and their email on the pay pal account were different, and also the phone numbers used, I checked out the phone number on 411.com and it said they were from the state they said they were, Iowa.

So I just figured that it was an old phone number, they also gave me an adress in Iowa that was slightly different from the one on the paypal account. But again I just figured it was an old address. After I sold it to him, and noticed that the money was in my pay pal account, I gave him the info and changed the email on the account to his.

Shortly afterwords, he disputed the payment, saying he had no knowledge of it. As usual Paypal sides with him, and refunds his whole payment. I can recover the account by calling Blizzard Billing and accounting. But what I'm really wondering is, I have chat logs via MSN about our whole conversation, and I still have the email where I changed my email on the account to his.

Does it look like I would have a case against him if I sued him for scamming me out of my account? Or should I just drop the whole notion and consider myself lucky that I can recover the account?

Thanks in advance.

I know this thread is a bit old, but I often troll this forum as a newbie with none of my own input to provide until now.

I've sold well over 2,000 accounts, a practice that is now extremely tedious because there are simply 1000 scammers in ratio to 1 honest buyer/seller.

You have no real legal options. When you go to the store and buy the game off of the shelf, and you pay your monthly subscription, you don't own even 1% of the game or the digital advancements you have earned through the game. You don't own the character you play, you don't own the game you purchased that currently resides on your computer, you don't own the gold or gear that your character has earned, you own absolutely nothing.

So in short, there is nothing you can do however Blizzard will be more than happy to restore your "hacked account" so that you can continue to pay the subscription fee's.

I might suggest that you sell the "Blizzard Authenticator" with the user name and password in the future.