Gold Spammers out of control

Tyrranosaur

I recently restarted my account and jumped back on after about two months' absence. In the course of one evening (about 5 hours) I and my GF on her own rig were each spammed around 40 times. That's an average of one spam per seven and a half minutes. These spams, of course, were all in the form of whispered gold seller ads. Furthermore, I haven't been on in some time, but my mailbox was full of gold seller ads, too.

When did this start? I know this stuff used to happen, but it was pretty infrequent when I was last on. I'm sure that gold is easier to acquire now, thanks to Outland, but did it ever occur to the gold farmers that if they're getting it more easily in BC, then that means regular players are, too? How can the WoW market support so much gold faming? I can net 50-100 gold in a couple hours' play on my level 63 in Outlands, without even trying. Why on earth would anyone need to buy gold, if they already have a high-level big gdaddy to funnel it down to the little alts? And I know I'm a very slow player, taking 14 months to level up to 60, as most of my cohorts who play seem to get characters from 1-70 in a matter of weeks, so I'm guessing that the willingness of those who would pay fro gold has got to be diminished these days....right?

I wonder if the Blizzard GMs are pulling their hair out, having to catch and cancel all of the bogus accounts generated to do this spamming?

retrospectic

Originally posted by Tyrranosaur


I recently restarted my account and jumped back on after about two months' absence. In the course of one evening (about 5 hours) I and my GF on her own rig were each spammed around 40 times. That's an average of one spam per seven and a half minutes. These spams, of course, were all in the form of whispered gold seller ads. Furthermore, I haven't been on in some time, but my mailbox was full of gold seller ads, too.
When did this start? I know this stuff used to happen, but it was pretty infrequent when I was last on. I'm sure that gold is easier to acquire now, thanks to Outland, but did it ever occur to the gold farmers that if they're getting it more easily in BC, then that means regular players are, too? How can the WoW market support so much gold faming? I can net 50-100 gold in a couple hours' play on my level 63 in Outlands, without even trying. Why on earth would anyone need to buy gold, if they already have a high-level big gdaddy to funnel it down to the little alts? And I know I'm a very slow player, taking 14 months to level up to 60, as most of my cohorts who play seem to get characters from 1-70 in a matter of weeks, so I'm guessing that the willingness of those who would pay fro gold has got to be diminished these days....right?
I wonder if the Blizzard GMs are pulling their hair out, having to catch and cancel all of the bogus accounts generated to do this spamming?

Supposedly an upcoming patch is going to deal with this issue.  Supposedly you can now ignore whole accounts rather than just specific users.  Also strings of text will no longer be capable of being spammed.



I've found that playing Horde also seems to keep the /tells to a minimum.  My Alliance alt gets 10 or 15 tells in the time my Hordie gets 1 or 2.



Oh, and almost all of these accounts are trial accounts.  Sadly trial accounts can /tell, but luckily they can't use any other channels.

Antipathy

I've seen a lot of ads recently, but not quite as many as the OP. Maybe 3-5 ads per night. When I first started playing I didn't see any. Makes me wonder how many people around me, and more to the point how many of the people I face in battlegrounds, are gold buyers.



Another similar problem is the gold farmers who sit in front of IronForge bank, regularly spamming their adverts in /say. This is particularly offensive since I play on an RP realm.



I notice the adverts appear to have already been crafted to avoid filters. For example an advert may read "Get your gold from www.Cheapgold@com (@com = .com)." This indicates Blizzard has at least tried to stop the problem but the advertisers have found a workaround. Hopefully Blizzard's next attempt will be more successful.

randprin

i just see it as a sign of how desperate the gold selling sites are lately, that they have to resort to spam in order to get costumers.



as for a solution, just get one of the addons that block spam, i just block everything from anyone below level 5, solves a heap of problems

pdk25

These gold sellers are spamming EQ2 as well. I got a lot of mail from Gold sellers when I was playing WoW. I have spammed a few GMworker employees into logging but they just keep comeing. I just add the player to ingnore too, but my ingnore is getting pretty full now. I wish something could be done about this problem, but I guess it`s everywhere now. I`ve even seen them post here on MMORPG.com.

JestorRodo

I report them immediately , then I badger them to no end.  Muahahahaha , what are they going to do , report me??

They are already on LOTRO , bastards.

Ithuriel

Yeah, I started playing WoW again recently, and it's been horrible.  Guildie recommended a mod called Spam Sentry, and it's been great.  Blocks all the whispers from Psjvljasksdfhkl and Clsdjfjhhnvcs and the others, usually blocks like 5-6 an hour.

BreakOfDawn

I play in EU Darksorrow and there spamming has just... boomed. Instead of whisps, I get daily 8-15 spam messages on my mailbox- and all from one person.



I am really, really pleased if upcoming patch will allow you to ignore accounts, because I can't see any other choices with this. Quiting 10-day trials is one option, but that would be a pure suicide.



Other option that popped in my mind is IP ban, but... I guess it wouldn't be that easy, neither.



I've been wondering how much those gold sellers really make? Is the income so BIG that it's worth ruining whole server's economy and create inflation...?



...that doesn't make sense anymore. Not at all. That person is just sick.