Will I Get Banned?
I’ve been asked this question so many times over the past four years that it makes me want to stab someone. However, I do understand that no one wants to lose their account and people who buy virtual goods are paranoid creatures. The answer is: No… In normal cases.. Now the reason I said “In normal cases” is because there are exceptions and while I’m mainly referring to WoW here, it really applies to every MMO.
One of the largest causes of people assuming their account is going to get banned is because of previous reports of it happening by uneducated buyers. These people will look for the lowest prices possible and end up ordering from a shady website, forum seller or listing site. And if they actually receive the delivery the account shortly ends up being closed for economy exploitation, no matter the gold amount. Why? There are groups of people dedicated to stealing account information and selling the gold off the account. When the owner of the account reports that the account was stolen and it looks pretty obvious, they are going to ban the account the gold was given to for association.
There are also companies that gain the gold by using in-game exploits, but this may just resort in a temp ban when they associate the buyer with them. To prevent these issues just search for the site name on Google and see if there are reviews for it anywhere. Established websites will have years of people commenting good & bad. Sites that sell hacked account gold won’t have repeat customers. If you can’t find any results then it just depends on if you are a person who loves a gamble.
These are the two main exceptions which could cause trouble for buyers. MMO companies have no intention to ban their paying subscribers unless they have to make an example of the player due to them talking about the purchase on in-game public chat channels(yes, there are people who do this.) However, they do love to ban sellers because it makes them more money. You ban a buyer and they quit, you ban a seller and they buy another copy of your game(possibly even a time card too.) That turns into quite a bit of $$$ if you ban these accounts repeatedly.