AH Pets Hacked accounts???

[Kelnor]

Hi guys,

Just a Quick Question/Observation

As a pet collector ,like all of you, I'm always trawling the AH for cheap deals but last week I spotted some strange deals going on.
I know the servers are mostly merged now so guessing the AH's are too but to spot 10 x ethereal soul trader for less than 10k Gold each? That thing sells for £169. I could not grab any ( my ones lonely) as Im not all that good at saving gold:D

After this is started spotting more and more "Rare" pets going for stupid prices, are these from hacked accounts?

I asked Blizzard but they just gave me the usual "keep your account safe" info and didnt answer the question!

If you are hacked do you get all your pets back including TCG ones?? you better do i have a few!

[Fahra]

I had my account hacked once right after Cataclysm came out (before I had an authenticator.) I contacted Blizzard, and they got me back everything that had been in my bags, all of my armor, and I got to keep the level the person had given me by running around mining. This was done within the space of a day. Blizzard is EXTREMELY helpful when it comes to supporting players who have been hacked. I imagine if your account was hacked and you lost your pets they would be able to get them back to you, especially since this site provides a good database of what pets you have. I kind of view warcraftpets as an insurance policy for my pets
Just my opinion, but I hope it reassures you.

[Peanutty]

http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/f ... =2&t=10762 (along with the additional threads I linked from there) plus http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... 807?page=6 from the official forums should answer some of your questions.

If you are hacked everything in your account is supposed to be returned to the state it was before, though I don't think that's 100% true since I've heard about people getting stripped of their gear and having it returned missing gems and enchants. But I've never heard about anyone losing their entire pet collection or anything.

[Kelnor]

Its Good to hear that all things get returned etc but makes me wonder if they are hacking accounts and selling the Rares then a new situation arises.

If those rares are sold on the AH then the new owner bought them Fairly right ? So imo should get to keep it and if the original owner is given a replacement pet then you have 2 pets in the system now from 1 !
If it that carry's then rares wont be that rare???

What are you thoughts guys?

[Nessahelyan]

I'm thinking that it's more of a glitch/duping thing than actually selling stolen pets. I remember a boatload of lvl 10 cats floating around. The more duped pets that are in circulation - the lower the price goes because the "duper" isnt a collector only wanting gold - if that makes sense. Same way with the mounts. As for buying them...I cant see where blizz can revoke them if its bought off the ah. It's kind of like picking up a solid gold necklace at a yardsale for 5 cents - you know something isnt right but can you resist that twinkle!Also - keep in mind that with the server mergers the BLACK market is bringing in more pets/mounts.

[Kpb321]

I think the general consensus here is that while there may be some cases where people are getting their accounts hacked and their rare pets are sold off, effectively duplicating those rare pets when blizzard restores them for the original owner, that there is no way that could explain the huge number of "rare" pets that are seen on the AH today. Do you really think that they managed to hack the accounts for 10 different people who had ESTs to steal them only to list them all on your servers AH? I use "rare" in quotes because they seem to be anything but rare now a days. At 10k for an EST that probably cheaper than a number of ToT raid pets or the Spineclaw and definitely cheaper than the Darkmoon Rabbit.

Blizzard has maintained that they aren't being duped but most people don't believe that or consider it arguing semantics. Personally, I'm on the semantics side as I think Blizzard does have some internal definition of what duping is and these pets on the AH may well not match their criteria but the result is still the same. I've heard rumors that the wave of Spectral Tiger Cubs that were all level 6 where due the pets abilities and you could some how end up bugging it out slightly so that you could cage the pet but it wouldn't result in the pet being removed from your list of pets so you could cage it as many times as you want. The process of bugging out the pet caused it to level up to level 6 which is why all the pets for sale were that level. Technically, maybe not duplicates but the result is the same. You've created dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? of caged pets from the one in your pet journal. I have no idea if any of it is true but it sounds good.

I'd think the server merges would actually be reducing the number of pets coming from the BMAH because after the mergers you've got less total BMAH's across all servers. Now it's possible that some servers did have stuff that wasn't selling because no one was watching them but I still think the overall effect would be reducing the number of pets coming from there and not increasing. Also only a couple of the "rare" pets that have had their prices crash are even available from the BMAH.

[Ranophan]

Also quite possible that most of the pets aren't duped and Blizzard is telling the truth in that regard. Many of the comments in regards to "duped" pets seem to imply that maybe there was/is an exploit involving redemption codes. If so the sellers may just have piles of them scattered across different characters/accounts. Then again the mass amounts of lvl 6 tiger cubs pretty clearly shows some kind of duping in the past, but now most tiger cubs I see for sale are lvl 1.

I've personally seen these sellers advertise on one character and then log in another "storage" character that they take the pet from with the advertising character to sell to the buyers.

[Kpb321]

I've heard speculation about a code redemption issue too and it could be that was the case at some point but it doesn't explain the level 6 tiger cubs or the VH dupes that seem to have happened. Odds are that there have probably been multiple things exploited at different times which is why certain pets got hit at different times. This last wave hit pretty much all of the valuable pets and if there is another wave I'm sure that the DMR will be in it as it seems to be the most valuable pet left.

[Poofah]

Here's a fun game: let's find pets that are more rare than EST on US server AHs (using UJ) --

EST - 438

Filthling - 339
Willy - 288
Darkmoon Tonk - 330
Clockwork Gnome - 374
Viscidus Globule - 373
Fiendish Imp - 371
Enchanted Broom - 260
Snarly - 277

Now compare to some supposedly 'common' tcg pets:

Purple Puffer - 94
Gregarious Grell - 130
Landro's Lil XT - 113


We can quibble over how these ESTs/cubs/etc have entered the game. But clearly it cannot possibly be via legit redemption of TCG codes, or else why are the 'common' tcg pets in fact 4x more rare than EST? And why did the supply of EST go from ~20 last May to >400 now, despite no new TCG codes being released?

For our purposes, it doesn't matter how these pets have been introduced. The fact is that they're there, and their effect on supply is permanent. EST is more common than children's week pets, more common than raiding with leashes pets, more common than pets that cost 90 darkmoon tickets. Even the current 10k pricetag is highly unsustainable.

[Adorabella_x]

I agree something Odd is going on - On sunday a seller listed 4 viscous horror's for 11,500 gold.... Ofc I had to take advantage, as I needed one. But it has left a sour taste in my mouth to think it could be a hacked pet

[Arshadi]

You know, I have gotten to the point where I wish people would stop posting these threads. They're always up in one version or another, and always include people who (a) buy the rare pets with the 'too good to be true' prices, (b) feel bad about it, and (c) come here looking for some reason to feel OK about it ("maybe they really aren't duped!!").

The TCG pets are being duped and/or stolen. Dupers are often, but not always, affiliated with the same folks that steal accounts. None of these people are legit players. All of them are involved with exploiting Blizzard products in one way or another, and all of those things ultimately hurt gamers/consumers.

At this point, I doubt that any of the TCG or ultra-rare pets you are seeing or buying on the AH are "OK". The only way you can know if the TCG pets are legit is if you are holding the card in your hand and enter the card code into the game yourself. And I doubt many of you are doing that.

So buy the pets (you probably will) or don't. But constantly trying to come here or go to other sites to talk about whether your particular pet is maybe actually legit is pointless.

Edit: By the way, nice post, Poofah. The numbers speak volumes.

[Poofah]

But constantly trying to come here or go to other sites to talk about whether your particular pet is maybe actually legit is pointless.

Maybe, but asking on forums like this is the only way information spreads. Bliz doesn't post any info on duping: they actively deny it if you ticket a GM. They have kept us in the dark, so threads like this are necessary for gamers/consumers to inform themselves.

[Digem]

Here's a fun game: let's find pets that are more rare than EST on US server AHs (using UJ) --

EST - 438

Filthling - 339
Willy - 288
Darkmoon Tonk - 330
Clockwork Gnome - 374
Viscidus Globule - 373
Fiendish Imp - 371
Enchanted Broom - 260
Snarly - 277

Now compare to some supposedly 'common' tcg pets:

Purple Puffer - 94
Gregarious Grell - 130
Landro's Lil XT - 113


We can quibble over how these ESTs/cubs/etc have entered the game. But clearly it cannot possibly be via legit redemption of TCG codes, or else why are the 'common' tcg pets in fact 4x more rare than EST? And why did the supply of EST go from ~20 last May to >400 now, despite no new TCG codes being released?

For our purposes, it doesn't matter how these pets have been introduced. The fact is that they're there, and their effect on supply is permanent. EST is more common than children's week pets, more common than raiding with leashes pets, more common than pets that cost 90 darkmoon tickets. Even the current 10k pricetag is highly unsustainable.

I must commend you on this.
You have done a great job staying in top of this mess and have shown thru numbers that something has gone terribly wrong.
It is a shame that this has happened and a bigger black eye for blizz that they ignore or deny it.
All we can do is pass are info and knowledge on and hope for the best.

Again though you have done a really excellent none in this.
Too bad you don't work for blizz.

[NeverFinal]

I actually have a bit of "experience" with this topic. Though it was through trade chat and not the AH.

My post I made on the WoW forums.

"I recently got back into the game and Ive been working on my pet collection again. Im in town and I see a guy selling Ethereal Soul-Trader and Spectral Tiger Cub for 36k. Two pets Ive wanted for the longest time.

Ive seen them on the ah for 20-25k so I thought this was a good deal and went through with it. He invited me a party. I immediately saw that he was level 1. (I previously tried to shift click him but he was on a diff server so the /who wouldnt pop up). From even the early days Level 1 selling highly sought after items was generally a bad thing but I took the chance. We did the trade. I got the virtual pets (NOT a code as I know thats againt ToS) and gave him the 36k.

The bad feeling stuck with me afterwards and I did a bit of research and found that it may in fact have been a scam. I put in a ticket expressing my concern immediately as I dont want to lose both the pets and the gold. If I end up with either Im happy. I can get the pets in the future.

Just wondering if anyone else has dealt with or heard of this and how exactly its going to end up."

And then the ticket response I got from a GM.

"Hey there.

I looked into this for you, and very definitely, the account from which these items were purchased was compromised.

Keep in mind that if a deal seems too good to be true - it generally is. Gold sellers will compromise accounts, and do these types of things to suppliment the gold they get from stripping the account itself.

Now we can't guarantee anything about the pets that were purchased. It may be that they are never cleared in a sweep. It may be however, that the do get traced by hour hacks department and removed. Should that happen, I am afraid that we aren't able to provide a gold restoration. = /

Your best bet is to always steer clear of purchases that seem fishy - even if the "price" is more than right. Otherwise, you are taking a risk on two fronts. = /

I do apologize for any frustration or confusion there has been regarding this issue, and I wanted you to know that I value the time you spent in placing this ticket." .