Viscous Horror and Tuskarr kite next to be Duped

[CoCXan]

Problem with this theory... trial accounts cannot trade with anyone. You cannot give them gold or items, they cannot give you gold or items.

These lvl1 chars are only a kind of representative. Each time I tried and tested if someone is a "real" pet trader or a duper/bad guy, I whispered them (in german on my german home server), they answered in english and after showing some interest and I had accepted a usual very low price they told me to wait and said I will be contacted by another character. This other character was anything between lvl1 and lvl 90, so I suspected the first "announcer" is from a trial account, the second from a hacked account which then would transfer the gold to third party.

[Kring]

Problem with this theory... trial accounts cannot trade with anyone. You cannot give them gold or items, they cannot give you gold or items.

I suspected the first "announcer" is from a trial account, the second from a hacked account which then would transfer the gold to third party.

Problem with this theory... trial accounts cannot initiate whispers (only answer) or write in zone channels. I think they can only use /say, /group, reply to whispers or whisper people who put them on their friend list.

[Peanutty]

I always wondered; Why aren't TCG mounts being duped?

I always suspected that there's a hidden "made by" tag attached to them, like there is with crafted mounts. I might, however, be wrong, but it would be a logical conclusion...

I thought TCG mounts were being duped? I see a number of questionable toons hawking Spectral Tiger mounts with some a skype handle or promise of "Fast gold!" (which pretty much guarantees some shady activity) but then again I haven't seen a huge new influx of mounts on the AH so maybe that's all a scam.

Supposedly the safest thing to do is to tell the seller to list the mount in the AH. If it can be listed then it can be learned at least, whether or not that proves it's legit is another thing.

[Gwenolyn]

Blizzard has never acknowledged that duping exists, and they in fact deny it. So all any player can do is be clear about their own set of in-game ethical standards and try to protect themselves from situations that could result in the loss of gold or items, or which could result in a ban.

So if duping doesn't exist, Blizzard can't ban you for buying duped pets/mounts right?

[Yamum]

To my knowledge, not if you're buying an item. Never buy a code from a stranger, always get the item and you're safe.

[Arshadi]

Blizzard has never acknowledged that duping exists, and they in fact deny it. So all any player can do is be clear about their own set of in-game ethical standards and try to protect themselves from situations that could result in the loss of gold or items, or which could result in a ban.

So if duping doesn't exist, Blizzard can't ban you for buying duped pets/mounts right?

I'm actually not aware of anyone being banned for purchasing duped pets/mounts for personal use. There is the possibility that the item could be removed from your inventory if Blizzard identifies a duper and subsequently removes duped items as a result, but even that doesn't usually seem to happen - perhaps because identifying duping with certainty is pretty tough.

Those purchasing pets or mounts in quantity with the intention of flipping them on the AH are in a rather different situation, but that's also a different topic.

Take all of this with a grain of salt, though - none of us have access to Blizzard's internal policies, and I'm only speaking based on experience with a tiny subset of people relative to the number of players in the game.

[Domie]

Blizzard has never acknowledged that duping exists, and they in fact deny it. So all any player can do is be clear about their own set of in-game ethical standards and try to protect themselves from situations that could result in the loss of gold or items, or which could result in a ban.

So if duping doesn't exist, Blizzard can't ban you for buying duped pets/mounts right?

I'm actually not aware of anyone being banned for purchasing duped pets/mounts for personal use. There is the possibility that the item could be removed from your inventory if Blizzard identifies a duper and subsequently removes duped items as a result, but even that doesn't usually seem to happen - perhaps because identifying duping with certainty is pretty tough.

First of, i havnt seen blizzard employe actualy deny duping, they usualy try and divert from talking about it, something that i think is a good idea, the more people that talk about duping the, the more people will want to know how to do it, and the more likely we are to having more things getting duped. (yes i see the irony in my post).

Second, i had a mate that got a small ban for buying a spectral tiger mount, that was believed to be duped, he made contact to a GM (clearly a mistake) about the mount after buying it, and they banned him for a short time and took the mount away.

Also saw a post further up talking about tcg mounts duping, and the spectral tiger used to be duped a bit, you could somehow learn it without losing the item from your inventory, and then just sell that. I guess its not actual duping as you cant keep making more, but it somewhat increase the number of them thats available

[Aalea]

Problem with this theory... trial accounts cannot trade with anyone. You cannot give them gold or items, they cannot give you gold or items.

You can if you put them on your friends list or invite them to a group.

[Littlething]

Has this started? A level 1 has been spamming VH along with Rocket Chicken, Spec tiger cub and D kite all night with multiple Horrors for trade (so they say) on my realm. Until I see different lvl 1s i'm thinking it could just be a legit player, but i've noticed a surge in people wanting to trade them over the past few days too. I hope it's not going to start getting duped!

[Avalee]

I bought a Horror last weekend from the AH, but I checked the seller and it was a level 90 with a very high iLevel. If it was a level 1 seller, I wouldn't have bought it.

[Nivrax]

I've yet to see any Kites, and I only saw one Spectral Kitten on AH, which I had to shell 100k. There is a lvl1 priests in trade constantly offering all TCG pets, but I'm fairly sure it's scam, else you would see those pets on AH from people trying to re-sell them. I mean, Deathchargers were down to 10-15k at one point of Cata, and now I still can't find single rare pet.

[Waynebrady]

Yeah this Viscous Horror dupe is indeed happening. The amount of horrors on the AH has trippled in the past week.

[Shinii]

hate to say it, but yet more rare and hard to get pets are about to be duped :S, was informed by a duper today that next month has these 2 pets coming...

PROPHECY IS BEING FULFILLED !!!!!!!!!!

[Deadlycurves]

I bought a VH on the weekend after months of saving...and waiting. It had been nearly 6 months since one was last on AH and that was for 200k. So imagine my delight when i saw one in trade being sold for 80k. I contacted the seller who though a lvl 1,was from a guild i recognised as advertising for raiding toons a while back. He agreed to hold it for me while i searched all my alts for coin and accepted the 77k i was able to scrape together.
A few minutes later i am boasting about finally getting it to a fellow pet collector/friend/rival when she replies that the same seller was advertising more of them and ethereal soul trader. So have a bought a dupe/stolen item, i honestly don't know but having read the above posts i suspect that my 6 months of savings have gone to a gold farmer.

[Aislinge]

A VH has popped up on the Dath'Remar AH about a week ago - started at 90k, now at 80k. Whether or not it's duped is hard to say - I have toons across half a dozen Oceanic servers and so far, it's the only one I've seen in months.

As for the others, it's hard to tell with Rocket Chickens considering they're available on the BMAH. I recently sold one in the AH for 99k and I had bought it from the BMAH.

[Tekulve2012]

Hi folks
I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but I am an optimist in how I see all this. Here are my points:

1) We all knew that the VH would get more common. A 1/83 drop does drop after all. A ton of players would be gunning for it since it was worth 100k+. So anyone who held on to their VH thinking it would be 100k eternally... not realistic.

2) Most higher priced tcg's have been duped {though the Rocket Chicken and Tuskarr seem safe atm . The unfortunate part is that some buyers are probably holding off buying non duped tcg's until the whole fleet gets duped and cheaper

3) People like cheap AH prices newly 'cheap' pets will likely sell (esp. VH in the 50-75k range) regardless of duping suspicions because people will sometimes flip the pet on higher pop realms or their desperate low pop realms if they have a main toon there

4) Blizzard seems to have left pet collector's in the lurch when it comes to duping. They cant seem to solve the issue and the pet economy is relatively risky for this reason

5) A Level 1 toon selling a pet(s) does not mean these sellers are strictly gold farmers...many, many long-term fair players (like me) make gold in legit ways and have gold on many realms to be in position to get pets-and sell pets- at good prices on many realms. So be careful not to lump every lvl 1 selling toon into the "gold farmer" category. I find the term odd anyhow since any seller intends to make gold ...I realize that pets are being acquired in shady ways. When the # available jumps dramatically, it is dubious but mixed in there will be players trying to sell off extra pets before the value tanks completely.

[Tekulve2012]

The #'s don't support a Tuskarr dupe btw ... 5 available horde wide 2 days ago and 11 today. It probably jumped to 11for the simple fact that sellers know that the gold made by sold Hoorors will get re-invested in 'safer' pets like the Rocket Chicken and Tuskarr.

[Ravnhawk]

Tekluv - That's a great idea using the Tamer title on bank toons. I'll also look when I buy to see if level 1's are using the Tamer title. I'd feel a whole lot better buying pets from them.

I'm pretty sure VH's are being duped though 8 on Illidan ah over the past few days by lvl 1's with lots of weird ASCII chars in their names makes me suspicious. Also the number available on the ah over all servers just keeps getting higher by leaps and bounds. I hoped they aren't being duped but who knows. It's suspicious but I have no proof.

I do know several guilds are running TOT weekly just for the pet. Seems the pet goes to the guild to be sold by the guild for guild gold. I do know this is happening on Zul'jin and Stormrage. I'm not sure about Illidan. But when I see a lvl one guild-ed in a large guild I am less hesitant to buy a VH from them, simply because of so many guilds running ToT for the pet.

Though I admit on Madoran there was a lvl that joined one of the pets there, that seemed to have an unlimited supply of level 1 and level 6 Spectral tiger cubs. Not that person I wouldn't buy from. I spoke to 6 fellow guildies that had bought the pet form him all the while he had 3 cubs on the AH. I haven't seen any more he might have sold out his supply.