VII. Buying and Selling Account Guides
I am in no way claiming these guides to be the work of my own. The sources of these guides have been listed under the title, the author has premited the use of these guides. The guys were originally intended for World of Warcraft Account selling, but are yet written so well, they work for nearly any game.
- Hessinger
All Guides are courtesy of
Selling currency, accounts, and services, for gamers and companies.
1. Safely selling virtual goods for top dollar
Source: RPG Seller; http://www.rpgreseller.com/sellingwoweq.html
Rule 1: If you have ANY feedback on playerauctions.com, sell it yourself. If you take a quick offer from a broker, you just lost about 50%. Most people tend to sell accounts when they need fast money, so this might be your only option. It should be a last resort, however. More money is always better. The first part of this guide shows you how to sell on your own.
Rule 2: Information and presentation sells. The first thing you'll need to study is what's important. The fastest way to determine that is to visit a large gaming or auction site where accounts are sold. For this guide, I focus on World of Warcraft.
ige.com
ebay.com
playerauctions.com
World of Warcraft account sales
The first thing a buyer does when shopping is do a search by class and server. (This makes it inportant to have in any auction title.)
After listing auctions that match a class and server, a buyer looks at the titles to compare how advanced each account is. Ambiguous titles are often ignored!
Level 60 Orc shaman, Icecrowne, 6/8 earthshaker
If your game has warring player versus player factions such as World of Warcraft (Alliance vs Horde) - list your race or faction in the title.
If your character is transferable - say so on the auction title. Many buyers will consider buying your account and transferring to the server of their choice. (This has a strong impact on bidding, especially for powerful accounts.)
Additional research:
Log into ebay.com
In the upper right hand corner, click on Advanced Search
Make your search match the example:
before selling a warcraft or everquest account, do some research, learn from the pros.
After obtaining your search results, sort the results by price so the highest prices are at the top.
(you will have to click twice.)
before selling a warcraft or everquest account, do some research, learn from the pros.
The highest priced auctions are the best accounts, but they also have the best information and presentation. You can nolonger sell wow accounts on Ebay, but you could be searching for buttplugs and the same truth will present itself. If you've done online auctions before, you know that the same product can be sold by two people and the way it's presented can make a 50% difference in selling value. Now list by lowest price, you'll see everything that didn't even get bids, or got very low bidding. These are the people that failed. A lot of them failed because they didn't know what they were doing.
Looking at the best and worst selling accounts shows you what to do and what NOT to do.
Rule 3: NEVER sell your account with text alone, or with a few sentences talking about how it's cool, and then a link to a profile. If you did your research, you have learned that these auctions sell very poorly.
Rule 4: ALWAYS have a profile. For World of Warcraft, and any other game which bans you for selling accounts, be sure to anonymize your name. For World of Warcraft users, I recommend using ctprofiles.net (In the future, magelo.com will be supporting WoW.)
Rule 5: Screenshots. I recommend the use of Paintshop Pro or Adobe Photoshop. If you have neither of these, click on your start button, click Run, type mspaint. To take a screenshot, press the 'Print screen' button on your keyboard. Click on the MSpaint window, and press CTRL + V. Remove or blur your name in screenshots. This not only protects your account from banning, it provides anonymity to the buyer. Very important if you were a well known player such as a guild leader.
Rule 5.5: Deguild.
Rule 6: Equipment - a buyer needs to know how well equipped you are, if you followed rule 4, then you are halfway done. You must also use text (or images if possible) to show anything special that your player has. Got a rare sword or epic quest equipment? show it. TELL them why it's special and that only 3 people in the game have it. And... if you have absolutely no epic or special equipment, don't flaunt your average equipment. You'll lose all credibility and devalue your account.
Rule 7: Keywords - anything that a player might search for needs to be not only in the title, but the auction page itself. You will make more money if you include things such as the title of the game. 'wow, world of warcraft, level 60 rogue' - Notice I typed rogue instead of rog. If you abbreviate, you lose customers.
Rule 8: Examine my auctions. I've been doing this for years, the best example I can give you is one of my own at rpgreseller.com. Dont' be scared of HTML. If you look at Ebay, you'll see that even the guy that barely knows it can still make an auction that sells for top dollar. If you can control your text, make links, and include pictures, you know everything necessary to make a top selling auction. (you can learn that in a day.) I recommend Mozilla as an HTML editor.
Rule 9: Tell your friends. Why? Because somebody's going to have your identity and your friends will say hello. What happens if the new owner says, "Hey, cool sword, can I HOLD it?" or "Hey, can you loan me some gold?" - not good.
Rule 10: Read the rest of this page, you cannot buy and sell safely unless you've read ALL of it, including the section on brokers.
Rule 11. Don't use reserve prices, use starting bid prices. When a bidder places a bid and sees, 'reserve not met' - they quickly lose interest in the auction because they know it's probably a rediculous price like $1000 for an account that's only worth $600. Reserve prices are used my amateurs that overvalue their assets. Use a starting bid that matches the minimum amount you will accept for your auction.
Rule 12: Know the Rules
If selling on ebay, you must word your auctions carefully. Ebay is against selling virtual assets, so you must sell hard assets. Saying something like, "Selling world of warcraft installation CDs with manual" can mean your auction of otherwise virtual goods won't get pulled.
Rule 13: Know what your account is worth. 8 out of 10 customers want me to sell their account for a thousand dollars. Realtors have the same problem selling houses. People start out with stars in their eyes. The problem here is that with selling, if you aim for the stars, you don't get the moon, you get less than your property is worth because all the poeple that WERE interested the first time are gone or think you're stupid, or wonder what's wrong with your property that it didn't sell and now the price is lower. (They won't be back.) Find out what it's really worth by finding something just like it that recently sold. Then set your starting price 50% LOWER than the final price. High prices don't attract bidders. Sometimes, the best way to sell a house is to undervalue it and let buyers go nuts. Some of those wildly priced auctions that you looked at earlier... they started at a penny. Think about it.
Notice! If you are going to sell on playerauctions.com - be aware that their instructions haven't been updated for years and half their site doesn't work. Don't bother using the page for setting up your credit card, it doesn't work. You need to contact
support@playerauctions.com for instructions. In order to register to sell - they will need a scan of your credit card (front and back), ID card, and a bill or banking statement with your address on it. Their customer service is not very good, so you may need to contact them more than once. Once you're registered to sell, it's one of the best resources to sell virtual assets.
Rule 14: Get your CD keys. Dig them out. They increase selling value dramaticly. Note in your auction that you have the CD Keys used to register (open) the account.
2. Selling Safely
Source: RPG Seller; http://www.rpgreseller.com/sellingwoweq.html
1. If a person has low feedback or you cannot verify them, do NOT accept paypal. Have them pay you safely with moneybookers.com, USPS money order, or Western Union. Money orders are not reversible like paypal, and they aren't well known for being hacked either.
2. Verify them. Get some evidence that shows they are whom they claim to be.
Get their landline telephone number and call them on it so you know it's good. 411.com will let you do a reverse search on a telephone number to get the matching address. Now you know you aren't talking to a disposable cellphone, and you also know that a telco company has them on file.
Calling script: "Hello Mr, Sanders, this is Jane Colloway from sellingstuff.com - I'm calling to verify that you have made a paypal purchase for product x, in the amount of Z." - (If they have no idea that they bought something, then alert them to immediately secure the banking and paypal information as well as have their computer checked for infections. It might also be good to check with their family.)
3. If they don't have a landline that's listed, ask for their living address and bring up a mapquest.com map of their city and neighborhood. If they don't really live there, they will have a hard time answering questions like, What is your county and zip code? What are the big crossroads next to where you live? Name a freeway going to town?
At this point, it is also time to obtain their IP address from an email, to check their country and city.
Outlook Express instructions:
Select the message you want to investigate.
Right click.
Select Properties.
Select the Details tab at the top of the message window.
Look for the last block of text that looks like
Received from [67.133.144.53]
That is their IP address. Save it for the next step.
It is necessary to keep the email because it also has other information that is useful in a successful prosecution of internet fraud. If defrauded, copy/paste the information you're looking at and send it to paypal. It will help them know if it's the real user, or a hacker that hijacked their account. If it's the real user, they're busted!
4. Go to dnsstuff.com - look for the column of titled IP Tests, run the IP Information test.
If you run the IP address shown earlier, you get Mt Pleasant, Michigan. If the customer says they're in Utah, but their IP address says New York, he or she is lying.
Last resort, you can also ask for a scan of driver's license, or credit card (with numbers blurred) It's easier to get someone's information online than it is to steal their wallet.
NOTE: Buyers will pay you more if they can buy in confidence. That requires THEM to verify YOU. If any buyer questions your legitimacy, have them verify you by using the same methods. Don't put contact information in your auction pages though... that can be used by gaming companies.
3. Selling to a Broker
Source: RPG Seller; http://www.rpgreseller.com/sellingwoweq.html
1: If you're on recurring billing, stop the recurring billing. You account will remain active for another month from the time you do this. While logged in, change your email address to something fictional. Most brokers never update this and you really do want to be anonymous from the new account owner. If they do something stupid and get banned, you don't want them tracking you down.
2. Be prepared to accept paypal. Brokers use paypal because it gives them about 30 days to yank the payment back. This protects them from people selling the Statue of Liberty. If you want a different payment option, both your assets and your identity need to be verified.
3: If your account is inactive, activate it. Brokers don't buy inactive accounts. That's like buying oceanfront property in Utah. Seeing is believing. I will also sell you the Statue of Liberty for $1000.
4. Have a profile created for every high level character on your account and be prepared to give your login information so they can verify it. (Saying that you have an account doesn't prove you have an account. I really do own the Statue of Liberty!)
5. Be prepared to be verified. They will want to call you on a landline telephone number, know your name, street address, and where your birthmark is. This makes it easy to prosecute you if you try to scam them.
6. Be an informed customer: Get quotes from several brokers, you might be in for a shock when you see how much their offers differ. (It's a LOT!)
memighty1.com
http://www.mmotrust.com
http://www.game-frenzy.com
http://www.warcraftloot.net
7. Don't ask, "Are you going to steal my account." - If they are a thief, they might be a liar too. Think about it. All you've done is insult the person you're trying to do business with.
8. That password that you gave to your friends, family, guildies, girlfriend.... change it. Never give a broker your regular password. They might not change it either, then when bad stuff happens - who do you blame? Each broker that takes a look gets a new temporary password. Then you change it when they're done looking.
9. Do not give your Security Question answer or registration information until the deal is agreed. (Most games don't let you change a password or account information without answering the SQ. SQs are normally something like, "What is your mother's maiden name?" "Where did you grow up?" "who is your childhood hero?"
10. After you and the broker have agreed to make a deal, THEN, give him or her your SQ and other registration info. (Birthdate, address, etc. - all the information that was you when you started the account.) This information is for account recovery.
11. Just incase you ever sell coin... consider breaking transactions into small amounts and waiting. Most hacked accounts don't last more than 72 hours.
4. Safe Buying Practices
Source: RPG Seller; http://www.rpgreseller.com/sellingwoweq.html
Paypal allows you to reverse payments for up to 30 days if you have a dispute with the seller that you paid. They usually require them to provide proof of delivery. Because of this, paypal is pretty safe. As a buyer, you want to avoid sending a moneyorder because you receive no buyer protection.
For the greatest security, use your credit card to fun a paypal transaction. If the seller does not have a paypal box on their site and wants you to log into paypal and pay them - Ask them to just log into paypal THEMSELVES and send an invoice. Responding to invoices or paying through a paypal form on a web page allows you to do the following...
PAY WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD! - Credit card companies can get your money returned up to a full year later if you have a problem or dispute. It's not as easy as filing a paypal dispute, but credit companies employ the best lawyers to deter fraud. Not only will you get your money back, the seller will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.