So it had to happen right? Great big bank – full of loot – it’s only a matter of time before someone decides to make off with it.
For members of a guild on Bleeding Hollow, not only was their guild bank ninja’d – but from the looks of it – Blizzard can’t or won’t tell them who the culprit was.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, the guild leaders were doing a regular audit of the transaction logs for the bank. According to one of their members who posted the report on the Blizzard Customer Service Forums, the audit log detailed over 1500G worth of gold and items had been removed early on the morning of November 25th by a character named “unknown.” When the guild officers checked their bank log on the Armory, the name was reported as “null.”
The rank of the guild member was apparently that of an “officer” with full access to the bank tabs. Blizzard GM’s are reported to have confirmed the following in regards to the missing “name.”
The only way the name would be showing as “unknown or null” in the logs are if:
- The character name was changed
- The player switched servers
- The character was deleted
Guild officers are continuing to contend with Blizzard over whether or not they can find out the identity of this mysterious thief. The members claim that the officers involved are all long time friends or dedicated and loyal players. They also claim that no one with the needed access had recently joined (or left) the guild.
While it is impossible to speculate how the banking system might be exploited from outside, most players are seeing the likely culprit to be a dishonest officer who decided to jack the bank and abuse one of Blizzards recent service offerings:
i.e. Paid server transfers and paid name changes….
It would have been fairly simple for an officer to invite an alt to the guild – promote that alt to the needed rank for bank access – and then proceed to ninja at leisure before buying $10-25 worth of anonymity.
While perhaps not a perfect crime it’s a pretty good one. Guild members are angry because Blizzard cannot provide a list of guild promotions during the time in question nor is Blizzard willing (or able) to give the guild members names of any characters that /gquit, transfered, or changed their name over the same time frame. While it’s pretty certain that the data is available in Blizzard server logs – the question of release to the guild impacts Blizzards need to protect the privacy of other customers.
No one from Blizzard has commented on fixes or changes to the guild bank in the future, but it’s safe to say that until they do – it’s important for guild leaders to think long and hard about who gets the keys to the guild vault.
AMEN Brother. My guild has already stopped to would-be jackers from getting access. Both were impersonating the old GM. Cept the guild has had the same officers for long enough that we all know each other pretty well. This guy dropped some info thinking it would get him in, but he gave it to the the person who knew the info was wrong. Red flags raised, plot foiled.
Thats why MY Bank alt GM self has a one man Guild.
Can’t say I’m surprised.
I’m skeptical of the whole Guild Bank thing. While I tend to believe that most guildies have the best intentions, when dealing with valuable items and coin there’s got to be some process with it. I can see where it could be missused pretty easily.
I hadn’t paid much attention to the GB announcement, and when I logged in with one of my alts a couple days after the patch I noticed those big GB doors in the Banks. When I opened one I saw all this stuff. My impression was that this is nice, but what am I supposed to do now? I would love to put a bunch of items and coin into the bank, but I’m not sure if (or how) it gets distributed. I asked what guildies where on and got no response.
I’m sure it could be a very good thing and that some have put it to great use. I just don’t know enough about it.
Og
Og’s Ledger – http://ogsledger.blogspot.com
My char isn’t in an active guild anymore, but whats to stop a dishonest officer with access from inviting an level 1 alt char/friend. Promoting said alt, and then mailing contents to self then promptly deleting? Then after all is said, and done feigning ignorance of the theft.
The Guild bank logs transactions from what I hear, and also limits ranks in the guild to how much they can withdraw, but there’s no log of promotions/demotions done by an officer of the guild. Especially during off hours. There needs to be greater detail in the guild bank logs over an ‘honor’ system imho.
I like teh guild bank idea, but you do have to be careful as to who gets access. I think in this case it was someone spoofing a guild officer.
Phishing in WoW!