Restoring lost items and characters

Hey.

I recently came back to GW from a long break only to find out that my account was hacked. After the help of NCSoft I successfully restored my password and now I'm able to log in.

The only problem is that I lost some 100k+90 ectos and 3 elite armor sets, one of which is FoW armor.

I asked if it was possible to restore lost items but I just got a big no. I'm not sure why, but GW doesn't have the ability to restore items.

My question is, why? For example in WoW you always get your lost items back, no matter how many times you've been hacked, but here you just don't. People work on their characters for years and because they accidentally visited a bad website or downloaded software that resulted in a keylogger they lose everything that they put into their characters and there's no way to get it back.

I know that people should be careful and take good care of their accounts, but people make mistakes, and I think it's normal that in 4 years of browsing the internet and downloading stuff you accidentally download one keylogger.

I appreciate it that NCSoft help with recovering lost accounts but they could also at least recover some of the lost items, or even deleted characters.

There is no function on the live servers to create items.

Even if the ability existed, how would ANet know that you were being honest about what was lost? I can just imagine the support tickets with huge lists of missing ectos and one-of-a-kind items.

Items can't be created, period. The only items that exist are the ones that have been found. It's not like a GM can create you an ecto with a few simple keypresses. They simply do not have that ability.

I wholeheartedly agree that they should be able to restore items, and hopefully (Hopefully!) this will be fixed in Guild Wars 2, but, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Individual roll-backs are a must in these hacking days, but, unfortunately GW1 simply isn't equipped to do that.

Best of luck regaining your items. It'll be a lot easier if you have generous friends.

on the test servers, items CAN be created 2 ways:

-a command (sort of like a cheat code)
-a trader (both ones that have craftable items, except they want 1 gold for say an obsidian armor piece, or for a rare mini, or whatever)

They COULD replace items, but it would be too much of a headache for them, plus people would try to take advantage of it

Anyways, I really hope that for GW2 they keep in mind that this is an issue, and they'll have a better way of restoring things lost that warrant a grievance

1. The number and quality of support staff to investigate and determine who was really hacked and who is trying to trick support into duping their stuff for them would be prohibitively expensive.

2. Since people have trouble understanding #1, it's easier to tell them that it's a technical limitation.

3. From an in-game economic policy perspective, restoring lost items can have a serious effect on the supply of both gold and super-rare items. (Ex: If someone with a super-rare mini of which only, say, 10 exist gets hacked, restoring that item would create an 11th one in the overall marketplace.) One might disagree with it, but it's a reasonable policy decision to say you will never ever do that.

Sorry, I have to disagree with you Chthon.

A company that runs servers and has support staff should be able to check logs and inventorys to each individual character that was hacked or not. Yes we all know it would be too much time consuming but as they say they have a 'game surveillance unit'. There is no technical limitation but the staffing resources to compete with the demand that would come through for restoring items/gold would be abominable. As for the in-game economics thats a crap response. IF, there are, say 10 rare items that exist they would not need to create a 11th for the hacked person but just follow the coding to where that item is and delete it. Simplicity in itself with no change with in-game economics

But the hacker already sold the mini (say for 1000 arms - just for the sake of simplicity) and the customer dedicated the pet. More, the dervs can't even give back the money, as the hacker used 1000 arms he got from mini +750 arms he got from hacking somebody else to buy a rare weapon and the guy who sold it used all of the arms to buy himself a lot of gwamms. So what should the dervs do?
From what gaile and others have stated, if they find the missing items on the hacker's account those are given back, it's when the items have been traded (and it happens almost always) that things get complicated.

somehow some special stuff was added over time. if recreating lost items wasn't faulty by just it's idea, they could always reply with 'ok, we know what you've lost, we'll restore it as soon as any occassion for a new build comes - any event, balance, tweak, maintenance etc.

so don't Oo

i doubt that if you get a random keylogger or some kind of trojan from someone not related, even remotely, to gw, they would bother with hacking your gw account. this means that you would have to download a malicious gw-related software. what gw-related software would you need to download to play besides the game itself from official ncsoft site?

not really. or at least you should be able to quickly say that something's wrong and then change all your passwords.


even though it may sound paranoid for you, there are ways to protect yourself. change your password from time to time, use a decent av, use antimalware, clean up your registry, use hijackthis. protect your password. use common sense.
even though i got hacked twice (not in gw, but still), i believe it's person's own fault that they got hacked. password not strong enough, password given out, downloaded any 'pro uber' software as a bot (with logger in it), not using (or using a shitty) av/firewall, etc.

please just do not compare a hacker to a killer, stating that if someone kills you it's your fault cause you haven't trained judo much enough, if we follow the above logic. some may disagree, but internet is not real life. i'd still like to see all actual hackers (that is: sending keyloggers, using bruteforce; is NOT: those that take advantage of you when you give them your password) punished, but redistributing the items is a bit too much.

and i agree totally with Chthon at point 3.
Reborn, are you totally sure ANet can track every single item (including every bit of gold, as it's an item to redistribute as well) by it's own special number? imagine that someone hacked to you and stole 500k of gold. before you even found that out, the hacker bought some stuff from various players, eventually redistributing all 500k.
first of all, how would they be able to keep the track of this gold? every bit would have to have it's own unique number or they would have to check all the trades of the suspected hacker. but now, how would they find out that hacker? and without finding out who it was, how could they check that 500k? they could check your trades, but now - how can they be sure you haven't traded it yourself or asked someone to do so, as protecting your own account is your duty, not theirs?
second, even if they could find exactly 'that' 500k, redistributed as hell now, why would they delete the money from random people that had nothing to do with hacking your account and had no idea that the money was stolen? there's no logical reason to do so.
so should they just give you back 500k and add it randomly to the market? even if they could check your character that you actually had that much money earlier and your char traded it to someone for nothing, it's still faulty.
just imagine all frauds made this way - ask a guildie (of course not through gw chat) to 'hack' into your account through proxy (or whatever - the options are endless) and 'steal' stuff from you. then you send a ticket to ANet...


have you read eula and all terms of agreement they feed you with when installing the game?
if not, sorry for you.
if yes, you should be aware that no items will be restored and you have to protect yourself on your own.

IMO, they should have the login like this:
Username / Email
PW
Character name
and then if all of those are correct, then you get a window popping up that u click on numbers or letter on it, something like a pin number. CLICK because if you get a keylogger they can't know where and what u clicked

there are keyloggers that perfectly log mouse clicks as well. welcome to the internet, enjoy your stay.

Mouse clicks, yes, but I am pretty sure that keylogger can't "see" the numbers created within the game (a virtual keyboard).

They can log the cursor coordinates on screen, so, unless the virtual keyboard changes position any time you login, it's fairly easy to guess what code you've input.

Wow..you guyz make things complicated...the real fact is that they CAN but they dont want...too much job,too much stress...
6 months ago i was playng Zhyper MU, i dont know if anyone know it..btw is a RPG like GW,online, sure..i got scammed : i sold 1 pair of wing (an armor piece to make it simple) and i get nothing because other player drop item fast on trade..I open a thread on official forum and in 13 hours i get my armor piece back..they only ask to keep my upper inventory space clear to put item on it....My girlfriend got scammed too in that game (90% of players are scammers) and she lost 200 Souls (equivalent of ectos in Guild War)..they ask always same thing: upper inventory space clear, and after 5 hour (5 HOUR GUYZ,not days or weeks, HOURS) she get all 200 Souls back...
Now who care if scammer resell item, keep it or just destroy it? I lost an item cause scammer or hack and i want my item back...end of story, all other problems about items are not my problems and Admin/Mods/Programmers/Society need resolve them without involve players....Its just a game and i have paid for it, so i want all support possible IF IS NOT MY FAUL..if its my faul then they cant do nothin and i just shut up...

Even if it "knows" they are there? I would have supposed a keylogger could still deduce those from the clicks, until the numbers are placed in a random position at each log in, and even then be able to read the numbers themselves (until pehalphs they are modified to be not easily readable and have an expiration time...)

because people who bought the said item from scammer want to have the item they paid for. because people who sold items to that scammer for said stolen gold want to have that gold as they are unaware of it's condition.
use your common sense, don't get scammed. use common sense and BASIC internet safety, don't get hacked. it's as easy as that, really.

they restore stolen accounts, giving you back the access to their server to be able to play. that's what eula (or other agreement, doesn't matter) says. however getting scammed/hacked is more or less your fault. it was my fault twice when i got 'hacked'. we have a proverb over here, not sure how it works in english - an opportunity makes a thief. don't give away any opportunities to steal from you.

Ok ok..(i understand the proverb too :P)
Btw, why in all other games they can restore everthing and here no?who care if scammer sell my items,keep it or destroy it?Just wrote a line command and give me back items, nothing of more simple...or maybe...programmer cant do it?O.o
But im sure they can, they can check chat log,they can check all in this game.
Sure you must have proofs, you cant ask to restore 10 stack of ectos without have a ss....but if i have it?if i have the screen of scam with the item/items in trade chat?all they just need do is ban the guy and create my item back.. But what they do?they ban the guy (FOR 1 MONTHS O.o) and dont restore my items...nice support,i've spent 120€ (162,78$) to have no support...fail.
PS: in Zhyper MU i spent 0€ (0$) to get full support + item restor, AND FAST TOO.

Restoring items in a hack can lead to a lot of abuse (and it can have a large impact on economy).
The stupidest example (sorry, I'm not in a very creative mood, lol):
1. I buy 10 rare minis.
2. I "hack" into my account (using something to hide my real IP ofc).
3. Trade those to a gimmick account I bought for very cheap on amazon and I intend to sacrifice for ingame money.
4. "Sell" those minis for much less then their real price to my second account/boyfrined/girlfriend.
5. Sell those minis for their real value.
6. Cry hack and free my 10 upper slots.
7. Get minis backs.

Gain: minis price minus the money my second account/boy/girlfriend used to excuse the trade between "hacker" and my/him/herself.

In a scamming situation (how we ended speaking about scamming btw lol), you always have a part of guilt in the scam, be it negligence, ignorance or trust, so a perma ban for the scammer could be probably very questionable (yes, he said he will give 100k and instead gave 100g, but it stated 100g in the trade window when you pressed accept). The trade could be nullified probably though, dunno why they don't do it.

Fist of all, Anet programmers need restore items, not restore items by yourself...
Second you cant know the real situation, so can be a real hack/scam or can be only a false scam as you said..who care?ban/perma ban the scam back and restore items to scammed guy...the real problem is that A LOT of PLAYERS/PROGRAMMERS/SOCIETY live in a illusion and they think that GW is a real world not a video games..so every things they do its based on it...they need start to think that GW is a nothing more a video game and start help seriously people that pay for play it..OMG who care about economy game?or items or everything?The problem is very simple : I've paid to play,a guy broke the rule and steal my items/account illegally, ban the bad guy and give my items back..stop, problems solved..ALL, read >>ALL<< ,other games dont have problems for that, GW have problems...Mu Fight,Zyper Mu,Sacred,Diablo, (some ppl said WoW) and more others restore accounts/Items,they only ask you a proof in change.If you prove it(In Zhyper Mu they can even check logs to see if its true or not) then they can help you.
And btw,you can hide IP, you can do everthing you want to hide the scam if they want solve the problems they have the power to change everything they want..so: delete that mini (or those 10 minis) and restore all trades..if real money are in middle of trade YOUR FAULT, you cant ask support.End of story,they just dont want..too much work..

Example: X,Y,Z.
X have 10 Rare minis..
Y scam/hack X account and stole all minis.
Y sell minis to Z. Z pay 100$ (REAL MONEY).
Z ded them.
Programmers can : Delete Z Minis,and remove from GH..If he paid something in game money or value,they can restore.
Ban Y..perma or temporaly..but ban him.
Restore X minis in his inventory...
Who care if Z lost 100$..His fault,he bought them for real money so NO SUPPORT...bye bye..

In my example I meant that at point 6, i send an email to anet telling I was hacked. What they see is: a hacker (Y, gimmick account I don't care about) got into X's account then sold the items he hacked to Z. Even if Z and X are in the same guild/alliance (and even if they have the same IP, doesn't mean they are the same person) there is no proof that Z is somehow involved (innocent until proven guilty :P). Now, let's say Z bought those minis from Y for 1750 armbraces. Then he passed some time in spamadan and sold those for a total of 10000 armbraces. Obviously Z doesn't wish to get back the 1750 arms for 10000 arms so, until proven guilty, it won't be fair if anet just took 8250 arms from Z (as he lost his time and effort to buy and sell the minis, not worth the 8250 arms, but that's not for anet to judge upon). The 1-10 pple who bought minis don't wish those trades to be restored either (and they have no fault at all) and they might have sold those minis to other pple as well. So, considering that a good investigation would take some time, there might be a large number of trades to null which would provoke a lot of problems to many pple, none of which deserve it. (And this is supposing there were only trades between items - suppose A bought one of those minis (zhed) and resold it for a dhumm's soul breaker + whiptail devourer (for simplicity sake :P), A has a guildie named B, who is totally broke. A giftes B with the devourer. B is lucky and is able to sell the devourer from 3k. B uses those 3k to pay a runner LA-Sanctum and Sanctum Cay mission. B, keeps doing missions and quests and completes Prophecies. Now the trades need to be restored. A needs to give back zhed, but for that he needs to give back the soul breaker+whiptail -> B needs to give back the whiptail -> B needs to give back 3k to the guy he sold whiptail to -> runner needs to give back 3k -> B needs to give runner back the time and effort the runner lost in the run -> B should not experince any gain from a run he got the money back for, so his char needs to be moved back to LA... now, ofc 3k could be restored without really affecting economy, but this shows that the idea has serious flaws.)
So the only thing to do is to create 10 new minis from scratch and give them to X.
Now X, from this "hack", gained a lot. Now T,C,V,K,L,O,H, etc have the same idea.
Depending on how many pple use this (or, more likely, a better system then this) the result will vary, but it still doesn't look appealing.

It looks like a darn big mess for Anet to entangle, Yasmine.

Maybe Blizzard is able to restore items because they've got a huge support devision behind them, and maybe the f2p MMO's don't care much about possible abusing of spawning items in someones inventory.

The problem is funds - anet doesnt have the funds or staff to fully investigate and redo ( or w/a ) the items and if they take any staff from gw2 theres a public outcry as gw2 will be delayed.
Blizzard well lets see x players paying x monthly x12 = money aney doesnt get because we dont get charged monthly to play a game we already paid for.

Think of the hackers/scammers as owning a chopshop - then trying to find which car had your nut which you so want back - crap example but it shows how big a job it is.
Also how much time and logs do you need to get thru - what you may think is an easy task actually isnt always as easy - when mr X was hacked and his items were sold is the time of day known , a big factor is How many players were online at that time ... maybe when gw2 comes out the 2 staff members may have got thru part of the logs.

Yes its bad when this happens but then again its a game and even in real life theres ppl who have been robbed/burgled and never got their items back - but ingame its easier to get most things again when real life it isnt.

I understand what you say Jasmine....btw, if you buy a stolen item and anet or ncsoft tell it to you and they say that they give back money spend for it i dont think is a problem.
If this is a problem, just create items, give back to scammed player and stop.
I dont think that in other games they check ALL TRADES, and they restore ALL items..they simply create new items and give back to scammed guyz..easy & fast...all talk about economy, guyz..we are speaking about a video games..if you sell a unded Zhed and you ded it the price of petroil dont raise eh -.-...So i dont undertand all those problems for restoring an item..If its hard check all logs/trades etc (i can agree if its hard) just create an items with a line command and stop (anet or ncsoft programmers,not by yourself).I dont think that when i was scammed on Zhyper MU, they chek all logs/and trade for get back my wings, they just look my ss and create a new pair, and deliver to me..stop..then they ban the guy, thats sure.
Where is the problem?and please dont say Economy.
When you sell a game,when ppl spent money,when you offer a support service you need to help customers with all problems not with 50% of them, really that suck...
Maybe you can investigate better if we speak about very rare minis and unique items, but for example 50/100/stack of ectos or items like Emerald blade/vs/obsidian or Zkeys, or minor minis (kuuna,gwen doll) or EL tonics...no problem restore 1 of them...
maybe for something like oni or zhed or other things you can try to restore all trades, but for the rest no EXCUSE.

In real life is different, you country cant get your money back even they are stolen,there are a lot of problems beside it..but in a vido games lol..you just need 1 command line..no one loose money,not your country or not you lol.

It is possible for them to restore items, but as a general rule, they don't. They've only restored very special items to a limited number of people in the past.

They don't do it because they don't want to set the precedent for restoring items to accounts whenever they're hacked. Restoring entire inventories has never been done, as far as I know.

That is not a good rule...GW is the only game that dont do it in case of hack/scam...btw you have confirmed what i said, they CAN but the dont want do it..Gz....
I have a question : How much time they Ban a scammer?And in case of Hack?

I agree that it shouldn't be a problem, although a lot of pple will be dissapointed, but I bet it would provoke more QQ then any sf nerf/missed update ever will. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, lol.

I don't fully agree: if anet adds another mad king guard mini (there 20 now) the prices of those will get down, so, even though all the 20 pple who had one still have their, it lost it's value a bit, so, if they planned to keep it, nothing really changes, but if they intended to sell them, now they lost some money. Thus, depending on how many items are created anew, a powertrader might lose a lot. Ofc they will still have their items, but those items for them were just a money currency and now they are worthless. Of course, it's just a game, and it's an ingame money... but that applies in the same manner to the items that were lost due to a hack.

I don't know about the scam (never been banned for that :P), but it's a perma ban for a hack (no, nevr been banned for this either ).

In this case, if we speaking about a very rare minipet/tonic, maybe they can investigate and spent more time to resolve the problem..checking logs/trades etc...but if we speaking about a kuunawang for example, just restore it...1 extra of them dont change nothing....1 extra EL cottontail or EBlade dont change nothing too, and you helping a scammed guy.

It still may degenerate, sadly, both in a case of hack and in a case of scam (unless the scammer gets a perma ban - which is very questionable, as a scam might occur by accident and even if not, both present in their trade has part of fault) - too many pple might attempt to "fraud" anet, possibly creating a lot of trouble to the community. As long as there is no way to know truth for certain, even a video game world won't be able to be totally fair and nice, i'm afraid.

Mmm ok....btw i think that you must help all guyz even they try to "fraud"..you cant know if they are real scammed or not...you need ask proof, and if you bring proof you MUST procede with support...
In real life the thing are more complicated, but in a video games if you stole something, scammed guy dont die for hungry..scammer cant buy something in real life with ectos stolen,or with minipets..what im tryng to say is that things of game stay in game...no one care if you restore items..anet dont loose money if they give away an emerald blade or an unded kuunawang..do you understand what im tryng to say?
The fact are simple : Anet dont want do it..they dont want help...they can but they dont want...you dont ruin a game or economy to have help a customer..
In Zhyper Mu (search online,its a RPG) every day ppl send message support to forum,and every day staffs create items to gave them back to scammed guys...im speaking about over 100/200 support message per day..and game still going on,economy still there,players still there...every day they create a lot of items to help scammed guyz...in change they only ask proof.

Stuff is sold for real life money all the time, why do you think accounts are getting hacked in the first place? What do you think the gold spammers in Kamadan are advertising?
Hilarious, simply hilarious. Of course people are still playing when they simply can fake a scam and ask support for more items.

Don't get me wrong, I'd hate if stuff gets stolen from my account, but if Anet just started spawning 100/200 items a day, seven days a week... there simply is too much room for exploiting.

So you think that is a good thing scam ppl or simple dont help them..banning scammer never get your item back,and you can lose 1 year of farm in few seconds..and no one help you..i just think that in this point of view anet fail hard.

Imagine how much would this be exploited by gold sellers. An account X fakes a scan on another account Y. Account Y can present any proof required. Account in X meanwhile sold all his items for real money. Account X would be lost anyway for selling gold, but account X this time gets all his items back. So now this can be repeated with another junk account Z.
And by players, if the ban is not perma ofc: I check guru and find a person with a lot of ectos, msg him and ask him to fake a scam. We will meet ingame and I'll scam him (possibly using a second account, which I rarely play). He will send an email to anet and will get his ectos back. I will meanwhile, sell some ectos, but some shards with that money, buy a run to the fow armorer and will get myself a fow armor... possibly on all chars. I go play fallout 3 while the tempa ban expires (or another account if i have more then 1). After that, as agreed upon the guru pm, I give the guy 100k for the trouble and enjoy my new armor. Unless anet adds some other punishment to the ban, this will be very used.
In this, those that fraud anet have major advantage compared to the rest of community. Ofc, more emerald blades will make its price drop and somebody who couldn't get it before, now can. But nobody will get such a gain, in any way, as the people provoking it, specially gold sellers.

I think it's not because they don't want to help you, but simply because they can't without making things much worse.

A-net has restored items in the past, but it cost the guy $3,000, where he offered his life savings of $10K USD for his 2 GWAMM characters that were deleted for his brother and whatnot. A-net had to rollback the servers and fly the guy in, it was a big mess.

simply put, there's no easy way to do it. It's easiest to just be secure and smart, don't get hacked or give away your password - it's why even my best friend who I've known for 10 years irl still doesn't even know the email I log into GW with.

So they cant help because ppl take advantage of it? ok then, just perma ban all scammers and delete items stolen....this is the first thing to do..after this try to restore initial situation, give back to scammed guy his/her items and money/items for those player that buy items.End of story.Its a Hard job?YES IT IS, btw its anet job support customers..instead sleep and send an anwer after 3 days,check immediatly and fix the problem soon as possible.
If you start perma ban account for 1g scam,im 100% sure that scam decrease by 50% MIN...if you go on banning ppl for 2/3/4 weeks they keep scam..

What you need to remember is that when ArenaNet released GW, they were on a shoestring budget. They did not have the manpower to start a forum or dedicate people to solving individual problems. They designed the game to not allow GMs favorites to be given items they didn't work for (a problem in WoW).

In the year after they released the second campaign they started realizing the problems they were facing and stopped trying to tweak the existing game to make everyone happy. They still had a severe shortage of employees who could be dedicated to customer satisfaction outside of skill adjustments. Remember that FTP means keeping operating costs way, way down.

Personally, when I screw up and lose something, my first thought is not "Fix it for me", it's "You idiot". I don't have my Halloween 2006 hat due to my not checking bags carefully before deleting a character. I don't blame ArenaNet. If I get hacked and my things get stolen, it will be my and my friends' problem to help me get it all again.

As has been said, it would be very difficult, especially if the hack hasn't been discovered quickly, to trace all the various trades/sales/etc for the stolen items and restore the items and gold for everyone involved. (The hackee, the hacker, the guy who bought from the hacker, the guy who traded with the guy who bought from the hacker, etc.,etc.)
Also, as has been said, some items that were still with the hacker have been restored in some cases.
I seriously doubt that any MMO would/could restore all items for everyone. They'd have to store a list of every item in your inventory every time it changed, in order to know exactly what may have been stolen. I'm sure there's anecdotal evidence of it happening, but there is no way to confirm the stories or the particular circumstances involved.
And, of course, there is the certainty of abuse if they did try to restore only your account, without tracking every other trade/sale.

Where did you get this information? Hopefully, not your cousin-nephew-niece-brother-in-law-ex-roommate-friend-ex-gf-of the sister who work at ANET?

Who care if its difficult?Who care about economy of game?I lost an item?yes,then put a command on game and create a new..end of story..catch the scammer guy and perma ban him...You cant restore my item : first of all the society suck if cant do it, second it good if you perma ban scammer instead few week ban..they start do do it again,and again and again...perma ban them and they dont scam again easy no?
Who say that is not a good thing perma ban scammers/hacker is a scammer/hacker.
If you not able to restore the items itself, give me something to "cover" it...For example : If someone hack me or scamm me, and they stole for example 1 unded kuunawang and you cannot give me back it..give me some ectos or something to cover the value to have a change to rebuy it.
If you cannot do this too then just perma ban all scammers/hackers/botters ALL....BAN them all, so you reduce "criminality".
Btw anet suck if they cant restore (or dont want) items.

no, direct quote from A-net staff on vent who I've known for a few years

You're asking for a-net to actually do a serious script that can generate items on gw1? yea right. just wait for gw2 to come out.

I think i never buy GW2..anet is not able to offer support..gw1 is enough from this society.

I once was buying an item for 100k+xx ecto. I went to xunlai chest and retrieved the ectos and 100g (instead of retrieving max, i typed "100" in the window but in the wrong place - taking xx g instead of xx k has happened to me more then once). i went to the guy, put into trade the ectos and typed "100" in the right place. But I didn't have 100k, so the game put into the trade window the max ammount of money I had - 100g. I pressed "submit trade", but realized immediatly that I made a mistake and changed offer (it took me around 15 seconds to figure out what's wrong though). The scam 100k-100g works, because often pple don't notice. It might have happened, though ofc not very likely, that nor me nor the person i was trading with noticed the mistake before the trade was made. After that, he would have reported me, probably without bothering to tell me that at all. Do i deserve a perma ban, losing 3 years of play, 11 chars, etc because of such an accident? There is simply no way for me to prove I didn't mean to do that - nor there is a way to be 100% sure that somebody who did it, did it with purpose (to avoid being contacted by the unhappy seller, one could just log out, set himself to offline or pretend to afk in a populated place like spamadan - the seller will eventually stop trying to contact you and you could spend/move the money to avoid being able later to give it back).

Now this was just an example. A lot of mistakes can happen.