Pretending to be an Admin: Is it always wrong?

So, earlier today my guildie logs on vent freaking out. Apparently, somebody was on his account. I, being the great guild leader I am, spring into action. I begin PMing this kid telling him I am an in game player admin and we believe that his account is being hacked. I tell him that we will run trade and chat logs on his account and his IP as well. The kid gets frantic, then logs off after a couple of minutes of trying to mix up the storage so that it doesn't look like anything is missing.
Next, the kid frantically changes back the password and my guildie logs back on. He shorty after receives a PM from someone saying "are you going to give me that nice shield for helping?". Ok, so we now have the second party which everybody knows is necessary to steal items.
I then pull the same act on this little kid, and needless to say I have him most likely in tears begging and apologizing. He then logs on his supposed uncles account (whom he says claimed to receive an account, not hack one) and meets my guildie, returning every single item and every single piece of gold.
As the finishing touch, I tell him to log onto ncsoft.com and email support. He sends an email explaining what he and his uncle did, and apologizes. I had told him if he apologized then he would most likely receive a 48 hour ban, but if he did not then he may receive a permanent ban. The email, to my knowledge, has been sent.

So the question: Did I break the rules? I understand that this is very shifty, but I did not steal anything from anyone or do anything along those lines. I managed to, wielding only my silver tongue and proper grammar, force a hacker and his accomplice to return everything they stole, scared the shit out of them, and made them send an email to NC Soft admitting that they had hacked somebody. I'm slightly fearful of being banned now, but it was certainly worth it. He even offered extra items as an apology, but I declined :P

Impersonating staff in this case is a grey area. Although actual ArenaNet staff have special chat color to prevent confusion for innocent players, these guys were not innocent.

Your best recourse is of course screenshotting everything and sending a detailed report to support yourself. Have your guildmate (the victim) do the same to corroborate. They can check logs and IPs and determine that there was a security breach, thus pretty much clearing any deception on your part (though they may lock the account to be safe, and your guildy may have to provide ownership verification to unlock it again).

Also, in case the accounts being used to make the trades are in fact hacked, they can shut that down, too.

Non the less, good acting, the hacker gave back the stuff, and probably wount do it again.

I find this hard to believe in all honesty, most hackers are bots and know that they cannot and will not trace IP's. Secondly, third parties aren't needed at all so the guy that was being hacked must have gave some information that greatly helped some kid steal his password whom didn't own 2 accounts and needed another even more dumb friend to help [one that he did not for some reason contact after logging off and abandoning the hacking]. In which case, he deserved to lose his stuff anyway.

Yes it is always wrong.

MOD EDIT: Sorry I accidently'd your post. Fixed now <3

I never call anyone a liar but the story sounds like the start of an urban legend. To start, the only way for an account to "hacked" is for you to give out your information in the first place or the hacker is living in your house (such as a sibling, mom, dad, etc..). Next, once they hacked you, good luck in getting that account back. No threats from God, Alah, or Jesus will ever work.

So understand when I say, I have my doubts about this topic. And yes, it is wrong no matter your intentions.

Yes. It is against the rules no matter what the intentions are/were. Can I get your IGN so I can report you? Please? I'm serious, btw.

http://www.guildwars.com/support/leg...-agreement.php

No matter the circumstances it is against the rules and if someone were to have reported it, you could be banned.

/closed