So I'm looking for ways to get vanilla+tbc+wotlk+cata cheaper and the only conclusion I can come to is buying people's accounts off them. I've always considered this options, but I only have a few ideas. (I'm really upset I didn't see the sale on black friday) My main idea is to check out craigslist, as some people have some really decent prices for already leveled accounts, but I have an inner conflict as to how protected I am by buying these accounts. I guess I just have some fear in buying them because I have no prior knowledge of the in's and out's of such a transaction. I know that account recovery on an account that isn't in your name is a pain, but are there loopholes? And are there ways that someone can recover their account after they give it to you, or can you permanently lock it down to yourself? Would I be better off just buying fresh cd keys? I really appreciate any feedback people can give. This is a great community.
When buying an account there is no real safe way to buy it. Because even without the cd keys someone can call up blizzard support, fax usually their state id card provide the original info and bam they have the account back. Now having a new battle.net account created and transferring a character off the account is a little more secure. However again I have had experience where the original owner of the account was able to yank the info for that account as well only to end up getting it banned. My opinon, buy a fresh account take the 3 1/2 weeks to bot it up and then run dungeons / raid for gear. Your only a bit over a month and a half behind now so you won't be too bad off if you plan on raiding.
You're never 100% protected when you buy an account. The best thing that you could do is buy the account, and buy a second blank account and register it with the same name. You'd then have to spend the extra money to transfer any toons over to it. Other than that you need to have the CD keys, and the actual physical CD's in your hands. I'd also suggest having a copy of the OO's ID.
I tried this before and they usually turn out to be scams. 2/2 times they were taken back You have no recourse, and no way to get the money back that you paid. These were from wow account sales services as well... the services are supposed to protect you from this sort of thing happening... but they wouldn't answer the support email.. so.. really... this is pretty dangerous.. if you have hb.. then probably not really a reason to worry about buying one when you can just level up toons. If you make enough you could keep using up rested xp