Halifax blocks WOW subscriptions

By Oli Welsh Published 18 February, 2008

Too much fraud, says UK bank.

The Halifax isn't giving Blizzard extra. News has emerged that the British bank is stopping automatic payments to the Californian game operator, on the grounds that World of Warcraft is at the centre of an unusually high incidence of credit card fraud.

The bank isn't blaming Blizzard, but says the frequent use of stolen credit cards to pay for WOW subscriptions and fees is enough to warrant caution. The block applies to Halifax subsidiary, the Bank of Scotland, as well.

Halifax and Bank of Scotland customers who are legitimate subscribers will need to contact their bank to authorise future payments.

"We have seen a significant number of fraudulent transactions through Blizzard's gaming sites. We have, therefore, blocked the majority of Visa/Mastercard transactions we receive from there in order to combat this," the bank told The Register.

"We do not believe the fraud is anything to do with Blizzard themselves, their sites or the integrity of their billing systems, rather it is site users utilising stolen credit card details to pay for subscriptions," the Halifax spokesman said.

"If a customer does want to subscribe to a game site operated by Blizzard, using a Halifax or Bank of Scotland credit card, we can arrange for the payments to be processed for them if they contact us."

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (19) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Nylkran #1 4 years ago

    WOW, didn't see that comming.

  • DUFFKING #2 4 years ago

    Badum-tish

  • chrisjm #3 4 years ago

    halifax use the verified by visa / mc type thing, no reason why blizzard couldnt just impliment this.

  • penhalion #4 4 years ago

    :) I did. Let's face it, how many 14 year olds have a regular income to pay for these subscriptions. Most likely they use cards stolen from friends parents or even members of their own families. This leads to the old bill query i.e. the parent has no idea who blizzard are and so calls their bank.

    I said this when everquest first came out. How the frak are 14 year old kids paying for a subscription service? No-one could answer me then either.

  • Concrete #5 4 years ago

    Surely, all Blizzard has to do is promise the the bank that any accounts paid for using stolen credit cards will be deleted immediately. No one is going to lose hundreds of hours of toil over eight quid are they? I imagine they would see a very sudden drop in credit card fraud if they used a "no warning" "no strikes" "your elf just got nuked" policy :)

  • gremly #6 4 years ago

    "I said this when everquest first came out. How the frak are 14 year old kids paying for a subscription service? No-one could answer me then either."


    I have only met three people under the age of 16 in WoW in the three year's i have been playing.

    Dont just blame this crap on the underage >.>

  • JonFE #7 4 years ago

    "How the frak are 14 year old kids paying for a subscription service?"

    They could use those pre-paid cards instead of a "borrowed" credit card, could they not?

  • penhalion #8 4 years ago

    @gremly

    Really? You've only met 3 people under the age of 16 in WOW. You must move in some amazingly exclusive circles mate. It's so unlikely that career criminals are sitting down for 8 hours a day playing WOW it's not even funny. Nope these frauds are being carried out by people simply entering their friends or parents credit card details instead of their own (which they most likely don't have). As a member of WOW you would know that the credit card details are checks and the account registered to an address. Card transactions get cancelled if the address and card don't match. Doesn't take a genius to work out that the possibilites of who is carrying out the fraud is very narrow given the additional details that need to be known about the card holder.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #9 4 years ago

    I have only met three people under the age of 16 in WoW

    Allow me to introduce you to a new concept.
    Edited by 1 at 18/02/08 @ 11:36

  • dionfyre #10 4 years ago

    Actually, as has been recorded a few times in the past, WOW accounts have gone through periods where they are more value to a thief than credit card; due to gold selling/pimping trojan sites etc. So a lot of career criminals are involved in the whole MMO and WoW business. Also the average age of a WoW player is mid 20s and in the groups i play with actually nearer the later 20s early 30s age group

  • Rirekon #11 4 years ago

    You're all idiots.
    The fraud is being committed by Gold farmers, who operate on massive scales. They sign up hundreds, maybe thousands, of accounts, obtain as much gold as possible and transfer it to trade accounts before they get banned. This costs Blizzards $10 per charge back per credit card in addition to the full-refund and is a lot of hassle for the card issuer.
    This is not a problem caused by the odd 14 y/o, it's caused by an industry founded on slave labour (50p per day wages for most gold farmers) which is backed by criminals.

  • gremly #12 4 years ago

    @ Mentalist(air)


    What ever you say mate. Maybe on the Ali side of things it's infested with 14 year old night elf rouges, who knows. I play on the Aggamagan server with the char's Vivaxo and Synalri And horde side i have only met 3 pepole under the age of 16, Two of them were just guild aplications. The other i met in a Seth hall's run.

  • Danj #13 4 years ago

    Hopefully this will break some people of their WoW addiction if their bank won't let them pay for it any more.

  • ZeroAX #14 4 years ago

    or they are jealous blizzard gets all this money (imagines crazy bank suit type "MY MONEY MY MONEY"

  • Gurgeh #15 4 years ago

    "apart from the theft tho, gold farming isnt that bad. sure 50p a day is shit, but theres a lot worse jobs u could be doing in china. at least ur not very likely to lose any limbs grinding gold in wow all day "

    The companies that farm gold are not the same companies that sell it to the players. Gold farmers require legal accounts so that they can level characters, and also have to manage people. Gold sellers make extensive use of stolen credit cards and hacked accounts, they only need level 1 characters to advertise their goods and mail coins. They don't have a staff of hundreds like the farmers. The sellers buy gold off the farm companies then mark up the price for the players.

  • T4RG4 #16 4 years ago

    Man calls Halifax "Erm yeah, I'd like to authorise my payment to the following account... xxxxxx"

    Halifax "Is that World of Warcraft?"

    Man "Yep... I am popular really I am"

    (joke).

  • ZuluHero #17 4 years ago

    "I said this when everquest first came out. How the frak are 14 year old kids paying for a subscription service? No-one could answer me then either."

    When i was 14 I used to get £3 a week pocket money. And I was getting £5 a week to do a stupidly large paper round. So even all those years ago, I could have easily afforded an £8 monthly wow sub (thankfully wow wasn't out then ;) so maybe kids these days are doing exactly that?

    And anyway, what with inflation, kids must be getting more these days anyway - so a wow sub is probably peanuts ;)

    Besides, as a parent myself now I’d be much happier with my daughter staying indoors and playing wow in the evenings than hanging out on street corners with the other ASBO kiddies any day...but thankfully she's not old enough to do either :)

    So maybe that finally answers your quandary that you have seemingly spent nearly 10 answerless years pondering? ;)

    EDIT: spelling and corrections



    Edited by 5 at 18/02/08 @ 13:40

  • Narv #18 4 years ago

    Well on my halifax card I apparently brought over 30 subscriptions to WoW in 2 days which wasn't to great.

    However, I must say the main cause of this problem is Blizzard who should introduce some very basics tools like:

    Address Verification (been around 10 years +)
    Payment Profiling (ooh we had over 2 subs today from the same card, we'll block/query that then)
    CVS checks (where available)

    None of the above is hard to do, then perhaps they would have not been blocked.

  • peterfll #19 4 years ago

    Bank of Scotland is no subsidary, Halifax and BoS are one and the same company i.e. "HBOS".

    Anyhows, I wouldn't give them any of my business. Less we forget: http://ne ws.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/the_...