Diablo 3's Real Money Auction House is where players can sell items for real-life money, or Battle.net balance. A post on the official Diablo 3 forums claimed that a user bid on an item valued at $0, but it cost $149.
The post said that the item appeared to be valued at $0, but the following day cost $149. The user thought it was a display bug, and as a result called Blizzard's customer service. However the customer service representative said Blizzard is "completely hands off," and said to try and resell the item for the original value. That's difficult when Blizzard frequently patches the game and weapons are subject to change.
This isn't the first error of its type, either: a report by Forbes detailed a user who lost $99 and didn't have the issue resolved with customer service shortly after. Later, the issue was resolved: the user - Weavol - posted "they [Blizzard] put the money through to my paypal minus the fee today," he said.
Some users have given into temptations, though, even making life-changing decisions: a user reportedly quite his job to try and make a career out of dealing on the Real Money Auction House. He quickly realized his items were changing in value and couldn't reliably make money, which was then too late.
Apparently the faux zero-dollar listing is a bug since servers resumed, which Community Manager Zarhym said is being fixed.
Blizzard also posted but since deleted a thread on the Diablo 3 forums which stated that the Real-Money Auction House does affect how items are dropped. If the two worked independently, "the economy would be completely tanked within a matter of weeks" Game Manager Bashiok revealed. The thread, which was created by user JDizzle highlighting the comments, has since been screen captured by Cinema Blend.
Blizzard takes a 15 percent cut from every item sold for real money in the Auction House, so maintaining the economy is probably in the company's best interests.
The user regarding the original zero-dollar issue claimed Blizzard was stealing money, so whether the Federal Trade Commission will return with another investigation remains to be seen.
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