World of Warcraft, like many online games, has it’s own in-game mail system. Players can communicate and send gifts or items through the WoW mail system, which includes a cash on delivery option for selling and buying items. Unfortunately, this feature is sometimes capitalized on by dishonest players.
COD scams affect both Warcraft factions, Horde and Alliance alike. One of the more common in-game scams is to arrange to sell an item to another player. The “seller’ takes a worthless item (fish seem to be popular choices), gift wraps it, and sends it COD. If the buyer pays the cash on delivery, the scammer gets their gold and the buyer is left with a very expensive piece of vendor trash.
The best way to avoid this version of the COD scam is to refuse delivery of any cash on delivery item if it is wrapped. Don’t buy what can’t be seen.
Fake NPC Mail
A sneakier version of the COD in-game scam is to send a letter pretending to be one of the many game NPCs (non-player characters). Over the course of a player’s time in Azeroth they occasionally receive NPC mail. Completing quests and earning achievements sometimes triggers an email from an NPC. Sometimes NPC mail includes a wrapped item as a gift.
Scammers are designing emails that sound like they come from NPCs. The email usually makes reference to a particular NPC faction, and may claim that the item is a reward for earning faction reputation. However, the ‘gift” is COD, and players must pay cash to receive the gift.
No World of Warcraft NPC gift or reward sent through the mail system asks for cash on delivery, so any NPC email asking for cash can be considered a scam. The scam’s main target are inexperienced players who don’t understand this fact.
Players who receive cash on delivery NPC gifts through the mail system have some choices. The most obvious is to delete the email and keep playing. Players who choose to report the scam to a game master shouldn’t delete the email until they hear back from the game master.
The email may give a convincing reason for why the gift is cash on delivery. For instance, the scammer may imply that paying COD is somehow part of an ongoing quest. Players who have any doubt about the legitimacy of an in-game email should check with a game master, although to be frank, it’s extremely unlikely that Blizzard would include a cash on delivery option in any quest, especially given the popularity of COD scams.
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