The Where Winds Meet team has announced new measures targeting unofficial trading, fraudulent gifting, and black-market top-ups! This is the result of an increase in scams involving discounted gifts and chargebacks. According to the developers, some players were using third-party services and low-price gift offers to trick others into unofficial transactions. In many cases, the gifted items were later reclaimed by the system after malicious chargebacks. This was leaving buyers with nothing or even negative accounts.
Accounts Involved in Fraud Risk Permanent Bans
The Where Winds Meet team confirmed that accounts identified as:
- Initiating malicious chargebacks
- Selling unofficial discounted gifts
- Participating in black-market transactions
- Using unauthorized top-ups
Will now face long-term or permanent bans. On top of that, all the items obtained illegally will be removed, and if you consumed some items, you may end up with a negative Echo Bead balance.
If you have a negative balance, you will temporarily lose access to certain game features!
The developers also warned that if you get involved in trading violations multiple times, you may still receive permanent bans even after currency deductions. They also revealed that the Gift System will soon receive a security update, adding a cooldown period after adding friends before gifts can be sent.
Where Winds Meet Does Not Support Third-Party Top-up Services
The team also reminded everyone that Where Winds Meet does not support third-party top-up services or unofficial discounted gift sellers, and warned that purchases made outside official channels are done entirely at the player’s own risk. You will NOT get compensated if you get yourself into any type of trouble linked to illegal purchases, such as:
- Account theft
- Lost items
- Fraud-related losses
- Issues caused by unofficial transactions
You can read over the entire Crackdown against unofficial trading on the official website.
Considering how expensive some cosmetics and premium items can get in current live-service games, it is easy to see why some players get tempted by discounted offers online. However, we highly recommend that you do not engage in anything illegal. You can lose your entire account over something that, at the end of the day, does not bring you that much. As a reminder, any cosmetic in Where Winds Meet is only a cosmetic, and it does not grant you additional powers or anything like that. They are purely optional, and you can obtain many for free, just by playing the game.
This announcement makes it pretty clear that Where Winds Meet plans to aggressively target black-market activity going forward.
