It's not a secret that, since we're living in a fully expanding
virtual era, there is a major increase in virtual thefts that have, unfortunately, a real-life monetary value.
Since there is no such thing as a "virtual police" that is able to
solve these cases, the gamers have to contact the real police. But, as you will see, the police does not accept such complaints.
According to an article from TwinCities.com, a 20 year old Final Fantasy XI player had his account broken into and all the items and money his character had collected over 4 years of play were looted. The total sum of the theft is of almost 76 million Gil (the FF currency), which means about $3800 in real money, according to the current exchange rates. A whole bunch of money, if you think about it.
So Geoff Luurs, the 20 year old player, has contacted the local police, claiming that he suspects a fellow player to be involved in the virtual theft, but the authorities have refused to look into the situation. The police claimed that the game points are "devoid of monetary value", so you can't say a theft took place. Strange, still, since the police could check the Internet and see that all kinds of MMO items can be sold for real cash.
Professor of law Joshua Fairfield has the same opinion: "What happened here is somebody stole almost USD 4000 and got away cold. This is just a matter of zeros. The first time IBM loses USD 10 million, we're going to see some police action. The argument that a magic sword isn't real, that doesn't make sense to me. You can ask the question, why would somebody buy that? But you can't say it's not worth real money."
So take this as a warning: be very careful with your account details, as well as your MMO items. Even though the hardcore gamers are unlikely to sell these very valuable items, thieves don't really care that your heavenly sword is a very, very rare item. Actually, they'd love to get their hands on it an sell it ASAP. And there's nothing you can do yet, since the police doesn't care.
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