Twitch Streamer Falls Victim to Old Scam Involving Old Online Game
Twitch streamer Hyphonix recently experienced the downside of playing old online games— old scams. While streaming Old School RuneScape, using a Twitch moderator’s account, Hyphonix engaged in a special duel game mode where he battled against other players to earn gold. He was on a winning streak when the unexpected happened.
After winning a duel that earned him 990 million gold pieces, Hyphonix tried to claim his prize. Unfortunately, he was abruptly logged out of the account and could no longer access it. To put things into perspective, the four billion gold he had accumulated would be worth around $4,000 if sold.
Investigations later revealed that the account had been banned by a game moderator. The ban was a result of the account user’s attempt to sell either the account itself or its gold for real money, a practice known as real-world trading (RWT). This is strictly prohibited in RuneScape and leads to a permanent ban for players involved in RWT.
Speculations arose, suggesting that the account owner, who happened to be Hyphonix’s Twitch chat moderator, was responsible for logging him out in an attempt to sell the gold. This theory was further fueled by the fact that the account owner denied ever trying to log in or sell the gold in a Reddit thread discussing the ban.
Despite the account owner’s denial, neither they nor Hyphonix were able to recover the banned account, which remained inaccessible until the end of the stream.
Fortunately for Hyphonix, since he did not engage in any illegal activities during the stream, his Twitch channel will not face any suspensions or bans as a result of the RuneScape ban.
Twitch streamer, Hyphonix, online games, scams, Old School RuneScape, Twitch moderators, duel game mode, gold, banned account, real-world trading (RWT), permanent ban, account owner, recover account