I’m stupid and I hate myself. I’m writing this to vent my emotions right now for being so dumb. And I guess I hope that this post could also serve as a lesson to my fellow gamers out there.
First off, I’m a father of 3 wonderful kids and I’m kinda a gamer dad. I’ve been playing this game called Genshin Impact the past 15 months or so. (If ur a gamer I’m sure you’ve heard it). We’re not rich, average is what I would describe our life. Not lacking but not excessive to have a lot in the bank.
Before you say anything. This isn’t concerning my gambling addiction. Never spent money on the game that I regreted. I have control over my impulses over these things.
As a gamer dad who deals with real-life issues, I had sold my game accounts occasionally. It’s not “legal” to do so but It’s a painful sacrifice that I do from time to time. This time around, my 2nd daughter had been sick the past couple of days, been vomiting a lot of what she eats and pooping abnormally. Normally this wouldn’t be much of an issue for us, but this time around my wife just gave birth about a month ago which depleted every extra money we had put aside.
In this kind of situation is when I make difficult decisions, last night with a heavy heart I posted my genshin account on this buy and sell forum. Having a loaded account with lots of love, I figured that this would be worth around $400 or so. Just a good portion of what I had spent on the game (again at this point, I would reiterate that my spending on this game was justified and never was an issue). I figured i had my fun, would’ve love to have more fun with the account but family first and it’s time to let go.
After a couple of hours of posting I got a discord Friend request from 3 separate people all wanting to buy the account. We had our conversation, he asked for screen shots, at this point he looked like a legit buyer.
Now here’s where my FU begin. Usually in these types of transactions. Someone would need to go first and in case no one wants to, they hire / use a middleman to secure the transaction.
Neither I nor the buyer trusted each other, i’ve done this before, i’m not sending mine first. i didn’t want to go first nor did the buyer wanted to go first. Understandably both of us were very cautious with a possibility of scam.
So what’s the best way to go about when you dont trust each other? Use a middleman. Normally, i would be on top of this situation, i’ve been scammed before albeit smaller ($30) i know and learned my lessons of not giving the goods first before payment. But the combination of the stress of having to work, care for a sick toddler, lack of money for medical stuff and a newborn in the house left me on a very vulnerable situation that I bit the fastest way possible to have the resources to pay for my daughter’s medical expenses.
In the 5 years when I first did this. I had never used a middleman before, every successful transaction that I did was money first always. So naturally, i didn’t know how it worked nor knew reputable ones. This buyer suggested a trello board where it blacklists discord scammers and lists “trusted” middlemen. One of these “trusted” middleman was initated by my buyer and started to contact me.
I’m not gonna lie, I was very skeptic… i was on the fence but the pressure of needing the money that badly pushed me to overlook any kind of logic in this situation.
The middleman asked for my account details so that he can secure it for the buyer. I gave it to him, he initiated to change the email and asked for the verification to do so…. i hesitated, he said it’s how it’s really done. Blablabla… again my needs, stress and sleeplessness got into me, i gave in. He changed my email and lost complete access to my account. At this point, ok that’s it, in the next 2 mins either I lose everything or I solve my problems.
After they secured my account, the Buyer messaged me one last time before dissapearing into the abbyss. He said “$400 right? Give me a min” and that my folks is the longest 1 minute in my life, a minute that 11 hours after still hasn’t passed yet. Both the middleman and the buyer blocked me, couldn’t message them, couldn’t reach them in anyway. The best thing I could’ve done was to report my account was stolen but i have very little hopes for it.
Also, it’s good to note that These scammers know about my situation as I’ve been stress talking about my reason of selling and didn’t give a F about it.
So my fellow gamers out there. I highly suggest against doing what I did. But when you are put into a situation like where I am right now and really need to do so, please watch out, they’re good at screwing people over. Never ever fully trust somebody else with your property when you have nothing to hold onto. Some people are complete pieces of shit and I wish hell is real for them.
I thought that sleeping through my FU would make things better, but nope, haven’t slept a minute, daughter is still sick, lost my account and here I am wallowing on how useless and stupid of a father I am.