THE WOW FOREVER COLLECTION · DISPATCH · RESEARCH CHECKED OCTOBER 2, 2026
Short answer: Blizzard says it has been "continuously actioning" WoW Forever beta accounts that botted for gold, bought gold, or "knowingly received" it, and it will keep doing so after launch on November 4. A warning will soon pop up whenever you trade with a stranger. The penalties it lists are gold removal, suspension or permanent account closure. The post landed on October 1, three days after the Ziqo gold row, and it is the first time Blizzard has said in public that accounts are being suspended rather than just stripped of gold. It does not name anyone, and it does not say how many accounts were hit.
What Kaivax posted
Community manager Kaivax put up "Actions Taken Against Botting and RMT" on the US and EU forums at about 21:05 UTC on October 1. The key sentence: "we have been continuously actioning accounts that were found to be botting to amass gold in the WoW: Forever Beta, as well as the accounts of those who were found to have purchased or knowingly received illicit gold."
Then the line players will quote for the next month: "any account belonging to any player that is found to have participated in generating, selling, buying, or receiving illicit gold is subject to the gold being removed, account suspensions, or permanent account closures."
Compare that with September 28, when Kaivax's first warning said recipients who "knew or should-have-known" could face "account actions." The new post spells out what those actions are and says they are already happening.
The new trade warning
Blizzard says the game will "soon" show this whenever you trade with someone you do not know:
Be wary of accepting gold from unknown or suspicious sources. If the provider is engaged in Real Money Transactions, you could put your account at risk of closure.
It links to Blizzard's support article 379634, a gold buying page subtitled "A Destructive Transaction." That page is an older one, now tagged for the Forever beta. The practical advice in it is worth knowing before launch:
- Don't accept gold by mail or a random trade unless you know the sender.
- Keep trade agreements in in-game chat, so there is a record.
- Only accept gold from the character you made the deal with, not their "friend" or "alt."
- The penalty line: "The gold you acquired will be removed and your account will be actioned, with the possibility of being permanently banned."
The article carves out the normal stuff. A large payment is fine if it comes from "a crafting or trade agreement made with that character through in-game chat." So a tip for an enchant, or gold for a crafted item you arranged in whispers, is not what Blizzard is after. Several forum posters asked about exactly that, and Blizzard has not answered them in the thread, but the support article already covers it.
The warning only fires on trades. A few players pointed out that gold sent by mail gets no warning, and the support article says to be just as careful there.
Who has been hit
Blizzard names nobody. What follows are reports, not confirmed actions.
Payo. On October 1 a post by NoHitJerome on X, viewed more than 4,000 times, said Payo had been banned from the beta "at least according to his recent X post and streams," and linked it to Payo saying on stream that he wanted viewers to buy gold for him. The same post says he was "already back playing on a new beta account that he bought," and adds that Payo "actually does farm a lot of his own gold." A forum thread titled "Respect to Blizzard for Banning Payo" passed 90 replies, with posters arguing over whether a ban means much if he kept streaming. We could not find Payo's own post, and Blizzard has said nothing about him. Treat it as reported.
Supatease. A forum thread from September 30 says the streamer lost beta access after accepting 100 gold from a stranger. Replies in that thread and in Kaivax's new one disagree on whether it stuck, with one poster saying the ban was reversed within minutes. Unconfirmed either way.
Ziqo is still streaming the beta. Blizzard removed about 520 gold from his mage on September 29 and did not ban him, which we covered at the time. Nothing in the October 1 post changes that.
One forum poster in the new thread says they were "instantly Perma Banned from the forever Beta" after a player handed them gold. That is one person's account, and there is no way to check it.
The bots
The bot side of this started early. On September 18, the second day of the beta, an EU forum thread flagged packs of low-level Tauren Hunters standing around high-level herb zones like Winterspring. The trick was Cultivation, the Forever Tauren racial that lets you gather herbs without the skill. A level 5 bot could pull endgame herbs.
The October 1 beta build closes that. Cultivation now has a player-level requirement for every herb: the herb's Herbalism requirement divided by 5. Herbs that need more than 300 skill can only be Cultivated at 60. The patch notes don't mention bots, but it is the fix those players asked for. Our racials page has the full Cultivation text.
Why the forums still aren't satisfied
The thread passed 250 replies in about nine hours. The most-liked reply, with 24 likes, sums up the mood: "If you're a streamer, cool. Everyone else? Straight to jail." Another poster rewrote the announcement as a "Streamer Edition."
The argument underneath is about what a ban costs. Beta access is sold with the Skyborne Epic Pack, and several posters said a banned streamer can just buy another account and be back on stream within the hour. Some asked for Battle.net-wide, payment-method or hardware bans. One player with an MVP badge asked whether moving gold through a chain of alts, and ban evasion on fresh accounts, would also be actioned. Kaivax hasn't replied.
Not everyone is cynical. "Keep it up. I like the note to educate," wrote one early reply, and a member of the WoW Community Council posted "Hold the line against RMT." Others called the pop-up a good idea, while asking Blizzard to put the same warning on mail.
There is also some worry about false positives. Players asked whether AH sales, crafting tips or a guildmate's loan could flag a 20-year-old account. Blizzard's own wording, "knowingly received," suggests not, and the support article backs that up. But nobody at Blizzard has answered those questions directly.
What it means for launch
Blizzard is clearly using the beta to set expectations. GDKP is already banned in Forever, the stated stance is now suspensions and closures, and the trade warning makes "I didn't know" a harder excuse. Whether launch looks any different depends on enforcement against the botters selling gold, and Blizzard has given no numbers on that yet.
For you, the rule is simple. Don't take gold from strangers unless it is payment for something you arranged in chat. If you want early gold, a gathering profession is still the honest route, and our professions guide has the Forever bonuses.
Sources: Kaivax, Blizzard forums, Actions Taken Against Botting and RMT (October 1, 2026, replies through October 2) and EU copy (October 1); Kaivax, Gold buying rules, post #43 (September 28); Blizzard Support, Gold Buying: A Destructive Transaction (checked October 2); Kaivax, WoW Forever Beta Development Notes, updated October 1 (October 1); Blizzard EU forums, BOT ALERT - herbalism bug allready BOTTED (September 18); Blizzard forums, Respect to Blizzard for Banning Payo (October 1) and Supatease banned (September 30); NoHitJerome on X (October 1); Icy Veins, Gold Bot and Trade Bans, Warning When Trading Coming (October 1); Wowhead, Blizzard Takes Aim at RMT With New WoW: Forever Trade Warning (October 1); Dexerto, WoW Forever players demand streamer ban after Blizzard only takes back his gold (September 30).