"virtual" theft leads to real life arrest
d3ad baby 3at3r
The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros (£2,840) worth of
virtual furniture, bought with real money.
Five 15-year-olds have also been questioned by police, who were
contacted by the website's owners.
The six teenagers are suspected of moving the stolen furniture into
their own Habbo rooms.
A spokesman for Sulake, the company that operates Habbo Hotel, said:
"The accused lured victims into handing over their Habbo passwords by
creating fake Habbo websites.
"In Habbo, as in many other virtual worlds, scamming for other people's
personal information such as user names has been problematic for quite a
while.
"We have had much of this scamming going on in many countries but this
is the first case where the police have taken legal action."
Habbo users can create their own characters, decorate their own rooms
and play a number of games, paying with Habbo Credits, which they have
to buy with real cash.
"It is a theft because the furniture is paid for with real money. But
the only way to be a thief in Habbo is to get people's usernames and
passwords and then log in and take the furniture.
"We got involved because of an increasing number of sites which are
pretending to be Habbo. People might then try and log in and get their
details stolen."
Six million people in more than 30 countries play Habbo Hotel each
month.
Virtual theft is a growing issue in virtual worlds; in 2005 a Chinese
gamer was stabbed to death in a row over a sword in a game.
Shanghai gamer Qiu Chengwei killed player Zhu Caoyuan when he discovered
he had sold a "dragon sabre" he had been loaned.
--
Rob Cypher
robcypher.livejournal.com
Usenet vet '96 to infinity....
Joxer
<deadhea...@spine.org> wrote:
>The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4,000 euros (£2,840) worth of
>virtual furniture, bought with real money.
To me the biggest sucker is the one who buys virtual furniture.
After all the furniture IS VIRTUAL, i.e. not real, pretend,
doesn't exist. A kin to spending real money to buy a bridge
in the desert.