WotC may have sent the Pinkertons to a magic leakers home. Update: WotC confirms it and has a response.

[Cadence]

When you hire a detective agency, you are spying. Someone could be doing wrong but this is still a violation of privacy. Abd it is a level of power normal people don’t have the same access to because it’s expensive. WOTC can afford to spy on you through PI’s all the time. But you can’t do the same to them unless you are Bill Gates. Like I said, if there was a crime, they can report it, they can file a lawsuit. But there are reasons this kind of action, especially by a game company, makes people extremely uneasy

Serious question - which law enforcement agency do you think would meaningfully follow this up? (Do credit card companies still not generally go after fraud under $10k for example, because there's no point - or maybe I'm misremembering from the 90s how that worked? Can one get the FBI to follow-up on a fake on-line account phishing the elderly out of five figures if you can't provide them the bank account numbers, dates of transactions, amounts and the like?)

As far as privacy, I was tempted to type that I wish he had a ring doorbell to record the encounter. But the number of cameras "accidentally" filming public streets and neighbors yards is a privacy issue I'm more worried about than this :-/

 

[Parmandur]

I don't understand why some people are defending WoTC. (or at least claiming their actions and choices were no big deal)

Wasn't the OGL fiasco a wake up call?...

The OGL thing was months ago. And no, neither this nor the OGL controversy changed my opinion of WotC. They are the same as they always have been.

 

[Bedrockgames]

By spying, you mean, "Viewing someone publicly posting that he is in receipt of stolen goods on Youtube in order to get clicks."

I have to say ... if that's spying, then we all better get off Youtube.

....Maybe not a bad idea?


As for the rest, I am somewhat amazed that people are saying, "You know what's bad? Sending the company's agents to ask for the return of the stolen property. In the future, we DEMAND that the corporation initiate legal action, up to and including LAWSUITS and PROESCUTION!"

Because asking for the property back is such a PR hit, but sending people to jail and/or hitting them with all the attorneys is A-OK?

It’s about overreaction and about doing something that is intimidating and suggests WOTC has power they don’t have. Calling the police over a box of cards is also an over reaction in my opinion. I don’t know instead of sending intimidating agents, have a person from the company contact them and explain they would like the cards back. Maybe even just let it go. The cards can’t be worth what they spent getting them back anyways and all they really did was interfere with advertisement that cost them a box of cards. I think this just also gets at a deep divide between gamers and the hobby and an increasingly corporate WOTC

 

[darjr]

Sending the Pinkertons stinks. It’s rotten. Blaming the victim is also bad imho.

 

[Parmandur]

Sending the Pinkertons stinks. It’s rotten. Blaming the victim is also bad imho.

Yeah, sure, though claiming that someone profiteering off of stolen property is a "victim" when the owners come knocking seems a bit dramatic.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Serious question - which law enforcement agency do you think would meaningfully follow this up? (Do credit card companies still not generally go after fraud under $10k for example, because there's no point - or maybe I'm misremembering from the 90s how that worked? Can one get the FBI to follow-up on a fake on-line account phishing the elderly out of five figures if you can't provide them the bank account numbers, dates of transactions, amounts and the like?)

to be honest this situation doesn’t seem like it warrants that. As far as I can tell they were concerned about a leak not theft

 

[darjr]

Yeah, sure, though claiming that someone profiteering off of stolen property is a "victim" when the owners come knocking seems a bit dramatic.

Even WotC, apparently, has said they’d compensate him. Since when do companies compensate thieves for recovered stolen property?!

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah, sure, though claiming that someone profiteering off of stolen property is a "victim" when the owners come knocking seems a bit dramatic.

We don’t know that anything was “stolen” despite people repeating that it was. Stuff gets out early all the time. Go to any bookstore the weekend before new release Tuesday. Chances are quite good that books will be on the shelves early. They’re no more stolen than anything else that gets out early.

 

[Bedrockgames]

We don’t know that anything was “stolen” despite people repeating that it was. Stuff gets out early all the time. Go to any bookstore the weekend before new release Tuesday. Chances are quite good that books will be on the shelves early. They’re no more stolen than anything else that gets out early.

True this sounds like maybe just an early release issue which calling in Pinkerton over seems like a massive overreaction to

 

[Parmandur]

Even WotC, apparently, has said they’d compensate him. Since when do companies compensate thieves for recovered stolen property?!

PR. They aren't claiming that he stole it. But it was not acquired legitimately, and they are investigating.

Sure, it's gross that they hired heavy handed security people to do it, but hiring someone to come knocking seems entirely reasonable considering.