WRITTEN ARTICLE · TEMPORARY ECONOMY HOLDS
WoW Forever economy holds: why trading, mail or the Auction House may be restricted
Blizzard’s Temporary Economy Holds target suspected real-money trading. Learn what can be restricted, whether a hold is a ban and how to handle interrupted crafting plans.
What is a Temporary Economy Hold?
Blizzard has announced a restriction for accounts suspected of selling gold or receiving gains from real-money trading. A Temporary Economy Hold can restrict trading, mail, guild banks and the Auction House while suspicious activity is investigated.
A hold is not automatically a permanent ban. Blizzard says false alarms can be cleared automatically after investigation, while confirmed RMT can lead to account action. A hold alone does not leave a permanent strike unless the activity is later shown to be RMT-related.
In this article
Game imagery © Blizzard Entertainment.
Does this mean ordinary trading is banned?
No. Blizzard says ordinary play is unlikely to trigger the restriction, while acknowledging that a new detection system can produce false positives. The announcement does not give players a transaction threshold, a guaranteed review time or a list of harmless trades.
That makes advice such as “stay below this amount of gold” unreliable. There is no published safe number in the source. Do not build your crafting or guild plans around a threshold someone has guessed.
Check the restriction before diagnosing a bug
A failed purchase or undelivered item does not, on its own, identify an economy hold. Start with the actual message shown by the game or account notice. Save its wording and the time it appeared.
Our suggested checks are deliberately simple. They help you explain the problem without turning one failed transaction into a claim that you have been banned.
- Read whether the notice explicitly mentions an economy restriction.
- Record which action failed, such as trading, sending mail or buying an auction.
- Keep the item name, time and relevant transaction details for a support request.
- Do not publish account identifiers or other players’ private details in a public bug report.
What should you do with your profession plans?
If a restriction prevents you from obtaining materials, put that purchase or exchange on hold. Review the ingredients you already have and choose a different activity until the account message is resolved. Avoid paying for a promised workaround or moving the same transaction through other accounts.
For a planned group craft, tell the crafter that you cannot complete the exchange yet. Do not ask them to keep buying materials on your behalf while the situation is unclear. A simple ingredients list and a paused order are easier to unwind than several borrowed trades.
Outside an account restriction, a small material list is useful anyway. Plan the next recipe rather than buying an entire profession’s worth of ingredients at once, and keep your travel and training budget separate.
How long does a hold last?
There is no fixed duration in the announcement we checked. Use the information in your own account notice for any next step. If it offers a review or support route, describe the restriction and the legitimate transaction clearly.
A leveling addon cannot remove an account restriction or restore Auction House access. Keep account support separate from addon troubleshooting so the issue reaches the right place.
Related reading and guides
Sources and review notes
Reviewed October 15 from Kaivax’s October 13 announcement at 23:58 UTC. This explains the announced system. We have not tested a restricted account, and Blizzard’s post does not publish a guaranteed hold duration or a safe transaction amount.
