There are millions of people who play League of Legends, which makes it nearly impossible to snag the account name you want. But one player believes they’ve unveiled a scheme involving bots snatching names and then selling them for profit.
A League fan revealed the scheme in a Reddit post yesterday, claiming that people use bots to grab names and then sell them for up to $250.
The fan explains that using macros and bots to reap a profit is a huge problem for the community.
“Because name selling and club tag selling while using macros/bots is extremely unfair and giving a certain person an unfair advantage while also being profitable IRL on something that should be free,” the fan said.
The vigilante looked up the accounts on op.gg to see their activity and found that not one account being sold has a game played.
The underground name-selling ring goes even deeper, though. The player claims that popular club tags, like “L9” and “Gasm),” are also being sold to players so they can be a part of the exclusive groups. Club tags appear next to your account name in-game and are limited to 100 per group.
The League fan did their own sniffing around and messaged the name-selling vendor for further information. The vendor claimed to have programs that grab account names before other players can do so.
While keeping names hostage for ransom is problematic, the League fan has a solution.
“My only solution is to obviously restrict these people from constantly making new accounts / logging in new accounts or randomize the timer for name release by 10-30 days instead of a certain time,” the fan said.
So don’t be surprised if you try to create a League account and the name “IMainYasuoOnly” is taken—it could cost you some serious coin.