HELP! I need somebody...

To tell me I'm doing the right thing.

Over the course of last week, I did the deadly deed. I bought a month's subscription to WoW. My main in LotRO is 34, and not having the desire for an alt as well as not having the desire to hit any sort of "wall", I figured it was as good a time as any to see what my in-laws were up to in Azeroth.

They've been playing the game since a couple of months after release, and are still happy with it. Ignorance of the end-game problems is bliss, my friends. Stay away from the boards, don't hang out around the blogs, and you'll never be upset with your game. I've got to start taking my own advice.

Anyway, so I logged back in for the 1st time in the middle part of last week. When I logged out after doing a couple of quests and catching up with some old friends, I hearthed my hunter back to Telaar in Nagrand and logged out. No big deal, right? Well, when I logged back in a day or two later, I was standing in front of the Telaar mailbox.

Odd, right? I didn't think anything of it at the time. I just went on my merry way, questing and chatting with my friends. It wasn't until I got back to the Inn much later that I realized why I had been parked in front of the mailbox. My account had been hacked. My 660+ gold had been stolen.

I wasn't too surprised. This had happened to me before, over a year and a half ago actually. I had a keylogger from a malicious UI mod on my PC back then, and someone used it to gain access to my account, take my characters, my gold, everything. He/she had even gone to the trouble to delete my characters. Luckily Blizzard saw there was something not right, restored my characters, and their items/gold and I was happily on my way.

The same thing happened this time. I contacted the GM staff, they checked the activity on my account, restored my gold and assured me that proper action had been taken against the hacker. I changed my password, checked my HDD for viruses and spyware and all of that. I don't use UI Mods anymore, so it was either dumb luck or the same guy who had hacked me before, cracking my ingenious idea of using the same password I had used when I was 1st hacked over a year prior.

Anyway, I was just happy to have my gold back. The whole reason I re-subbed for a month, aside from friends and family, was to maybe hit 70 at get my flying mount. Had Blizzard not returned my gold, I'd have been S.O.L. But then something stranger happened.

I logged in last night after a couple days' break, and found I had mail again. I expected gold-spam, or a Blizzard notice... anything but what I found. A character who shall remain nameless had sent me 665g and 5s. This is the exact amount Blizzard restored to my hunter earlier in the week. I checked my other characters that had been stolen from. Same thing. The exact amounts Blizzard had restored had been sent to me by this player.

No ifs ands or buts about it... the hacker had sent me this gold. I immediately opened a ticket to the GMs. An hour or so later they contacted me, and after explaining what had happened, even that Blizzard had already restored the gold to me, they said the money was mine to keep. I had no obligation to send it back. They were shocked I even reported it. I guess honesty doesn't happen too often on the internet, or something.

Anyway, over 700 gold was sent to me by this guy. It's no coincidence. This is the hacker that sent me this money. Is he trying to get me in trouble? Make it look like I bought gold or hacked his account? Because that won't work, methinks. Not after my talk with the GMs about the situation. Is he just feeling bad about his work? Is he regaining his faith? What is it?

More importantly, how long should I wait before I go get my epic ground mount that I've never been able to afford?

(Side Note: Harry Potter was good. Not great. Lots of crap cut from the book that didn't need t be. But it was still a good movie that sets up the 6th one nicely. Ending was way rushed though. Worth a matinee, but you're better off reading the book.)