?Diablo 3? Real Money Auction House Scams Player For $149, How To Protect Your Account And Other Issues To Watch Out For

One brand new feature to come to Diablo 3 is the real-money auction house, in which players can use actual cash to purchase items from other gamers. The idea has sparked controversy from the start, but now Diablo 3 fans have a whole new reason to watch their wallets in the auction house.

A player has lost $149 in the real-money auction house after bidding on a glitched item, reported Gaming Blend. This isn't the first time an error like his has occurred. Recently, a player was denied $100 in a real money auction house trade glitch.

In the current case, the player claimed he had placed a bid on an item that was listed for $0.00. When this user logged back in to his Battle.net account, he found that he had purchased the item for $149. The player, known at KetMalice2, posted on a Battle.net forum describing the incident.

Basically, he said that they are completely hands off with the RMAH, the user wrote after speaking with a Blizzard employee. He suggested that I put the item back up to try and make some money back. I politely argued with the guy for about 15 minutes, I know he can't do anything...If there is a bug on their part they will not back anyone up.

The item he bid on was part of a glitched listing a few other gamers ran into as well, as Gaming Blend notes, and community manager Zarhym acknowledged the issue earlier this week.

We're working to address issues with the auction house that have arisen since the servers were brought back online this morning, the community manager said in a post.

Zarhym provided a list of other issues to watch out for when using the real-money auction house, which include:

- Items that were listed to sell on the auction house pre-maintenance are no longer showing up under the Auctions tab.

- Items that were being bid on are not showing up under the Auctions tab.

- Items that have disappeared as a result of the above two issues-they do not show up under Completed and players don't currently have the option to recover these items.

Diablo 3 requires players to use some safety measures when using the real money auction house, which include the Battle.net Authenticator and the Battle.net SMS Protect service. This may not prevent players' accounts from being hacked or glitches from occurring, but with the SMS service players can catch these problems and address them quickly. The SMS Protect sends a text message to a user's mobile phone containing a code need to verify a player's identity.

Issues such as this bring up the controversial question of whether or not real money should be incorporated into the virtual world. The Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced earlier in June that the trade of commercial game items will be banned in Korea. A report from the Korea Times indicates that the Korean government feels the inclusion of collecting money for commercial use hinders a healthy gaming culture.

The main purpose of the games is for entertainment and should be used for academic and other good purposes, Kim Kap-soo, head of the ministry's content policy division said to the Korea Times.

Others also said they feel that gamers shouldn't have to pay any additional money, whether it goes to another player or not, to obtain items within the game.

This becomes a problem when not many gamers are willing to shell out their hard earned coin just to get an item in the game for which they already paid the full price, Gordon Miles of Bettor blog wrote.

The long-awaited Diablo 3 launched on May 15, and has been met with a slew of issues since the debut. Initially, Blizzard servers were unable to handle the high traffic and crashed upon the game's release, then there were problems with players' accounts being hacked, and now gamers must be on the lookout for glitched items in the real money auction house. It seems as if players must be on guard for obstacles and dangers both in and out of the world of Diablo.