Spam, Glorious Spam.

War!.. Huh... What is it good for?

Selling in game currencies for real money apparently. Almost all big MMO's suffer from gold spam (or Credit Spam in this case).

Whenever I'm logged on I tend to get about 2/3 spam whispers per hour offering these services. And my in-game mail usually has a few each day too.
I report all of them to the devs, so eventually they will, presumably, get the account blocked. But it's more confusing how they are managing to make a profit from it at all.

Here's the gist of it:

There's only one way to get a trial account in this game, and that's for someone who's paid for the retail version to send you one.
Each copy of the full version has the chance to send 1 5-day buddy key to a freind. That's 1 per account. Not just 1 at a time. Once that key is used, no more can be sent out.
Bronze sent me his, I sent mine to Jeanie, if she buys the full game she will have one to send on too. But if not, the line ends there.

The cheapest you can buy the game for is just under £30. And they're selling the credits for about $2 per 1,000 (roughly £1.50). For that they get a main account for 1 month, and a 5 day account, which they presumably just use for spamming.
So, just to break even, they'd need to sell 20,000 credits. Farming on the main account, and spamming on the trial one. But the spam will end after no longer than 5 days, or before if the account gets blocked. So how do they continue to sell?

You can probably farm 20,000 credits quite easily in a day. But unless you have a way of selling it, it's just pixels.
So then you need to buy another main account, but that's another £30, and the minute that one (and the free trial that comes with it) gets blocked, you're back at square one.

Assume you have 1 main account that does the farming, and then need lots of other full and trial accounts who might also farm, and send their money to the main account, but are also spamming. And that each spamme ris blocked within 5 days (or expires if it's a trial account).

Here's what you'd need just to continue trading for one month (30 days):

1x Main Farming account (£30) (Does not spam)
1x 5-Day Trial (£0) (Lasts 5 days)
1x Main Account (£30) (Farms and Spams, blocked after 5 days)
1x 5 Day Trial (£0) (Lasts 5 Days)
1x Main Account (£30) (Farms and Spams, blocked after 5 days)
1x 5 Day Trial (£0) (Lasts 5 Days)
1x Main Account (£30) (Farms and Spams, blocked after 5 days)

So for the first month it's going to cost at least £120, and at least £100 for the following months (No need ot buy another main account, but £10 per month to keep it activated).
On top of that you also have the wages to pay for the farmers, and the cost of the IT and ISP you need to play, rent costs, etc.. etc..
 
I don't think a rough figure of £200 - £250 per month would be too far off the mark, as a minimum.
 
So, in this scenario, that means that each month they'd need to sell 166,000 credits before even begining to make a profit.
More farming accounts could easily make credits to sell, but it's the spamming accounts that are going to be getting blocked more steadily. And for each one you'll also need more IT and more farmers.
If an account get's blocked in less than 5 days, you're another £30 out of pocket, if it lasts a bit longer, then you might make a bit more.
 
Either I'm missing something, or that's just not a viable business.

UPDATE: The spam continues, although I am seeing a little less of it. But the prices have now incrased to about $12 per 1k Credits. Ridiculously high prices, considering that you can easily find a few thousand in an hour of play, without even trying to.