The Real Reason You Shouldn't Buy Fake V-Bucks
Fortnite is a massively successful game, bringing in an unfathomable amount of revenue in mobile sales alone. Of course, a huge portion of Fortnite's money is made through selling cosmetics and the like through the in-game store. The only way to do that is through purchasing V-Bucks, Fortnite's own in-game currency. So what happens when you get V-Bucks from a less-reputable source? One Reddit user has seemingly shared the results of just such a purchase.
Redditor Dream_Now posted an image of someone playing Fortnite with the explanation, "My friend's son fraudulently purchased v bucks [sic] and this was Epic's punishment." In the image, you can see that the player currently has a balance of -4,250 V-Bucks. Yes, that's a negative balance. How did this happen?
Purchasing or otherwise obtaining V-Bucks through unscrupulous means ultimately takes money out of the publisher's pocket, so it makes sense that Epic Games would want to protect one of its biggest assets when it comes to Fortnite. What's not entirely clear is how Epic Games went about punishing the player in question. The original Reddit post doesn't offer much in the way of an explanation, but there are numerous replies from gamers who have weighed in with their own theories.
Some of the commenters in the Reddit thread have suggested that the player may have been penalized or fined by Epic in some way, which resulted in the negative balance. Others believe that the player in question may have used their parent's credit card without their permission. However, the most likely explanation is that the player purchased a skin or some other cosmetic item with V-Bucks obtained through a hack. Once Epic figured out what happened, the fraudulent V-Bucks were deducted from the player's already-empty account, leaving them with the negative number.
Of course, the only way for this player to build back up to a positive balance would be to earn or buy V-Bucks the old-fashioned way. At this point, it may take quite a while.
Fortnite hackers and scammers have used V-Bucks as an incentive to bend the rules for years now. In fact, back in 2018, Business Insider reported that over 4,700 different websites were offering "free" V-Bucks, with the intention being to scam unsuspecting players out of their personal info. Basically, getting V-Bucks through any means other than official channels has been proven to be a bad idea, no matter how cool that latest character skin may look.
Players who don't play by the rules can face some pretty strict consequences. However, what's most interesting about this apparent punishment is that it didn't result in a lengthy suspension or an outright ban, unlike many other infractions on Epic's terms of service.
Epic has been somewhat inconsistent in how it has chosen to enforce player punishments in the past. The Fortnite community was in a bit of an uproar earlier this year when a young video game streamer by the name of Zenon was suspended from Fortnite for an unheard-of 1,459 days. The reason the number of days is so specific is because it means that Zenon will be suspended from Fortnite until he turns 13. This was his punishment for entering a ranked Arena Mode match while under the age limit. Considering the fact that there was no cash on the line during this match, some fans have felt that Zenon's ban was unnecessarily harsh. Superstar streamer Ninja went to bat for Zenon, seemingly in favor of letting the young streamer back on Fortnite.
On the other hand, it seems that actual money may have been stolen or misused in the case of this Reddit post, which leads one to wonder why the only penalty was having the V-Bucks deducted from the player's account. It could be that this was the only surefire way Epic had to deal with it, especially if the company couldn't completely prove wrongdoing on the player's part.
It's worth noting that Fortnite currently reeling from a lawsuit that has led to the game being removed from the App Store. Needless to say, this was bad news for Fortnite in general. It seems that Epic Games is more protective than ever when it comes to its revenue. However, it also appears as though the company doesn't necessarily want to decrease its already-lowered number of players.
Whatever the case, this Reddit post still stands as a warning to other Fortnite players: don't buy fraudulent V-Bucks. Even though the full story behind Dream_Now's image hasn't been revealed, it has become very clear that trying to use V-Bucks from illegitimate sources can result in quite a headache.