Kabam, Inc. Kingdoms of Camelot game company is the champ at ripping off consumers from their offices in San Francisco California

This company develops and markets online games. The games are advertised as "free to play," however players need to spend money on the games to advance and compete. However:

1. Items need to be bought using in-game currency that generally needs to be purchased with real currency. These items purchased in-game often do not work, and one player who has spent money on the game has had their account inexplicably blocked from using many of the items he has bought. Evidence: In-game war game "attack reports" which show the player's enhancements not working or non-existent; In-game war game "attack reports" that show a player's "troops" being "killed" by 0 other troops.

2. Kabam shares players' personal information with their unpaid in-game volunteers, as well as with Kabam employees who participate in the games, and this information is widely used by the employees and volunteers to harass other players. Information such as the real identity of players, how much they have spent, and other personal information has been shared. If you sign up for a Kabam game, be prepared that everything they know about you will become public. Evidence: Players stating in-game how much other players have spent; players finding other players' information on Facebook.

3. Kabam's in-game volunteers and paid staff members who play the games manipulate the games in order to "beat" other players. While counter-intuitive, the theory they apparently use is that if a player loses, they will spend more money in order to try to win. The Kabam players frequently go into regular players' accounts and make changes to the account settings in order to negatively impact the player's ability to play the games. Evidence: Kabam instituted a pop-up warning when an account is open in multiple browsers, players report this warning pop-up when they only have one window open, and then note that changes have been made to their accounts.

It appears that some of Kabam's activities may be illegal, but there does not yet seem to be any civil or criminal actions against the company, yet. Also, the company is moving many of its business activities outside the United States in order to avoid likely legal action in the future. The company openly talks about "going public," or perhaps pursuing other sources of funding, but it's unlikely the company can successfully do so given the firm's highly questionable and devious business practices. Alternatively, by tilting most of its corporate assets to Asia, the firm may be able to source funding in the Asian markets, which may not be concerned about the firm's potential legal problems in the USA.

Recommendation: Kabam's games are fun, but do not commit much time or money to them, because you will likely need to leave their games once you as a player are subjected to the abuse of the company's volunteers and staff.