Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb, Microsoft's online mascot, has issued a stern warning to Xbox 360 owners: loan out your Xbox Live account and you will get banned.
SPOnG's not sure if Hryb had a bad weekend (Just got dumped? Discovered forbidden feelings of love for the Wii?), or if he's just had a harsh word in his ear from further up the food chain, but this is what he had to say:
"If you run into that person in Halo 3 who claims if they could have your LIVE ID name and password to recover your Xbox LIVE account to their Xbox and they'll rank you up or find you all the hidden skulls in Halo 3, I urge you not to fall to temptation. While it may be appealing, in addition to violating the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use it can also result in you permanently losing your account... Cancelled. As in you can never get it back. In addition to losing your Gamertag, you'll also lose your Gamerscore, saved games and any points you have on the account."
Ouch! But that's not all...
The "nefarious" practice of tampering with your Gamerscore could garner a similar result. Hryb also tells us, "If you use tampered gamesaves to boost your Achievements and Gamerscore, you may sign in to Xbox LIVE one day and discover that we have removed your Gamerscore. Once we do that, you will never be able to re-earn those achievements on that account. Even worse, you might have your account and/or console banned from Xbox Live."
Naturally, we all conscientiously read the terms and conditions of everything we enter into, so the potential penalties for such activities are not unknown. Do we really need the normally cheery Major Nelson to treat us like a bunch of petulant children to remind us, though?
Source: Major Nelson