Well this is new:
BBC News: Rentable Heroes Go On Sale Online
The whole system of buying and selling characters, and by implication accounts, is a murky but long established tradition in online gaming, what with eBay and Sony Exchange, but now we can rent level 50 characters? Good grief.
BBC didn't have a link, as the whole thing seems indefinably illicit, and against seven shades of EULA for most games, but I think it's these people:
GamePal Internet Gaming Services
I merely include the link for pointing-and-laughing purposes, because no matter how many official-looking logos they have in the footer and how clean-looking the site, you're still likely to get your account and in-game stuff confiscated with no recourse if found out by the game GMs. Still, you pays your money and takes your choice, in this case, $199 per month to essentially borrow a level 50 Everquest character, which you may or may not have any idea how to play, and have no pre-established social network, which is absolutely required for end-game raid play. Each to their own, I guess.
They offer all the usual other services; farmed items, duped currency, power-levelling (i.e playing the game for you) and account/character sales, but a cursory click about the site shows that at present they only have a handfull of Guild Wars accounts to rent, the highest of which is 14, which I gather is still a newbie, and a solitary Matrix Online account with a similarly low number for a level. I guess if anyone took them seriously at all, they'd probably be in big trouble by now.
If the 'look and feel' seems familiar, then it probably is; it doesn't take vast investigative deduction to click on any of their 'Buy Accounts/Gold' stuff and be taken to IGE's almost identical looking 'portal'. Those crazy Chinese farmers...lovable rogues, every one. But wait...aren't we using Gamepal because they aren't Chinese?
"Hey! I've got an idea! Instead of grinding these characters up to a saleable level ourselves, why not get idiots to pay us to level them for us?" - Some Chinese Genius
I've long since given up any sort of moral indignation to this kind of thing...wreck your game if you like, just don't expect me not to point and laugh at you, is all, especially if you're going to pay $199 a month to do IGE's job for them...