Hacked Account -- any experience?

[Nevermore]

Or you dont because the examples given as substantiation have nothing to fucking do with the issue at hand. Congrats you got your character unbanned (bullshit), completely fucking irrelevant.

OHAI THAR

My son was recently hacked, his gear sold and account banned, I called and got his account back, and then asked for it to be locked up until I can buy him his authenticator for his account, so the account was safe locked for me. I ordered his authenticator Monday, and he received an email saying his gear, gold, and emblems was sent back to him. My question is, mail lasts for 30 days, but I know some things like Cash on Delivery shipments last only for a short time unless got out of the mail, is his gear going to delete itself in the mail by the time his authenticator comes, and I reactivate his account?

Surely you don't think your 'facts' can defeat his conjecture!

[gryeyes]

Man why didn't Morat just call in and get it unbanned! 

protip: You cant directly speak to someone in Account Administration and have them overturn a ban. Accounts suspected to be violating the ToS by account sharing/selling/other forms of perma ban offenses. Or an account that is blatantly a case of unauthorized access (account sharded,spewing advertisements,fresh IP never used before,reports from friends) will be summarily locked down as a precursor to any investigation that later takes place, as a simple means verify the original owner is still in possession of the account. Its an easy filter for people they are fairly sure are violating the ToS before having to commit the resources to an investigation. They know accounts used for RMT 99.9% of the time are not being used by the original owners,wont have access to the the original email, so will be unable to even start the process. And will be unable to provide the proof so wont even bother to try if they can. End result being a RMTing account being permanently unaccessible but its not perm banned. If the legit owner is still connected to the account he will be asked to confirm who he is by faxing and mailing in a bunch of shit (what they request varies),takes from a week to a month,and you regain access. And then the process of investigating the reasons for the ban will take place and restoration takes place.

Then there is the other type of bans, that result after they have determined by whatever criteria they have wrong doing took place. Botting/hacking and account sharing/selling are the only ones I know of that will assure a perm ban. There is no process to dispute the ban,you will receive an email that says "after confirming our previous conclusions you are fucked". And even if you receive one of the later types you can still go through the process of retrieving the account and then be told that the ban will not be lifted. They are two distinct processes,more importantly Morats situation is identical to someone selling an account and then reclaiming it a few months later (This type of fraud was so widespread Ebay/Paypal revised their policies specifically in response to it). Which is ridiculously common.

The issue here is not retrieving an account,getting the gear restored,overturning a ban in a completely incomparable situation. Its will Blizzard believe that Morat was sharing/selling his account OR someone without permission accessed it,paid the subscription,upgraded it with expansions,played it for months,received and ban all the while Morat was unaware.

So once again, you got your account unbanned? Awesome, completely fucking irrelevant to the thread in general and specifically Morats situation,thanks for sharing. I could retort with the 10,000 postings complaining about their account being hacked and perma banned and they are an innocent victim but thats rather needless at this point.

[Musashi]

I think you may be making a few broad assumptions on internal policy.  I think the short answer is that they don't really give a shit if you were paying farmers for gold, lending your account to friends, or some other dubious activiity, and got screwed.  As long as you're intending to pay them more money in monthly sub, and you demonstrate that you've learned your lesson, it's been my experience that they'll overturn whatever the fuck - even in cases where when it was described to me, I was sure the guy was perma banned. 

If an IP from a Viet Namese Net Cafe logs in your account, it's not a mystery.  It's just a matter of enough time for the trained monkey to read the logs.  Now if it's your IP that was involved in the evil doings, then okay, you may be fucked.  At least that's my broad assumption of internal policy.

[gryeyes]

Yeah its not an assumption, its working knowledge generated by being forced to game their system. The only things that will certainly get your account banned is if they believe you were botting/hacking or that the account has been sold or traded.

Saying your account was hacked while the same IP plays and upgrades it for months is highly dubious. Maybe they will unlock it,but it sure as fuck is not comparable to some goldfarmer spamming adverts for 3 hours and getting locked down.

[Morat20]

Good lord, calm down. It's only a game. I'll either get it restored or I won't.

What I've taken from this thread is that Blizzard's customer service, on all levels, seems to be a lot more friendly than "Sorry, Dude, not our problem". That's heartening. If I end up having to open up a new account for her, well, I'll do so happily -- not feeling that I got screwed by lazy customer service.

If nothing else, if they're as polite and helpful -- even if they ultimately can't unban her account -- as people have said, I'm not going to be pissy and not play their game. After all -- she DID use a crappy password, practice poor security, and fail to notice what had to have been a number of emails late last year.

Which, I suppose, is one of the reasons Blizzard has so many subs. By all accounts -- and I admit I've only dealt with in-game GM's -- they're professional, courteous, and help out when it's possible. Which, sadly, is not the standard experience in MMORPG customer service.

I'll let you guys know when something is sorted out between account admin and us -- and I appreciate the helpful responses. I imagine in a week or two, if nothing else, I'll be back here asking what the hell a "glyph" is, and what the hell is up with all the achievements.

I did hear they have a pet/mount bag thingy now. That makes me happy.

[Merusk]

I did hear they have a pet/mount bag thingy now. That makes me happy.

It's actually a tab on your character panel.  But yeah, saves on bank/ bag space and is pure awesome because you now carry all your pets/mounts with you at all times.

[Morat20]

The account is unbanned. No actual information yet -- we don't have a sub yet and she's not home -- but I had a password reset email from Blizzard today, and we can access her account.

BTW -- it was hacked 11/29/08 and renewed 12/30/08. It was banned sometime in the month from 12/30/08 to 1/30/09, according to the payment history.

Her characters are still fucked --- looks like they melted down and deleted all her Alliance side characters, although her Horde character seems to have been left alone. Oh, and created a fucking spamming toon named "Lkjhi".

I got that by going through the character transfer bit to see who was left. Her main at 79, one Horde-side at 18. They even waived 60 bucks in fees for...something. Dunno what. I will let you know if any character changes changes can be made.

The emails seem to indicate to contact an in-game GM to handle fixing her toons.

[Ingmar]

The account is unbanned.

Deploy smug mode!

[Morat20]

The account is unbanned.

Deploy smug mode!

Shit, deploy "happy husband whose wife will be thrilled fucking spitless" mode. I'm still getting emails from them, and I'm *hoping* they saved an account state when she quit in April 08, or can roll her character back to the 10/08 state. If they can't, I suspect my wife will be deleting down the hacked 79, after sending all it's stuff to a bank alt, then recreating her 'lock from scratch.

[Nevermore]

The account is unbanned.

Deploy smug mode!

I eagerly await Gryeyes coming back to tell us that Morat getting his wife's account unbanned is irrelevant to the thread.

[Morat20]

Final Tally:

Account unbanned.
Main toon left at 79, WoTLK upgrade left in place.
18 gold given to a level 18 Horde character (the only character left other than the main) to help in "regearing".
Total time elapsed: 4 days.

They stated that simply too much time had passed to roll the character back, and they were unable to find any deleted characters. They're leaving it WoTLK enabled and said not to worry about it -- effectively, they're viewing it as the hacker's way of saying "Sorry for fucking your account", although they phrased it much more nicely. As far as they're concerned, since they cannot restore it to it's original state, SOMEONE bought WoTLK and associated it with her account, so it's HER key.

We're waiting for one more reply (Basically we asked "Okay, is that everything? Can we play now, 'cause you've been nice and we want to make sure your're all done before we go futzing with it) and my wife's general view is: "i've got a level 79, who can farm materials and gold, and frankly I can make a Death Knight or something if I don't feel like going through the whole thing again, and I probably will start a new character to get a feel for the changes".  Of course, for all we know, her main is stark naked -- or poorly geared with 4000 gold in the bank. Somehow I doubt Ye Old Farmer did a lot of quests. Or instances. Or did anything but move from farming spot to farming spot. So I suspect she has plenty of content to wander through, or she can do it with my 67.

Overall -- damn good customer service. I'll start spazzing about the changes soon, especially since I now have a WoTLK key...the one I bought for the wife that she doesn't need.

[WindupAtheist]

I kinda figured something like that would be the case. Blizzard really does have the best CS in the industry by far.

[Lantyssa]

Oh, oh, oh.  My turn!

Gryeyes:  I. Told. You. So.

Whee!  Glad to hear, Morat.  One other little bonus is that if she gets her to 80, she can buy some tome for future characters to get cold weather flying in Northrend.

[Morat20]

Oh, oh, oh.  My turn!

Gryeyes:  I. Told. You. So.

Whee!  Glad to hear, Morat.  One other little bonus is that if she gets her to 80, she can buy some tome for future characters to get cold weather flying in Northrend.

At this point, she's just hoping the guy didn't fuck with her tradeskills. She had herbalist/alchemy and hopes he didn't drop the alchemy. The WoW GM suggested she wander through the other realms and delete all the level 1 spammers the guy made. :)

[Morfiend]

I have a feeling you will get your account back, with a free WotLK and a level 79 character.

And just for gryeyes, by back I mean accessible and unbanned. Not back from the person who hacked it.

[Jayce]

Grats, this time for real.  I'm noticing a distinct lack of gryeyes around here.

I guess we should listen to people who use the system, rather than game it. (/dogpile)

[Hawkbit]

Good to hear!  If you get a chance, I'm really interested to see how the gold sellers left your main characters.  Armor, money all that.  No real reason, just wondering what they do when they hack stuff.  

[Morat20]

Good to hear!  If you get a chance, I'm really interested to see how the gold sellers left your main characters.  Armor, money all that.  No real reason, just wondering what they do when they hack stuff.  

No problem. All I know so far -- via the GM -- is that they deleted everything but the main toon, a level 18 horde-side toon (don't know about gear) and created a shit-ton of level 1 warriors on multiple servers named things like "Lhtjz".

I'll let you know what he did gear and skills wise. Might not be until the weekend. Between her Master's degree, work, and coaching Special Olympics, she's a bit busy during the week. So far this has been more "stress" than "stress relief". :)

[Sjofn]

 

[fuser]

Gotta say that's great to hear. A co-workers account was hacked via usb trojan, and they effectively rolled her character back to the time before the hack took place. Unluckly for her this all happen while traveling ie: hacked/spammed/traded gold/sharded everything and xfered level 80 raiding character.

I'm really amazed by your experience of how much of an effort they attempted, and I'm really shocked from an IT perspective of how much data they must preserve.

[apocrypha]

Nice one Morat, good to hear.

[WindupAtheist]

ALL OF F13 CRIES OUT FOR THE TEARS OF GRYEYES! COME FORTH AND RECEIVE THY COMEUPPANCE!

[Azazel]

Hey! congratulations on this!

 

[K9]

Good to hear you got your account back.

[Morat20]

I'm really amazed by your experience of how much of an effort they attempted, and I'm really shocked from an IT perspective of how much data they must preserve.

The GM said that they probably could have gotten the deleted characters back if they'd been higher level, but low-level toons (she didn't define "low-level" but knowing my wife they were probably a bunch between 10 and 20) weren't archived long after deletion, but high-levels were.

As for the gear, it was simply too long ago. I got the impression that had it been 3 months, everything could have been restored, but almost a year? Not a chance.

I wanted to log into my hunter and cry my sweet tears of joy at having a pet/mount tab and fun new talents and shiny pet changes to play with (not to mention running down the Hunter trainer and Engineering trainers to pick up any new schematics and talents), but instead I played a fun game of "Why is the patcher not patching?" followed by "Fucking Kapersky" followed by "I'm letting this patch and going to sleep".

Question for any hunters: What the hell is an "exotic pet"? I was beastmaster back when beastmaster sucked, so I'm pretty sure I'll continue that -- but is that top-level talent (I think it's "Can tame exotic pets and get more pet talent points") worth it?

[gryeyes]

Congrats Morat! FUCK YOU THE REST OF YOU! 

[Nebu]

Exotic pet: If you go at least to the bottom of the BM tree (51 pooints) you can control pets with a special ability.  Check out PETTOPIA.  Under Tenacity, Cunning, and Ferocity links you'll find at least one or two exotics of each type.  They will have a ! after the name of the creature type. 

Hope that helps.

[Merusk]

Yeah, pets are 100% different from when you last played if you don't know what the exotics are.   You're going to need to relearn your class. 

They're mainly things like Bugs, Dinosaurs, Corehounds and the other "ooh, wouldn't it be cool if..." pets.   Except Zhevra and Giraffes.  I still want a Combat Giraffe.

[Soulflame]

DPS pet:  Cat or Wolf.  I think wolf is more of a group/raid dps pet, as it has a buff that applies to group/raid.
Tank pet:  Gorilla or Bear.  Gorilla can occasionally lock out a caster.  Bear has Swipe, which in addition to Thunderstomp, makes them quite effective at holding aggro on more than one mob.
PvP pet:  I'm not as clear on this... crab or something with a HEY YOU STOP MOVING ability.
Exotic pets:  Suck nearly uniformly.

[Morat20]

DPS pet:  Cat or Wolf.  I think wolf is more of a group/raid dps pet, as it has a buff that applies to group/raid.
Tank pet:  Gorilla or Bear.  Gorilla can occasionally lock out a caster.  Bear has Swipe, which in addition to Thunderstomp, makes them quite effective at holding aggro on more than one mob.
PvP pet:  I'm not as clear on this... crab or something with a HEY YOU STOP MOVING ability.
Exotic pets:  Suck nearly uniformly.

My current stable is a cat and a wolf. Cat is the snow leopard from the Dwarf starting area -- which led me to grind Night Elf faction so I can ride an almost matching white cat -- it makes my stoic Dwarf happy, damn you -- and the wolf is the one from UBRS? LBRS? You know, that one. The one you tame while everyone else is killing Mama.

I should probably go find something suitably tanky, and I suppose something suitably PvP-y, but I've always found the cat was good enough for PvP (of course, that was back when it was specced to be a big Fuck You to mages, thanks to resists) and the wolf held aggro just find for soloing.

[Nebu]

For tenacity, I recommed the following:

Bear for multiple pull aggro management.  Swipe makes holding pet aggro trivial.  This is a great leveling pet.  It's slower than a cat, but much safer in high aggro areas.

Turtle for bosses.  My turtle allows taking of heroics in 3-5 man quest content trivial. 

[Soulflame]

A cat will do you just fine if you're the slightest bit careful of how you pull.  It'll handle more than one add quite easily, particularly if you know how to drop traps.  I like the gorilla for the spell interrupt/lockout, and the bear is fairly decent for lazily sending into a pack of mobs and hitting pet mend.  I've had a bear tank 5-6 mobs at once while I pew pew'd away.  Note:  I was using some pvp gear, which means the pet had some resil, and some extra stamina.

I've not used a turtle, but I understand they're outstanding for tanking old world raid bosses and the like.

[Morat20]

I'll have to look into turtle and bears --- although I suppose I should consider at least one flyer.

I think it'll be awhile before I'm doing anything cutting edge. I'm mired mid-way through TBC and having to relearn my class, my wife is starting over -- either at 1 or 55 -- and the guy we're playing with is a DK around level 60. I sincerly doubt the guild I was in is still active, so it's PUGs, solos, and whatever two or three people can do for me for quite some time.

And PvP, later. I always enjoyed battlegrounds.

[Merusk]

Without one of you as a healer you'll be locked out of dungeons but other than that even 2 people is often more than adequate for everything including most "5-Man" quests with a pet class or DK in the group.

[Nebu]

For pvp I have a couple of personal favs:

I like the gorrilla for the stun.  It can be great against paladins when timed well against their big self heal (between that and interrupt).  

I like my spider for kiting.  It has a decent length root that seems to be up often enough to maintain distance.  

I  tend to choose my pets for utility rather than dps.  

If you stay BM spec the wyyvern has a nice special for a flier.