My WoW-account's been compromised

[Rendakor]

If you've got CD keys you've got a shot. Blizzard's customer service has been pretty good regarding compromised accounts.

[Simond]

Yeah, it might take a week or two to get it fixed but they will fix it.

[Nightblade]

So I finally got through to blizzards support today, after a "approximate" 27 minute wait for 72 minutes, I was transferred to SANJAY. Oh good.

After going through the requisite "Whats ur account" business, he gets literally gets ansy with me and tells me that "I cant help you because your current battle.net account is different from the name on the original account" (The original account was paid for by my brother's credit card for the first few months)

I reply "...but I have the original boxes infront of me". "We can't do anything".

"I also have the credit card I used to pay for the account for most of the time, and the original email"

"You have to get him to call back", it was a waste of time arguing, so I just hung up.

I managed to get through again, and I'm not on a "approximate" wait of 23 minutes for about 30 minutes now. I made a new account under my brother's name with his permission; so that will somehow make everything ok, probably.

[Merusk]

My wife (who's worked for many years in call centers) says always speak to a supervisor when the frontline guy gives you grief.  They're always so busy they're going to be more accommodating just to get you off the phone.  Be forceful, but not an ass about it so they can't hang up on you.  If they do and you weren't cussing or being an ass, remember to add that to your complaint when talking to the super because they do get written up.

[Nightblade]

My wife (who's worked for many years in call centers) says always speak to a supervisor when the frontline guy gives you grief.  They're always so busy they're going to be more accommodating just to get you off the phone.  Be forceful, but not an ass about it so they can't hang up on you.  If they do and you weren't cussing or being an ass, remember to add that to your complaint when talking to the super because they do get written up.

Good advice, but the issue has been settled. I called again, after a wait of 23 minutes that lasted about an hour, I was helped by a very enthusiastic lady who, after I answering a few secret questions returned my account to me. I logged in to find that all of my characters are gone save for my level 70, my gold is missing, and the account was for some reason halfway pillaged. (all of my items remain)... Also I was shirtless in stormwind for some reason.

[Merusk]

Put in a GM ticket for reimbursement and they should be able to restore everything to you.

[Rendakor]

Reimbursement will depend on how long ago the gold and such was taken.

[Cheddar]

My wife (who's worked for many years in call centers) says always speak to a supervisor when the frontline guy gives you grief.

This is the dumbest shit ever.  You are better asking to get put into queue.  I have supervised in a few different call centers, and 95% of escalations comprise of this advice, which pissed me off.  

1.  I will probably say "No." and note your account.
2.  I probably cannot do what you ask, and will say "No," and annotate your account, thus depriving you of future arguments.
3.  "No."

You are better of asking to get put back in queue and talking to someone else.  If you are talking to India ask for Tier 2.

[Azazel]

Meh. Frontline call jockeys tend to have little to no power to do anything for anyone at anytime, which is why I almost always end up politely but forcefully asking to speak to their team leaders, who almost always are able to help me with my problem which is again almost caused by YOUR FUCKING END, NOT ME, SO I DO NOT CARE IF IT PISSES YOU OFF BECAUSE I AM THE ONE PAYING YOUR COMPANY FOR SOMETHING THAT YOU HAVE FUCKED UP, AND IF YOU'RE A DICKBAG ABOUT IT, I TALK TO YOUR BOSS IN TURN.

Yeah, something like that. But with none of the yelling and swearing. 

seriously, though...

I always ask the call jockeys and their supervisors what their names are with correct spelling and request that this conversation please be recorded, and type everything down as it's discussed on my end. Can I get a reference number as well, please? I am of course, businesslike, polite and professional, since I understand that it's not their personal fault that <problem> happened, but I really am quite unhappy, and I really do want it fixed up immediately or sooner, so I refuse to be brushed off. No, that's all for today, thank you again, and you have a great day. 

Basically, customer service as described in 1.2.3. will be much more likely get you fucked up if you try it with me. Companies don't care about me as a blob of generic humanity, but they do care about my money and recurring income stream.

[Ingmar]

I can't think of a time when asking to go to a supervisor or asking to be bumped up a tier in support hasn't worked for me.

[Merusk]

This is the dumbest shit ever.  You are better asking to get put into queue.  I have supervised in a few different call centers, and 95% of escalations comprise of this advice, which pissed me off. 

Look at it this way, Ched. You're not in that position anymore and how many others still are.  You are not typical.  Yes, should you get that one guy who will one day make the next management tier or two you could be screwed.  However, the odds are in your favor having it escalated.

And even if you were to annotate my account.. a call back will still get me what I want.  I have countless stories about such notes on accounts my wife's seen at banks, airlines, Sprint, DTV and office supply chains that were ignored by the lady (it's almost always a lady) calling back and getting someone else.  The best were the overdraft rebates frontline people at banks gave to people who were overdrawing 3-4 times a month.

[Bzalthek]

Well, I am now on this list.  My main toon was transferred to Malygos, several others stripped, and a lot of level 1 garble-names which were apparently gold spamming resulting in the 3 hour ban which is how I was informed of the situation via email.

Sent an e-mail.  This may give me the excuse I need not to go Cata.

Edit: Heh, already restored.  On a weekend no less.

[Azazel]

Nice.

[Tannhauser]

Alll of my items were restored except for 90% of my two main toons. :(  That really takes the wind out of your sails, having a level 80 with no gold or gear.
So now I wait for Cata to drop so I can re-gear. 

[Sheepherder]

Were you hacked while your account sat inactive for a long while?

The only time I've been hacked (mis-clicked a dirty link with the middle-mouse while scrolling... fuck me) I got everything back, though some of my shitty greens were of the whale rather than of the soldier, then again, this was early TBC.

[Xuri]

Ho hum. I finally bit the bullet today and added a battle.net authenticator for my WoW-account (yeah, only a year after it was previously hacked!), on my Nexus One-phone (yay for easy root-options!) Seems to be working. The almost-scary-but-not-really part: Less than an hour after I requested the authenticator, I received another mail from "Blizzard", asking me to confirm a password reset request. Apart from the obvious (I never requested a password reset), the "click here to confirm" link was very clearly pointing to a non-Blizzard website. Mere coincidence that I received this spam-mail less than an hour after adding an authenticator? I THINK NOT! *puts on tinfoil hat*

[Xanthippe]

Ho hum. I finally bit the bullet today and added a battle.net authenticator for my WoW-account (yeah, only a year after it was previously hacked!), on my Nexus One-phone (yay for easy root-options!) Seems to be working. The almost-scary-but-not-really part: Less than an hour after I requested the authenticator, I received another mail from "Blizzard", asking me to confirm a password reset request. Apart from the obvious (I never requested a password reset), the "click here to confirm" link was very clearly pointing to a non-Blizzard website. Mere coincidence that I received this spam-mail less than an hour after adding an authenticator? I THINK NOT! *puts on tinfoil hat*

Did you use the brand new Dial-in Battle.net authenticator?  How do you like it?

(FAQ here on it for anyone interested: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&tag=dialinauth&rhtml=true)

[Xuri]

Nope, I'm using the software-version of their authenticator, for Android phones. Works exactly like the keychain, I guess? Also, the Dial-In thingy is only for US citizens.

[raydeen]

I noticed that I started getting a shitton of phishing emails after I installed my authenticator. Maybe there's a bot (or bots) scanning accounts and as soon as they sniff an authenticator they start phishing for a way to grab the authenticator code? I don't know. It's either that or after I got hacked the first time, my info was now out there in some big list and now every gold farmer and spammer is trying to hack back in.

[Sheepherder]

No, just 'tis the season to phish accounts.

[Shrike]

I've had an authenticator on my account almost from the beginning. I've yet to get any phising emails. Then again, I rarely check my email and never the spam box, so I might just be blissfully unaware.

Just looked: nope, nothing, zero, nadda, zilch, zippo. Yet...

[01101010]

I've had an authenticator on my account almost from the beginning. I've yet to get any phising emails. Then again, I rarely check my email and never the spam box, so I might just be blissfully unaware.

Just looked: nope, nothing, zero, nadda, zilch, zippo. Yet...

Have not played since a month after BC came out and I would routinely get "your account has been compromised, please click here to restore your characters" months and years after I abandoned my characters.

[Selby]

No, just 'tis the season to phish accounts.

I get several a day.  But none of them ever come to the account that I have my WoW account under, just my forum registration email that is completely unrelated to it.

[Azazel]

A friend of mine got hacked recently, and I just noticed while tiddling around on my new account that my main account's characters had been on a day ago.. but that account expired 3 weeks ago.

Naturally, I'd been hacked. So I've gone through their various hoops to initiate a restore of my shit. I've opened up a new email account in order to have all my WoW shit and nothing else going to that email account. I'm expecting my new PC in a week, so it'll be a clean machine. Not so keen on downloading 30gb worth of WoW again, though... I usually just copy an install across. I guess it might be worthwhile this time, though...

[Cheddar]

A friend of mine got hacked recently, and I just noticed while tiddling around on my new account that my main account's characters had been on a day ago.. but that account expired 3 weeks ago.

Naturally, I'd been hacked. So I've gone through their various hoops to initiate a restore of my shit. I've opened up a new email account in order to have all my WoW shit and nothing else going to that email account. I'm expecting my new PC in a week, so it'll be a clean machine. Not so keen on downloading 30gb worth of WoW again, though... I usually just copy an install across. I guess it might be worthwhile this time, though...

I never had this issue with LoTRO.

[ghost]

A friend of mine got hacked recently, and I just noticed while tiddling around on my new account that my main account's characters had been on a day ago.. but that account expired 3 weeks ago.

Naturally, I'd been hacked. So I've gone through their various hoops to initiate a restore of my shit. I've opened up a new email account in order to have all my WoW shit and nothing else going to that email account. I'm expecting my new PC in a week, so it'll be a clean machine. Not so keen on downloading 30gb worth of WoW again, though... I usually just copy an install across. I guess it might be worthwhile this time, though...

I never had this issue with LoTRO.

Maybe because people don't make a ton of money off of selling LOTRO gold?

[Azazel]

I never had that issue with my WoW account for 5 years, until this week.

My LotRO account has just under 4 more years it needs to exist for to catch up to my WoW account's time without hacking. I'd probably have to have something worth stealing on it as well. I think I have like 3 gold in total, if that. Never got quite high enough to start high rolling as my friends did.

[Numtini]

I never had this issue with LoTRO.

Maybe because people don't make a ton of money off of selling LOTRO gold?

I gave my old LOTRO account to a friend and it was hacked this week. (I only know because she never changed the email on the account.)

[Azazel]

Just changed my LOTRO details, just to be safe.

[Ironwood]

So my account was locked this morning due to 'suspicious activity'.  No E-mail had been sent to me, like it said it should have, and I scanned everything and checked everything and nothing.

I then went through the change password rigmarole and logged in, only to find everything as it should be and no-one had attempted to log in since I last logged out.

What the hell ?

[Fordel]

I had this happen to me about a month ago I think? Did you also get a abnormally large amount of fake WoW-GM account theft spam in the past few weeks?


The nearest I could figure, was the goldspammers figured out that e-mail I was using for my Bnet account had a WoW account on it, and were just trying to force it open any and every way they could. So I assume there is some kind of flagging system at Blizzard that sees someone other then you is trying to log into your account from China or wherever the shit they are.


I have an authenticator, so even if my pass was compromised (which I doubt but it could happen I guess), it was moot. I changed my password and changed the e-mail address tied to the bnet account as well. Haven't had an issue since.



But yea, it caught me out of the blue on the log-in screen. Big WTF with a little 

[Oban]

My account gets locked every time I forget to turn on the vpn back to my home network and attempt to log in to my WoW account while traveling.

Blizzard must have some sort of geo-location or ip address logging service running to catch hackers.

[Kail]

So my account was locked this morning due to 'suspicious activity'.  No E-mail had been sent to me, like it said it should have, and I scanned everything and checked everything and nothing.

I then went through the change password rigmarole and logged in, only to find everything as it should be and no-one had attempted to log in since I last logged out.

Same thing here.  I got the e-mail after I tried logging in, though.  Nothing taken, that I've noticed, no viruses showed up on scan.  I was thinking it might be because I gave some gold (100g or so) to a friend, but that's about the most "suspicious" thing I can think of.

[Ironwood]

After careful consideration, I'm quite sure someone was trying to brute force the E-mail address.  It's the only thing that makes sense.

It's quite impressive that Blizzard catch that shit.

[Azazel]

Now change the email address your bnet wow account is on.