Curse

Cats · Sep 17, 2007, 10:22 AM // 10:22

I've been playing GW for a long time now, since March Beta 2005. I have Prophecies, Factions, NF and EotN, and been in a guild since Nov 2005.

Today a guildie of mine says I logged on for a bit, he tried to PM me but I didn't respond. The thing is I never got on since last night. He checks, and I've apparently left the guild.

Initially we think I've been hacked, but then when I get him to check my account, I get this error message

which seems more like an Anet thing. Now I can't get in at all.

I've been trying all day to contact Customer Service, but they've been a bit slow. Error number 070917-00655.

Any help would be most appreciated. I really fear losing that account after all the hours I put into it, and since it's holding half of my guild's party money

lordpwn · Sep 17, 2007, 10:53 AM // 10:53

Looks like a screwup by NCSoft or Anet; nothing we can do about it. Just hope the customer service can help you.

Cats · Sep 17, 2007, 12:21 PM // 12:21

I hope so too lordpwn, I'm very very anxious and upset right now. I tried again, and now I'm getting this...

I don't think anyone had changed my account email as I've been checking it all day, and I never received this mentioned 'email confirmation'.

immortius · Sep 17, 2007, 02:14 PM // 14:14

Is your account tied to a PlayNC account, or not? If the account is tied to a PlayNC account then the username couldn't be changed so it would have to be an issue at ANet's end. Otherwise things might be more dire.

Cats · Sep 17, 2007, 04:52 PM // 16:52

Apparently my account was indeed hacked. The guy came on about 11am EDT when a fellow officer and a few others were online, and who attempted to PM him but few of them got blocked. He swapped around a few of my toons - probably trying to steal all he can then delete them.

And NCSoft STILL hasn't got back to me. Now I've submitted 3x including UK NCSoft. No reply as of yet

Remeard · Sep 17, 2007, 11:45 PM // 23:45

As a bit of an update, a guildy of ours actually talked to whomever was on the account. He actually told him what he was going to do... this is where it gets complicated...

Apparently, he plans to take all the cash off and then run the account as a bot. After he had ran the bot, he planned to report it to Anet so they can delete it completely without making him a suspect.

The guildy who chatted has taken pictures of his chat with him.

Remeard · Sep 18, 2007, 09:22 PM // 21:22

An update:

This happened 21:30-22:00 GMT+1 on September 17th (Might be 16th... not sure since time zone is a factor)

I've omitted a guild chat conversation from the original picture since it had nothing to do with it.

Cats · Sep 19, 2007, 01:52 AM // 01:52

I've spoken to someone I know who's had his account hacked. He says 6 of his toons were deleted, 2 were stripped naked, and about 150-200k worth of items taken. Anet DID NOT inform him if the hacker was caught, nor rolled back his toon, nor reimbursed him for his loss. All he got was a template reply "We are sorry to inform you that your items cannot be retrieved." Which I'm guessing is what I'm going to get.

This reflects VERY VERY poorly on Anet public relations, especially as to the speed that they're taking action on my own account and replying me. It took them a total of 13 hours just to make their first post to me, leaving the offender ample time to come on for several times to steal and delete more items, and have kept me going in loops asking me for ridiculous things like sending them the original receipts of all my games to Austin, Texas, even though I had already provided them every single key, proving that I am undoubtedly the owner of those titles, plus I have close to 500 people to backup my statement. I'd like to know who keeps receipts from 2005?

Now they're ping ponging me from America to Europe, and replying me with template answers that I can match word for word. It seems my own guildies are doing a better job at tracking down this guy.

I wanna know what Anet is doing??

notskorn · Sep 19, 2007, 02:00 AM // 02:00

It reflects poorly on you, don't let someone get your password, dummy

Cats · Sep 19, 2007, 02:08 AM // 02:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by notskorn

It reflects poorly on you, don't let someone get your password, dummy

If I was that stupid I wouldn't be posting in here. Do you know what is the meaning of "HACKED". Nobody knows my password except my own husband. If I'm not the first victim of such crimes, GW obviously has a serious security problem that they're trying to cover up.

Dark Savior · Sep 19, 2007, 02:27 AM // 02:27

I'm in the guild with "cats" and I know that this person was able to hack the account. There are a lot of things that you can do to prevent this type of thing from happening. First off, Have a password that is very secure(like Cats did). Then you contact customer service immediately(like cats did). Now the normal policy(in any customer service as I'm a supervisor for a multi-national car sharing company, who's name i'm not allowed to release due to a privacy agreement I signed with the company) is that you suspend the account until you determine who the real user of the account is. Ask the person who has the email address to send you in a copy of their serials and then that will prove to you who owns the game. Your never suppose to throw away your serial keys...ever. It even states that on them(not when I originally picked up mine way back in 2005, but I still have them)

Now I'm not sure how they run their customer service, but I know that is the standard practice in most customer service places. A-net now gets a big thumbs down on it's customer service due to the lack of response and the ability to take initiative. I've been trying to help her regain her account.

But, I must ask this. What is A-net's turn around time? what if you were hacked? would you want to be responded to immediately? what if you lost all that gold, or ecto's or the platnium that you've been running around trying to get. You lost vabbian armor or all the grinding you did for the monument armor, asuran armor, or the Chaos gloves.

I really hope that Gaile Grey reads this post...due to the lack of customer service, she lost someone who spent countless hours making videos and praising A-net to the highest peek. If you want proof of this, go to youtube and type in "The Clover and the skull" which is an amazing series. As well as fire of the covenant.

What would you do in this situation?

Remeard · Sep 19, 2007, 03:38 AM // 03:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by notskorn

It reflects poorly on you, don't let someone get your password, dummy

And this post reflects poorly on your reading skills, dummy.

As seen, it's not a simple take password and go, something was obviously done on a much higher scale. No confirmation email and no email address shown in the picture taken... it's obviously no key logger or anything of that sort.

Something NEEDS to be done, not only for the sake of the fellow guildy of mine, but also for the possible security hole that has been found.

Sergeant of Marines · Sep 19, 2007, 04:51 AM // 04:51

Feel sorry for you, But we all know that you will not get your hard earned stuff back. I do hope that you at the very least get the account back, but 2 years of working towards something, all gone within hours. Sorry for your loss, hope it all works out in the end.

Etta · Sep 19, 2007, 11:41 AM // 11:41

Cats, maybe if you post this at the riverside you might get a bigger and better respond maybe even from Grey herself, on the other hand you might get some idiots post in as well. Do keep us posted though and sorry for your lost.

Arcane_Penguin · Sep 19, 2007, 12:00 PM // 12:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dark Savior

I'm in the guild with "cats" and I know that this person was able to hack the account. There are a lot of things that you can do to prevent this type of thing from happening. First off, Have a password that is very secure(like Cats did). Then you contact customer service immediately(like cats did). Now the normal policy(in any customer service as I'm a supervisor for a multi-national car sharing company, who's name i'm not allowed to release due to a privacy agreement I signed with the company) is that you suspend the account until you determine who the real user of the account is. Ask the person who has the email address to send you in a copy of their serials and then that will prove to you who owns the game. Your never suppose to throw away your serial keys...ever. It even states that on them(not when I originally picked up mine way back in 2005, but I still have them)

Now I'm not sure how they run their customer service, but I know that is the standard practice in most customer service places. A-net now gets a big thumbs down on it's customer service due to the lack of response and the ability to take initiative. I've been trying to help her regain her account.

But, I must ask this. What is A-net's turn around time? what if you were hacked? would you want to be responded to immediately? what if you lost all that gold, or ecto's or the platnium that you've been running around trying to get. You lost vabbian armor or all the grinding you did for the monument armor, asuran armor, or the Chaos gloves.

I really hope that Gaile Grey reads this post...due to the lack of customer service, she lost someone who spent countless hours making videos and praising A-net to the highest peek. If you want proof of this, go to youtube and type in "The Clover and the skull" which is an amazing series. As well as fire of the covenant.

What would you do in this situation?

Only problem with this, is that you an get the serials/keys from ing ame on the character select screen from going into options.

Receipts are needed. I guess a good reason to buy from the online store is that the receipts are emailed to you. So you can hardly 'lose them' then ;P

@ Cats

I hope you get your account back in its previous state, being hacked is no fun ;(

Tom Swift · Sep 19, 2007, 12:15 PM // 12:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Remeard

Something NEEDS to be done, not only for the sake of the fellow guildy of mine, but also for the possible security hole that has been found.

The more I see of problems with ANet and security the more I think they wound up over reaching themselves.

Stolen accounts - this one, at least, stolen without access to passwords or confirmation emails

And not only in the game but in their online service too...

The inability to figure a way to work the online store so that people in Australia do not get charged more than is fair (while this is not a security issue, it does indicate that they are struggling to figure out how to do online marketing properly)

Major problems with credit card charges in the online store (so much so that several have reported credit card companies and banks rejecting charges from ANet as possibly fraudulent)

The fact that when you do have a problem with purchases in the online store your only recourse is to go through the long "file a support ticket" process. The online stores I deal with all have a separate process for dealing with credit card charge problems - usually a toll free number that reaches a real person so that issues of that nature are dealt with immediately instead of having to go through layers of automated emails. The fact that ANet does not have this kind of support in place worries me a great deal.

I think ANet came up with a great idea for a game format but grew too fast. They are game programmers - not security and online sales specialists - and I think they need to realize that they are in over their heads in these areas. It is more and more obvious that until they admit it and begin seeking help from people who are security and marketing specialist the whole community is at risk - not only for stolen game accounts but for financial security as well.

I don't think I, for one, want to trust my credit card information to a company that seems to have so many security holes and is as slow to address problems as they obviously have been with this one.

ANet needs to get serious about security both in game and in sales. They need to look for expert help and they need to do it now.

Keithark · Sep 19, 2007, 12:35 PM // 12:35

Posted 5am Monday and no replys from a-net? They are going to do nothing even though you have provided proof the acct was stolen? That is terrible, and they should be ashamed if they don't give you back all your stuff...and don't give me that crap that they can't tell what you had because Gaile already said they could tell everything back when the dupe was going on.

Cats · Sep 19, 2007, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keithark

Posted 5am Monday and no replys from a-net?

I got some bot-like replies, with mostly 13-14hr gaps.

1. They asked me thrice what my access keys are,
2. Asked me twice to send them my receipts which I've already told them I do not keep receipts that are more than 2-years old. One time told me to mail them snail mail to Texas, that all photocopies will not be accepted, now telling me to fax them to Europe - isn't fax like a photocopy?
3. Asked me twice to provide a secure email.

Each time giving me no assurance, nor update as to how the progress is faring. So I have absolutely no idea what's going on.

I'm mainly the events/party creator in the guild and the alliance. I've commonly been the one to hold on to party items/prize weapons to give away during contests, and typically donate gold and green items into the prize list without merchanting them for myself. For that, I've never been very wealthy 'cos of all the stuff I give away on a regular basis, but it makes me happy to see others having a good time than just hoarding money for myself to get some leet armor.

It's been years of hard work, dedication and selection of good members that had made our guild stand out. Currently we hold a spot for Guild of the Week (in Sept). For that we held a large party bash to thank everyone for their support, and also a fun event that worked also as a fundraiser to fund more high profile contests/games in the future. But celebrations were apparently cut short as I believe it's no coincidence that I was hit so close to the time our names came up on guildwars.com - made me a target for the person who holds my account now. I'd hate to think of my toons/stuff gone. But worse than that - with my account goes every penny everyone has donated that I am wholly responsible for while holding onto it. The guildies have been telling me that it's not my fault, and that once I get my account back, everyone's gonna help get me back on my feet - but the very fact that this one person could harm so many people in my beloved guild/alliance in one gesture of selfish greed makes me very mad. If he wanted the cash - it was already there for the taking in the form of competitions/contests. Did he really have to ruin the fun of close to 500 people just for the kick of fooling around with one person? I think I know people, but I guess there're some that I'll just never understand.

If Anet had a shred of compassion they might attempt to reimburse the loss, although now I'm not really putting any hope in it with the way they've been working. If and when my account ever comes back to me, it'll be a steep road to climb to make back every penny that was lost.

If I just had one word to ask the hacker, I'd ask WHY.

Cats · Sep 19, 2007, 03:53 PM // 15:53

btw, my account is accessed again at this hour, Wednesday September 19th, 11:52am EDT, 3:52pm GMT. Anet has not suspended the account, and he is still removing items at his own time and leisure. The hacker has put in his own toon named "Bowyr Valdrago"

Darko_UK · Sep 19, 2007, 04:02 PM // 16:02

I feel really sorry for you

I hope you get your account back but I honestly think they won't bother helping you, If you have them your access keys what more do they need!?