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Hacked account? - Advise needed
Shol
Member Posts: 361
Im using the german email provider gmx, I dont use a local email client instead I access through the gmx webpage. I played vanilla wow years ago and stopped after burning crusade came out. Since then I played different games.
Today I checked my emails and also checked the spam folder, what I normally dont do, I found several emails (some days old) involving my wow-account. They seemed to be from blizzard, at least at first sight. Most seem to be fake emails, nonetheless the last one worried me.
Heres the first one (Sun, 03. Jan 2010):
-----
Greetings!
This is an automated notification regarding the recentchange(s)
made to your World of Warcraft account. Your password has recentlybeen modified through the Password Recovery website.
*** If you made thispassword change, please disregard this notification.
However, if you did NOTmake changes to your password we recommend you Login verify your password:
http://www.worldofwarcraft-account-directives.com
Account security issolely the responsibility of the account holder.
Please be advised that inthe event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives typically must lockthe account.
In these cases the Account Administration team will requirefaxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.
Regards,
The World of Warcraft Support Team BlizzardEntertainment
-----
The adress looks fake to me.
Some days later this email was sent:
-----
World of Warcraft -> Legal -> End User License Agreement
and Section 8 of the Terms of Use:
Blizzard Entertainment -> Legal -> Terms of Use
A 3-hour probationary suspension is pending on this account, awaiting confirmation from a specialist. A final warning has been issued. The investigation will be continued by the Account Administration team to determine the any further suspensions. If the account in question is found in violation of the EULA and Terms of Use, further action will be taken. Be aware that any additional inappropriate actions may result in the permanent closure of the account.
Thank you for respecting our position on this matter.
==================================================================================================================
** We request that you verify your legitimate ownership of the account here:
http://www.worldofwarcraft-battle-complaints.com
Blizzard staff will verify your account information submitted in two days, please do not modify your account information during this time . It will not affect your game uptime.
If you are unable to successfully verify your password .
using the automated system, please contact Billing & Account Services at 1-800-59-BLIZZARD (1-800-592-5499) Mon-Fri, 8am-8pm Pacific Time or at billing@blizzard.com. Account security is solely the responsibility of the account holder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives typically must lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.
Regards,
The World of Warcraft Support Team Blizzard Entertainment
-----
This adress also looks faked.
On 13th this email appeared:
-----
Greetings!
It was reported that you are trying to sell your personal World of Warcraft account(s).
As you may not be aware of, this conflicts with the EULA and Terms of Agreement.
If this proves to be true, your account can and will be disabled.
We will gather more information through further investigation.
If you wish to not get your account suspended you should immediately verify your account ownership.
You can confirm that you are the original owner of the account by providing the following information:
* First and Surname
* Date of birth
* Address
* Zip code
* Phone number
* Country
* Account e-mail
* Account name
* Account password
* Secret Question and Answer Or WoW CD-Key
Show * Please enter the correct information
If you ignore this mail your account can be closed permanently.
Once we verify your account, we will reply to your e-mail informing you that we have dropped the investigation.
Regards,
Account Administration Team
Blizzard Entertainment
-----
Definitly a scam.
2 days later this one:
-----
Hello XXXXXX,
This is an automated notification regarding the recent change(s)
made to your World of Warcraft account. Blizzard system scan to your account insecurity, in order not to affect the normal use of your account, please log Blizzard safety net to verify your account information, or else Blizzard will stop using your account's rights .
Certification of Warcraft account information site of Blizzard:
http:/ / www.worldofwarcraft.net
Blizzard staff will verify your account information submitted in two days, please do not modify your account information during this time . It will not affect your game uptime.
using the automated system, please contact Billing & Account Services at 1-800-59-BLIZZARD (1-800-592-5499) Mon-Fri, 8am-8pm Pacific Time or at noreply@blizzard.com. Account security is solely the responsibility of the account holder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives typically must lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.
Please retain this e-mail for your reference.
For more information, click here for answers to Frequently Asked Questions or to contact the Blizzard Billing & Account Services team.
Sincerely,
The Blizzard Account Team
Online Privacy Policy
-----
Ok, now this looks pretty official to me. By hovering my mouse above the provided link it showed http%3A%2F%2Fwww.%2520worldofwcrcraft.net. Now Im pretty sure that Blizzard wont use adresses with wrongly written names, so fake too and nothing to worry for me.
And than came this one which was sent yesterday.
-----
Greetings,
An investigation of your World of Warcraft account has found strong evidence that the account in question is being sold or traded. As you may not be aware of, this conflicts with Blizzard's EULA under section 4 Paragraph B which can be found here:
WoW -> Legal -> End User License Agreement
and Section 8 of the Terms of Use found here:
WoW -> Legal -> Terms of Use
The investigation will be continued by Blizzard administration to determine the action to be taken against your account. If your account is found violating the EULA and Terms of Use, your account can, and will be suspended/closed/or terminated.
In order to keep this from occurring, you should immediately verify that you are the original owner of the account.
To verify your identity please visit the following webpage:
http://www.battle.net/account/support/
Only Account Administration will be able to assist with account retrieval issues. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter, and your continued interest in World of Warcraft.
Sincerely,
World of.Warcraft.Account.Administration
Blizzard.Entertainment
-----
This isnt a poorly written email, this looks damn official. See yourself:
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/6126/wowaccounthack.jpg
Anyone has an idea if this is just another attempt to get my account or is this the real thing? Keep in mind I havent played WoW for ages, no clue what adresses are offical ones. I did click on the link and ended at some offical looking site.
Is this another scam or is my Blizzaccount really compromised?
Comments
if you receive an email claiming to be from blizzard about WoW, asking for account details etc, then it is a scam.. 100 percent of the time. theres a lot of them about. under no circumstances use the links in emails - if in doubt you use the games own links, to account management. ignore all emails is my advice. dont respond to them as it only confirms that your email is active.
Well, they dont ask for account details and the link actually goes to the official blizzard site (just checked) and there isnt some login or something. It really seems to be just a warning that my account is sold.
And that scares me.
Update:
I managed to log into my wow-account (was hard, 3 years old, forgot pwd, good thing I found the CD's) and judging from account management it seems untouched. I didnt used the link in the email just in case.
So Im kinda clueless what purpose this email has. Maybe they hoped that I would reply to it?
Case closed it seems.
Not it is not the official blizzard site. It just looks like, its a scam. All those email you link I receive everyday, even though I do not own a WoW account linked to my email accounts. Blizzard will not be sending those emails to me every few days to an email account they do not even know.
You should never click on the links provided in that look alike email. If you already did, your PC is most likely infected. You need to scam you entire system and any external storage devices connected to that PC ever since. If you did log onto that warcraft look alike site, go to a clean PC, log onto worldofwarcraft.com directly and try to change password, immediately.
Chances are, they already stole your password. They might not yet have changed it.
NEVER log onto anything else from your possibly infected PC, until you reformat it, or do very thorough scanning.
Good luck.
Those hackers use automated emails to spam any email address they know and hope people click on to the links they provided. Now that you have visited their links and then log onto your WoW account, chances are they already snatched your password and username.
They will not steal it immediately. They would if they need to use your account for any purpose. I suggest to go find a clean PC, relog into wow account management and change password.
Hope it is not too late.
The link was an official blizzard site. So no harm done by clicking it.
If you are sure it is, then all good.
Except of course, that Blizzard wouldnt have sent it... what you probably have is a link that shows the blizzards website from within their own.. so now they know your email address is valid, and its also the log in name of your WoW account.. all they need now is a password.
i dont think it can be repeated too often.. but never.. never .. ever.. use a link in an email.. even if it looks reputable.
If you are that concerned I would just go to blizzard's official site and contact them that way.
If your account does get hacked or they freeze it for whatever reason I believe they ask you to fax them information with a copy of your photo ID.
The account managment shows the status as frozen.
Is this the normal state after the sub runs out or is this some special state?
call them you will be on hold for maybe 10 min tell them what happened and get your account information back. Then put up a ticket ingame stating what happened and what got stolen. The whole process will take around 10 days to get your stuff back. There are many people that have to go through this hence the long wait. Also i suggest investing in an authenticator so your account can't get hacked again.
I dont want to sound like a jerk, but if you would have read what I wrote, you would know that last time I played is 3 years ago, Im from europe (its like 7am here) and I have no problems logging in my account.
Atm the only strange thing is the frozen account state (but even that might just be normal for an inactive account.) and this strange email.
Im going to find a blizz support email adress and forward the email asking if thats a scam or not.
Edit:
Ok, email is out, lets see what the official answer is. Good night everyone.
If you haven't played in years, unless you plan to return at some point, why do you care? If and when you decide to return to the game, then you would probably want to check that everything is still in order, but it seems you've already done that. I'd say ignore the e-mails.
Except of course, that Blizzard wouldnt have sent it...
How do you know that? Blizzard does in fact send e-mails to players. I've received several of them over the years. Just because you get an e-mail from Blizzard doesn't mean it's fake. It doesn't mean it's real either, but don't make the mistake of thinking that all e-mails from Blizzard are fake. They are not.
The account managment shows the status as frozen.
Is this the normal state after the sub runs out or is this some special state?
No, it's not normal, it means the account has been suspended for some reason. There has been a rash of accounts that were previously closed being reopened so that it can be used by gold sellers to do their business. Sounds like your account has been hit. I would do like someone else said and contact Blizzard support. Don't click on any links within e-mails to do that, just simply open your browser and go to www.blizzard.com/support or simply click on this link.
The account managment shows the status as frozen.
Is this the normal state after the sub runs out or is this some special state?
No, it's not normal, it means the account has been suspended for some reason. There has been a rash of accounts that were previously closed being reopened so that it can be used by gold sellers to do their business. Sounds like your account has been hit. I would do like someone else said and contact Blizzard support. Don't click on any links within e-mails to do that, just simply open your browser and go to www.blizzard.com/support or simply click on this link.
-You are wrong, when it say "frozen" it means that sub runed out and not that the account is suspended, so do not worry that IS normal to see when your sub runs out.
if you plan on returning to WoW consider buying the blizzard authenticator. blizzard store has them and will ship keychain like device that has 6 numbers random everytime. once registered to your account you have to enter the numbers after your user name and password. only someone who has your keychain could enter the game or account. with the keychain evem if someone hacked they would be stopped by the keychain code stage.these keyloggers can be anywhere even MP3 for gun n roses so better safe then sorry buddy.
Shol,
First, you have nothing to worry about, my friend. Account Status: "Frozen" means that you have merely cancelled your account. The emails are fakes and are phishing for info. The first sign should have been that your account is cancelled and there is no possible way "illegal" activities could take place (the account is frozen afterall).
Secondly, if and when you do decide to re-sub, get a Blizzard Authenticator. You'll never have to worry about account theft again. Its really that simple.
From the sound of it al, it sounds fake. If in doubt just go to WoW site and contact customer service and wait for a response and they will tell you if it is fake or not.
I dont sub WoW constantly so when I log into my account and it says frozen, it just means that it isnt active.
The account managment shows the status as frozen.
Is this the normal state after the sub runs out or is this some special state?
No, it's not normal, it means the account has been suspended for some reason. There has been a rash of accounts that were previously closed being reopened so that it can be used by gold sellers to do their business. Sounds like your account has been hit. I would do like someone else said and contact Blizzard support. Don't click on any links within e-mails to do that, just simply open your browser and go to www.blizzard.com/support or simply click on this link.
-You are wrong, when it say "frozen" it means that sub runed out and not that the account is suspended, so do not worry that IS normal to see when your sub runs out.
Maybe I'm confused, where are you seeing that account status is "frozen"? I have an account that is not active (the sub ran out) and it does not show a status of "frozen" that I can find. Where are you seeing that your status is "frozen"? My account only shows a status of "inactive".
Edit: Ah, I see where I was confused. I was looking at an old account that had not been converted to a Battle.net account. Frozen appears on the new account information screen for Battle.net accounts. The old account information status just shows inactive. Sorry for the confusion.
But I'm really confused now why the OP's account would be converted to the new Battle.net account if he hasn't used it in a couple years?
But I'm really confused now why the OP's account would be converted to the new Battle.net account if he hasn't used it in a couple years?
Thats easy to explain. After I got the email I thought it would be an official email from blizzard and my inactive account was hijacked. So I tried to login but discovered that I forgot my pwd (or the account was really stolen and the pwd changed). Password retrieval is available for battlenet accounts, so I converted my old WoW account to a new battlenet one and managed to send a new generic pwd to another email adress by using my CD authentication code (I even forgot the secret question... is there a way to reset this?)
So far there is no support reply. I used the webformula for the account security support.
I might sound like a jerk, talking about something that looks very safe. But no, I am trying to show some possibilities.
The mail you quoted are definitely phishing mail. I receive them every day, exact wording, exact punctuation, exact bad english, sent to an account of mine not at all associated with WoW. No way Blizz will send mail to an account they do not know. That account is linked to this MORPG username and other web sites for forums only.
Second, there is a chance they have stolen your password. No, it is not ok even if the WoW account is now cancelled. Using stolen credit cards, they can revive your account some time later for whatever they need then. That happens a lot in credit card frauds these days. I know, one of my contracts is support for credit card operations. I see that everyday.
Third, what I am most worried is that you got infected with key logger when handling that phish email or visiting any of the links. The keylogger might have stolen more than just your WoW password.
While none of these have a high probability of happening, it is always better to be more careful than necessary.
Good luck friend, I am just trying to be excessively prudent.
Why do people still take emails sent like this to be real.
If you THINK you might actually have an account problem, GO TO THE MAIN SITE YOU'VE GONE TO BEFORE 3000000 times. Never take a link in an email. Never think "oh this looks SEMI real".
Check. The. Real. Site.
Ok, that would explain it then. In that case, I think you're fine. Just ignore the e-mails.
I don't believe you can change your secret question without going thru Blizzard's support team.
For me, it was like this; logging on> wrong password message> checking inbox> official blizzard message that my password is changed> quick change of password> logging into game again and finding that the prick responsible is still there
No fake emails, no fake links, nothing like that.
The only thing strange is that who ever was responsible left me my Dalaran Seal (that coin you can flip in your hands) adn ornate spy glass in the banks, heh.