When you see what appear to be legitimate LINKS (as some of the above DO) NOTE that when you mouseover the link and look to see where it goes....they are REDIRECTS. They do not GO to where the link SAYS it goes. This is probably how you got duped. The ones that appear legitimate links do not link from your email as they do above.
Not necessarily a redirect, but just a fake hyperlink. If the link led to an address that used code to lead you to another address or domain, then it would be a redirect. Otherwise, everything you say is true about these emails. I've been getting some pretty lazy ones lately like this one:
----
In view of recent, we have received too many from other players on your complaint we must to verify your account.please login http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ as soon as possible with our current inspection or we will lock your account, forever.
Regards,
Blizzard Inc.
----
The link actually led to an "hk" domain extension and the return path was to some random Hotmail account.
If ever in doubt about an email that says something has been done to your account, just manually go to the official WoW site and log in there. You will know immediately if something is really wrong. I have http://www.worldofwarcraft.com bookmarked, so I just hit the link and trust I am going there. This applies to any website you have to log into.
well if you look at the link it tells you.. it goes to some strange site NOT blizzard. Do like others have said.. DELETE them. I get the same thing for AION, WOW.. I get 2-4 each week. Your account was not hacked .. click the link and give them the info and it will be hacked.
i recently had my closed account hacked as well. They put an authenticator on it too, so i couldnt get to it either. So i cahnged the pasword so niether of us coult get to it. After my account was fully restored (about 4days) i paid the 6.50 for the authenticator cuz it worked so well keeping me out, lol. small price to pay for piece of mind.
Guys I don't know if you were still talking to me with all the posts of the emails etc. But I've mentioned a very many times I DID NOT CLICK ANY LINKS. but...
Bliz restored my account. I was promised some free play time but haven't got any word on that yet. I was completely emptied out so they gave me 65 or so random epics. I'm like loaded with epics. I have 2-3 of a few as well, it's pretty funny and somewhat sad. My gearscore is 4625 now. I used to be skinning/mining 450/450 but whoever was using my account got me JC443. So JC443/Mining450 now haha. My 67 mage IS COMPLETELY WIPED. I have nothing, nada. No equipment whatsoever. All crafts for that toon remain the same. I'm missing about 2kg in crafting mats though. In cash I was probably taken for 3-4k g, another 2-3k in mats.
I'm still waiting to see if I'll get the time they promised me, hopefully but I'm not going to make a big deal about it. I use my on-screen keyboard now for password/username entry.
I received an email today with account recovery instructions. Curiously I went to my old guild forums and sure enough someone made a post about my paladin alt being logged in and not responding to tells. It has been over six months since I've logged in, and WoW has long been completely cleaned off my computer, so I don't know. The email account I registered WoW under has been my personal communication email for a while now. I have a separate gmail account that gets all the social network and forum registration junk. I also make an effort at keeping my pc clean and secure. I also have a variety of jibberish passwords that I use.
Greetings,
We have determined that the World of Warcraft account xxxxxxxxxxx has been accessed/compromised by someone not authorized to do so by the World of Warcraft Terms of Use (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html).
To protect your privacy and security, we have temporarily disabled this account. Any recurring subscriptions have been suspended to prevent further monetary charges. In order to regain access to the account, you must complete the steps below to secure the account and your computer.
Please keep this email for your reference until the account recovery process has been completed.
STEP 1: SECURE THE ACCOUNT, YOUR COMPUTER AND YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
Account compromises most often occur when a player shares login information with an unauthorized third party or plays on a computer that has a virus, Trojan, or key-logger. We recommend you read and apply the following tips to protect yourself and the account.
We now provide a secure website for you to verify that you have taken the appropriate steps to secure the account, your computer, and your email address. Please go to this site and follow the instructions:
We will contact you with further instructions once we have received and processed your submission. If you do not receive a reply within 48 hours of submitting this form, please resend it from the address listed above.
Please be aware that if unauthorized access to this account continues after the recovery process is complete, it may lead to further action against the account.
Yup. Looks like accounts that haven't been migrated across to the Battle.net have been hacked on Blizzard's end. Theres just too many cases for there to be any other reason. I'll give you an example
Guy quit playing WoW 15-16 months ago. During that time he has a brand new computer. Has never had WoW installed that computer nor any WoW related items. His account was hacked. A friend of his who still plays the game rang him up and told him what happened. It was the first time in a long time he had even thought about WoW. He had not visited any WoW related websites and had not typed in his user name or password since he had his new computer.
Even if he had a key logger on his computer it wouldnt have made any difference. A key logger can only log what you type, not read your mind.
And in my own personal guild a friend who quit the game 11 months ago suddenly appeared online and emptied out my guild bank and gold. After speaking to my friend I learned that he did not have WoW installed, has not been to any WoW related websites and hasnot even typed in his user name/password since he last played. He did not have the user name/password saved on his computer, infact, he couldnt even remember what his user name/password even was.
So, Blizz fanbois, explain that. Obviously the system that they keep the old un-migrated accounts has been hacked on Blizzards end, or someone has had unbelievable luck in brute force attacks.
I put in a ticket to have my guild bank restored and within 16 hours not only had my ticket been looked at by a GM, it was passed onto Blizzard's investigation team and everything was restored. In 16 hours. Since the Activision-Blizzard merger and the reduction in GM's you dont even get tickets looked at within 16 hours. The fact that Blizzard were sooooooo keen and anxious to fix this, to me at least, clearly indicates Blizzard have something hide, because lets face it, WoW's customer service has gone to hell since the Activision-Blizzard merger.
I received a phish e-mail from wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com as well. I took the steps to check out where the e-mail originated from, which was actually some e-mail address called wrtgfhgf.org or somesuch, it did NOT come from Blizzard.
I got a few other phishing e-mails as well since resubbing for a month. This has stopped since I changed the e-mail associated with my battle.net account.
All I can suggest is to spawn a new, virgin e-mail address for your battle.net account and nothing else. You will stop getting the phishing e-mails, and if you never migrated your WoW account over to battle.net then realize that there's a huge security loophole in their old system, which others have alluded to in this thread.
You may not like migrating your account over, but it's much, much safer. And I have a suspicion when Cata hits it will be mandatory.
Comments
Not necessarily a redirect, but just a fake hyperlink. If the link led to an address that used code to lead you to another address or domain, then it would be a redirect. Otherwise, everything you say is true about these emails. I've been getting some pretty lazy ones lately like this one:
----
In view of recent, we have received too many from other players on your complaint we must to verify your account.please login http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ as soon as possible with our current inspection or we will lock your account, forever.
Regards,
Blizzard Inc.
----
The link actually led to an "hk" domain extension and the return path was to some random Hotmail account.
If ever in doubt about an email that says something has been done to your account, just manually go to the official WoW site and log in there. You will know immediately if something is really wrong. I have http://www.worldofwarcraft.com bookmarked, so I just hit the link and trust I am going there. This applies to any website you have to log into.
well if you look at the link it tells you.. it goes to some strange site NOT blizzard. Do like others have said.. DELETE them. I get the same thing for AION, WOW.. I get 2-4 each week. Your account was not hacked .. click the link and give them the info and it will be hacked.
i recently had my closed account hacked as well. They put an authenticator on it too, so i couldnt get to it either. So i cahnged the pasword so niether of us coult get to it. After my account was fully restored (about 4days) i paid the 6.50 for the authenticator cuz it worked so well keeping me out, lol. small price to pay for piece of mind.
Guys I don't know if you were still talking to me with all the posts of the emails etc. But I've mentioned a very many times I DID NOT CLICK ANY LINKS. but...
Bliz restored my account. I was promised some free play time but haven't got any word on that yet. I was completely emptied out so they gave me 65 or so random epics. I'm like loaded with epics. I have 2-3 of a few as well, it's pretty funny and somewhat sad. My gearscore is 4625 now. I used to be skinning/mining 450/450 but whoever was using my account got me JC443. So JC443/Mining450 now haha. My 67 mage IS COMPLETELY WIPED. I have nothing, nada. No equipment whatsoever. All crafts for that toon remain the same. I'm missing about 2kg in crafting mats though. In cash I was probably taken for 3-4k g, another 2-3k in mats.
I'm still waiting to see if I'll get the time they promised me, hopefully but I'm not going to make a big deal about it. I use my on-screen keyboard now for password/username entry.
I received an email today with account recovery instructions. Curiously I went to my old guild forums and sure enough someone made a post about my paladin alt being logged in and not responding to tells. It has been over six months since I've logged in, and WoW has long been completely cleaned off my computer, so I don't know. The email account I registered WoW under has been my personal communication email for a while now. I have a separate gmail account that gets all the social network and forum registration junk. I also make an effort at keeping my pc clean and secure. I also have a variety of jibberish passwords that I use.
Greetings,
We have determined that the World of Warcraft account xxxxxxxxxxx has been accessed/compromised by someone not authorized to do so by the World of Warcraft Terms of Use (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html).
To protect your privacy and security, we have temporarily disabled this account. Any recurring subscriptions have been suspended to prevent further monetary charges. In order to regain access to the account, you must complete the steps below to secure the account and your computer.
Please keep this email for your reference until the account recovery process has been completed.
STEP 1: SECURE THE ACCOUNT, YOUR COMPUTER AND YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
Account compromises most often occur when a player shares login information with an unauthorized third party or plays on a computer that has a virus, Trojan, or key-logger. We recommend you read and apply the following tips to protect yourself and the account.
- Unauthorized Account Access Policy: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/20460
- World of Warcraft Account Security: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/20572
- Computer Security: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/21118
- Email Address Security: http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/28585
STEP 2: RECOVER THE ACCOUNT
We now provide a secure website for you to verify that you have taken the appropriate steps to secure the account, your computer, and your email address. Please go to this site and follow the instructions:
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/securitywebform
STEP 3: VERIFY YOUR SUBMISSION WAS RECEIVED
We will contact you with further instructions once we have received and processed your submission. If you do not receive a reply within 48 hours of submitting this form, please resend it from the address listed above.
Please be aware that if unauthorized access to this account continues after the recovery process is complete, it may lead to further action against the account.
Regards,
Blizzard Entertainment
www.WorldofWarcraft.com
Yup. Looks like accounts that haven't been migrated across to the Battle.net have been hacked on Blizzard's end. Theres just too many cases for there to be any other reason. I'll give you an example
Guy quit playing WoW 15-16 months ago. During that time he has a brand new computer. Has never had WoW installed that computer nor any WoW related items. His account was hacked. A friend of his who still plays the game rang him up and told him what happened. It was the first time in a long time he had even thought about WoW. He had not visited any WoW related websites and had not typed in his user name or password since he had his new computer.
Even if he had a key logger on his computer it wouldnt have made any difference. A key logger can only log what you type, not read your mind.
And in my own personal guild a friend who quit the game 11 months ago suddenly appeared online and emptied out my guild bank and gold. After speaking to my friend I learned that he did not have WoW installed, has not been to any WoW related websites and has not even typed in his user name/password since he last played. He did not have the user name/password saved on his computer, infact, he couldnt even remember what his user name/password even was.
So, Blizz fanbois, explain that. Obviously the system that they keep the old un-migrated accounts has been hacked on Blizzards end, or someone has had unbelievable luck in brute force attacks.
I put in a ticket to have my guild bank restored and within 16 hours not only had my ticket been looked at by a GM, it was passed onto Blizzard's investigation team and everything was restored. In 16 hours. Since the Activision-Blizzard merger and the reduction in GM's you dont even get tickets looked at within 16 hours. The fact that Blizzard were sooooooo keen and anxious to fix this, to me at least, clearly indicates Blizzard have something hide, because lets face it, WoW's customer service has gone to hell since the Activision-Blizzard merger.
I received a phish e-mail from wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com as well. I took the steps to check out where the e-mail originated from, which was actually some e-mail address called wrtgfhgf.org or somesuch, it did NOT come from Blizzard.
I got a few other phishing e-mails as well since resubbing for a month. This has stopped since I changed the e-mail associated with my battle.net account.
All I can suggest is to spawn a new, virgin e-mail address for your battle.net account and nothing else. You will stop getting the phishing e-mails, and if you never migrated your WoW account over to battle.net then realize that there's a huge security loophole in their old system, which others have alluded to in this thread.
You may not like migrating your account over, but it's much, much safer. And I have a suspicion when Cata hits it will be mandatory.