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Gamers, a warning (and teach others)
Rider071
Member Posts: 318
As recently as 2 weeks ago, many of us have started receiving emails from Battle.net saying our accounts were in danger because of various reasons....selling your account, being banned, people logging in from different computers, etc.
Now I haven't had an active Bliz account for months, so this is mainly why I am warning folks.
These all look very legitimate, they have links that seem like Blizzard sites, etc.
I actually fell for the first one, and filled in my info. Luckily I felt strange about it, and logged into my account and immediately changed all info contradictory to the form I just filled.
Glad I did, because upon researching it seems this is a new plague of hackers accessing our emails through the Battlenet system (since they use our emails as our usernames, pure genius).
The sure fire way to see if the email is a hack is to check the details of the email, or the 'header'. Hacks cannot change the email's header (i.e. the source) but they can mask what you see in your email box.
I have received at least 1 email a day since that first email, with all sorts of crazy explanations and hysterical things happening to my account, demanding I log in to the site to save it.
Now though, I am concerned, the hackers are now sending the same emails posing as PayPal. Same thing, check the header and you find it's not PayPal.
Be warned guys, and make sure your family and friends that use computers, purchase things over the internet/emails know about this scam. Hotmail only as recently as yesterday is able to detect the fake ones now, so it helps, but they are not catching all of them.
Folks need to be vigilant.
Happy New Year.
Comments
I got two of these such emails just two weeks ago.Their staff told me it is possible to disguise the address and a real Blizzard address,of course i never cliked it anyhow,but the point is i was pissed i even got the email.
Here is the real kicker to this whole ordeal....
I only played the trial for 3 days,so how on earth after playing a 3 day trial does some hacker site get my email address?
I actually gave Blizzard a piece of my mind as there is no way i get ANY emails from or about Wow until i played a trial for 3 days and the game has been out for 6 years lol,with tons of hacking going on.
There is ONLY two explanations,they have some suspicious people with access to accounts and OR the most obvious one,they are selling your information email for money to advertising or to those that PRETEND to be advertising sites.If they are selling your information for money,they are feeding the problem and are a part of it.
IMO and i have said this MANY times,LOCK user access to ONE IP address,if your ip is not the one trying to login,then you CANNOT login period.But i feel Blizzard is too dam lazy to care about their customers that make them millions,they would much rather make a few extra bucks selling those key codes or do nothing on their end..If somebody wants to login then they have to make a phone call to get a change of address lock.Simple solution and nobody will ever get hacked.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
cheers for the warning about things but your a tad bit late, it's a scam by bliz/bnet or whoever to get people to buy some kind of activator or actuator or somethign stupid. i've been getting emails liek this since i did the trial for WoW over a year ago. 3+ per week.
You can't lock an IP down unless your internet provider specifies your IP. 9 times out of 10 your IP is DHCP so your IP could change based on something as simple as logging your computer.
I hate saying it but the only REAL protection anymore seems to be token generators. I'm fairly sure Blizz scams people to get'm to buy'm but it certainly serves its purpose.
I stopped playing WoW 3 months after release and have never had a battlenet account, but I still get these emails. I also doubt that it's a scam by Blizzard.
I think they just throw random email accounts out there and say blah blah battlenet account yadda yadda. I had a Co worker come up to me as she got one to her work email. She dosen't even know what Battle Net or WoW is (yes I was stunned too)
I get tons of those emails and will occasionaly log into my Bnet (not through any emai links) and make sure everything is ok then change password. My WoW account is also not activated.
I get anywhere from 1 to 6 fake battle net/blizzard emails a day. I have filters set up to send them directly to a folder I named "Blizzard Hacks". From there I just periodically delete them. If you see enough legit emails you can pretty easily tell them apart. In the end there is no excuse for not having an authenticator. You cannot be hacked with the authenticator. Won't matter anyway since I'll be playing the crap out of Rift and DCU while my WoW account sits idle at level 53.
God.. please don't tell me people still fall for these? I've been getting phishing emails every day the past 3 years.
I've never played WoW, nor have I ever setup a battle.net account. I still receive these emails. I started getting these emails right after signing up for a beta (Aberron or something like that) That is the only thing that I can point at for when they started.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
My normal everyday email (not WoW account) gets flooded with junk mail my account is comprimised, account hacked, account banned, account doing illegal activities, Account cheating, fill out info here blah blah, all scams.
It really saddens me that people fall for it, or use the link in the email regardless.
It amazes me that this never happened to me UNTIL I set up a battlenet account for Starcraft 2. Anyway, I never do much but report them as phising scams to my email provider.
Let's party like it is 1863!
Blizzard will never ever ask you for personal, account or CC info through email, ever.
They have made this very clear in the forums a number of times.
Actually they do. If you're unable to retrive your b.net account (like if it's being hacked) then they'll ask for your ID and account information conirming you're the owner. But remember they don't ask for this information out of the blue.
Uhm......no. They do not ask for this information via email....not EVER. Now if you're on the PHONE with them trying to retrieve your account....that's another story, I'm sure, but they won't ask for this information in an EMAIL.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
These are not anything knew i been getting them Since Starcraft release.
And this... is why there is still an ongoing onslaught of phising emails for WoW.
A game is just that... a game, not an emotional crutch.
Interesting. I have a WoW account since 2004 (played off and on), used battlenet with starcraft and diablo, and have never received any phishing emails.
This...is not new.
I left PayPal as an employee 5 years ago, after being with them for 3 years and even then these things went on.
I get spam mail such as this from every bank and credit card you can name. I have none of them (CC), those that I do (Bank), I know to go to the actual site to check the status of my accounts.
It's called phishing. They are spam bots just throwing out random e-mail addresses hoping to get a couple of idiots to respond. In a single run of such a scam they will spam bot out a million e-mail addresses and statistically (at least 5 years ago) they only needed 2 morons to fall for it to make a serious profit.
Not even a new angle here, same crap, different day, new duck blind for new prey.
There's no Blizzard conspiracy.
There are lots of ways to obtain your email address. It could be a random site aimed at gamers loaded with tracking cookies, message boards that reveal your email addy, when you post something or in your profile. You don't have to have a Bnet account to get these emails. They are just mass emails, shooting in the dark hoping they hit somebody with a WoW account.
I get the same emails including some aimed at Aion even though I never played nor had an account.
Isn't one of the oldest loading screen tips "Blizzard will never ask you for your name or password?"
I receive mails from "blizzard" almost everyday. Good thing is i don't care, i don't even bother to read them and even if it was blizzard itself i still wouldn't care. The reason is i don't play WoW anymore. But still you did well warning others! Cheers m8.
how are these people getting my emails?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Internet crawlers or sites that give out your info.
Just putting your email anywhere visible is enough for an internet crawler to pick it up.
I got a similar email like this telling me my Aion account was suspected of being hacked. Problem is... I have not ever played Aion, and thus have no Aion account to hack.
But I agree, I've scene lots of the Bnet emails and they do look a lot more legitimate. I imagine there's been quite a few people fall for it.
Yeah i got one also, it said someone had changed the email on my account, just went straight to battle net and the support page and informed them of the contents of said e-mail, told them to just go ahead and delete the account i wouldn't be back anyways.
If they even got into my account its not like they got anything but a 6 day old WoW toon, 6 days being all i could stand of WoW.
Got a form email in return telling me to not hand out my account info or password to anyone.
Duh
This has been going on for years. Even non gamers get these, hell my mom gets them. Nothing is going to stop it, best solution is to do what I do, don't play WoW.