Whew, here we go
I took a break from WoW in shadowlands era and had taken several prior as well. During one of those occasions (around 2010 maybe?), I received an email about a password change. I was busy with college and for some reason ignored it or forgot—it was some time ago. My account was a) been merged with another account and b) banned.
The general events followed: First, I emailed blizzard (I may have called too but I can’t remember). I was asked for password, account name, real name, etc. After a few days, my account was restored pretty quickly. I don’t know how my info leaked but I was pretty dumb back then so /shrug.
Fast forward 10 years later. I’m taking a break from shadowlands and am switching phones in the process. Somewhere along the line my authenticator was removed and sadly I didn’t notice until months later. My old email address for WoW is not one I check regularly and…I am hacked again. The general gist is what followed:
I contact blizzard but am still somewhat confused with the state of things. After some work with the gms and IDs the account is restored but promptly hacked before I can add a new authenticator. So when I check the account the next day… it’s gone again. New ticket. After a day or so – the account with my old email is restored…except this is a new account with a similar battle tag and a WoW starter edition. New ticket. This time, blizzard has decided to ban the account for 6 months.
Here is the response:
“Im going to be real with you, this account has been sold and traded lots of times so we are going to suspend it. I know this is not the answer that you are looking to hear, however with the history of the account we cant take the risk to have this continue. The wow accounts have been suspended for 6 months, the rest of the games have been subsequently banned.
I know this may feel extreme, however its your responsibility to keeo the account secure and safe, that means monitoring personal emails and regularly scan your machine for malware etc. Since this account has been hacked on more than one occasion and still is having the issue we have come to this decision.“
I was frustrated and pushed back but there was nothing that could really be done. The decision was final. I never received any follow up and it seems that the stolen account stayed with the hacker. I’m still confused by the reason for this decision. I don’t agree with the ban being that my biggest crime is being bad with my authentication tool. But my account was never given back to me.
Now: 6 months later. I figure I’ll try one more time. The general response was that they were unable to verify ownership and that decision was final. I’m really confused by this and have no clue where to go from here. It seems that my account was admitted to having been sold several times or stolen but I am not allowed to verify ownership now? I have invoices and receipts from purchases all the way back to 2010. I also can provide a photo ID that matches the original account name, etc.