English is my second language so please bear with me.
The purpose of this post is to share my recent Blizzard’s customer support experience on the account recovery process. I understand Blizzard is a big company and get 80,000+ tickets daily so I am hoping someone can respond with clarification/guidance with my issue.
I recently finished my mandatory military service in my home country and decided to play WoW to reconnect with my in game friends and try out the new Cata Classic Expansion.
When I tried to log in, I received an error message “Account not found” so I checked my personal e-mail associated with video games/streaming to discover the account information and e-mail was changed 2 years ago. At the time, I thought this was a typical phishing e-mail (I’ve received them in the past) so I didn’t think to much of it at the time. My steam and epic accounts were also changed so I suspect this was a malicious attack.
I proceed to submit a web mail ticket under “Account Hacked” category and a very helpful GM responded with information they needed to locate the account and verify I was the account owner.
After anxiously waiting for a couple days and constantly checking my e-mail for an update every hour, I received a response from a different GM stating they couldn’t verify I was the owner and the account recovery process was denied.
The thing is I moved to 3 different countries on different tourist/working VISAs and lived in 8 different cities to pursue my studies/career so I wasn’t sure which information I’ve entered into my Battle Net at the time of creation.
I created another ticket (under the same category “Account Hacked”) this time with my photo ID attached (holding in my hand with ticket # written down on piece of paper) and more clarification of the account information. A different GM responded saying the account was located but there was evidence the account has broken many EULA violation and the recovery process was denied again. The decision is final. ’
I thought this was weird because what does Blizzard expect the hackers do with the account?
It seems to me each time a GM responds to the ticket, I get a different reason why the account can’t be recovered.
If the compromise happened two years ago, you may unfortunately be trying to do the equivalent of finding the burned-out husk of a car that got stolen from you years ago that squirrels have been living in and attempting to rebuild it.
They may have transferred the characters that you had off the account, probably anything of value on your account was sold. They may not have records of what your account had before the compromise after so long to restore to.
I’d keep pressing it for as long as you can, but I’d also just be prepared for the possibility that you might not be able to do anything but start over. If hackers have been up to nonsense with your account for years there may not be much left that can be restored.
I’d remove any malicious software on your PC. For example, I’d go to Window’s Search>Settings>Add or Remove Programs> and then remove anything that looks suspicious. If you see nothing there, try scanning your PC for viruses or and whatnot.
Thank you all for taking time out of your day to read my issues and providing insightful feedbacks.
I replied to the ticket asking a different GM to review the issue, however, I’ve just noticed all the information I’ve provided previously are [REDACTED] and I don’t see my uploaded documents in the ticket.
Would the next GM who respond to the ticket be able to review any information at this point?
I had no idea they can do that and it makes me very sad that this might be one of the possible outcome. The first step is to get the account restored and see what’s left to recovery (if anything)
I did a full scan as you suggested and luckily nothing was found! I can’t say the same for my old laptop was I dont have access to it anymore might of been the root cause…
I have faith in the system!
Update:
Per the folks suggestion, I’ve opened the ticket again and received a response from a different GM stating the same thing with EULA violation issue and denying the recovery process.
Keep in mind the original ticket was submitted under “Account Hacked” and not account appeal.
I’ve gone back and forth with customer support for 16 days now and sadly it’s starting to take a toll on my mental well being
In all fairness this is ridiculous, most companies keep records going back 7-10 years. At least where I work we have to keep records at least that far back.
Most companies ain’t MMOs and don’t have a lot of new data made by players on the daily, either. Pointing at other places is rather moot when you have to remember that there’s a limit to space and you can’t host all this data in the off chance something happened years ago in order to recover items.
Keeping financial logs is very very different than keeping your day to day game data. Every login, every interaction with a mob, NPC, quest, etc.
Some data is permanent on your account. Personal information, account actions, financial transactions, quest completion IDs, Achievement completion IDs. Other things like those chat logs, daily login records, boss fights, vendor sales, trades - are only kept for X number of months. That level of data is HUGE and not something game companies keep long term. Certainly not forever.
I am confused because I’m trying to recovery an account that was comprised but it seems like all the GM’s responses were focused on the EULA violations and this is the first time anyone from blizzard mentioned account has been banned.
This is speculation, and in response to the account action being upheld, but this sounds suspiciously like account sharing gone wrong (just another reason why account sharing isn’t allowed besides very limited circumstances).
Not saying this is what happened, because we simply don’t know and Blizzard isn’t revealing much, but it’s easy for one party to claim account was stolen when a relationship sours.