So, I usually don’t post here about these things, but I am at a lose for how to move forward. A friend of mine has recently had their account compromised. A “friend” of theirs had socially engineered their password, and used the information to make a purchase on a third party site as a “surprise” for them, and it lead to the account being hacked.
My friend put in a ticket with blizzard, but because of the involvement of a third party site, they refuse to help regardless. I have put in a ticket of my own and I have information proving it was this third person who gave the info over and not my friend, but I’m not even sure how much good that will do. Is there any recourse my friend can take? This is years worth of work on the account just gone because of the stupidity of someone else.
Your friend should be able to get their account back. Almost sounds like your friend might be leaving details out as what you say they told him does not make sense.
Anyway another great reason to never share account information and never deal with 3rd parties who sell items or gold for real money.
Is it possible your friends account was banned for rmt?
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Well, the GMs, game masters, won’t be able to take this info account as they don’t talk to folks about another person’s account.
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I am purposely leaving out details in my post for privacy reasons. I know the GMs likely won’t be able to use anything from me directly, but if I were to provide my friends screenshots of the conversations that prove what happened, and they forward that to the GMs, would that potentially help?
They only look at game logs! Also no gms on the forums. Plus unless they are assigned to review the appeal they could not do anything
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I assume those screenshots are from apps like Discord? If so, then no, they don’t take outside info like this.
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It was an in game conversation through bnet, so they will be able to check it through my account if they wanted. But I understand what you’re saying. I told my friend to appeal the decision, and I’m hoping the response will be different this time around. I just am hoping there is more I can do to help, this is a very messy situation all around.
Unfortunately, there are no GMs on the forums and I can guarantee they won’t work with you to ‘help’ your friend as you can only go by what your friend is telling you and Blizzard uses their in-game logs.
For example, if your friend’s “friend” had accessed their account, the IP address and other identifiers would show up in Blizzard’s logs and it would look like a hack. Also, if the “friend” purchased illicit gold and gave it to your friend’s account, that “friend” gave their banking info to a criminal organization…not something that many tend to do as some sort of joke.
It sounds to me, and I’m just basing this off of many years of experience posting here, that your friend may not be telling you the whole truth 
Legend:
friend = your friend
“friend” = your friend’s friend.
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Let me explain in a bit more detail to get across what happened better.
So, my friend and this other friend of theirs had an arguement about a week ago, and my friend wasn’t talking to them anymore. As a way to apologize. the second friend who I will refer to as “C” for simplicity decided they’d make up for it by purchasing TWW for my friend, but they did it through a shady website that I can’t name in order to get a discount. Note that my friend already has TWW and would have no reason to buy it for themselves. C then told me what they did on bnet, thinking it was a nice gesture, and when I asked them how they even got my friends info, they told me they were able to guess the account password, even providing the information to me in the battle.net chat
Problem is someone else had your friends account info. That friend puchased something from a 3rd party site for real money.
Your friends account was banned for that. In the end your friend is responsible for what happens involving their account even if done by someone else.
Since your friend gave them their info is why this would happen. Account owner is responsible for what happens on their account
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My friend never gave the other friend the account info though. It was admittedly poor opsec on my friends part, but their friend was able to guess the password via social engineering
Does not matter what happened your friends only option is to appeal. Talking about it here with you or even with your friend will not change anything
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Okay. Thank you for the replies. I was hoping there might be more I could do, but I understand the kind of situation this is.
Then they also wouldn’t have been able to do anything with the code. This whole thing sounds a little off. In the end, your friend is 100% responsible for the safety and security of their account. If their password was that easily guessed (as it can’t be brute-forced through Blizz), then that would suggest that they need to re-think their online security as a whole.
Your friend’s only option though is to appeal via a ticket. I’m just saying that Blizz would have been able to see the account being accessed somewhere else and if they’re upholding the account action, then there may be more to the story that your friend isn’t sharing with you.
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I am aware it sounds off, it’s hard to provide further details without sharing personal info that isn’t mine to share and I apologize for that.
I told my friend to appeal, and I’m hopeful that a second, non automated response will get a GM to actually look over the case and see what happened. Thank you for the information though, it’s appreciated.
You mean a second appeal. All appeals are handled by real people. And players really need to stop pushing a false narrative that appeals are “automated”. Each appeal is viewed by a person and, in most cases, by someone different than the one who first handled it.
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In my experience with blizzard CS, the first response has always sounded automated and not addressed the issue, usually requiring a second appeal to get an actual response and solution.
Whatever the reason for it, I and I assume most other players came to this conclusion via their own experiences.
There are specific ticket options (not appeals) that may lead to an automated template. Like when people ask for in-game hints or get stuck on quests, things like that.
The Appeals process is totally different and handled by people.
In any event, it’s between your friend and Blizzard. Hopefully it turns out positive for him.
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The first interaction was done via the “My account has been hacked” ticket option, so this would technically be the first appeal. Poor wording on my part, perhaps.
Either way, thank you again for taking the time to reply to my topic, I am hopeful this will resolve with a good outcome.
Is your friends account banned due to this? This is the part not making much sense