I’m writing to you from a free account I had to create when I couldn’t access my normal account.
I’ve played WOW for a long time (since open beta) and then quit for a long time. At the time I quit playing, Blizzard was still using the old keychain authenticators to validate users. I still have mine and it will still display a code if I press the button hard enough.
Recently, I decided I would like to restart my subscription and play may old characters again. Unfortunately, I can’t get past the authenticator check.
When I submitted a support ticket, an email was sent asking me to send a photocopy of my birth certificate or state ID to confirm my identity. Two problems with this.
First, as a 20+ year IT professional, I would NEVER recommend this type of security risk to any of my clients. (these are tokens used in banking transactions)
Secondly, like most gamers, I never used my real name when I signed up (way back when), so my ID wouldn’t do us any good.
I still have my correct email address and password for this account. I even have the original disks and CD key, plus a functional keychain authenticator. I would love to get into an email discussion or chat session to discuss what we can do to restore my account to me. I really do miss my old characters.
Why? Blizz systems are incredibly secure and the ID is destroyed/deleted upon verification of the account holder.
You were legally obligated to unfortunately. So you’ll still need to contact them and provide your ID and the information on why you didn’t use a real name and hope that they’re still able to assist you and put the account under your proper name.
Edit to include a link to their legally obligate privacy policy:
It’s not like Blizzard will keep a copy of your ID, once everything is in order they’ll delete it in order to comply with the privacy laws of California.
I’m sorry, but we would never change a person’s account information without validating that we are dealing with that registered user. That seems to be a bigger risk, all things considered. We also follow all rules and guidelines when it comes to handling IDs and they are deleted once used for verification.
That may be a bigger deal, but depending on the situation, not insurmountable. It really depends on what you used. Did you use a fake name that seems fake or did you use a fake name that could easily be a real person?
If the former, submit a ticket using your ID preferrably from your normal play location, explain the situation and we’ll review it. If the latter, well the advice really is the same, we’ll do what we can to verify your claim.
The additional information, such as your CD key, etc… will help in either case.
While I am dubious (at best) about emailing my personal ID, I did manage to find email correspondence between Blizzard and my connected email address.
As I gather all of the discussed materials and evidence, where do I send them? If I send in another ticket, I don’t want it to look like I’m spamming you guys.
I sent in an initial ticket with the basic info, and a second (referencing the first) with clarifying information. Do I send a third and reference the first two? Is there a better way to start a working conversation to resolve this?
I would really like to get this resolved, but I’m struggling with your contact process.
You should be able to reopen the original ticket with the response asking for ID, by clicking the need more help link or button, it should be with the ticket in the history.
You can also edit a ticket to add information and add more attachments. So if you opened them under the free account, you should be able to find your ticket history here and edit your ticket to add info.
I won’t deep-dive into the IT specifics of my concerns with sharing PII via email, but will simply say, I’m in email discussions with Customer Support and will post the results here.