Serious situation with a friend's account. Need advice

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I posted earlier asking if it were possible for my friend, who no longer has access to the email account that his long-term Battlenet account was tied to, could change the email. We spoke to a rep, updated the email, everything was hunky dory.

The problem? We found out just now that his parents, whose email was originally on the account, have just now updated his account to lock him out of ALL of his battlenet games with the parental controls.

He’s been in an ongoing battle with his narcissistic, controlling parents, and they have taken many steps to sabotage him ever since he moved out to prove that he can’t manage without them. Now, he can’t even access his games or even modify the settings on the account.

Is there anything that can be done at this point? How could they still have control over the account even if the email address has changed? Can he try to appeal to a rep? This is his account he’s had since back before Wrath, and I’m already shaking at the fact that he might lose it just because his parents are being petty.

He is 27 years old and was completely unaware that they even had access to those controls, let alone were able to put them on HIS account after we thought we untethered it from them.

Is there any recourse for this? Are parental controls just a done deal?

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I hate to imply what this question is going to, but is the account in his name or in one of their names?

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If the account is under your friend’s name, and he is over the age of majority, he can ticket in to have those removed. That’s never cool.

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If your friend is an adult, assuming the account is under your friend’s name, he’ll want to contact support to verify that fact. They’ll work with returning access to him from there.

He’ll want to specifically mention Parental Controls though, as they likely existed on the account for a while, which is how they would have been able to establish control.

If the account is not registered to your friend, there is nothing that really can be done there. The registered user (parent) would have to contact us to transfer ownership in this situation.

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Yep, the account was registered to him. Up until now, he’s had full, complete access to his own account and controls. They paid for WoW for him when he was a kid, but he’s been using tokens/gold/his own funds to pay for his own account for years now.

We’re on chat now, they’ve asked for ID. Seeing how it goes.

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I would strongly urge he also change his account password once everything’s settled. They shouldn’t have had that in the first place.

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I ran out of likes for the day, but I agree. Plus an authenticator - it’s good to feel like you’re in control of your own account.

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If it’s not too annoying, I’d create a new email. Transfer everything social media wise slowly to the new email - along with new passwords. Gmail offers two factor authentication, along with bnet.

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Good news! We got it sorted. Rep confirmed that his parents would no longer be able to access the account to change settings. He also has a new email, and has changed the password again as well as updated his authenticator. Probably going to be looking into getting a new phone soon just to be on the safe side.

Thanks again, all. :slight_smile: Been a pretty harrowing situation for everyone involved.

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Good to hear. Thanks for following up!

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