Hey there everyone. Ive been putting in tickets for a few weeks now, and TL:DR I stopped playing World of Warcraft back in 2012, and shortly after that, my account became compromised. I recently regained access to the account, and have been trying desperately to get any help to not only get the accounts name changed back to my own, but for my hunter that was deleted with the Grimtotem Spirit Guide to be restored. I don’t feel like I’m being unreasonable, but a GM responded to my ticket with:
"Following up with your response, Customer service only assists restoring account access and cannot restore in-game content.
It is the account holder’s responsibility to maintain the security of the account, and it is recommended that you install an authenticator to ensure the security of the account."
So because of something that wasn’t my fault, because someone had access to my account, I’m just SOL? How is that acceptable? I have been playing world of warcraft since 2008, back then, they would gladly help when an account was compromised. When did that change? Am I really OOL in getting my hunter back?
While I’m not aware of the full conversation, 12 years is a long time ago.
While in most cases your hunter should be restorable, any associated gear / quest item / etc is no longer going to be held in record.
9 Likes
Err, did you not secure your account? That is solely your responsibility.
Now, logs only go back so far before they’re purged. If the compromise happened around 2012, it’s little wonder why GM’s are unable to assist you.
Not only do they need to be able to verify what was lost, but also how they were lost.
16 Likes
In all honesty it is your fault that someone else got access to your account from back 2012. Authenticators have been a thing since 2008 and for someone in your case to also have access to your email as they managed to change the name holder of the account. Those things are entirely your responsibility to look after and you failed to do so.
If the char in question is no longer on the char restoration list of the account then chances are no data for it exists anymore to restore.
8 Likes
I honestly don’t really mind if everything he had is gone, gear, gold, items are of no consequence. But the pet he had is one you can no longer acquire, and while it wasn’t the only one on the hunter(He had the hydra that was classified as a crockolisk) That one is pretty important to me. I had so many raid nights with him, he saw up to cata with me,
Yes, I did have a physical authenticator on the account at one point, but I believe the battery died, or it got destroyed and I had to remove it
I’m unaware whether long-term character records include pets but I think I’d write a story about how, after my own retirement, my pet decided to go on new adventures of her own.
3 Likes
and who is responsible for fixing that issue? That also doesn’t change them having access to more than just your wow login info but so, so much more in order to change the account holders information. This requires email access, personal information like name, billing address ect ect. That is a huge breach of information that you did allow to happen.
3 Likes
The more important thing is to consider how to move forward from such a breach.
I’m sure the account is presently secured.
5 Likes
Yeah, I did, like most people back then, I wasn’t very careful on the internet. That much is true I will admit that, but has anyone else never made a mistake? done something stupid when you were younger? I also don’t understand the lack of compassion, like, I know this is the world of Warcraft forums, but almost every reply to this post has been something like “Yeah, that’s your fault”, and yes, my information being out there most certainly was my fault, but losing basically everything I worked for in my World of Warcraft career for a simple mistake feels crappy.
I remember piratesoftware was telling a story. How a bunch of accounts were hacked even with authenticators. I wonder what happened to the accounts that had their stuff deleted.
And would it be Blizzards responsibility? Or yours?
That’s pretty unlikely, knowing how MFA tokens work.
2 Likes
It’s not a lack of compassion dude. It blows and we feel for you but to state it wasn’t your fault and you did nothing wrong and being punished is just false. Its hard to show compassion when someone lacks self accountability.
As someone who knows how it was done the answer is yours. To give you a little basic insight into how it was done. Sites that traded in gold, carries ect for Real world currency would require you to make a login to use the site meaning you had to put in an email and password. Most people would use the same email and password for this as they would everything so when you made an account you gave them your email address and password giving them access to that. So much personal information can be obtained from a persons email cause people don’t delete emails and that’s enough to get anywhere be it paypal, blizz account access and so much more.
But as you can see here, as soon as 5 years ago, someone with a MFA token got their account hacked. https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/aqxp17/account_hacked_even_with_authenticator/ and it wasn’t their fault. It was a blizzard support staff’s fault because they accepted a fake ID with his name photoshopped on it.
Early on when the tokens initially came out, account security wasn’t taken as seriously and it was easier to remove things like the authenticator with very little information. it wasn’t always as secure as it is now.
Man-in-the-middle attacks did happen yes.
My point being - compromised accounts can be restored IF the logs to confirm everything are still there.
Most players who have accounts compromised generally report that immediately.
My own account was compromised in 2010. Reported it right away, added an authenticator, and Blizzard were able to restore everything - took about 3 weeks (it was a long 3 weeks waiting).
After 12 years and expecting restoration? Sorry, there really isn’t much Blizzard is able to do. It’s rough I know, but as I mentioned sadly the logs aren’t held forever and are eventually purged.
9 Likes
Thing is, we’re not required to provide ID when we open an account are we?
So how is Blizzard to know?
But this thread isn’t about who is to blame and such - it’s about what Blizard is able to do in regards to restorations.
8 Likes
You are right but also wrong.
You are correct here 100%
Where you are wrong though. That person who sent the fake ID had access to that persons full name.
5 Likes
You can get someone’s full name with just a phone number
How did they get your number?
5 Likes
Well, the timeframe to have restored that character is either 90 or 120 days after it was deleted, depending on how high level it was.
After that point, deleted characters are purged from the database, and become unrecoverable.
7 Likes