Help me! My account has been compromised

[FFstillo]

PLEASE HELP ME! I can`t login on my account but my friends say me that i`m online now! I can`t login here too!

[Radius]

Greetings FFstillo,

What is one of the character's names on the account you believe is compromised? Please keep in mind we cannot assist with the recovery of hacked accounts. Please ensure that your accounts are sufficiently protected in the future and that no other person other than yourself has access to it by:

• Never sharing your account information;
• Having a unique and complicated password that does not exceed 16 characters;
• Connecting yourself from a secure computer and network;
• Never downloading unsafe files that might contain viruses/malware.

Regards,
GM Team.

[Lorilay]

Please keep in mind we cannot assist with the recovery of hacked accounts.

Well, let's be honest here. You won't assist with the recovery of hacked accounts.

[MerlinAlive]

Well, let's be honest here. You won't assist with the recovery of hacked accounts.

That's actually not quite true.
Nobody can prove if an account got hacked or just sold. Neither will a GM know which of these two circumstances took place, so they can't help with that.

[Lorilay]

Well, let's be honest here. You won't assist with the recovery of hacked accounts.

That's actually not quite true.
Nobody can prove if an account got hacked or just sold. Neither will a GM know which of these two circumstances took place, so they can't help with that.

And yet, every other WoW server (private and retail) has the ability to assist with account and item recovery. It's quite possible to prove ownership of an account and it's well within the admins' abilities to restore said accounts, but they choose not to. I completely understand the burdens of having such a large user base, and it makes sense that they can't afford to spend their time on this type of problem, but it's a little disingenuous to imply that it's not possible.

[MerlinAlive]

It's quite possible to prove ownership of an account ...

How?
Don't forget that selling an PS Account is very common nowadays, so how would you prove that this didn't happen with the particular account?

[Ohr]

Back when I played on - nah - there was one person who searched through forums of people posting their UI's, saved the pictures, waited a few months and "proved" that those accounts was his. He would then sell those accounts (usually back to their original owners). Shit was hilarious.

[Lorilay]

It's quite possible to prove ownership of an account ...

How?
Don't forget that selling an PS Account is very common nowadays, so how would you prove that this didn't happen with the particular account?

Using the email you used to register the account, looking at IP logs to see where the user is logging into the account from, using the date created/modified of one of your account-specific WTF files. Sure, it's possible to explain away/fake the above, but generally you can get a pretty good idea of whether someone's account has been compromised by exercising a little common sense.

[MerlinAlive]

It's quite possible to prove ownership of an account ...

How?
Don't forget that selling an PS Account is very common nowadays, so how would you prove that this didn't happen with the particular account?

Using the email you used to register the account, looking at IP logs to see where the user is logging into the account from, using the date created/modified of one of your account-specific WTF files. Sure, it's possible to explain away/fake the above, but generally you can get a pretty good idea of whether someone's account has been compromised by exercising a little common sense.

Alright, you prove that you created the account (let's stick with that), but you didn't prove the ownership.
If the account was sold, the GM's don't help with getting the account back from a scammer, they just helped scamming somebody else.
And that's why i stated they can't help (or know for sure if it was help).
The only way to prohibit the "A GM helped me scam somebody" - thing is to delegate the security of an account to the owner, and that's what they did.

[Lorilay]

Alright, you prove that you created the account (let's stick with that), but you didn't prove the ownership.
If the account was sold, the GM's don't help with getting the account back from a scammer, they just helped scamming somebody else.
And that's why i stated they can't help (or know for sure if it was help).
The only way to prohibit the "A GM helped me scam somebody" - thing is to delegate the security of an account to the owner, and that's what they did.

Since account selling is against the ToU, I'd prefer the GMs prioritized restoring original ownership instead of worrying about some hypothetical account transfer. That would help deter account selling, since you would always run the risk of someone taking their account back. If you could prove someone sold their account, it should be banned. However, that's very different than the current stance (at least how it appears to me from reading this forum) of assuming that any hacked account is the result of a voluntary transfer or account sale.

At the end of the day, shit can happen and you can wind up with a compromised account (I'm not saying that's necessarily what happened with the OP). Fortunately, it hasn't happened to me but I can certainly empathize with many of the people that lose their accounts. It's unfortunate that this server takes the unique (as far as I know) stance of refusing to even consider supporting those cases. In the early days of this server's release, the argument against item/character restoration was solely that it would be unfair to previous cases that were denied, and now it's developed into this "we don't care, it's your own fault" attitude. It's very reminiscent of a certain other server that had the same mentality and got away with it due to the large population base, and is paying for it now that their population has dwindled more than 50-fold.