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READ FIRST: Phishing e-mails
Sureth
Member UncommonPosts: 69
As you may already know, many e-mails are sent out daily hoping to scam you into putting your account info into a fradulent site, thus stealing your account info and possibly more. I have put together a small list that may help you protect yourself with two simple tips.
- First, never open any suspicious e-mail URL links from Blizzard. They will never ask you to "verify" yourself, link you to their website, or ask you to type in your account details. You can usually tell the e-mail is a fake when you hover your mouse over the www.worldofwarcraft.com site and it instead shows on the bottom of your browser something similar, but not the actual site. I.E. www.worldofwarcraft.com
- Secondly, if you are not sure that the e-mail is a fake you can do two simple things. Type the actual website into your browser yourself, log into your account and change the password. Next, you can then find the customer support number on the legitimate Blizzard site. www.worldofwarcraft.com You can then call them and ask them the status of your account.
With these easy tips you should be able to avoid this particular phishing scam.
Remember, check every URL you click.
If you have anything to add, please feel free to respond to this thread. If you simply have a question concerning an e-mail you have recieved that you might think is fraudulent, feel free to ask it here and I or another helpful player will assist you as soon as possible.
Thank you.
Comments
Hello, I recieved one of the phishing emails today. Does anybody know where I should report the link that was sent to me to reset the password? I have never played wow is the funny thing..lol
These tips are not just good for WoW, but for any email, period.
Imbedded URLs in emails should NEVER be clicked on.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
I have an email that I only used for mmosite.com when they were giving members beta keys. My email is blocked from other mmosite.com members seeing it. I belive that the people running mmosite.com sell peoples emails or it might just be them scamming, I have no clue. On this email I get about ten or more phishing emails a day. Some of these phishing emails are from MMO's that I do not play such as Aion, WoW and a few others.
My friend is a WoW player and when I have gone to his house to hang out, he shows me how the asians hack WoW and spell out a phishing websites outside the auction house using many accounts of sleeping characters. I think that little kids for the most part fall for these phishing scams.
You would think that MMO's have been out long enough for the game developers to take leagal action and the cheaters, scammers would think twice before doing so. I guess not.
Is it me or did more and more phishing scams occur when they merged accounts with Battle.net?
Yeah, these Phishing e-mails are getting on my nerves now, they keep popping up in my Hotmail email address, this is what one of mine say,
Recently, the problem of account invasion is getting worse
and worse which cause enormous players’ equipments and virtual currency
stolen.
This severely damages the benefits of mass players, also causes our
company lose
a lot of customers.
Our company has to
adopt some measures
to safeguard our common benefits in order to strengthen
the safety of mass
players'accounts, and firmly resist the account to be
stolen again.
Through
our company's research and investigation to xxx
customers,we will make the
following decisions: we launch a package of
updated code strengthen system and
dynamic code protection card which can
effectively prevent the accounts invaded.
We will send this package of code
protection system to players free of
charge.
"Bad hack link here"
the information need to be filled in the following pages, when you have
submitted
the preceding filled information, if your account passes the check
successfully,
we will send this package of dynamic code protection card to
you in the form of
e-mail.
In 3 days after you
receiving the e-mail, if you
don't submit your information, we have right to
freeze your account, every
player is obligated to protect the safety of the
account. You must work together
with us to be determined to crack down all
the behaviors of destroying
games.
Regards,
The World of Warcraft Support Team
Blizzard
Entertainment
No way is this really from Blizzard, true it is a great concern to many people who play this game. Strange thing is this didn't happen until I switched onto the newer Battle.net account, because they show your email instead of a user name, this is where the Phishing e-mails started and it's starting to tick me off. =<
you can thank Blizzard for all this spam. I get about 150 of these e-mails a day. The switch to bnet accounts which use your e-mail as log in was the dumbest idea ever. I still get these e-mails, and my account was hacked not even 24 hours after I switched it over to the bnet account...good going Blizzard!
It wouldn't be so bad if Blizzard would restore my account. All my characters were deleted by the hacker (***HOLE!), I e-mailed and called Blizzard, but when I called, they were "investigating" it. I still haven't heard anything back from them. So much for my 8 level 80s and 6 years of work lol. Blizzard changed my password for me, but that doesn't help get characters back. Then to make things even worse, I get an e-mail from Blizzard (official, I called them about it), saying that my account has been banned for suspicious activities, yeah no ****, hackers stole all my stuff and deleted my characters, and used them to spam in trade chat for thier website. One of my guildmates saw it and has it in a chat log that I got from him.../rant sorry it just makes me so mad, I don't even know how they got my password, I never answer an e-mail unless I'm expecting it from someone I know. And if it's something important like the ban e-mail, I call the company it's from...k i'll stop now before I get banned here hehe
Why bother protecting yourself. If u upset a gm or a higher up member in blizzards little realm u get accussed of being a spammer...noone will come to your defence...It's all corrupt.
For those of you who dont know what a scam email is, and want some examples, I posted an entire post another topic here, and I will paste the Link Here for those who dont understand these type of mails, Not everyone is a nerd.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/15/view/forums/post/3772076#3772076
I Know i just recovered my account and added a Authenticator but the "Emails" I Have been reciving are From Battle.net so as said above DON'T CLICK LINKS
AKA. Xavior Thanatos
AKA. Coaldust
AKA. RavenDarc
I've been getting regular emails stating that my Battlenet account is compromised and asking me to log in and verify it. Of course the emails have convenient links in them which I have completely ignored.
In fact, I went and checked my account on a different computer making sure to surf to the BNET directly and everything was in order. Went ahead and set up the authenticator for my son's account and will be ignoring all emails regarding my account going forward.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
they're a new swing on this? I know this is rubbish, but if someone could double-confirm.
i haven't been in wow since during the beta and I continually get these emails wanting my info (which I don't even know anymore) and today I recieved one from ...maybe blizzard..saying they were closing my account for suspicious activities. Well, it's about time. I wouldn't touch that game with a ....well nm.
I still get Cataclysm beta phish mails from time to time.
If you are going to try and scam people at least try to be professional about it and keep the content of the emails up to date and relevant.
Heh...this is one of my favorite phishing emails that I receive about 1/month.
Title: Bizz GM free gift to you
Hello
Congratulations! Your world of Warcraft account to receive compensation.This is Blizzard Entertainment's apology
We acknowledge a mistake, for you to lose the World of Warcraft account in order to recover our losses
We will give you 50000 gold coins free of charge and rare mounts (Dark Phoenix), I hope you can restart the game
Login here to authentication, 48 hours you will receive compensation
Description: test account and permanently disabled can not compensation
First off i dont have a Warcraft acount never played this game.
I made a acount for starcraft and the very same day i started getting emails saying my warcraft acount was being hacked. now i get these emails every single day maybe 5 a day easy.
Blizzard is to fault for this all i did was make a starcraft acount and look what happen. some how people are getting our emails from blizzard or sombody in blizzard is selling them.
I receive WoW phishing mails on an emailaccount that isnt tied to any game. Recently I noticed that some of them are actually using good English. But the hyperlinks still use very obviously fake domains.
I dont think so. I think it works like any other spam. They find your email adres somewhere and it gets used in the hope you have a WoW account. The cause can be completely unrelated to Blizzard I think.
yeah could be, but i never got one in the past. and the very same day i made starcraft acount i started getting them thats why i found it very fishy.
*fist shaking of angry*
Study the English langwhich some more I will, and have to write you much better mail next time it around. Just weight and see my frend. One day you fall for trap and I laughed the last laugh. Hahahahaha!!1
edit: seriously, that was an awesome mail you've got. I'd embroider it and put it on the kitchen wall.
My brand new bloggity blog.
I found this one yesterday in my box - the fishermen become better:
It looks quite legit. The only thing is the "word" instead of "world" in the link in the middle. I replaced the rest of the link with X, hope it is enough.This email is well made IMO.
edit: or is it even legit? lol
OP:
I'd also encourage everyone to use gmail. It does great at filtering spam and rarely ever captures a real email. I have several email address from a long internet career and my yahoo/hotmail boxes look as bad as they always did. My 4 gmails remain immaculate. Using a good email service is like using a good virus scanner. If you're careful with what you click and suspicious about links, you may never need it but it's a first line of defense.
Encourage people to obtain an email address strictly for the purpose of their game account email addresses. Never use this address for forum registrations or anything else. This will slim down the number of spam you get. My first gmail address (since beta) gets about 200 spam a week from an address used everywhere. Google catches all but 2 or 3. My gaming address gets about 5 spam per week.
Really, if you weren't expecting an email, never ever click a link in them. It's a nice principle even if you were expecting it but yeah.. if you get an email about your account being hacked, go manually (like the OP says) to the company's site. If you don't know the url by hand, google it. Google is reliable for weeding out phishing sites and for keeping the company's main page on top.
rnrnorpg.com is my favorite website. It provides all the details about mmo's that you would never want to know. What you can't find here, you'll find at googIe.com
btw, highlight the below text.
I gave fake urls in the above message twice. I neither mentioned this site's url or google's. They say RNRNORPG.COM AND GOOGiE.COM.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
People who play WoW for a length of time knows the basics by now yes these scum who phish are very cleaver very good advise on mousing over the link before you click to double chk the spelling on the link. Another trick is that they replace the letter L for a 1 in blizzard but as a rule of thumb Blizz will not send you a letter like this saying that your account is compromised. Now if it get hacked just complete the "Help I got hacked" response from the official site and with in a very short time you will get your account back.
Rules I follow if i were to get hacked is that I will at that point format my drive completely by putting Windows back on my PC just to get rid of anything that would pose as a threat in the slightest. As soon as I get it reinstalled and my virus program updated I will do a complete scan before and after got done with everything else from WoW mods to whatever. Yes I know it is extreme and time consuming but my peace of mind. Even though I would have reinstall WoW it is still worth it.
I started getting emails about my blizzard account being comprimized, needing update, giving away prizes etc. after signing up for a beta on a game. I never did manage to play the game because the link to the client download failed so I just moved on. The emails started showing up within a day. I don't have a battle.net account, and don't play WoW or Starcraft. I don't download cheats, trainers, or game tools. The only MMO news/forum website I am signed up for is this one. I don't remember the name of the game which I think is to blame for leaking my email info, but I did post about it before.
The red flags I should have listened to before trying to join the beta:
I had never heard of the game before (I signed up because I just wanted to try something new)
The game didn't have a listing on this site (the beta giveaway was here, but they still weren't on the games list)
No images/ No screens/ nothing.
I still can't guarantee that this game was the cause, but the coincidences were too great. I signed up, I got nowhere, and now I get a bunch of junk emails.
Anyhow, play safe.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
I get one or two of these a week in my gmail junk folder and I have not played in over a 8 months now. I started getting them right after Blizz made us all switch over to the battle net thing. Most of them are pretty easy to spot as phishing. My Gmail always flags them as such. I enjoy reading them and laughing before deleteing. I used to forward them to Blizz but I hvaent seen any new variants in a while.
A few of my friends get them as well and they hvae never played wow but do play Starcraft 2.